Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (German pronunciation:
[ˈluːtvɪç ˈfɔʏ̯ɐbax]; 28 July 1804
– 13 September 1872) was a German philosopher
and anthropologist best known for his book
The Essence of Christianity, which provided
a critique of Christianity which strongly
influenced generations of later thinkers,
including Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Richard
Wagner, and Friedrich Nietzsche.An associate
of Left Hegelian circles, Feuerbach advocated
liberalism, atheism, and materialism.
Many of his philosophical writings offered
a critical analysis of religion.
His thought was influential in the development
of historical materialism, where he is often
recognized as a bridge between Hegel and Marx.
== Life and career ==
Feuerbach was the fourth son of the eminent
jurist Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach,
brother of mathematician Karl Wilhelm Feuerbach
and uncle of painter Anselm Feuerbach.
Feuerbach's other brothers were almost all
distinguished in scholarship or science:
Joseph Anselm Feuerbach (1798–1851), archaeology
and philology; his son was the painter Anselm
Feuerbach (1829–1880)
Eduard August Feuerbach (1803–1843), jurisprudence
Friedrich Heinrich Feuerbach (1806–1880),
philology and philosophyHe also had three
sisters:
Rebekka Magdalena "Helene" Feuerbach von Dobeneck
(1808–1891)
Leonore Feuerbach (1809–1885)
Elise Feuerbach (1813–1883)
=== Education ===
Feuerbach matriculated in the University of
Heidelberg with the intention of pursuing
a career in the church.
Through the influence of Prof. Karl Daub he
was led to an interest in the then predominant
philosophy of Hegel and, in spite of his father's
opposition, enrolled in the University of
Berlin in order to study under the master
himself.
After 2 years, the Hegelian influence began
to slacken.
Feuerbach became associated with a group known
as the Young Hegelians, alternately known
as the Left Hegelians, who synthesized a radical
offshoot of Hegelian philosophy, interpreting
Hegel's dialectic march of spirit through
history to mean that existing Western culture
and institutional forms—and, in particular,
Christianity—would be superseded.
"Theology," he wrote to a friend, "I can bring
myself to study no more.
I long to take nature to my heart, that nature
before whose depth the faint-hearted theologian
shrinks back; and with nature man, man in
his entire quality."
These words are a key to Feuerbach's development.
He completed his education at Erlangen, at
the University of Erlangen with the study
of natural science.
He earned his habilitation from Erlangen on
25 July 1828 with his thesis De ratione una,
universali, infinita (The Infinity, Unity
and Universality of Reason).
=== Early writings ===
His first book, published anonymously, Gedanken
über Tod und Unsterblichkeit (1830), contains
an attack on personal immortality and an advocacy
of the Spinozistic immortality of reabsorption
in nature.
These principles, combined with his embarrassed
manner of public speaking, debarred him from
academic advancement.
After some years of struggling, during which
he published his Geschichte der neueren Philosophie
(2 vols., 1833–1837, 2nd ed. 1844), and
Abelard und Heloise (1834, 3rd ed. 1877),
he married in 1837 and lived a rural existence
at Bruckberg near Nuremberg, supported by
his wife's share in a small porcelain factory.
In two works of this period, Pierre Bayle
(1838) and Philosophie und Christentum (1839),
which deal largely with theology, he held
that he had proven "that Christianity has
in fact long vanished not only from the reason
but from the life of mankind, that it is nothing
more than a fixed idea."
=== Das Wesen des Christentums (The Essence
of Christianity) ===
His most important work, Das Wesen des Christentums
(1841), was translated by Mary Ann Evans (later
known as George Eliot) into English as The
Essence of Christianity.
Feuerbach's theme was a derivation of Hegel's
speculative theology in which the Creation
remains a part of the Creator, while the Creator
remains greater than the Creation.
When the student Feuerbach presented his own
theory to professor Hegel, Hegel refused to
reply positively to it.
In part I of his book Feuerbach developed
what he calls the "true or anthropological
essence of religion."
Treating of God in his various aspects "as
a being of the understanding," "as a moral
being or law," "as love" and so on.
Feuerbach talks of how humankind is equally
a conscious being, more so than God because
humans have placed upon God the ability of
understanding.
Humans contemplate many things and in doing
so they become acquainted with themselves.
Feuerbach shows that in every aspect God corresponds
to some feature or need of human nature.
As he states, "In the consciousness of the
infinite, the conscious subject has for his
object the infinity of his own nature."
Instead, Feuerbach concludes, "If man is to
find contentment in God," he claims, "he must
find himself in God."
Thus God is nothing else than human: he is,
so to speak, the outward projection of a human's
inward nature.
This projection is dubbed as a chimera by
Feuerbach, that God and the idea of a higher
being is dependent upon the aspect of benevolence.
Feuerbach states that, “a God who is not
benevolent, not just, not wise, is no God,”
and continues to say that qualities are not
suddenly denoted as divine because of their
godly association.
The qualities themselves are divine therefore
making God divine, indicating that humans
are capable of understanding and applying
meanings of divinity to religion and not that
religion makes a human divine.
The force of this attraction to religion though,
giving divinity to a figure like God, is explained
by Feuerbach as God is a being that acts throughout
humans in all forms.
God, “is the principle of [man's] salvation,
of [man's] good dispositions and actions,
consequently [man's] own good principle and
nature.”
It appeals to humankind to give qualities
to the idol of their religion because without
these qualities a figure such as God would
become merely an object, its importance would
become obsolete, there would no longer be
a feeling of an existence for God.
Therefore, Feuerbach says, when humans remove
all qualities from God, “God is no longer
anything more to him than a negative being.”
Additionally, because humans are imaginative,
God is given traits and there holds the appeal.
God is a part of a human through the invention
of a God.
Equally though, humans are repulsed by God
because, “God alone is the being who acts
of himself.”
In part 2 he discusses the "false or theological
essence of religion," i.e. the view which
regards God as having a separate existence
over against humankind.
Hence arise various mistaken beliefs, such
as the belief in revelation which he believes
not only injures the moral sense, but also
"poisons, nay destroys, the divinest feeling
in man, the sense of truth," and the belief
in sacraments such as the Lord's Supper, which
is to him a piece of religious materialism
of which "the necessary consequences are superstition
and immorality."
A caustic criticism of Feuerbach was delivered
in 1844 by Max Stirner.
In his book Der Einzige und sein Eigentum
(The Ego and His Own), he attacked Feuerbach
as inconsistent in his atheism.
The pertinent portions of the books, Feuerbach's
reply, and Stirner's counter-reply form an
instructive polemics.
(see External Links)
=== After "1848" ===
During the troubles of 1848–1849 Feuerbach's
attack upon orthodoxy made him something of
a hero with the revolutionary party; but he
never threw himself into the political movement,
and indeed lacked the qualities of a popular
leader.
During the period of the Frankfurt Congress
he had given public lectures on religion at
Heidelberg.
When the diet closed he withdrew to Bruckberg
and occupied himself partly with scientific
study, partly with the composition of his
Theogonie (1857).
In 1860 he was compelled by the failure of
the porcelain factory to leave Bruckberg,
and he would have suffered the extremity of
want but for the assistance of friends supplemented
by a public subscription.
His last book, Gottheit, Freiheit und Unsterblichkeit,
appeared in 1866 (2nd ed., 1890).
In 1868 he read the first volume of Marx's
Capital and joined the Social-Democratic Party.
After a long period of decline, he died on
September 13, 1872.
He is buried in Johannis-Friedhof Cemetery
in Nuremberg, which is also where the artist
Albrecht Dürer is interred.
=== Philosophy ===
Essentially the thought of Feuerbach consisted
in a new interpretation of religion's phenomena,
giving an anthropological explanation.
Following Schleiermacher’s theses, Feuerbach
thought religion was principally a matter
of feeling in its unrestricted subjectivity.
So the feeling breaks through all the limits
of understanding and manifests itself in several
religious beliefs.
But, beyond the feeling, is the fancy, the
true maker of projections of "Gods" and of
the sacred in general.
== Works ==
De ratione una, universali, infinita (1828)
(inaugural dissertation) (digitized by Google
from the library of Ghent University).
Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit (1830).
Geschichte der neuern Philosophie von Bacon
von Verulam bis Benedict Spinoza.
Ansbach: C. Brügel.
1833.
Retrieved 2012-02-05.
Abälard und Heloise, Oder Der Schriftsteller
und der Mensch (1834).
Kritik des Anti-Hegels (1835).
2nd edition, 1844.
University of Michigan; University of Wisconsin.
Geschichte der Neuern Philosophie; Darstellung,
Entwicklung und Kritik der Leibniz'schen Philosophie
(1837).
University of Wisconsin.
Pierre Bayle (1838).
University of California.
Über Philosophie und Christenthum (1839).
Das Wesen des Christenthums (1841).
2nd edition, 1848 (online).
(in English) The Essence of Christianity (1854).
Tr.
Marian Evans.
St. Mary's.
2nd edition, 1881.
Oxford.
Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft (1843).
Gallica.
Vorläufige Thesen zur Reform der Philosophie
(1843).
Das Wesen des Glaubens im Sinne Luther's (1844).
Harvard.
Das Wesen der Religion (1846).
2nd edition, 1849.
Stanford.
Erläuterungen und Ergänzungen zum Wesen
des Christenthums (1846).
Ludwig Feuerbach's sämmtliche Werke (1846–1866).
Volume 1, 1846.
Gallica; NYPL.
Volume 2, 1846.
Gallica.
Volume 3, 1847.
Gallica; NYPL.
1876, Oxford.
Volume 4, 1847.
Gallica; Oxford.
Volume 5, 1848.
Gallica; NYPL.
Volume 6, 1848.
Gallica; NYPL.
Volume 7, 1849.
Gallica; Oxford.
Volume 8, 1851.
Gallica; NYPL.
Volume 9, 1857.
Gallica; NYPL.
Volume 10, 1866.
Gallica; NYPL.
Ludwig Feuerbach in seinem Briefwechsel und
Nachlass (1874).
2 volumes.
Oxford.
Vol. 1.
NYPL.
Vol. 2.
NYPL.
Briefwechsel zwischen Ludwig Feuerbach und
Christian Kapp (1876).
Harvard; Oxford.
== Critical reception ==
Unlike his countrymen, whose writings on these
subjects are usually enveloped in such an
impenetrable mist that their most perilous
ideas pass harmlessly over the heads of the
multitude, Feuerbach, by his keen incisiveness
of language and luminousness of exposition,
was calculated to bring his meaning home to
the average reader.
=== Influence ===
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were strongly
influenced by Feuerbach's atheism, though
they criticised him for his inconsistent espousal
of materialism.
== See also ==
Theses on Feuerbach by Karl Marx (1845)
Philosophical anthropology
== Notes ==
== References ==
Van.
A. Harvey, et al.
Feuerbach and the Interpretation of Religion
(Studies in Religion and Critical Thought),
1997.
Marxism explained: materialism John Minns
at Socialist Alternative.
looks at Feuerbach's influence on Marx and
Engels.
Accessed October 2007
Warren Breckman, Marx, the Young Hegelians
and the Origins of Social Theory: Dethroning
the Self, New York: Cambridge University Press,
1999.
[1]
Ludwig Feuerbach, “The Essence of Christianity”
in Religion and Liberal Culture, ed.
Keith Michael Baker, vol. 8 of University
of Chicago Readings in Western Civilization,
ed.
John W. Boyer and Julius Kirshner (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1987), 323-336.
Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911).
"Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas".
Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.).
Cambridge University Press.
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) - biography in
Issue 103 of Philosophy Now magazine.
Higgins, Kathleen (2000).
What Nietzsche Really Said.
University of Texas, Austin, Texas: Random
House, NY.
Wagner, Richard (1850).
The Artwork of the Future.
Lucerne,Switzerland: Otto Wigand, Leipzig.
Smith, Simon, Beyond Realism: Seeking the
Divine Other (Delaware/Malaga: Vernon Press,
2017)
== External links ==
Works by or about Ludwig Feuerbach at Internet
Archive
Works by Ludwig Feuerbach at LibriVox (public
domain audiobooks)
Zalta, Edward N. (ed.).
"Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach".
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
