Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald (1853-1932) was a Baltic German chemist and philosopher, credited with being one of the founders of the field of Physical Chemistry, with Jacobus Henricus Van 't Hoff, Walther Nernst, and Svante Arrhenius. He received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1909 for his scientific contributions to the fields of catalysis, chemical equilibria and reaction velocities.
Following his 1906 retirement, Ostwald became active in philosophy, politics, and other humanities. During the course of his academic career, he published more than 500 original research papers for the scientific literature and approximately 45 books.
Ostwald's essay The Failure of Scientific Materialism was published in March 1896 in the magazine Popular Science Monthly.