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Ludwig Feuerbach

Life

  • 1804: Born in Landshut, Bavaria, into a prominent legal family.
  • 1823: Begins studying theology at Heidelberg before switching to philosophy under Hegel in Berlin.
  • 1828: Receives his doctorate from the University of Erlangen.
  • 1830: Publishes anonymously Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit (Thoughts on Death and Immortality), which criticized personal immortality and began his break from Hegelianism.
  • 1839: Fully breaks with Hegelian idealism in his work Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy.
  • 1841: Publishes his most influential work, The Essence of Christianity.
  • 1870: Joins the Social Democratic Party.
  • 1872: Dies in Rechenberg, Germany, in relative poverty and obscurity.

People Who Influenced Their Thought

  • Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel: Initially his teacher, whose idealist system Feuerbach would later radically invert.
  • Baruch Spinoza: Influenced Feuerbach's monist and naturalist conception of God and nature.
  • Friedrich Schleiermacher: His emphasis on feeling and dependence in religion impacted Feuerbach's analysis of religious sentiment.

Main Ideas and Publications

  • Das Wesen des Christentums (The Essence of Christianity, 1841): His masterpiece, arguing that God is a projection of human nature and qualities onto an external being.
  • Projection Theory of Religion: Posited that religion is the alienation of humanity's own essential qualities (e.g., love, reason, justice). "Theology is anthropology."
  • Sensuous Materialism: Argued that philosophy must begin from sensuous, material reality, not abstract thought. He championed a "philosophy of the future" based on humanism.
  • Inversion of Hegel: Rejected Hegel's idealism, arguing that the material world and human senses are primary, and thought/Spirit are secondary.

Controversies around his main work or thought

  • Theological Condemnation: His work was immediately condemned by religious authorities as atheistic and a direct attack on Christian doctrine.
  • Critique by Young Hegelians: Former allies, like Bruno Bauer, criticized his philosophy as insufficiently critical and still theological in structure.
  • Marx's Critique: While praising Feuerbach's materialism, Karl Marx criticized him in his Theses on Feuerbach for being contemplative and failing to understand the importance of practical, revolutionary human activity.

Key People Influenced by Their Thought

  • Karl Marx: Used Feuerbach's materialism and concept of alienation as a foundation for his own historical materialism, famously in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.
  • Friedrich Engels: Co-founder of Marxism, who, with Marx, saw Feuerbach as a crucial transitional figure between Hegel and their own philosophy.
  • Richard Wagner: Briefly influenced by Feuerbach's humanism and atheism during his revolutionary period in the 1840s.
  • David Friedrich Strauss: His The Life of Jesus critically influenced Feuerbach, and they were key figures in the Young Hegelian movement.
  • Søren Kierkegaard: Engaged critically with Feuerbach's projection theory, seeing it as a reduction that missed the subjective truth of faith.

Legacy

His anthropological critique of religion and inversion of Hegelian idealism provided the fundamental philosophical groundwork for the development of Marxism and modern secular humanism.