He was educated at the universities of Kiel, Leipzig, Berlin. He became more and more attracted to the study of Plato and Aristotle, and his 1826 doctoral dissertation, Platonis de ideis et numeris doctrina ex Aristotele illustrata (On Plato's Doctrine of Ideas and Numbers as Illustrated by Aristotle), was an attempt to reach through Aristotle's criticisms a more accurate knowledge of the Platonic philosophy.
