<history of philosophy, biography> german philosopher (1882-1950) whose early writings, including Grundz¸ge eine Methaphysik der Erkenntnis (Metaphysics of Knowledge) (1921) and Ethik (Ethics) (1926) used the philosophy of Kant as the starting point for idealistic accounts of reality and human freedom. In such later works as M–glichkeit und Wirklichkeit (Possibility and Actuality) (1938), Der Aufbau der realen Welt (Construction of the Real World) (1940), and Neue Wege der Ontologie (New Ways of Ontology) (1949), however, Hartmann employed phenomenological methods in defence of a vigorous realism. Recommended Reading: Eva Hauel Cadwallader, Searchlight on Values: Nicolai Hartmann's Twentieth-Century Value Platonism (Univ. Press of America, 1985) and W. H. Werkmeister, Nicolai Hartmann's New Ontology (Florida, 1990).