Abstract
In the area of philosophy, early eighteenth-century Germany shows a plurality of tendencies and influences which cannot easily be reduced to a single theme. The penetration of European thought – French, Dutch and above all English – was counter-balanced in academic culture by the persistence of the Aristotelian Scholastic tradition, which ever since the time of Melancthon had become the official philosophy of the Lutheran universities. Leibniz’s philosophical writings, which culminated in his Essais de Théodicée (1710), came to an end in the same period in which Wolff’s thought was taking shape and coherence, giving Leibniz’s philosophy a particular interpretation and systemization. However, the period from 1690 to 1720 was characterized above all by the figure of Christian Thomasius and his work in renewing philosophical culture, which he considered to have an essentially practical foundation and purpose. For this reason, Thomasius’s activity in the philosophical and juridical fields was integral to his anti-conformist stance, his polemic against pedantry and the narrow-mindedness of academic circles, and his criticism of popular prejudices, superstitions, and beliefs.
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Notes
- 1.
Cf. Hazard, p. 176: “Nothing, perhaps, is more characteristic of Thomasius than this practical intervention of his; it is a sort of outward and visible sign of his zeal for justice and humanity practical aspect. Here he takes up, in concrete terms, the defence of justice and of humanity […]. He was a glorious promoter of the German Enlightenment, a hero of the great battle waged by the luminaries of reason”. This interpretation of the figure of Thomasius is reflected in the evaluation of the origins and significance of the Enlightenment in Germany; cf. H.M. Wolff, Die Weltanschauung der deutschen Aufklarüng in geschichtlicher Entwicklung, 2nd edn. (Bern and Munich, 1963), p. 24: “The Enlightenment battle against erudite philosophy does not lead to a rejection of philosophy in general; the aim of this new cultural movement is to make philosophy useful for life and hence, from the point of view of a worldly Weltanschauung, to fill the gap produced by the weakening of religion and tradition. The German thinker who waged this battle against erudite, rococo philosophy, and who set in motion the process of the intellectualization of the lower social class was Christian Thomasius: he is the founder of the German Enlightenment”.
- 2.
Cf. Wundt, p. 19: while the first age of the Enlightenment (1690–1720) was characterized by Ch. Thomasius, the second was notable for the school of Wolff and for the debate on Wolffism (1720–1750), and the third for the transformation of philosophy “in die allgemeine Bildung” (1750–1780).
- 3.
Ch. Thomasius, Einleitung zu der Vernunfft-Lehre (Halle, 1691), repr. with “Vorwort” by W. Schneiders (Hildesheim, 1968), p. 156.
- 4.
See the curriculum of the philosophy courses held by Thomasius at Halle: logic and history of philosophy introduced the “fundamental” disciplines, that is, ethics, politics and economy; cf. Paulsen, Geschichte des gelehrten Unterrichts an den deutschen Schulen und Universitäten, I , pp. 529–530.
- 5.
Cf. Paulsen, Die deutschen Universitäten und das Universitätsstudium, p. 55. The renewal of academic culture had its starting point in the founding of the University of Halle (1694) and affected both the way of teaching – emphasis on the systematic method in the exegesis of the canonical texts, discussion in seminars, the use of German and the adoption of the semestral academic year – and the content – interest in modern philosophy and in the natural sciences and mathematics, affirmation of the independence of human reason and freedom of research.
- 6.
The debate, which was initiated by the Traité de l’employ des Saincts Pèrez pour le jugement des differends qui sont aujourd’hui dans la religion, published in 1632 by the Huguenot pastor Jean Daillé, developed at the beginning of the eighteenth century between J. Le Clerc, who had taken up Daillé’s argument in a review of his essay in the Bibliothèque universelle, Vol. X, and the Jesuit Baltus, author of a Défense des S.S. Pèrez accusez de Platonisme (Paris, 1711); cf. Chapter 2, Introduction. The German historians, all Lutherans, took, as we shall see, an intermediate position; they did not deny that the Church Fathers might have been followers of Plato whose philosophical terminology they could have adopted, but they declared that the main articles of faith, such as the Incarnation and the Trinity, can be found only in their original formulation in Scripture.
- 7.
“Das grosse Rund der Welt ist eurem Witz geneigt/Weil Tugend, Kunst und Fleiss euch ewig, ewig zieren/Glückseelig ist der Staat, glückseelig sein Regieren/Wo euer Weissheit Kern sich in den Seelen zeigt!” (Geöffnete Schaubühne, cxxiv, p. 39; the Roman numeral denotes the order of the octaves).
- 8.
“Drauf führt’ Uranie den grossen Plato auf/Ein Bild, wie hoch ein Geist des Menschen könne steigen./Bey ihm versammleten die Künste sich zu Hauf/Der Wunderbahren Welt ein Muster vorzuzeigen” (xxxviii, p. 12); “Nach ihren Abzug kam der Aristoteles/Den Phoebus selbsten zog’ zum Hochgelahrten Orden” (xlvii, p. 15).
- 9.
“Dannoch verleiteten sie dieser arge Wahn/Sie schrieben Wunder zu dem mächtigen Geschicke/Jn dem des Zeno Spruch den Leuten brach die Bahn/Dass alles hergerührt bloss von des Glückes Tücke./Er hat auch diesen Gifft verführisch ausgestreut/Dass alle Sünde gleich, Ermorden oder Stehlen/Verleumdung oder Groll, Neid oder Hass erwehlen/Weil dieses alles sey von gleicher Wichtigkeit” (lvii, p. 18).
- 10.
“Nach diesen zeigten sich in einer langen Reyh/Die, so von einer Schul der Lehrer Nahmen führen./Sie massen allzuviel dem Stagyriten bey/Und liessen grosse Ehr für diesem Heyden spühren./Sie führten wieder ein der Mund-Art Barbarey/Drum, wenn man ihren Klang der Wörter solt’ entscheiden/So würde ihr Verstand ein schlimmes Urtheil leiden/Komm Päbstler, berste nun vor grüner Gall’ entzwey!” (civ, p. 33).
- 11.
“So zeigt Cartesius mit Gründen der Vernunfft/Wie ungegründt er ihn an Ehr und Lehr verletzet./Er glaubte, dass der Mensch aus Leib und Geist gemacht/Und dass der grosse Gott ein wahres Wesen wäre/Der alles in der Welt recht väterlich ernehre” (cxix, p. 38).
- 12.
Cf. the “Elogium J. Francisci Buddei”, which appeared in the Acta Eruditorum (1731, pp. 245–248), the famous Leipzig review of which for thirty years Buddeus was an insignis pars: “You could have seen 500 young men coming out of his lectures, and not only those of humble background, but the flower of Germany, among whom, after the princes themselves, were many from the most noble families or those renowned because of the high rank of their parents” (p. 246). This is confirmed by the Bibliothèque Germanique, which also mentions his teaching: “Son auditoire étoit toujours rempli, souvent même jusqu’à foule, et l’empressement avec lequel on le suivoit étoit un juste hommage dû à son erudition, à sa capacité, à sa piété et à sa vertu. Il étoit clair et methodique. C’est ce que prouvent ce grand nombre d’ouvrages qu’il a publiés. Ennemi du fatras scholastique, il n’en parloit qu’autant qu’il le falloit pour faire entendre à ses disciples certains termes qu’on ne sauroit ignorer” (BG, Vol. xxii [1731], p. 123).
- 13.
Brucker spoke of placidissima Buddei anima and of his surprise at the harshness of Thomasius’ attacks on him (Brucker, V, p. 532). The “Elogium”, cited above, also emphasizes this aspect of his character: “From the fifth year of the present century (1705), after he had first obtained a doctorate at Halle, it seems that by a fortunate destiny propitious not only for the university but also for the whole church, he was granted to our time, so that in the great conflicts that like tempests tossed the Church about, his moderation and wisdom could help him to avoid confusion and, in the storm of dispute, not to lose sight of the truth” (AE, 1731, pp. 246–247).
- 14.
Cf. Leibniz’ “Epistola” written to Buddeus in response to a Dissertatio de origine mali that the latter had written: “Leibnizius ad Buddeum, in disputationem de origine mali” (April 1712), in Annales Academiae Juliae (Brunswick, 1722), repr. in Bibliotheca historico-philologico-theologica (Bremen, 1725), Vol. viii, No. 1, pp. 77–78. Cf. F. Ravier, Biographie des oeuvres de Leibniz (Paris, 1937), p. 203.
- 15.
Cf. Wundt, pp. 63–64, 242–243. Zambelli explains the difference in method between the two philosophers: “Buddeus’s inventive criterion, which proceeds essentially a posteriori selecting reliable teachings from the most varied systems, cannot be reconciled with the deductivistic and systematic claims that betray Spinozist sympathies in Wolff”. But common to both of them was the tendency to give theological discourse a rational foundation: “Although [Buddeus’s] major contribution to the debate of 1723 was to emphasize Wolff’s dependence on Leibniz, which irritated the former, historians of evangelical theology have been able to detect a ‘notable parallel’ between Buddeus (‘a theologian who regarded himself as orthodox’) and Leibniz and Wolff. This parallel consists of their common appeal to ‘sound reason’ against atheism, and in their definition of a theistic vision of the world that was clear and defined and capable of laying the foundations of religion” (Zambelli, La formazione filosofica di A. Genovesi, pp. 392 and 387).
- 16.
Thus the history of philosophy is frequently referred to in theological works: “If necessary it could be proved, with very many examples, that numerous heresies have arisen from the teachings of the philosophers, or have received power and encouragement from them. The history of philosophy is no less useful in illustrating the writings of the [Church] Fathers, given that they often refer to the principles and opinions of the ancient philosophers” (Isagoge ad theologiam, i, p. 195).
- 17.
The presence of the Chinese among the “more recent” philosophers was justified by the topical interest in their ideas resulting from the appearance of several works published on the basis of information from missionaries who proposed to make Chinese civilization known in Europe, works such as Confucius Sinarum philosophus, sive scientia Sinensis latine exposita, eds. P. Intorcetta, C. Herdtrich, F. Rougemont and Ph. Couplet (Paris, 1687), but above all following the appreciation expressed by Leibniz and Wolff. Because of this, the Spinozism that Buddeus found in Confucianism ended up by implicating Wolffian philosophy. On this subject, cf. Garin, “Compendi di storia della filosofia”, pp. 90–91.
- 18.
In his opinion on the Cabbala Buddeus was close to the position of the Cambridge Platonists R. Cudworth and H. More; they were the reason for his interest in the writings of the Renaissance Cabbalists (G. Pico della Mirandola, J. Reuchlin) and of more recent Cabbalists (Knorr von Rosenroth, F.M. van Helmont, R. Fludd). In the Compendium, his enthusiasm for the Cabbala to have waned with respect to the Introductio to the history of Hebrew philosophy: it is given only two pages after making a clear distinction between the ancient (true) and more recent (false) Cabbala. A full analysis of Buddeus’s studies on the Cabbala can be found in S. Masi, “Eclettismo e storia della filosofia in J.F. Budde”, pp. 190–198. On this point Brucker broke away from his master, declaring that it was impossible to distinguish a Cabbala vetus, which, strictly speaking, consists of the interpretation of the Bible in a mystical sense, from a Cabbala recentior, which as early as the time of Christ had corrupted Revelation with pagan philosophical teachings: “We are not permitted to argue about this exegetic Cabbala, which we can distinguish from philosophy, for the sake of clarity, by using this term, since it does not relate to our present purpose; however we can point out that without doubt many additions and variations have been attributed to Cabbalistic teachings that really belong to later times, and that it is difficult, if not impossible, to define them clearly, that is, to distinguish the pure and authentic from the contaminated and adulterated, given that all the surviving Cabbalistic books are so corrupted that, if we wished to follow up this distinction it would not be possible, for example in the Book of Sohar, to separate additions made by modern philosophers from what has come down to us from very early philosophers, unless we decide to consider as genuine only what agrees with the Christian mysteries; but this way of reasoning is obviously a vicious circle” (Brucker, ii, p. 394).
- 19.
Walch, in his introduction to the Compendium, also emphasized this aspect of Buddeus’ method: “The Delineatio itself is greatly recommended. In it, the author does not simply list the principal schools, their history and their followers, but he has carefully given an account of their main teachings, in order to show the entire system of each school, something that, as it happens, had not been done in such a way by G.J. Vossius, or G. Hornius, or by A. Gravius, or by anyone else who has dedicated himself to the writing of this kind of history up to the present day” (Compendium, “Lectori benevolo”, p. [13]).
- 20.
Cfr. p. iv: “Wir schweben anitzo in einen Seculo da die Bücher nicht anders wie die Kleider nach der Mode wollen gemachet seyn und da sich die Scribenten so wohl als die Schneider nach der blossen caprice der Leute accomodiren müssen”.
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Bottin, F., Longo, M. (2010). The History of Philosophy from Eclecticism to Pietism. In: Santinello, G., Piaia, G. (eds) Models of the History of Philosophy. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d'histoire des idées. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9507-7_5
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