Johann Nikolaus Tetens

Johann Nikolaus Tetens (1736 to 1807), also written Johannes, and in Danish Johan Nicolai Tetens, was a German-Danish philosopher, statistician and scientist. He was born in Tetenbüll in the Danish Duchy of Schleswig, studied mathematics and physics at Rostock and Copenhagen, and took his doctorate in 1760. He taught at Bützow and from 1776 was professor of philosophy at Kiel, and his Philosophische Versuche über die menschliche Natur und ihre Entwickelung of 1777 earned him the name the German Locke and is thought to have influenced Immanuel Kant. From 1789 he became a high-ranking Danish civil servant, a counsellor of state and later co-director of the state bank. His main applied work was in actuarial mathematics, and his Einleitung zur Berechnung der Leibrenten und Anwartschaften of 1785 and 1786 was a landmark of actuarial science.