In the second place, Feuerbach held quite correctly that scientific
materialism is the foundation of the building of human knowledge but it
is not the building itself. For we live not only in nature but in human
society, and this has its theory of development and its science no less
than nature. It was necessary, therefore, to bring the science of
society, that is the so-called historical and philosophical sciences,
into harmony with the materialistic foundations and to rebuild upon
them. But this was not granted to Feuerbach. Here he stuck, in spite of
the "foundations," held in the confining bonds of idealism, and to this
he testified in the words "Backwards I am with the materialists, but not
forwards." But Feuerbach himself did not go forward in his views of
human society from his standpoint of 1840 and 1844, chiefly owing to
that loneliness which compelled him to think everything out by himself,
instead of in friendly and hostile conflict with other men of his
calibre, although of all philosophers he was the fondest of intercourse
with his fellows. We shall see later on how he thus remained an
idealist. Here we can only call attention to the fact that Starcke
sought the idealism of Feuerbach in the wrong place. "Feuerbach is an
idealist; he believes in the advance of mankind" (p. 19). "The
foundations, the underpinning of the whole, is therefore nothing less
than idealism. Realism is for us nothing more than a protection against
error while we follow our own idealistic tendencies. Are not compassion,
love and enthusiasm for truth and justice ideal forces?"
In the first place, idealism is here defined as nothing but the
following of ideal aims. But these have necessarily to do principally
with the idealism of Kant and his "Categorical Imperative." But Kant
himself called his philosophy "transcendental idealism," by no means
because he deals therein with moral ideals, but on quite other grounds,
as Starcke will remember.
The superstition that philosophical idealism pivots around a belief in
moral, that is in social ideals, arose with the German non-philosophical
Philistine, who commits to memory the few philosophical morsels which he
finds in Schiller's poems. Nobody has criticised more severely the
feeble Categorical Imperative of Kant--feeble because it demands the
impossible and therefore never attains to any reality--nobody has
ridiculed more cruelly the Philistine sentimentality imparted by
Schiller, because of its unrealizable ideals, than just the idealist par
excellence, Hegel. (See e. g. Phenomenology.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account