Horst Matthai Quelle
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Horst Matthai Quelle (30 January 1912 – 27 December 1999) was a Spanish-speaking German philosopher.
Biography
Quelle was born in Hanover, Germany in 1912.
In 1938, at the beginning of the German economic crisis and the rise of Nazism and fascism in Europe, Quelle moved to Mexico. There, he began studying philosophy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico where he took classes with writer Carlos Monsivais and philosophers Leopoldo Zea and Emilio Uranga. Quelle earned his undergraduate degree, master's and doctorate in philosophy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where he returned as a professor of philosophy in the 1980s. He also taught at the Universidad Iberoamericana and since 1986, the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California.
He died in Tijuana, Mexico on 27 December 1999.
Philosophy
In the introduction to the compilation Philosophical Texts (1989-1999) his philosophy is summarized as follows:
1. The exterior world is a phenomenon of the individual since it is consciousness which gives form to the perceived world.
2. There are institutions and historical currents that strive to sabotage the practical application of this knowledge. These are mainly the church, the state and science and western philosophy when it subordinates itself to these three agents.
3. To acquire consciousness that the world is a phenomenon of the individual and that there are institutions and historical currents that occult this wisdom means becoming responsible of the world, thought and language. If the individual gives form to the world, he is those objects, the others and the whole universe, as such, he has to rebel against the forces which intend to convince him that he is only part of the world, and not the whole world.
One of his main views was a "theory of infinite worlds" which for him was developed by pre-socratic philosophers. For him reality is a product of consciousness and each individual consciousness is a world on itself. Another important concept in his philosophy is one he called "non-mutuality" which expresses that which does not permit communication between individuals.
