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Fichte, Eberhard, and the Psychology of Religion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2010

Ben Crowe
Ben Crowe*
Affiliation:
University of Utah
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Extract

In marked contrast to much of twentieth-century psychology and philosophy, prevailing accounts of affect, emotion, and sentiment in the eighteenth century took these phenomena to be rational and, to a certain extent, cognitive.1 Because of a combination of disciplinary diffusion and general lack of physicalist assumptions, accounts of affectivity in the eighteenth century also tended to be quite flexible and nuanced. This is particularly true of an influential stream of Anglo-Scottish and German thought on morality, aesthetics, and the philosophy of religion. Following Shaftesbury, many of the most prominent philosophers of the century regarded affective states and processes as playing a crucial role in accounts of value. In most cases, this tendency was combined with a sort of anti-rationalism, that is, with a tendency to minimize the role of reason in everything from common sense perceptual knowledge to religious belief. Hutcheson's moral sense theory and his well-known and influential criticisms of moral rationalism exemplify this trend.2 It is perhaps more pronounced in Lord Kames, who followed the lead of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson in aesthetics, moral theory, philosophy of religion, anthropology, and history.3 In Germany, this stream of thought was quite well-received by philosophers both inside and outside the dominant Wolffian tradition.4 Particularly important and influential in this respect were Johann Georg Hamann, who drew upon Hutcheson, Hume, and the “Common Sense” school to defend a conception of faith as “sentiment (Empfindung),” and Johann Gottfried Herder, a polymath and philosophical pioneer whose work in psychology, anthropology, history, aesthetics, biblical criticism, and theology consistently stresses the fundamental role of passion, affect, and sensibility in every aspect of human culture.5

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ARTICLES
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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 104 , Issue 1 , 23 December 2010 , pp. 93 - 110
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2010

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References

1 For an erudite and informative account of the historical process underlying this shift in perspective, see Dixon, Thomas, From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Hutcheson's most well-known and influential works are: An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (ed. Wolfgang Leidhold; Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 2004) and An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense (ed. Aaron Garrett; Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 2002). These works originally appeared in 1725 and 1728, respectively. Hutcheson's philosophy of religion is more pronounced in A System of Moral Philosophy (ed. Daniel Carey; London: Continuum, 2005), which first appeared posthumously. Most contemporary scholarship is concerned with Hutcheson's place in the development of modern moral philosophy. A few works, however, include discussions of his religious views. See, for example, Kivy, Peter, The Seventh Sense: Francis Hutcheson and Eighteenth-Century British Aesthetics (Oxford: Clarendon, 2003) 111–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Kivy's verdict is unsparingly negative. For two more balanced accounts, see Rauscher, Frederick, “Moral Realism and the Divine Essence in Hutcheson,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 20 (2003) 165–81Google Scholar and Gill, Michael B., The British Moralists on Human Nature and the Birth of Secular Ethics (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2006) 181–200CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696–1782) is virtually ignored today but was much admired in Britain and in Germany in the eighteenth century. His views on religion are found in 1) Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion (ed. Mary Catherine Moran; Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 2005) and 2) Sketches of the History of Man (ed. James A. Harris; 3 vols.; Indianapolis, Ind.: Liberty Fund, 2007).

4 Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700–1766) and Moses Mendelssohn (1729–1786) were two prominent representatives of the Wolffian tradition who were also receptive to many ideas found in the Anglo-Scottish tradition deriving from Shaftesbury, particularly in the field of aesthetics. see Nivelle, Armand, Kunst- und Dichtungstheorien zwischen Aufklärung und Klassik (2d ed.; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 For a discussion of Herder that also focuses on his innovative departure from Wolffian psychology, see my “Beyond Theological Rationalism: The Contemporary Relevance of Herder's Psychology of Religion,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 21 (2009) 249–73.

6 Two excellent studies of the history of the modern science of religion that discuss its eighteenth-century background are Sharpe, Eric J., Comparative Religion: A History (London: Duckworth, 1986)Google Scholar and Byrne, Peter, Natural Religion and the Nature of Religion: The Legacy of Deism (London: Routledge, 1989)Google Scholar.

7 References to Fichte's works are given beginning with the critical edition, J.-G. Fichte. Gesamtausgabe der bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (ed. Reinhard Lauth et. al; Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1964–). When applicable, reference is also made to the relevant English translations according to the following abbreviations:

8 Series I, volume 5 (I/5), 352; IW, 148.

9 I/5, 337; IW, 153.

10 I/5, 428.

11 I/5, 432–33 [italics in original].

12 For a general overview of Eberhard's life and work, see Haβler, Gerda, Johann August Eberhard (1739–1809). Ein streitbarer Geist an der Grenzen der Aufklärung (Halle/Saale: Hallescher, 2000)Google Scholar.

13 See The Kant-Eberhard Controversy (ed. Henry Allison; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974) and Beiser, Frederick C., The Fate of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant to Fichte (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987) 217–24Google Scholar.

14 Eberhard, J. A., Über den Gott des Herrn Professor Fichtes und den Götzen seiner Gegner. Eine ruhige Prüfung seiner Appellation an das Publikum in einigen Briefe (Halle: Hemmerde and Schwetschke, 1799) 19.Google Scholar

15 Eberhard, Ueber den Gott, 20.

16 Ibid., 21–22.

17 Ibid., 22 [italics in original].

18 Ibid., 23 [italics in original].

19 See, for example, the “German Logic,” or Vernünftige Gedanken von den Kräften des menschlichen Verstandes. Und ihrem richtigen Gebrauche in der Erkenntnis der Wahrheit by Christian Wolff (Halle, 1712; [repr., Hildesheim: Olms, 1965]) lxxxli.

20 Eberhard, Über den Gott, 23.

21 Ibid., 23.

22 Eberhard's fellow neologian, J. J. Spalding, authored an influential rationalist critique of “enthusiasm” that went through five editions between 1761 and 1784. See Spalding, J. J., Gedanken über den Werth der Gefühle in dem Christenthum (ed. Beutel, Albrecht and Jersak, Tobias; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). Eberhard provides his own analysis of enthusiasm in Allgemeine Theorie des Denkens und Empfindens (Berlin: Voβ, 1786Google Scholar; repr., Brussels: Culture et Civilisation, 1968) 173–75.

23 Eberhard, Ueber den Gott, 24.

24 Ibid., 25.

25 For an account of this aspect of the neologians' program, see Allison, Henry E., Lessing and the Enlightenment: His Philosophy of Religion and Its Relation to Eighteenth-Century Thought (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 1966) 38–42Google Scholar.

26 Eberhard, J. A., Sittenlehre der Vernunft (Frankfurt am Main: Athenäum, 1971) 5.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., 11–13.

28 Ibid., 12.

29 Ibid., 46.

30 Ibid., 47.

31 Ibid., 49.

32 Ibid., 49–50.

33 Ibid., 50.

34 Eberhard, Allgemeine Theorie, 32.

35 Ibid., 70–72.

36 Ibid., 149.

37 Ibid., 66.

38 Ibid., 88–90.

39 Ibid., 90.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid., 181.

42 Ibid., 182.

43 Ibid., 183.

44 Ibid., 183–84 [italics in original].

45 Ibid., 184.

46 Ibid., 185–86.

47 II/5, 137.

48 Ibid.

49 I/4, 206–207; IW, 33–34.

50 I/4, 211; IW, 38 [italics in original].

51 WLnm, 472.

52 I/2, 147.

53 I/2, 147.

54 II/5, 137.

55 I/2, 147.

56 My account of “pragmatic history” in Fichte closely follows Daniel Breazeale, “Fichte's Conception of Philosophy as a ‘Pragmatic History of the Human Mind’ and the Contributions of Kant, Platner, and Maimon,” JHI 62 (2001) 685–703. For a discussion of “pragmatic history” in Herder and other eighteenth-century thinkers, see Zammito, John H., Kant, Herder and the Birth of Anthropology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002) 336–39Google Scholar.

57 Herder, J. G., “On Recent German Literature: First Collection of Fragments,” in Selected Early Works 1764–1767: Addresses, Essays, and Drafts; Fragments on Recent German Literature (trans. Menze, Ernest A. and Palma, Michael; University Park, Penn.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1992) 94.Google Scholar

58 Kant's works are cited here from the standard edition: Kants Gesammelte Schriften (ed. Deutschen Akademie der Wissenschaften; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1900–) 7:417n.

59 There is a voluminous and contentious literature on the primacy of practical reason in Fichte. For some of the most important recent discussions, see: Neuhouser, Frederick, Fichte's Theory of Subjectivity (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1990) 47–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martin, Wayne M., “ ‘Without a Striving, No Object is Possible’: Fichte's Striving Doctrine and the Primacy of Practice,” in New Perspectives on Fichte (ed. Rockmore, Tom and Breazeale, Daniel; Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities, 1996) 19–34Google Scholar; Breazeale, Daniel, “Certainty, Universal Validity, and Conviction: The Methodological Primacy of Practical Reason within the Jena Wissenschaftslehre,” in New Perspectives, 35–60Google Scholar; Martin, Wayne M., Idealism and Objectivity: Understanding Fichte's Jena Project (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1997) 118–25Google Scholar; Breazeale, Daniel, “The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory: Fichte and the Primacy of Practical Reason,” International Philosophical Quarterly 36 (1996) 47–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wood, Allen W., “The ‘I’ as Principle of Practical Philosophy,” in The Reception of Kant's Critical Philosophy: Fichte, Schelling and Hegel (ed. Sedgwick, Sally; Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2000) 93–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ameriks, Karl, “Fichte's Appeal Today: The Hidden Primacy of the Practical,” in The Emergence of German Idealism (ed. Baur, Michael and Dahlstrom, Daniel O.; Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1999) 116–32Google Scholar; and Ameriks, Karl, “The Practical Foundation of Philosophy in Kant, Fichte, and After,” in The Reception of Kant's Critical Philosophy, 109–28Google Scholar.

60 Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, 7:119.

61 See, for example, Fichte's critique of “dogmatism,” i.e., Spinozism, for failing to achieve precisely this integration (I/4, 263–64; IW, 97–98).

62 II/4, 288–89.

63 I/5, 351; IW, 147.

64 I/6, 413; IW, 180.

65 II/5, 149.

66 II/4, 303–4.

67 I/6, 379–80; IW, 168.

68 I/5, 296; SE, 320.

69 I/5, 296; SE, 320–21.

70 II/4, 302–3.

71 II/4, 310.

72 I/5, 357; IW, 153.

73 WLnm, 230–31.

74 II/4, 320.

75 Eberhard, Sittenlehre, 135.

76 Ibid., 149.

77 I/5, 218; SE, 230–31.

78 I/5, 218; SE, 231.

79 I/5, 219; SE, 231.