Is There Still A Place for Philosophy in Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft: Aphorisms on Being, Time, and Sex

(OR) My God Is Purple With Pink Polka Dots, Although He Is Really Only an Expression of My True Human Essence

I.
Being

Feuerbach promises nothing less than the philosophy of the future, but he chooses instead to spend 65.714% of the book looking backward toward the philosophy and theology of the past. In doing so, he does make some pretty spectacular suppositions. For instance, he claims that theology and speculative philosophy, while trying to posit God, end up only affirming atheism (22-23). More importantly (what can be more substantial than the complete dissolution of God, you ask), Feuerbach states that the old-fashioned philosophy said “I” is only an abstract thinking being which is distinct from its physical body, but, but, the new, better, futuristic philosophy says, “I am a real, sensuous being, and, indeed, the body in its totality is my ego, my essence itself” (54). Philosophy that made thought primary, casting doubt on the world of the senses, reversed the order of things. The formation of ideas, rational thought, and the squawking voice of consciousness are all just by-products of a real, complete, holistic sensuous being.



II.
Time

It may seem a bit pompous of Feuerbach to title his book Principles of the Philosophy of the Future if all he is doing is eliminating God and dualism from the philosophical equation (where are the ontological jet packs already?). However, Feuerbach’s positive philosophy (if there is one to be found) is profoundly linked to man’s notion of time. First, he claims that “space and time are not mere forms of appearance; they are conditions of being, forms of reason, and laws of existence as well as thought” (60). Man’s sense of being here, now, in a space, in a time, with the external world impinging on him is reality (Das Dasein is not very futuristic, you challenge). Wait, the future is coming. Feuerbach contends that time is the only way to explain and “unite” contradictory “determinations” in a single being (63). Thought therefore breaks up time into fractional time slices, which interrupts continuous sensuous experience (64). Back to the future, the conceptual future is, Feuerbach declares, found in the fulfillment of man’s potential through unity with fellow man. That’s the future of man, a communal utopia, and the philosophy of the future should align itself with the needs of mankind (73).



III.
Sex

Can an aphorism be composed as a question and still be an aphorism?
Does Feuerbach’s explanation of man’s conception of God really explain God or man’s need to posit such a being? Isn’t the fear of the unknown, the infinity preceding our existence and the infinity that is sure to follow, that which forces man to create God, as a coping mechanism? If we remove metaphysics from the philosophical equation, isn’t philosophy only left to clean up practical empirical problems, like science’s janitor? Isn’t Feuerbach the sexiest thing we’ve read? Wouldn’t sex be the highest activity for Feuerbach since it combines the most intimate form of unity with fellow man, and with more people being a happy end result of the act?