SOURCE: Tatarkiewicz, Wladyslaw. “Feuerbach and Naturalism.” In Nineteenth Century Philosophy, translated by Chester A. Kisiel, pp. 50-56. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1973.

[In the following excerpt, Tatarkiewicz surveys the position of Feuerbach's thought in relation to naturalism, German idealism, and materialism.]

In Germany after 1830 there was … a change in philosophy. The forerunner of these new trends was Ludwig Feuerbach. Just as Comte and Mill had done, he abandoned transcendental theories in philosophy, metaphysics, and idealism to initiate a minimalistic trend. But conditions in Germany were different from those in France or England. His philosophy, similar to their philosophy in what it opposed, was different in what it asserted: Feuerbach was a materialist.

THE ARRANGEMENT OF PHILOSOPHICAL CAMPS IN GERMANY AROUND 1830

Idealism predominated in Germany, especially in the panlogical and dialectical form given it by Hegel. Already Schelling's romantic idealism was receding into the background. There was no empiricism in Germany; but now Kantianism was also losing supporters: nearly everyone joined the idealist movement.

A change began in the Hegelian left wing and Feuerbach was one of its products. When he broke with idealistic metaphysics, others followed him and the general retreat gained rapid momentum.

LIFE AND WORK

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) came from a family that produced three outstanding people almost simultaneously: he was the son of an eminent jurist and a relative of a great painter. He first studied theology, then under the influence of Hegel changed to philosophy, but to the end of his life religious problems remained paramount for him. Although he later broke with Hegel, he always retained some features of Hegelianism. His radical philosophical, political, and religious views made it impossible for him to pursue an academic career, so he settled in the provinces and worked independently, at first materially secure, then in difficult conditions. He was a realist in philosophy, but an idealist in life, courageous and unselfish.

His earlier works were primarily devoted to the history of philosophy, his later ones to the philosophy of religion. The History of Philosophy from Bacon to Spinoza (1833), a monograph on Leibniz (1837), and one on Bayle (1838) were the most important of the first period. Most important during the second were: The Essence of Christianity, 1841, his most important and most influential book, and Principles of the Philosophy of the Future, 1843. He owed his renown to the radicalism that prevented him from pursuing a career. He greatly influenced the radical youth of that time, especially during the revolutionary ferment after 1840, but he exerted this influence solely through his writings, for living in the provinces, he had no personal contact with them.

PREDECESSORS

He began from Hegel but then changed to a directly opposite position. In 1839 he had already began to criticize Hegelianism. He came close to the views of the materialists, especially to the French writers of the eighteenth century; he was also influenced by Spinoza. He then left the confining circle of German philosophy, and the change he caused in German philosophy reflected non-German influences.

VIEWS

1. OPPOSITION TO IDEALISTIC METAPHYSICS

For Hegel, authentic existence consisted of general ideas, but Feuerbach, who had freed himself from Hegel's influence, returned to the natural view that existence is composed of individual things and that ideas are only abstractions. For Hegel, if thought and existence were in agreement, it was because existence agreed with thought; for Feuerbach, on the contrary, it was because thought is subordinate to the laws of existence. For Hegel, the criterion of truth consisted of concepts; Feuerbach was convinced that only phenomena could be the criterion of truth. Feuerbach completely departed from idealism.

2. SENSUALISM AND MATERIALISM

Above all, he wished to reject the speculative ideas that characterized nineteenth-century German philosophy. It was said that in him “German philosophy contradicted itself.” As a matter of fact, he ceased to view philosophy and its task as most of his countrymen did; and, in opposition to them, he said “My philosophy is that I have no philosophy.”

He did have a philosophy, but it was more concrete, empirical, and real. In the spirit of the emerging epoch he said: “Philosophy should again associate itself with the natural sciences, and the natural sciences should unite with philosophy.” This link, based on mutual needs and internal necessity, “will be more lasting, fortuitous, and fruitful than the present inappropriate relationship of philosophy with theology.”

His philosophy was quite simple. In the theory of knowledge he retreated from rationalism and returned to empiricism and sensualism. Only what is given by the senses “is clear as the sun. The secret of direct knowledge lies in sensuality.” In the theory of existence, however, he passed from idealism to naturalism. His axiom was that only nature exists, that every existing thing is subject to the same natural law. “There is nothing beyond nature and man.” “Any solution that seeks to go beyond the boundaries of nature and man is worthless. … The deepest secrets are hidden in the simplest natural objects. The return to nature is the only recourse.” He was not only a naturalist but also a materialist: he was convinced that nature, which represented the only existence, is basically material. He said: “Thought from existence, and not existence from thought.” From him comes the well-known saying, which was supposed to clearly express the materiality of everything, even man: “Man is what he eats” (der Mensch ist, was er isst).

His views—sensualism and materialism—were not novelties in philosophy, but they were unexpected in Germany in the nineteenth century and they were opposed to those prevailing at that time. The shift was vehement. To espouse such views as Feuerbach's required boldness and independence of mind. In their details, however, they were still not fully determined and elaborated. Marx and Engels owed much to him and admitted this, but they did not act in complete uniformity with him; they did not consider him a consistent materialist.

3. ANTHROPOLOGISM

Man occupied first place in his philosophy: he regarded man as its proper object and anthropology as the universal science. “God was my first thought, reason my second, and man my third and last.” He passed from a theological philosophy to a Hegelian and then to an anthropological one.

By no means, however, did he oppose man and nature: he viewed man and everything that exists as a creation of nature. “The new philosophy makes man and nature, which is his base, the only universal and lofty object of philosophy.” His “anthropologism” was a form of naturalism.

He considered man the most perfect creation of nature. For this reason, man was an ideal for him: a new ideal in place of the earlier supernatural ideals. In his philosophy, a process took place similar to what had occurred in the philosophy of Comte.

4. NATURALISTIC ETHICS

The naturalistic assumptions of Feuerbach also appeared in his ethics. Because there is nothing beyond nature, there is nothing above it. There is no greater good than nature and one should show it the greatest reverence. “Bread, wine, and water are holy to us.” And above all, man: “Man is a god to man.” All the drives that nature has given man are valid. “Follow your inclinations and desires, but follow all of them: then you will not be the victim of any one of them.”

Such an ethic had to be mundane. Feuerbach combated the ideas of eternity and immortality from the moral point of view: he believed that we only begin to live an authentic life when we realize that death is a reality; for then our thoughts and actions are concentrated on what is real, not dissipated on other-worldly matters. “Thought about the historical past has an infinitely greater ability to arouse man to great deeds than daydreams about theological eternity.”

Yet, it was precisely in ethics that Feuerbach's materialism reached its limit. He believed that materialism teaches us what is, but not what should be; the state of nature does not give prescriptions on how man should live. He wrote: “For me materialism is the foundation of the edifice of human knowledge, but … it is not the building itself. Looking back, I completely agree with the materialists, but I do not agree with them in going forward.”

5. NATURALISTIC THEORY OF RELIGION

Feuerbach thought about religion throughout his life. Convinced as he was that nothing is supernatural, for him it could only be a human affair. Man is not created in the image and likeness of God, but rather, God has been created by man in his own image and likeness (Xenophon once said this). Very simple needs have led man to religion: “What man himself is not and would like to be he imagines as existing in his gods: divinities are human desires, imagined as if they had been realized and transformed into real beings.” Without human desires there would be no gods, and man's divinities are similar to his desires. Primarily adolescent needs find their satisfaction in religion, and, for this reason, it has meaning in the juvenile phase of humanity; afterward, education and culture, which realize the later dreams of humanity, take its place.

Nonetheless, Feuerbach believed that the needs leading to religion are eternal and, therefore, that religion is eternal. He also believed that its role is important: great eras in the history of humanity are primarily distinguished by their relationship to religion. New eras arise when the relationship of people to religion has changed. He also retained the belief that religion is noble: he said of himself, that in reducing theology to anthropology he rather raised anthropology to religion.

INFLUENCE

Feuerbach's original contributions to philosophy were not great. He used his intellectual energy combating the views of his predecessors. The naturalists of other countries, France and England, had arrived at the same results even earlier. But for his country he was a pioneer, not only in theory, but in politics as well; the idealistic doctrines of German philosophers ended in nationalistic totalism and the cult of the Prussian state, but his doctrine led to humanitarianism. From this time, everything in Germany opposing idealism and absolutism—naturalism, materialism, positivism, humanitarianism—was directly or indirectly derived from Feuerbach.

THE MATERIALISM OF THE NATURAL SCIENTISTS

Feuerbach's materialism found supporters in the Hegelian left wing. Besides the materialists with humanitarian interests, another group of materialists appeared during his lifetime, recruited from the natural scientists. Naturally, they had a different approach to these problems than did Feuerbach, who was a humanist, theologian, and philosopher by training. The natural scientists began to play an important role in the intellectual life of Germany; after the period of speculative philosophy there was a period of intensive inquiries and discoveries in the natural sciences. Confirmed materialists among them were J. Moleschott, K. Vogt, and L. Büchner. In clear formulas, they asserted that psychic phenomena are derived from physical ones, that “there is no thought without phosphorus and that, bluntly speaking, thoughts are in the same relationship to the brain as bile to the liver or urine to the kidneys.” They came out with their views shortly after 1850: Moleschott's The Course of Lives appeared in 1852, Büchner's Force and Matter in 1855. In the same year, Vogt defended the materialistic position at a conference of natural scientists in Göttingen.

However, another group of natural scientists opposed materialism: the physiologist Wagner combated Vogt, and the chemist Liebig opposed Moleschott. The materialistic trend was not only a response to the flowering of the natural sciences but also a reaction to idealistic philosophy, a symptom of disrespect for it and a switch to the opposite extreme. Countries that did not have idealism in the nineteenth century did not have materialism. Moleschott, Vogt, and Büchner did not contribute to the development of materialism. On the contrary, their superficial conception contributed to the rapid reaction against it.

FURTHER DEVELOPMENT

Feuerbach's historical role was in forming a link between Hegel and Marx and Engels. At one time, as Engels wrote, “we were all enchanted by him and for a time we became Feuerbachians.” But Marx and Engels went further. They charged Feuerbach with even having broken with what was valuable in Hegel, namely, the dialectic. They criticized him, first, for cultivating an old-fashioned, mechanistic materialism, and, second, for not having derived social consequences from materialism; they argued that his conception of society, history, and morality was, at bottom, incompatible with materialism. By not considering the dialectic and by ignoring the historical factor, he operated with abstractions and schemata. He thought that he was understanding man realistically but treated him abstractly, for he took only the biological, not the social, view. He ignored the environment, which is changeable; he created a fictional “general” man. The result of this, in ethics, as Engels wrote, was that “It was fixed for all times, all nations, all conditions and, precisely for that reason, it could have no application in a particular time or place.” This was also the case with Feuerbach's understanding of religion. “The cult of abstract man, which was the nucleus of Feuerbach's new religion,” Engels wrote, “had to be replaced by a science of real people and their historical development.” This, beginning in 1845, was done by Marx and Engels.