Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach
(1804-1872) is not a household name in the Western world, but it was such to
every Soviet college student, on account of his everlasting connection to
Marxism, one of whose sources he was claimed to be. It is for this reason, if
not for any other, that he deserves a special look in this section, and he
naturally gets it.
Regrettably, our good friend
Bertrand Russell virtually omits him from any kind of mention in his History of Western Philosophy, except
for the following sentence in his chapter on Karl Marx:
“At the
university he [Marx] was influenced by the still prevalent Hegelianism, as also
by Feuerbach’s revolt against Hegel towards materialism…”
Feuerbach is frequently referred
to as a bridge between Hegel and Marx, but this characterization is sorely
inaccurate, as Marx did not require a bridge between himself and Hegel. More
importantly than his young Hegelianism, it was Feuerbach’s dismissal of
religion (shift from Hegel’s idealism to materialism), which can be represented
as his principal influence on Marxism as an offshoot of Hegelianism. After all,
religion (seen as the outward projection of man’s inner nature) was his
main philosophical interest. I am of course at odds with such an understanding
of religion, whose main significance, in my opinion, is cultural and social,
and the phenomenon of personal faith is, as I believe, of a later, more
anthropologically advanced origin.
Although Feuerbach is never
counted among major philosophers in European history, there are implicitly made
suggestions that he may be one. Along with
Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx, and Nietzsche, he is seen as one of European philosophical outsiders who rebelled against
the academic philosophy of the 19th century and thought of
themselves as reformers and prophets of a new culture. (New World
Encyclopedia) By placing him in such an illustrious company, the source
boosts his importance by association, and, even though I do not find him fit to
stand among the greatest, suggestions of this sort are rather significant.
Other than that, my Webster’s Biographical Dictionary gives
him a short mention among the sons of Paul Johann Anselm von Feuerbach (1775-1833),
German jurist and philosopher, specialist in criminology. The father is far
less prominent in the history of philosophy, but he gets nearly twice as much
space as his son… Being interested in this entry in the son only, we shall thus
skip the father and his other sons, and focus on our Feuerbach only:
“[Feuerbach]
Ludwig Andreas (1804-1872), philosopher, pupil of Hegel in Berlin; abandoned Hegelian
idealism for a naturalistic materialism, subsequently attacked orthodox
religion and immortality, concluded is the outward projection of man’s inward
nature; author: Das Wesen des
Christentums (1840), Das Wesen der Religion (1845), etc.”
The following portion comes from
the Internet Wikipedia sources:
Feuerbach’s
most important work is Das Wesen des Christentums (1841). 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 man is equally a
conscious being, more so than God, because man has placed upon God the ability
of understanding. Man contemplates many things, and, in doing so, he becomes
acquainted with himself. Feuerbach shows that in every aspect God corresponds
to some feature or some need of human nature. “If
man is to find contentment in God, he must find himself in God.” Thus God is nothing else than man: He is, so to speak, the
outward projection of man’s inward nature. This projection is dubbed as a
chimaera by Feuerbach, that God and the idea of a higher being is dependent
upon the aspect of benevolence. “A God who
is not benevolent, not just, not wise, is no God.” He goes on to contend that qualities are not suddenly
denoted as divine because of their godly association. The qualities themselves
are divine therefore making God divine, indicating that man is capable of
understanding and applying meanings of divinity to religion and not that
religion makes a man divine.
In part
2, Feuerbach discusses the “false or
theological essence of religion,” i.e. the
view that regards God as having a separate existence over against man. 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 the
sacraments, such as the Eucharist, which is to him a piece of religious
materialism of which “the necessary
consequences are superstition and immorality.”
Part 2
comes to a crux by seemingly retracting previous statements. He claims that
God’s only action is “the moral and eternal
salvation of man: thus man has in fact no other aim than himself” because man’s actions are placed on God. He also contradicts
himself by claiming that man gives up his personality and places it upon God,
who in turn is a selfish being. This selfishness turns onto man and projects
man to be wicked and corrupt, that they are “incapable
of good,” and it is only God who is good, “the Good Being.” In
such a way Feuerbach detracts from many of his earlier assertions while showing
the alienation that takes place in man by worshipping God. Feuerbach affirms
that goodness is, “personified as God,” turning God into an object, because if God were anything but
an object nothing would need to be personified upon him. The aspect of objects
having previously been discussed; in that man contemplates objects and that
objects themselves give conception of what externalizes man. Ergo, if God is
good so then should be man because God is merely an externalization of man,
because God is an object. However, religion shows that man is inherently corrupt.
Feuerbach tries to lessen his inconsistency by asking if it were possible if, “I could perceive the beauty of a superb picture if my
mind were aesthetically an absolute piece of perversion?” Through such Feuerbach’s reasoning, it may not be possible,
but it is possible, and he later states that man is capable of finding
beauty.
Honestly, I am not a great fan of
Feuerbach’s philosophy of religion. I guess that the only contribution that he
may have made to Marxism was changing the tracks under the Hegelian train, from
the idealistic track to the atheistic track. But to end this entry on a lighter
note, here is a piece of some enlightening trivia. We are familiar of course
with the expression “We are what we eat,” which, by the way, I used to find
rather silly. But we are perhaps unfamiliar with the fact that this expression
comes to us from the German rhyme: Mann ist was er isst, whose author
happens to be none other than our Herr von Feuerbach! Having reexamined, on
Feuerbach’s authority, the figurative
significance of this dictum, I do not find it silly anymore.
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