Frithjof Bergmann *59

Frithjof died May 23, 2021, in Ann Arbor, Mich., at age 90.

Born to a Jewish mother and a Lutheran pastor father, Frithjof grew up in the Austrian Alps during the darkest days of World War II.

He studied for his doctorate at Princeton with Walter Kaufmann and was a faculty member in the University of Michigan’s philosophy department for almost half a century. 

Frithjof’s earliest writings were on Hegel, Nietzsche, and other existentialist philosophers. His most conventional book of philosophy was On Being Free.

He had a sense of urgency in action, an understanding of the interplay of being and doing. During the generational recession of the early 1980s, Frithjof developed a new way of thinking about jobs and human labor. Withdrawing from academia, he traveled to places where work and quality of life were most perversely out of whack: Johannesburg, Soweto, Mumbai, indigenous communities in British Columbia, and Detroit’s impoverished neighborhoods.

Frithjof’s ideas and experiences culminated in his final book, New Work New Culture, which has inspired broadly adopted intellectual, design, and organizational efforts.

“Despite being a philosopher,” he said with a wry smile, “I am trying to do something useful!”

Frithjof is survived by three children and six grandchildren.

Graduate alumni memorials are prepared by the APGA.