’Die Macht Der Dunklen Ideen’: A Leibnizian Theme In German Psychology and Fiction Between the Late Enlightenment and Romanticism

Abstract

In eighteenth‐century Germany the rise of sensualism led to increasing interest in the non‐rational or ‘obscure’ side of epistemology: the obscure ideas that occupy a position at the bottom of Leibniz’s cognitive scale in his Meditationes de Cognitione, Veritate et Ideis (1684). In the first half of the article, I examine changing attitudes towards the obscure ideas in German psychology at the turn of the nineteenth century, beginning with Sulzer’s reserved approach and ending with the conciliatory view taken by thinkers such as Moses Mendelssohn and Jean Paul. I suggest that the evolution of the theory of the obscure perceptions in German psychology during this period exemplifies the Germans’ caution with regard to the emancipation of the senses, since here a theory which rose to prominence against the background of the Enlightenment’s sensualism is quickly integrated into a normative framework. In the second half of the article, I discuss two German novels which can be seen to illustrate alternative (sceptical and appreciative) approaches to the theory of the obscure perceptions at the turn of the nineteenth century: Tieck’s William Lovell (1795–96) and Jean Paul’s Titan (1800–03).