Johann Nicolaus Tetens 1736 – 1807

Johann Nicolaus Tetens was a German philosopher, psychologist, and economist of the late Enlightenment and one of the most important predecessors of Kant in the German philosophical tradition. After early teaching at Bützow and Kiel, he combined empirical psychology with systematic philosophy in his two-volume Philosophical Essays on Human Nature and Its Development, which Kant is reported to have kept open on his desk while composing the first Critique. He later moved into Danish state service as a finance official, where he wrote extensively on insurance, taxation, and political economy.