Abstract
Christian von Ehrenfels (1859-1932), a remarkable scholar of Austrian origin, who was associated as a professor with the academic milieu of the Prague German University for many decades, is famous primarily thanks to his theoretical formulation of the Gestalt of form qualities (Gestaltqualitäten) in 1890. This extremely influential concept of Ehrenfels's is - together with his cosmogonic ideas - not only reflected in his further philosophical work as well as in his psychological and aesthetical concepts, but also in his dramatic literary production and in his reformative work.
It is striking that in Ehrenfels's cosmogony, which is grounded on the dynamic dualistic relationship between chaos and the unifying creative/formative principle, the close interconnection with natural science, especially with Darwinism, plays a significant role.