Introduction
Ludwig Feuerbach was born in Landshut,
Bavaria in 1804 to a well respected law professor.
During his university years he was attracted to the work of G.W.F. Hegel. In the summer of 1824 he attended
lectures in logic and metaphysics from Hegel.
Feuerbach held these lectures to be the turning point in his life.
[1]
Feuerbach, like many philosophers of his
age, struggled in attempting to explain how a knowing subject can know a real
universe which is distinct from the individual knower. He from the start took up a
perceptionist view of epistemology and set out to show its significance in life
especially in the area of religion His most famous work, Essence of Christianity, became a guide for revolutionaries like
Karl Marx.
In this work he attempted to show that the doctrines of Christianity were
really wishful illusions to explain the meaning of life.
This paper intends to disprove the
conclusions given in Feuerbach’s Essence
of Christianity by first putting Feuerbach in his historical context,
giving a brief overview of the main argument of the book and then laying out
and disproving his essential first principles.
After disproving his first principle it will be demonstrated that Feuerbach’s
first principles lead to absurd conclusions that should not be held by a
reasonable person.
Having disproved his first principles this paper will conclude with an attempt
to place his work within the Perceptionist School.
Historical Context
In many ways Feuerbach comes at the culmination
of the modern era of philosophy.
His anti - Christian views were not, however, a complete turning point in the
history of philosophy.
If understood in the proper historical context Feuerbach's work seems to be a
proper product of his age, the modern age.
The philosophers of the modern age
attempted to make philosophy a “science.”
As people through scientific advances discovered certain beliefs that were
previously held at the time, to be false, for example that the world was not
the center of the universe as previously thought, they began to question
everything in a scientific way.
No longer was reasoning the route to truth but only the limited scientific
method.
In making philosophy more scientific God and the views of traditional religion
became problems that had to be wrestled with.
The modern era, beginning with the works
of Descartes, saw a lack of trust in the senses leading to a philosophy that
turns inward towards oneself to understand the world, rather than understanding
the world through ones senses.
The era of modern philosophy saw a shift from the traditional view of looking
at God objectively, to looking into oneself for an understanding of God. Hegel, Feuerbach’s idol, came to
the conclusion about God that “in our consciousness of God, we somehow serve to
realize his own self-consciousness, and, thereby, his own perfection.”[2]
This focus on consciousness was no doubt a major influence in the work of
Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity.
Overview of Essence of
Christianity
Feuerbach begins Essence of Christianity by explaining the essential nature of man
which is based in his epistemology and philosophy of religion. His epistemology holds that reality is that
which resides in the rational and sensual perception of the human person. He holds that truth, reality and
the senses are all one.[3]
From this epistemology he logically comes to the conclusion that man cannot be anything without an object that
he essentially relates to.[4]
The only object that man essentially
relates to is one that he is able to comprehend because truth, reality and the
senses are all one.
He holds that this object which man
necessarily relates to, to be the object that the subject contemplates. He substitutes anthropology, the
study of humanity, for philosophy.[5]
The belief that the objet which man
necessarily relates to is the subject that he contemplates, makes the claim
that man becomes acquainted with himself.
Because man becomes acquainted with himself the absolute man is his own nature. The power of the object over him
is then the power of his own nature.[6]
Since, the absolute man is his own
nature, consciousness becomes the most important factor for man. Feuerbach defines the
consciousness as joy in one’s own perfection.
He further claims that every being has as its highest conceivable being, God,
in himself because the divine can only be known by what is divine.
[7]
Having explained the essential nature of
man Feuerbach goes on to explain the essence of religion. Since God is the highest
conceivable being of an individual religion is the consciousness of the
infinite, so it follows that consciousness is religion.[8]
Man is thus capable of transcending himself.
The religious object is within man and
therefore is his own consciousness.
It follows that religion is an indirect form of self knowledge and so the
divine being can be nothing other than the human being.[9]
In other words all the attributes of the divine nature are the attributes of
the human nature.[10] Having established his religion he
goes on to logically disprove various Christian dogmas.
Since man, in religion, is in relation
to his own nature, religion is essentially emotion. Whatever pleases man also pleases
God. To be a truly
happy person, one should turn inward towards their own desire.[11]
Feuerbach reaches his ultimate conclusions based on one faulty first principle.
First Principles
All arguments must start somewhere
because it is impossible to trace all arguments back to an infinite starting
point. Since all
arguments must start somewhere it only makes sense that they would start at a
point that can be agreed upon by reasonable men.
Aristotle himself claims that there is no need to prove those things which are
commonly understood, “for if we both refute the objections and leave the common
opinions undisturbed, we shall have proved the case sufficiently.”[12]
This philosophy, often called common sense philosophy. St.
Thomas in his commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean
Ethics, rightly points out, that this common sense philosophy is the most
reasonable fact of epistemology because since no human mind is able to
explaining everything even the most probable things and as such it is
sufficient to start with those things that appear to be true.[13]
These first principles should be
spontaneous and necessary.
An argument that is held up as a first principle should be evident, not reached
by demonstration, and not a supposition.
Since experience is what gives us the matter of the first principle it is
necessary to abstract data from the world around us and use reason to come to
the truth using objective and immediate evidence.[14]
Conclusions can only be as strong as
their first principles because the first principle is the foundation of the
argument.
Just as if you built a house on a shaky foundation you would get a shaky house,
so to if you build and argument on a shaky foundation you will get a shaky
argument.
Because conclusions are only as firm as their first principles are, for
Feuerbach’s work to be true, his first principle must be solid.
Critique of Feuerbach’s
First Principle
Feuerbach takes for his first principle
the idea that the object which man necessarily relates to is the object that
the subject contemplates.
Feuerbach comes to this position through an observation that a complete man
possesses the powers of thought, will and affection. He arrives at this point because
he realizes that man is incomplete without an object of the powers of thought
will and affection. [15]
The notion that man necessarily relates
to the subject he contemplates is a turning inward towards oneself. Whereas the intellectual approach
begins with an extra mental point of departure, the world, Feuerbach begins
with an internal point of departure the ego.
Rather than knowing God through use of reason, Feuerbach comes to know God
through intuition.
His method makes knowledge of God symbolic and extrinsic.
The idea that one’s notion of God is
designated intrinsically by our own experiences rather than the intellectual
approach, using an object which determines the knowledge, is absurd. This upward method of Feuerbach
causes God to be a symbol rather than a reality.
Since in Feuerbach’s notion, God cannot transcend our mind, he cannot be known
apart from our minds.
It follows that any idea a person has of God is just the same as some symbol of
God, not a notion of God himself.
He cannot be known apart from the relation to our lives because he does
transcend the mind of the thinker.[16]
This notion of God taken as part of Feuerbach’s first principle is absurd
because it requires two suppositions.[17]
The first supposition is that one cannot
know reality through the senses.
This first supposition takes ideas to be pictures or substitutes of reality
because if one cannot know reality they can only have some kind of symbolic
idea of the reality.
This supposition is without merit, it is not readily apparent rather it is more
reasonable to claim that ideas are transparent; they are real not extra mental. If God cannot be known apart from
the individual mind then knowledge of God must be based entirely on experience. Feuerbach’s knowledge of God is a
knowledge attained without reason.
Feuerbach saw this modern method as a way to transcend the intellect and
understand God at his source rather than through a false notion clouded by the
intellect.
At the heart of this principle is a deep seeded belief that the use of the
intellectual system does not really lead to an understanding of God.[18]
The problem with this argument is that having
an experience of God claims nothing about God as he is but rather only
something of how God relates to us,
which itself is weak because it is impossible for one to understand how God
relates to the individual person without knowing anything about God.
The second presupposition is that the
mind is the true measure of reality.
It follows from Feuerbach’s first principle that God is measured by men. This claim must be incorrect
because what is greater is never subordinate to what is lesser.[19]
In the words of Fulton Sheen “We are not the measure of God, God is our measure.”[20] To claim that the mind is the true sense of reality
claims that philosophy is merely ones analysis of experience with regard to a
particular circumstance.
Philosophy is then reduced to some form of contemporary psychology, a study of
the brain.
To believe this is to reject the truth that everything in the universe is fixed
to natural laws and that man is a part of this universe and subject to its laws.[21]
It seems obvious that everything in the universe
is fixed to natural laws. Every
sane human person lives their life conforming to these principles. Scientists set out to demonstrate
why this are the way they are in the world assuming that there is an order to
the world.
This presupposition is well grounded because our sensual experience over and
over again tells us it is true.
No matter how many times I try to add five and five I am always going to get
ten. If there were
not natural laws then the sun would not always rise in the east and acorns would
not always fall from oak trees rather than simply fly away when they become
detached from the tree.
Further it seems obvious that man realizes that he is a part of this nature. Why else cannot I fly even if my
mind desires me to fly?
God of Evolution
If the world were not determined to
fixed and unalterable laws our universe would always be in flux. This idea that nothing is but rather everything is becoming necessarily eliminates first
principles all together.
This notion of evolution is problematic because every motion presupposes
something that is immutable.
This does not imply that something’s change or evolve like the weather, however
there must be some unmoved first mover which is immaterial, universal, and
necessary that is the cause of motion for nothing is the cause of itself.[22]
“We must therefore conclude that through the intellect the soul knows bodies by
knowledge which is immaterial, universal and necessary.”[23] It
is simply not possible for the first mover to be a mover of becoming.
If the first mover where the prime mover
of becoming there would have to be
some other cause that is moving him because things do not move themselves from
potency to act.
Things cannot move themselves from potency to act because what is lesser cannot
come from what is greater.
If something is only in potency to act there must be an act that acts upon it
to actualize the potency.
It is only logical then that there must be a first prime mover who has complete
actuality because of himself.
By arguing that the idea which man
contemplates is himself Feuerbach introduced a religion of evolution. As a person continues to further
understand himself, God continues to change and evolve. This notion is based heavily on
the belief that one’s thoughts are not representative of what is real but
rather what is of value to the particular person.
This evolution of religion is however unscientific because there is no longer a
requirement for proof because the truth of religion is subjective.[24]
God is no longer Being, as he reveals himself in Deuteronomy but is rather becoming.
If God however is becoming an
apparent first principle, the law of non contradiction, ceases to be true. It all of the sudden becomes
possible for a thing to both be and not be in the same respect in the same time.[25]
Perceptionist
School
Essence
of Christianity is a work of perceptionism or idealism,
the philosophical system that holds that knowledge is relative to what is
obtained through the senses.
The idealist school at its core believes that the mind cannot transcend itself
to know anything outside itself.[26]
This notion began in the modern era with the works of Locke and was heavily
influenced later by the work of Emmanuel Kant who died in 1840 was a
contemporary of Feuerbach.
It is this notion of perceptionism that
brings Feuerbach to his ultimate conclusion that to understand God one must
turn inward.
As a perceptionsit he clearly holds that it is not possible to understand the
world outside of the body, let alone a metaphysical world. Since the infinite metaphysical
world is unknowable through the senses he is left with no other option than to
look inward.
This leads him to believe that the only way something can be affirmed is
through ourselves.[27]
“The power of the object over him is
therefore the power of his own nature.”[28]
What is true is not true in terms of some objective truth but rather as a
subjective truth, how it relates to the individual person.
Conclusion
Feuerbach’s work Essence of Christianity, while a great influence to many, is a work
that does not arrive at truth.
The work is flawed from the outset with a bad first principle. The first principle is caught up
in a bad epistemology and philosophy of religion that is deeply rooted in of
perceptionsim.
While understandable in its historical context, this work should not be read
with an intention of coming to philosophical truth.
[1] Harvey, Van A., "Ludwig Andreas
Feuerbach", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2008 Edition),
Edward N.
Zalta (ed.),
URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2008/entries/ludwig-feuerbach/>.
[2]
Redding, Paul, "Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2010
Edition), Edward N.
Zalta (ed.),
URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2010/entries/hegel/>.
[3] Sass,
Hans-Martin. "Feuerach, Ludwig Andreas (1804 - 1872)." In Routledge
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, by Craugm Edward, 635 - 640. New York:
Routledge, 1998. 636.
[5]
Coplestone,
Frederick. A History of Philosophy VII Fichte to
Nietzsche.Westminster:The
Newman Press, 1965. 295.
[13]Aquinas,
Thomas. Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. trans.
C.I.
Litzinger O.P. Notre Dame: Dumb Ox Books 1993.
Book 7 lecture 1.
[14] Sheen, Fulton. God and Intelligence in Modern
Philosophy. Eugene: Wipf
and Stock Publishers, 2009. 142 -146.
[17]
It has previously been
demonstrated in this paper that first principles cannot be grounded on
suppositions
[26]
Coffey, Peter. Epistemology or the Theory of Knowledge. Eugene: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2009 reprint. 42.
No comments:
Post a Comment