Dietrich Mahnke

Dietrich Mahnke (October 17, 1884, Verden – July 25, 1939, Fürth) was a German philosopher and historian of mathematics.

From 1902–1906, Mahnke studied at Göttingen under Edmund Husserl and David Hilbert. After serving in the First World War (stationed in Lens, France), he graduated from the University of Freiburg in 1925 with a thesis on Leibniz. The thesis was later published in the Jahrbuch für Philosophie und phänomenologische Forschung as Leibnizens Synthese von Universalmathematik und Individualmetaphysik. In 1926 he habilitated at Greifswald with a thesis entitled Neue Einblicke in die Entdeckungsgeschichte der höheren Analysis. In 1927 he became a professor of philosophy at Marburg.

In 1934 he became a member of the Nazi SA.[1]

Mahnke's work in the history of mathematics focussed primarily on Leibniz's development of the infinitesimal calculus, and his relationship to Neo-Platonism. His last book, Unendliche Sphäre und Allmittelpunkt, Beiträge zur Genealogie der mathematischen Mystik was a study of the use of mathematical symbolism, especially the notion of "infinite spheres", in religious mysticism. At the time of his death, Mahnke was editing a volume of Leibniz's mathematical correspondence. This project was then taken over by Joseph Ehrenfried Hofmann.

Mahnke was killed in a car accident.

His Nachlass is preserved at the University of Marburg.