Förster divides the Romantic philosophical period into an early and late period, with the dividing point being roughly 1806 or around the time the period of the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon started. He makes the case that the early Romantic philosophy “hat keineswegs den Charakter einer feudalen Restarurationsideologie (in no way had the character of an ideology of feudal restoration)”. Rather, it “registered the full consequences” of such aspects of the developing capitalist society as individualism, egotism and the general loss of the old feeling of community and family in the newly mobile economy which severely disrupted the old patterns of life for many people.
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher (1768-1834)Förster discusses Friedrich Schleiermacher who was recognized throughout the 19th century as a major Protestant theologian, as one of the most significant and politically democratic Romantic thinkers. Hans Küng considers Schleiermacher the most important Christian theologian of the 19th century and the first Christian theologian who developed a distinctively modern view of Christianity. Küng discusses Schleiermacher in his books Große christliche Denker (1994) [English edition: Great Christian Thinkers (1994)] and Das Christentum. Wesen und Geschichte (1994) [English edition: Christianity: Essence, History, and Future (1996)].
Schleiermacher’s theology was infomed by the philosophies of his time and took full account of the historical-critical Scriptural studies of his day. Going beyond Enlightenment rationalism, he argued that faith must be understood as involving both reason and emotion. He argued for the application of reason to Christian religious understanding and contended that the „signs and wonders“ of the Bible should be understood as stories conveying important religious truths, not as actual physical events. His affinity with the Romantic thinkers is expressed in such arguments as the one he made about the Incarnation of Jesus: if God could take human form, that means that humanity has the capability of taking on divine attributes. Some of his critics wrongly accused Schleiermacher of pantheism.
Schleiermacher's German translations of Plato’s works were highly regarded and count as a major scholarly achievement of his. His close study of ancient Greek religions informed his observations about the influence of the ideas of other religions on Christianity, though regretably he adhered to traditional Christian practice of denigrating the significance of the Hebrew Bible/Christian Old Testament for Christians. Schleiermacher argued that non-Christian religions contained important religious truths. However, Küng notes with regret that he knew very little about Islam or other religious traditions outside the ancient Greek. Nevertheless, Schleiermacher theological and scholarly work was groundbreaking for the development in the study of the history and psychology of religion. He also made important contributions to pedagogy in his time.
Schleiermacher, in a time when both the Catholic and Protestant Churches in the German lands were conservative to reactionary in their political and social positions, was very much a pro-democracy liberal and activist on behalf of those goals as a member of the Patriotic Party opposing the French occupation of Prussia. Förster writes that the theologian played a major role in mobilizing young people to support the Wars of Liberation. He also gives Schleiermacher credit for his pedagogical reforms, which also including a more democratic organization of the universities.
Schleiermacher shared with other Romantics the notion of united nature and reason and of the centrality of love to his philosophy.
Förster includes among the major early Romantics Novalis (1772-1801), whose real name was Georg Phillip Friedrich von Hardenberg, and Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829) (Yes, there are a number of Friedrichs and Georgs among the philosophers Förster covers in this book!)
Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829)Schlegel started out as a Romantic literary critic and editor of the Athenäum journal. His early work was sympathetic to the need for revolutionary change in society and in politics to achieve freedom as it was conceived in the liberal political philosophy of that time. Later in his life, he adopted both political and philosophical positions that were part of a distinct conservative viewpoint.
Schlegel’s approach to literary analysis was later described by the philosophy Wilhelm Dilthey as having been important in the development of hermaneutics. Schlegel was a friend of Schleiermacher's. Schlegel’s aesthetic philosophy made love its center and envisioned a sensualizing of the spirit, which influenced Schleiermancher’s thinking about the relative roles of reason and emotion in religious faith.
Schegel wrote as a radical democrat in the 1790s, advocating freedom of women and greater sexual freedom. He, like many German intellectuals, was inspired by and sympathetic to the French Revolution but also was repelled by what were seen as its excesses and its transformation into Napoleon’s empire.
Schlegel contributed a great deal to German interest in Indian history and culture with his study of Sanskrit and his book Über die Sprache und Weisheit der Indier (1808)
His increasing conservatism led to his conversion to the Catholic Church in 1808. Along with that came a turn in his philosophical work to a defense of very traditional Catholic teachings and support of conservative monarchies like that of the Habsburgs in Vienna, where he moved in 1808. Schlegel saw the Habsburg monarchy as the last bastion of “German freedom”, a position far from the ideals of the French Revolution or his own early democratic leanings. His criticisms of capitalism became increasingly over time rooted in a conservative Catholic fondness for medieval times. The nationalism of the Wars of Liberation seems to have pushed Schlegel toward a narrowly nationalistic viewpoint, not toward the patriotic-democratic viewpoint of Schleiermacher and many other Germans. His religious thinking came to embrace the most mystical, non-materialistic aspects of Jakob Böhme (1575-1624).
By the time Friedrich Wilhelm IV ascended the Prussian throne in 1840 and began following a reactionary rather than liberal policy, stepping up political and religious repression, Schlegel had become an outright defender of political reaction.
Förster notes that Franz von Baader (1765-1841) played an important role in encouraging Schelling's turn toward an outright reactionary, restaurationist philosophy. He says that it was under the influence of Von Baader's ideas that Schelling wrote Untersuchung über das Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit (1809), which Förster describes as the "philosophische Programmschrift der Restauration" (the philosophical programmatic plan for the restauration). Förster discusses Baader’s ideas and also those of Adolf Trendelenburg (1802-1872), another conservative philosopher who opposed Hegelian ideas from a neo-Aristotelian standpoint.
Tags: friedrich schlegel, schleiermacher
No comments:
Post a Comment