Open-Hearted Philosophy

In the Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, Ludwig Feuerbach brings to light what he calls “the sensuous.” The sensuous, unlike thinking which is the result of human rationality, is that which is felt with human feeling and emotion .

What is differing in Feuerbach’s argument is, whereas the old philosopher was in continuous opposition with the senses, the new philosopher thinks “in harmony and peace with the senses” (54), therefore uniting both thought and being.

Feuerbach wishes to differentiate the sensuous from thinking. In other words, reality that is deciphered by thought first and then perceived by sensation is a “contradiction.” If one consciously reasons about the idea first and then experiences the sensation second, then the sensation merely becomes an attribute of the idea. Yet, the sensuous should be made into its own subject, independent from thought, wherein the primary meaning of truth is not obtained from the idea. Feuerbach argues that the true and divine should not require a proof but instead should be sensed with immediate knowledge - for instance, that which speaks for itself, that is certain and straightforward. Also, it is evident that it is only through the senses that one has access to immediate knowledge, unlike rationality.

Furthermore, it is only when one is capable of passion and love does he deserve the name of being. Human beings should not exist only as thinking beings, but as sensuous beings also; in other words, heavily influenced by human blood, human instinct. That is, they should exist with their senses: perception, feeling, and love. Yet, human senses, as Feuerbach elaborates the idea, is not limited to external things only, such as hearing the sound of the waves, but it is also internal, what the human mind makes of it, in which the same sounds of the waves can be, “the soulful voice of love and wisdom” (58). Thus, he admits to the importance of empiricism, but he wishes to emphasize - especially to the old philosophers that perceive rational as the real and highest notion - that “man” is the rational, the centre of reason. He encourages human interaction, because things can only be certain if they are believed by another.

In Principles, Feuerbach reveals how the deepest and highest truths are concealed in human feeling, and thus, in man himself. In this work, his aim is to have the meaning and essence of feeling elevated to consciousness, so that one can think as a living and real being, instead of as a thinker only.

Hegel and rational choice

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/the-failure-of-rational-choice/?src=twrhp

Feuerbach; reason=god=man

Feuerbach is the first reading which I actually enjoyed which thus entailed somewhat of an understanding of the reading. Feuerbach weaves his way through a few ideas; ideas which range from the contradiction of Theists to a concept which I will be discussing; reason and its equivalence to god, and god’s equivalence to man.

The first 15 pages are so seem to be devoted to picking away at religion; Feuerbach first seems to acknowledge a god-a theological god-and this god’s relation to reason. Section 6 of the Principles of the Philosophy of the Future is where Feuerbach launches this slow attack on religion. This quote shows Feuerbach’s take on god and its relation to reason: “…is nothing but the essence of reason itself” (Feuerbach Section 6) here we can evidently see Feuerbach’s idea of god and what, in actuality god is. Throughout section 6 Feuerbach seems to create a relationship between god and reason, and it seemed at first-to me of course-that Feuerbach seems to accept a notion of god but that his god is not the theological one which Christianity poses but rather one that seems to encompass reason. Later Feuerbach seems to say that if you limit reason you limit god, meaning that, if we conceive of reason as being limited by sensation then god is limited by sensation, here he seems to begin to demean the theological definition of god (Here also began my question of whether Feuerbach believed in a god of some sort). In Section 7 of the reading Feuerbach seems to attack the theist directly, in what seems to me as a logical fallacy in the theist’s claims and it is this which I feel Feuerbach is exploiting. “He conceives god as a being; namely, according to his imagination, god is a spiritual and unsensuous being, but, in accordance with actuality, that is, with the truth, he is a sensuous being…” (Feuerbach Section 7).

It is in section 7 which Feuerbach seems to make the transition from god being equivalent to reason to god being a creation of man (This is where I was convinced Feuerbach does not believe in god). “God is an object of man, and only of man;” further down he says “If, now, god is an object of man-and indeed inasmuch as he really is a necessary and essential object-what is expressed in the being of this object is merely the peculiar essence of man.” (Feuerbach Section 7). I believe what Feuerbach is saying is that god is only what we have created it to be, an image of ourselves into this metaphysical being. Feuerbach continues his attack on the theological god in Section 8 where he states contradictions in both the idea of religion and religion’s idea of god. “In short, man transforms his thoughts and even his emotions into thoughts and emotions of god” a few lines down he says: “…god is self-contradictory, for he is supposed to be a non-human and superhuman being;” (Feuerbach Section 8). At this point I was not only intrigued by Feuerbach’s remarks but fully convinced on Feuerbach’s perspective on god, and its relation to man; the thinking thing.

Later in the reading Feuerbach says some interesting things which have by then deviated slightly to my concept of discussion; if a being on a comet was to encounter the religious scriptures of theology, also another very bold statement in which Mankind as a whole, as a species has achieved a divine knowledge. It is this last statement which I feel is directly related to the title Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, Feuerbach’s analysis of mankind as a species and it’s knowledge being that of divine nature is only further supported by later scientists’ discoveries like Alan Turing, Benoit Mandelbrot and many others.

How does man achieve freedom?

Well, obviously, through Feuerbach’s new Philosophy of the Future. But first, let’s denounce modern philosophical thought and religion.

More seriously, on page 19, Feuerbach makes an important claim: “That from which God is free, from that you must liberate yourself if you want to reach God; and you make yourself really free when you conceive him. Consequently, if you think of God as a being that does not presuppose any other beings or objects, then you yourself will also think without presupposing an external object; the attribute that you affix to God is an attribute of your thought. Only what is activity in man is being in God or imagined as such.” In order for man to be free, he must liberate himself from all that God has liberated himself from--from the sensuous and material objects of the world. Man must realize the essence of reason for that which is in man’s essence will be in his mind. With the realization of reason, man can be truly free.

Taking a step back to the beginning of this reading. Feuerbach spends a significant amount of time differentiating between ordinary theology and speculative philosophy. Ordinary theology imagines God as a being that is completely independent from reason and as a fantasy where as speculative philosophy, strives to present God as rational and as truth itself. Feuerbach claims that if one cannot imagine a being without its senses then God will also be limited by his senses. Philosophy claims that God surpasses these limitations of theology with the realization that reason is satisfied in the infinite being. Just as the essence of the eye is revealed to us through the object of the eye, the essence of reason is revealed to us through the object of god. This determines a certain relationship between man and god: “the essence of the subject [is] derived from the essence of the object” (10). Thus, the essence of man is derived from the essence of God according to speculative philosophy. God is determining the thoughts of man according to modern speculative philosophy whereas in ordinary theology, man determines the thoughts of God because he exists in man’s imagination. According to Descartes and Leibniz, only God can conceive “all things without obscurity, that is, without the senses and the imagination” (13).

Theology and speculative philosophy also differ in their conception of God’s knowledge. Theology because it attributes strictly the senses to God, sees his knowledge as strictly empirical. Divine, sensuous knowledge is all-knowing but in a way that is minute and practically insignificant (he gives the example of God knowing each hair on a man’s head because each hair itself has been counted). This divine knowledge is another fantasy, another thing that Feuerbach believes lies in the imagination. Speculative philosophy posits that God’s knowledge is abstracted from the material and is based in reason.

Theology only conceives of god as a being wholly separated from man and nature. When speculative philosophy tries to intertwine God and man with its ideas of its similarities, God is negated. The traditional theological thinker has a fundamentally different view of God from the modern speculative philosopher but both schools of thought seem to lead to the negation of God--or his lack of existence. Now that man has freed himself from these problematic theories--man needs a new philosophy--a philosophy of the future.

natural religon versus positive religon

“So called natural religion is usually so refined and has such philosophical and moral manners that it allows little of the unique character of religion to shine through; it know how to live so politely , to restrain and accommodate itself so well that it is tolerated everywhere. In contrast, every positive religion has exceedingly strong features and a very marked physiognomy so that it unfailingly reminds one of what it really is with every moment it makes and with every glance one casts upon it.”(98)

In this passage Schleiermacher contrasts positive religion and natural religion. Neither natural religion nor positive religion embodies what true religion is. Both have fundamental flaws that prevent them from becoming true religion.

Religion for Schleiermacher is emotionally and sensory motivated. True religion occurs when a person understands their relationship to the infinite. Both natural and positive religion fail to reach this understanding.

He argues that positive religion; while not true religion is much preferred to natural religion. Positive religion is what organized faith is; it is defined by rituals, scriptures, and tradition; it is the kind of religion that Kant wrote so strongly against.

Schleiermacher agrees with Kant that there are flaws within positive religion. Positive religion has a tendency to focus on aspects that will hinder religion instead of help. They focus on empty tradition instead of the practitioner’s personal experience, they emphasize the differences among positive religion discouraging people to understand the infinite in their own way. Positive religion can never be true religion because of the way organized faith imposes its one interpretation of the infinite on others. Religion is something that must happen through personal experience and so forcing religion on others and discouraging the discovery of personal religious truths in the way institutionalized religion does will never be successful.

. He does not, however, see positive religion as completely pointless because he thinks that at the core of positive religion is the “intuition of the infinite.” Positive religion is much better than natural religion for it has the essence of religion; which unfortunately becomes corrupted through the institutionalization of organized faith.

Natural religion (the kind Kant defended), on the other hand, has no merit in Schleiermacher’s eyes; he sees it as devoid of anything resembling religion. He uses the words “refined,” “manners,” “polite” and “tolerated” in his explanation of natural religion. The contrast between the passive diction he uses to describe natural religion and the active way he describes the raw experimentally based true religion is stark. Natural religion disregards intuition and so Schleiermacher does not see how anyone can be led to religion intuitively through it.

I think there is a tension between Schleiermacher’s assertion that religion is a personal way of coming to understand the infinite and his condemnation of natural religion. It seems that some people may be more prone to understand the infinite through reason rather than emotion. It is strange that he advocates for personal experience with religion and yet he does not approve any interpretation for the definition of religion but his own. He sees nature as something that is based on the individual and yet will only accept his ideas of where religion originates from

Schleiermacher, a legend in his own Zeitgeist

The issues confronted in the work of contextualizing religion within the period of enlightenment are still relevant today. Schleiermacher asks that we consider religion as something separate from the state and politics in order to see it in its truest form. In doing so in his Fifth Speech he refers specifically to Judaism, granting that although it is born in history its religious character is separate. I wonder what Schleiermacher would say about the Jewish state of Israel. How is Schleiermacher to be justified in considering Christianity to be “…more glorious, more sublime, more worthy of adult humanity, more deeply penetrating into the spirit of systematic religion, and extending farther over the whole universe”? His only defense seems to be in his historical and societal bias, yet upon what grounds should we consider the validity of his preceding notions of intuition as they are subject to the same vulnerabilities? It seems that Schleiermacher would like to simultaneously allow religion to be felt by individuals in a multiplicity of expressions while still maintaining that Christianity is the most conducive form. If we were to construct a spectrum of secularism with France on one end, Israel on the other and the United States somewhere in the middle which would most resemble the level of separation Schleiermacher had in mind? Furthermore Schleiermacher’s discussion of religious variety is limited to the “positive” western traditions. Would he allow that Buddhism or Islam is actually the truest representation of religious feeling today since they are most widespread? If Schleiermacher considers religion to be that which facilitates morality within a community how does he justify that the values of one religion to be more correct than another? For example in the United States in the case of gay marriage and abortion some would argue that religion is precisely amoral. Finally what is most troubling with the conclusion of Schleiermacher’s Fifth Speech is his allusion to the sanctity of the written word. According to Schleiermacher it seems the ability to understand a text is just as much the responsibility of the reader as it is of the writer. He does in fact seem rely on the temporal nature of what he writes allowing that his words are finite and the world will likely change. There seems to be an overall tone of neurotic awareness of his act of writing throughout the entire text.

Schleiermacher & Intuition

“For if you now, as I hope, pass a more favorable judgment on religion, if you realize that a special and noble human capacity lies at its core, which must consequently also be cultivated wherever it shows itself, then it cannot be offensive to you to intuit it in the determinate forms in which is has already actually appeared.”(p.98)

This passage is about religion and what Schleiermacher believes its purpose actually is.

In Schleiermacher’s fifth speech, he explains how religion is not just language, words, or even just a communion of people; but religion is almost like a direct way to reveal our true, noble nature as humans. According to Schleiermacher, religion is a system that connects humans to their own nature, intuition (feeling). Since intuition drives human beings to participate in the actions they partake in, as well as in the ideas they choose to feed; it can be said that intuition, or feeling, governs human beings. Although, taking into account all of the negative destructive qualities of human nature, religion acts as a filter that rationally understands our intuition and puts aside the “evil” traits to lead us into a nobler state of being.

At the core of every human is feeling, and Schleiermacher goes on to explain this intuition and how it is developed. Intuition is cultivated by “Observing yourself with unceasing effort. Detach all that is not yourself, always proceed with ever sharper sense, and the more you fade from yourself, the clearer the universe will stand forth before you, the more splendidly will you be recompensed for the horror of self-annihilation through the feeling of the infinite in you”(p.68) As I read this I questioned exactly what Schleiermacher meant by saying “detach all that is not yourself”, I came to the conclusion that anything and almost everything is not your actual true self. The clothes we wear, our cars, our girlfriends/boyfriends, the things we have accomplished, our jobs, are all extensions of our life; but these things are not our self, it seems as if the purpose of religion is to make us more instinctual and easy going, rather than being attached or identified with other objects/accomplishments/people. When you detach yourself from everything that is not yourself, you are free (as a human being); and in freedom your choices and possibilities are infinite.

When this nobility and core intuition is more developed in the human, the previous traits of religion that seemed offensive will be understood thoroughly. If one has developed intuition and nobility, he/she is bound to accept situations more frequently, and not be offended by them. With religious rationality being developed to guide humans and connect them with their intuition, the human can make nobler choices. As many followers of religion are deluded by “show” of it, many of them do not truly understand how to connect to themselves; these people may offend others because of their ignorance. However when intuition is developed in the being, he/she would see it and realize it. Then after realizing it, the possibilities or choices he/she can make will be infinite (whether to be offended by it, or not). It is as if you are the only person who has control over your intuition, and things that may have previously offended you are realized as separate objects/people; and if you are detached from the other thing, then it cannot have control over your intuition.

Nevertheless, according to Schleiermacher, the real purpose of religion is to detach humans from the exterior; and connect them with their own interior, or intuition. When this connection is cultivated, then things will appear infinite. However, is this connection something we strive for on a daily basis?