presentation of Ludwig Feuerbach philosophy

1. LUDWIG FEUERBACH

2. INTRODUCTION
•Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (July 28, 1804 –
September 13, 1872)
• German philosopher and anthropologist best
known for his book The Essence of Christianity,.
•Feuerbach advocated liberalism, atheism, and
materialism

3. EDUCATION
• Feuerbach matriculated in the University of Heidelberg with the
intention of pursuing a career in the church.
• Feuerbach became associated with a group known as the Young
Hegelians, alternately known as the Left Hegelians, who
synthesized a radical offshoot of Hegelian philosophy,
interpreting Hegel's
• dialectic march of spirit through history to mean that existing
Western culture and institution forms—and, in particular,
Christianity—would be superse
• ded. He completed his education at Erlangen at the Friedrich-
Alexander-University, Erlangen-Nuremberg with the study of
natural science.

4. EARLY WRITING
• His first book, published anonymously, Gedanken
über Tod und Unsterblichkeit (1830), contains an
attack on personal immortality and an advocacy of
the Spinozistic immortality of reabsorption in
nature.
• After some years of struggling, during which he
published his Geschichte der neueren Philosophie (2
vols., 1833–1837, 2nd ed. 1844), and Abelard und
Heloise (1834, 3rd ed. 1877)

5. DAS WESEN DES CHRISTENTUMS
(THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY)
• His most important work, Das Wesen des Christentums (1841), was
translated by Mary Ann Evans (later known as George Eliot) into English
as The Essence of Christianity.
• In part I of his book Feuerbach developed what he calls the "true or
anthropological essence of religion." Treating of God in his various
aspects "as a being of the understanding," "as a moral being or law," "as
love" and so on.
• Feuerbach talks of how humankind is equally a conscious being, more so
than God because humans have placed upon God the ability of
understanding.

6. • Feuerbach shows that in every aspect God corresponds to some feature or need
of human nature.
• As he states,
• "In the consciousness of the infinite, the conscious subject has for his object the
infinity of his own nature."
• Instead, Feuerbach concludes, "If man is to find contentment in God," he claims,
"he must find himself in God."
• In part 2 he discusses the "false or theological essence of religion," i.e. the view
which regards God as having a separate existence over against humankind.
• he believes not only injures the moral sense, but also "poisons, nay destroys, the
divinest feeling in man, the sense of truth," and the belief in sacraments such as
the Lord's Supper which is to him a piece of religious materialism of which "the
necessary consequences are superstition and immorality.

7. . PHILOSOPHY
• Essentially the thought of Feuerbach consisted in a
new interpretation of religion's phenomena, giving an
anthropological explanation.
• Following Schleiermacher’s theses, Feuerbach
thought religion was principally a matter of feeling in
its unrestricted subjectivity.
• So the feeling breaks through all the limits of
understanding and manifests itself in several
religious beliefs.
• But, beyond the feeling, is the fancy, the true maker
of projections of "Gods" and of the sacred in general.