Joseph Pieper

Josef Pieper (May 4, 1904 - November 6, 1997), a German philosopher, was born in Münster. He studied philosophy, law, and sociology in Berlin and the University of Münster, and later became a professor of philosophical anthropology at the University of Münster. In the 1960s, Pieper became widely known as a freelance writer. In 1947, he published "Leisure, the Basis of Culture" (Leisure, the Basis of Culture). The English translation was published in 1952, which aroused enthusiastic response from the British and American circles. T.S. Eliot introduced it in an article, and Alan Tate, the representative poet of New Criticism, also published a book review. Eliot believed that Pieper was a thinker with the charm of "one man's philosophy".