Claesges was born in
Krefeld on 13 March 1937. He studied sociology, German studies and philosophy at the
University of Cologne from 1957, where he worked between 1961 and 1964, first as a student assistant and then as a research assistant. From 1980, Claesges taught as a professor of philosophy at the University of Cologne and as a board member at the Department of Philosophy, specializing on the topics of
Kant,
German Idealism and
Analytic Philosophy. His research focused on the phenomenology of
Edmund Husserl. He was a member of the
Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology. Claesges died on 6 November 2025, at the age of 88. == References ==