* 1864 – Max Weber, German economist and sociologist ( d. 1920 )

German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies distinguished between two types of human association: Gemeinschaft ( usually translated as " community ") and Gesellschaft (" society " or " association ").

* 1895 – Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist ( d. 1973 )

German sociologist Johann Plenge spoke of the rise of a " National Socialism " in Germany within what he termed the " ideas of 1914 " that were a declaration of war against the " ideas of 1789 " ( the French Revolution ).

German sociologist Max Weber mentioned Scottish Presbyterianism in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism ( 1905 ), and many scholars in recent decades argued that Calvinism's " this worldly asceticism " was integral to Scotland's rapid economic modernization.

Herbert Marcuse (; July 19, 1898 – July 29, 1979 ) was a German Jewish philosopher, sociologist and political theorist, associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory.

* 1929 – Jürgen Habermas, German sociologist and philosopher

* 1897 – Norbert Elias, German sociologist ( d. 1990 )

* 1973 – Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist ( b. 1895 )

* 1855 – Ferdinand Tönnies, German sociologist ( d. 1936 )

* 1863 – Werner Sombart, German sociologist ( d. 1941 )

Karl Heinrich Marx ( 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883 ) was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist.

* 1858 – Georg Simmel, German sociologist and philosopher ( d. 1918 )

Maximilian Karl Emil " Max " Weber (; 21 April 1864 – 14 June 1920 ) was a German sociologist, philosopher, and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself.

* 2000 – Alphons Silbermann, German Jewish sociologist, musicologist, entrepreneur and publicist ( b. 1909 )

* 1903 – Theodor Adorno, German philosopher and sociologist ( d. 1969 )

German philosopher Max Weber saw theodicy as a social problem, based on the human need to explain puzzling aspects of the world ; sociologist Peter L. Berger argued that religion arose out of a need for social order, and theodicy developed to sustain it.

Theodor W. Adorno (; ; born Theodor Ludwig Wiesengrund ; September 11, 1903 – August 6, 1969 ) was a German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society.

** Georg Simmel, German sociologist and philosopher ( b. 1858 )

* August 6 – Theodor W. Adorno, German sociologist and philosopher ( b. 1903 )

* February 14 – Max Horkheimer, German philosopher and sociologist ( d. 1973 )

* April 21 – Max Weber, German sociologist ( d. 1920 )

* July 26 – Ferdinand Tönnies, German sociologist ( d. 1936 )

Erich Seligmann Fromm ( March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980 ) was a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist.

The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche has been said to have taken nearly all of his political philosophy from Aristotle.

German philosopher Max Scheler distinguishes two ways in which the strong can help the weak.

* 1730 – Johann Georg Hamann, German philosopher ( d. 1788 )

* 1770 – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher ( d. 1831 )

Albert Schweitzer, OM ( 14 January 1875 – 4 September 1965 ) was a German and then French theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary.

** This German publication is both one of the most comprehensive general introductions to the life and works of the philosopher and physician Avicenna ( Ibn Sīnā, d. 1037 ) and an extensive and careful survey of his contribution to the history of science.

* 1914 – Gerd Buchdahl, German philosopher ( d. 2001 )

Those such as James A. Weisheipl and Joachim R. Söder have referred to him as the greatest German philosopher and theologian of the Middle Ages, an opinion supported by contemporaries such as Roger Bacon.

German philosopher Immanuel Kant devised an argument from morality based on practical reason.

In his Critique of Pure Reason, German philosopher Immanuel Kant stated that no successful argument for God's existence arises from reason alone.

* 1802 – Franz Aepinus, German philosopher ( b. 1724 )

* 1985 – Carl Schmitt, German philosopher and theorist ( b. 1888 )

Other utilitarian-type views include the claims that the end of action is survival and growth, as in evolutionary ethics ( the 19th-century English philosopher Herbert Spencer ); the experience of power, as in despotism ( the 16th-century Italian political philosopher Niccolò Machiavelli and the 19th-century German Friedrich Nietzsche ); satisfaction and adjustment, as in pragmatism ( 20th-century American philosophers Ralph Barton Perry and John Dewey ); and freedom, as in existentialism ( the 20th-century French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre ).

He entered the Kriegsakademie ( also cited as " The German War School ," the " Military Academy in Berlin ," and the " Prussian Military Academy ") in Berlin in 1801 ( age 21 ), studied the writings of the philosopher Immanuel Kant, and won the regard of General Gerhard von Scharnhorst, the future first chief of staff of the new Prussian Army ( appointed 1809 ).

The German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz made a similar argument with his principle of sufficient reason in 1714.

The name affinitas was first used in the sense of chemical relation by German philosopher Albertus Magnus near the year 1250.

With the work of the latter philosopher, critical theory transcended its theoretic roots in German idealism, and progressed closer to American pragmatism.

It wasn ’ t until the late 1800s, however, that a young German philosopher by the name of Herman Ebbinghaus developed the first scientific approach to studying memory.

Its modern-day function was originated by the innovations of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, an 18th-century German playwright, philosopher, and theorist about theatre.

* 1694 – Hermann Samuel Reimarus, German philosopher and writer ( d. 1768 )

also written von Haeckel, was an eminent German biologist, naturalist, philosopher, physician, professor and artist who discovered, described and named thousands of new species, mapped a genealogical tree relating all life forms, and coined many terms in biology, including anthropogeny, ecology, phylum, phylogeny, stem cell, and the kingdom Protista.

* 1622 – Johannes Clauberg, German theologian and philosopher ( d. 1665 )