Jakob Fidelis Ackermann

Jakob Fidelis Ackermann (1765–1815) taught anatomy, first in Mainz, then from 1804 as a court councillor in Jena, and from 1805 in Heidelberg.

Hegel encountered him in Jena, where Ackermann belonged to the circle of natural scientists with whom Schelling’s philosophy of nature was discussed. His studies in comparative anatomy stood for a natural science that did not merely want to describe but to articulate structure — the same intention that Hegel’s philosophy of nature pursued, by different means.