Pantheism Controversy Research Articles

Faith, Knowledge, and the Ausgang of Classical German Philosophy: Jacobi, Hegel, Feuerbach

This article revisits Feuerbach’s “break with speculation” in the early 1840s in light of issues raised by the original Pantheism Controversy, initiated in 1785 by the publication of Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi’s Letters on the Doctrine of Spinoza. The article first describes the concerns underlying Jacobi’s repudiation of Spinozism, and rationalism more generally, in favor of a personalistic theism that disclaims the possibility of philosophical knowledge of God. It goes on to reconstruct Hegel’s alternative to Jacobi’s famous salto mortale before considering how Feuerbach’s critique of Hegel’s philosophy of religion, as well as the personalism of the so-called Positive Philosophy (inspired by the late Schelling), was influenced by both Spinoza and Jacobi in ways that have not yet received sufficient attention.

Iqbal, Nietzsche, and Nihilism: Reconstruction of Sufi Cosmology and Revaluation of Sufi Values inAsrar-i-Khudî

AbstractWhile the problem of nihilism is derived from a particular historical and intellectual context in Western philosophy, i.e., the pantheism controversy in modern German philosophy and the ideas of Nietzsche, non-Western thinkers also engaged with it and developed responses to it. In this article, I am interested in analyzing Muhammad Iqbal’s (1877–1938), a leading Muslim thinker (a Sufi) from India, engagement with the problem of nihilism and his response to it from a Sufi perspective. Arguing that the existing literature on Iqbal fails to understand the deeper impact of Nietzsche’s ideas on Iqbal’s philosophy and the dramatic role “the problem of nihilism” played in causing changes in Iqbal’s philosophy, or on Iqbal’s intellectual development, in this article, I analyze how Iqbal’s encounter with the ideas of Nietzsche during his study period in Europe between 1905 and 1908 has introduced him to the problem of nihilism in its Nietzschean form, how this led Iqbal to a nihilistic mood/crisis from 1909 to 1913, and then how he later developed a response to nihilism by reconstructing the Sufi cosmology and by revaluating the Sufi values of the pantheistic/Persian type of Sufism – the outcome of which is found in his philosophical poemAsrar-i-Khudî(1915).

Baumgarten's Steps toward Spinozism

I argue that Baumgarten's rich and once influential Metaphysica contains an ontology that pushes him toward a Spinozistic conclusion, one that he fiercely sought to avoid. After examining Baumgarten's distinctive account of the core of Spinozism, I present his path as a series of independently motivated steps, focusing on his general ontology and his accounts of the world and God. Baumgarten himself would not be happy with these results, and I concede that some of his efforts to thwart Spinozism look promising. But there is one route to Spinozism that he fails to block, and at a key juncture, he inadvertently aids the Spinozist's cause. I conclude with an epilogue on how Baumgarten's path also foreshadows the next Spinozism flare-up heading into the German pantheism controversy.

The Principle of Reason's Self-Preservation in Kant's Essay on the Pantheism Controversy

AbstractIn his 1786 essay on the pantheism controversy, ‘What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?’, Kant implies that ‘the maxim of reason'sself-preservation [Selbsterhaltung]’ is reason's first principle for orienting itself in thinking supersensible objects. But Kant does not clearly explain what the maxim or principle of reason's self-preservation is and how it fits into his larger project of critical philosophy. Nor does the secondary literature. This article reconstructs Kant's discussion of the principle of reason's self-preservation in ‘What Does It Mean to Orient Oneself in Thinking?’ It suggests that this principle is best understood as the discipline of pure reason. The principle of reason's self-preservation performs the same methodological function that Kant assigns to the discipline of pure reason. This principle establishes the rule of law in reason and subjects reason to its own laws. In so doing, it prevents reason's dialectical errors and also grounds reason's faith(Vernunftglaube), which in turn systematically conditions the practical use of reason.

Kant’s Religion as a Response to the Pantheism Controversy

This paper places Kant’s Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason within the historical context of the pantheism controversy between Mendelssohn and Jacobi. I argue that reading Religion with this context in mind shines new light upon passages connected with the need for a moral archetype and prototype in the form of Christ, as well as various comments upon the relation between Christianity and Judaism. Within this new viewpoint, we can also see Religion as ultimately concerned with promoting Christianity, broadly understood, as the most appropriate historical vehicle for the promulgation of rational religion, and thus as a cornerstone of the Enlightenment project.

Madness and Authority in Jacobi and Ferraris: Why New Realism Is Not New

New Realism is not new. Instead of a new response to a novel philosophical problem, New Realism is an unacknowledged resurrection of Jacobi’s criticism of philosophical rationality that ignited what is now known as the “pantheism controversy.” Both Jacobi and Ferraris argue that the antirealist epistemologies of their contemporaries displace our relation to the world to which thought is supposed to be beholden. Further, both Jacobi and Ferraris claim that the antidote to these delusional philosophical ideations is realism. Finally, both take a reactionary stance toward the renegotiation of authority that stands at the core of the Enlightenment project. If this is indeed the case, then New Realism is a repetition and not an advance. More significantly, despite its own aspirations, New Realism is a reactionary, anti- Enlightenment philosophical proposal. In short, Ferraris says “Goodbye Kant!” too quickly and for old reasons.

The Disciplinary Conception of Enlightenment in Kant’s Critical Philosophy

ABSTRACTKant does not completely work out his philosophical conception of enlightenment. The definition of enlightenment that he offers in his well-known essay on the topic does not seem to completely match the definition that he puts forward later in his essay on the pantheism controversy and in the third Critique. It remains unclear how the two definitions relate to each other and whether and how they rest on the same principle. The lack of clarity in Kant's conception of enlightenment is left mostly unaddressed in the secondary literature on the topic. This paper suggests that Kant's philosophical conception of enlightenment rests on the discipline of pure reason. The self-disciplinary principle of reason, which is laid out in the Doctrine of Method of the first Critique, underlies both of Kant's definitions of enlightenment, although he himself does not clearly demonstrate how it does so.

What God Does Not Possess: Moses Mendelssohn’s Philosophy of Imperfection

Abstract This paper proposes that Moses Mendelssohn’s Morning Hours be viewed as the final chapter in a philosophy of imperfection that Mendelssohn had been developing over the course of his life. It is further argued that this philosophy of imperfection is still of philosophical interest. After demonstrating that the concept of imperfection animates Mendelssohn’s early work, this paper turns towards the specific arguments about imperfection Mendelssohn made in the midst of the pantheism controversy—in particular, the claim that human imperfection attests to an independent existence. Simply put: God knows human imperfection, but does not possess it. Therefore, there is a sense in which humans, because of our imperfections, are distinct from God. It is shown that, at least in part, Mendelssohn’s entry into the pantheism controversy, and his willingness to engage even his recently departed friend Lessing in argument, is part of his strategy to preserve his philosophy of imperfection.

Schelling contra Jacobi. La posibilidad de un sistema de la libertad

The intention of this article is to show how the examination of the alleged pantheism of Spinozas’ system, which opens the Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom of Schelling, presents not only his own stand concerning the Pantheism controversy, but also implies a discussion with Modern thought, particularly regarding the place, function and implications of the notion of system, and its relation to freedom. An exposition of Jacobi’s critical analysis of the history of Western Philosophy —where he asserts that the system is incompatible with the knowledge of the unconditioned— will illustrate the terms of this dialogue of the philosopher from Leonberg with the tradition.

POSREDOVANJE SPINOZIZMA UVODNA REČ O TZV. SPORU O PANTEIZMU

Istorijski značaj takozvanog spora o panteizmu koji su oko 1783. godine započeli Jakobi i Mendelson povodom pitanja da li je Lesing bio spinozist ogleda se pre svega u obnovi interesovanja za Spinozinu filozofiju, koja je do tog sporenja zadržavana na marginama povesti filozofije. Njegova filozofska važnost krije se u činjenici da su najznačajnija filozofska učenja u godinama koje su sledile makar delom oblikovana posredstvom suočavanja sa revitalizovanim spinozizmom. Autor u radu ispituje pretpostavke, okolnosti i tok spora razmatrajući stavove njegovih glavnih aktera, a krajem završnog poglavlja pokušava da implikacije spora potraži i u savremenim filozofskim diskusijama.

An English Source of German Romanticism: Herder's Cudworth Inspired Revision of Spinoza from ‘Plastik’ to ‘Kraft’

This examination considers the influence of the seventeenth century Cambridge Platonist Cudworth upon the thought of the late eighteenth century German thinker Herder. It focuses upon Herder's use of Cudworth's philosophy to create a revised version of Spinoza's metaphysics. Both Cudworth and Herder were concerned with the problem of determinism. Cudworth outlined a number of difficulties relating to this problem in the thought of Spinoza and proposed amendments, particularly the introduction of the middle principle of plastik, which would mediate between the Ideas of transcendent reason and mechanical materialism. We find these amendments to Spinoza's philosophy also employed in Herder's contribution to the Pantheism Controversy, in which he too offers a revised Spinozism and introduces his own middle principle of Kraft. This demonstrates an important but under‐explored English contribution to a key development in German intellectual history. The Pantheism Controversy was an epoch‐making event, helping to bring an end to the German Enlightenment and to inaugurate the Romantic movement. Herder's version of Spinoza's thought revived the philosopher's fortunes, and Herder's notion of Kraft became central to Romantic aesthetics. Finally, Herder's use of Cudworth demonstrates the important but overlooked source of Platonic realism in German Romantic thought.

Coleridge’s Ecumenical Spinoza1

Of English writers of the early nineteenth century, none has so sustained and well-documented an engagement with Spinozan metaphysics as Coleridge. Encountering Spinoza's monism both indirectly, through works contributing to the pantheism controversy of the 1790s, and directly, in intensive study of a collected edition of Spinoza's works in 1812-13, Coleridge repeatedly identified the Dutch philosopher with Christianity, particularly in his personal conduct, while deploring the moral implications of his supposed denial of free will. This ambivalent response to Spinoza is reflective of a fundamental and persistent tension in Coleridge's own thought between his attraction to a metaphysical monism, as the basis for postulating the unity of subject and object, and his desire to affirm Trinitarian Christianity.

A crítica do jovem Schelling à teologia de Tübingen no contexto da querela do panteísmo

O texto procura reconstruir os principais momentos da crítica de Schelling à chamada teologia ortodoxa de Tübingen. Em sua correspondência com Hegel, bem como em seus textos de juventude, Schelling procura mostrar ao amigo por que essa sua crítica à teologia se liga ao fato de ele ter “se tornado um espinosista”, o que insere o debate na chamada querela do panteísmo, iniciada pelo livro de Jacobi sobre Espinosa. Embora, em sua maior parte, siga o caminho de Fichte na interpretação da obra de Jacobi, Schelling ousa ir além do autor da Doutrina-da-ciência ao igualar Deus ao eu absoluto.

A Contemporary Metaphysical Controversy

I argue that a metaphysical controversy, comparable with the ‘pantheism controversy’ of the late 18th century, is being played out today in the world-wide clash between religion and science, in which one side adheres to a strict materialism and the other admits phenomena of inspiritment as having a place in ontology. Just as the pantheism controversy was resolved, to some degree, via the concept of panentheism, so the solution to the contest between science and religion today might be pointing us in a panentheist direction. Taking into account (a) the empirical evidence of science, (b) the widespread evidence of spirit phenomena from different religions and spirit traditions, and (c) that the experience of spirit phenomena varies according to cultural frame of reference, I conclude that spirit phenomena must emanate from something that is common across cultures. The only thing that could be common across cultures is matter: it must be matter itself then that is imbued with spirit. While this position has affinities with panentheism, I argue that ‘panentheism’ is not in fact an appropriate name for it in the 21st century, as this name excludes the experience of many cultures for whom phenomena of inspiritment are not describable in any kind of theistic terms.

On ‘The religion of the visible Universe’: Novalis and the pantheism controversy

The ‘Pantheism Controversy’ of the 1780s was one of the most significant events in German intellectual life in the eighteenth century, and its reverberations continued to be felt in various ways fo...

The Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel Allwill (review)

308 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 35:2 APRIL 1997 not immediately perceived at all. Instead, it is the nature of perception itself, here whether unconscious inference (Descartes) or experience (Gassendi) provides shape. The only weakness in this sophisticated and cogent account is the largely irrelevant account that sets up the Descartes-Gassendi option; this is space--nearly half the essay--that might have been better employed in developing her intriguing comments about simple ideas and judgment, for example. Peter Alexander has produced much brilliant work on Locke, but his paper here does not offer much light. The question is why Locke and others should have held that perfectly hard bodies are capable of rebound upon impact. Except for Descartes, whom Locke rejected, all the material, including some very late material right down to Maxwell, comes after the formation of Locke's view. Locke is at his most subtle and insightful with his doctrine of freedom; Vere Chappeli on that doctrine is no less so. The issue is the apparent incompatibility between Locke's early thesis of volitional determinism and his later view that desire can be suspended. Quite in addition to its historical and textual contributions, a nice feature of the paper is to cast the difference, not in terms of Locke's notorious and variously induced indeterminacy, but of the problem, still unsolved in Chappell's view, of direct versus instrumental willing. Ian Harris investigates a question in Christian anthropology with profound and extensive implications in the seventeenth century: the sin of Adam and its relation to human nature. For Locke, one exemplary implication is that Adam cannot have represented his descendents, for representation must always be a matter of choice on the part of the represented. A thorough case is made by James Tully that Locke's Two Treatises provided the concepts of land use, property, and political society that were used to dispossess Amerindians . An interesting residual question is whether the issue lay with Locke's theory or with the use to which it was put, even by Locke himself, on the basis of empirically false premises about Amerindian society. Relevant in this regard are the papers by Janina Rosicka and Paschalis Kitromilides on the reception of Locke in Poland and Greece. Assuming the standard view of Locke on toleration, they show that, in these areas remote from the epicenter of the European Enlightenment, the spread of liberalism was commensurate with the promulgation of Locke's views. THOMAS M. LENNON University of Western Ontario Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. The Main Philosophical Writings and the Novel AllwiU. Edited and translated by George di Giovanni. Montreal, Quebec: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1995. Pp. xv + 683. Cloth, $9o.oo. Despite his enormous influence upon German philosophy and letters, F. H. Jacobi has long been virtually ignored in the Anglophone world. This neglect is all the more puzzling when one considers that he was at the center of three of the most important and fateful intellectual controversies of his time: the "pantheism controversy" over BOOK REVIEWS 309 Lessing's alleged Spinozism; the "atheism controversy" over the implicit "nihilism" of the transcendental philosophy of Kant and Fichte; and the revived pantheism controversy with Schelling concerning the philosophy of nature and the "revelation of divine things." No longer need anyone complain about the paucity of material concerning Jacobi in English, however, for George di Giovanni has now provided us with graceful and accurate translations of virtually all of Jacobi's most important philosophical writings, including: Concerning the Doctrine of Spinoza in Letters to Herr Moses Mendelssohn (complete translation of the first edition of 1785, plus excerpts from the expanded second edition of 1789); David Hume on Faith, or Idealism and Realism (complete translation of the first edition of 1787, plus the long introduction to the second edition of 1815); Edward AUwiU'sCollection of Letters (first edition, x792); and Jacobi to Fichte (1799, including the important supplements and appendix). Had this volume included only these English translations ofJacobi's writings it would have been a major contribution not only to our appreciation of an important, interesting , and neglected thinker, but also to our understanding of the history of German philosophy during the...

The Secret Religion of Germany: Christian Piety and the Pantheism Controversy

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Secret Religion of Germany: Christian Piety and the Pantheism ControversyB. A. GerrishB. A. Gerrish Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 67, Number 4Oct., 1987 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/487625 Views: 17Total views on this site Citations: 2Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1987 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Mihaela Czobor-Lupp Herder on the Emancipatory Power of Religion and Religious Education, The Review of Politics 79, no.22 (Apr 2017): 239–261.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0034670516001054Devin O'Neal Beyond Borders: Pantheistic Confusion and Monotheistic Orthodoxy in Tieck's Der Runenberg, The German Quarterly 89, no.33 (Aug 2016): 282–297.https://doi.org/10.1111/gequ.12001

Razón o fe: una discusión en torno a la disputa panteísta

Firstly, this article will examine in the text of 1786, Was heisst: sich im Denken orientieren?, the chaining of the argumentation used by Kant to reply to the critique arised during the pantheism controversy about the passage from the finite to the infinite which became manifest in Germany in 1785 with the publication of: Uber die Lehre des Spinoza in Briefen an den Herrn Moses Mendelssohn, where the author shows that his moral argument of God offers an alternative for both the supernatural anti-rationalism of Jacobi and the uncritical rationalism of Mendelssohn. And it also intends to examine the critique of Jacobi to the text above mentioned of Kant contained in Appendix of the: David Hume uber den Glauben, oder Idealismus und Realismus, ein Gesprach.