{{Short description|19th-century German-American philosopher of technology}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2021}} thumb|Ernst Kapp. '''Ernst Christian Kapp''' (15 October 1808 – 30 January 1896) was a German-American philosopher of technology and geographer, and a follower of Carl Ritter.
He was prosecuted for sedition in the late 1840s for publishing a small article entitled 'Der konstituierte Despotismus und die konstitutionelle Freiheit' (1849) and was subsequently forced to leave Germany. He then emigrated to the German pioneer settlements of central Texas where he worked as a farmer, geographer and inventor.
He was one of the early German Free Thinkers in Sisterdale, Texas.<ref name="Sisterdale, Texas">{{Handbook of Texas | name=Sisterdale, Texas | id=hns51 |author=Lich, Glen E | retrieved=9 May 2010}} Texas State Historical Association</ref> In 1853, he was elected<ref name="Kapp, Ernest">{{Handbook of Texas | name=Kapp, Ernest | id=fka01 |author=Jordan, Terry G | retrieved=9 May 2010}} Texas State Historical Association</ref> the President of the Freethinker abolitionist organization Die Freie Verein<ref>{{cite book | last = Goyne | first =Minetta Algelt | title = Lone Star and Double Eagle: Civil War Letters of a German-Texas Family | publisher =Texas Christian Univ Press | year = 1982 | page =14 | isbn =978-0-912646-68-8}}</ref> (The Free Society), which called for a meeting of abolitionist German Texans <ref name="German Attitude Toward the Civil War">{{Handbook of Texas | name=German Attitude Toward the Civil War | id=png01 |author=Biesele, Rudolph L | retrieved=9 May 2010}} Texas State Historical Association</ref> in conjunction with 14 May 1854 Staats-Saengerfest (State Singing Festival) in San Antonio, Texas. The convention adopted a political, social and religious platform,<ref name="The Texas State Convention of Germans in 1854">{{Cite web | title=The Texas State Convention of Germans in 1854 | author=Biesele, R L | publisher=The Texas State Historical Association | url=http://www.tshaonline.org/publications/journals/shq/online/v033/n4/contrib_DIVL3621.html | access-date=9 May 2010 | archive-date=2 April 2018 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180402035847/https://tshaonline.org/publications/journals/shq/online/v033/n4/contrib_DIVL3621.html | url-status=dead }} The Texas State Historical Association</ref> including:
{{blockquote| 1) Equal pay for equal work; 2) Direct election of the President of the United States; 3) Abolition of capital punishment; 4) Slavery is an evil, the abolition of which is a requirement of democratic principles...; 5) Free schools – including universities – supported by the state, without religious influence; and 6) Total separation of church and state. }}
After the Civil War he left the US for a visit to Germany, but fell ill during the voyage. Urged by his physician not to risk the return trip at his age, he re-entered the academic world.<ref name="Thinking through Technology: The Path between Engineering and Philosophy">{{cite book | last = Mitcham | first =Carl | title = Thinking through Technology: The Path between Engineering and Philosophy | url = https://archive.org/details/thinkingthrought00mitc | url-access = limited | publisher =University of Chicago Press |page=[https://archive.org/details/thinkingthrought00mitc/page/n112 23] | year = 1994 | isbn =978-0-226-53198-4}}</ref>
Reflecting on his frontier experience, Kapp wrote "Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik" (Elements of a Philosophy of Technology) (1877). This work, among many other things, formulates a philosophy of technology in which tools and weapons are identified as different forms of 'organ projections', although this idea may have been loosely covered as early as Aristotle. Furthermore, in chapters 12 & 13, it notably analyses language and the state as extensions of mental life, long before such ideas were popularised by Marshall McLuhan.
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fka01 ''Handbook of Texas Online''] *[http://members.home.nl/fsimon/biogr.htm ''Biographical and bibliographical notes on Ernst Kapp''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607160550/http://members.home.nl/fsimon/biogr.htm |date=7 June 2011 }} *[https://web.archive.org/web/20100313170438/http://www.regent.edu/acad/schcom/rojc/mdic/man.html ''Regent Universities notes on Ernst Kapp & Marshall McLuhan''] *[https://books.google.com/books?id=zna1tQEACAAJ&q=ernst+kapp ''Elements of a Philosophy of Technology'' on Google Books] *[https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=grcJAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en&pg=GBS.PP1 ''Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik'' on Google Books] *[http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/library/data/lit39532?&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&authuser=0&hl=en&pg=GBS.PP1 ''Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik'' on Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin] *[https://de.wikisource.org/wiki/ADB:Kapp,_Ernst Viktor Hantzsch: ''Kapp, Ernst''. In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Band 51, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 1906, p. 31–33] (in German)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kapp, Ernst}} Category:1808 births Category:1896 deaths Category:American abolitionists Category:19th-century American geographers Category:19th-century American male writers Category:19th-century German philosophers Category:Freethought writers Category:German abolitionists Category:German-American culture in Texas Category:German philosophers of technology Category:Emigrants from the German Confederation to the United States Category:19th-century German geographers Category:19th-century German male writers Category:American philosophers of technology