Martin Knutzen: Philosophical proof of the truth of Christian religion (1740)

Considering that the interpretation and reinterpretation of religions and especially Christianity will be one of the main hobbies of the post-Kantian German philosophy, it is somewhat surprising to see that religion has played so little role in the discussions of the German philosophy in the beginning of 18th century. True, Christianity has been a clear background of all the philosophers we have dealt with and religious topics like God and immortality of the soul have been discussed especially in works concentrating on natural theology. Still, there has been little discussion of religion itself, barring some remarks of religion as a cult in natural theology and of religious communities in natural law.

Martin Knutzen's Philosophischer Beweiß von der Wahrheit der Christlichen Religion feels then quite a fresh work. Knutzen himself is probably best known as a teacher of Kant, and one might hypothesise that Kant might have been inspired by Knutzen's work. Then again, Knutzen's philosophy of religion has a very different basis from later Kantian and post-Kantian philosophies of religion. It could be called broadly Wolffian in the sense that Knutzen follows the formal trappings of the Wolffian school, with its supposedly strict definitions and proofs.

Knutzen's proof has essentially two steps. The latter step, in which Knutzen tries to show the divine origin and reliability of Bible stories and especially of the account of the resurrection of Jesus, is less interesting, as it relies more on historical interpretation and Bible exegesis than any deep philosophical insights. Yet, it is of interest in the sense that Knutzen outlines different criteria for deciding the truth of various matters. While the metaphysical or ”geometric” truth should be based on nothing else but the nature of things and physical truth should be based on the actual natural laws, a third kind of or moral truth is dependent on the moral nature of human beings – in other words, we can be reasonably sure that some event has occurred if its denial would involve people behaving against their character. Thus, Knuzen cites as evidence for the truth of the gospel that the supposed enemies of Christianity have accepted it as a historical account – it would go against human nature that one would outright accept the stories of your rivals, if one wouldn't already accept them as reliable.

The first step in the proof involves more philosophical speculations. Knutzen notes that all humans are obligated to obey God's commandments, which coincide with the natural law – firstly, following the natural law just means following our own nature, and secondly, as a divinely instituted law it has the further obligating element that it is based on the will of a person responsible for creating us. Furthermore, Knutzen notes as an empirical fact that all human beings break the natural law in some manner, how insignificant it may seem. Importantly, he does not suggest that this empirical fact would require some sort of original sin as an explanation – it is just something that happens and definitely not a destiny of fallen human beings.

Still, because of this tendency to break the natural law, human beings are in debt to God, Knutzen continues, and because their whole existence depends on God, this debt is infinitely great. In fact, it is so great that nothing that human beings could by themselves do would ever be enough for cancelling this debt – not even if they would conduct the rest of their lives according to the tenets of natural law. Because God is also just and must require some sort of recompensation for the sins of human beings, an infinite punishment should be in store for all human beings.

Knutzen thinks that this problem of the infinite guilt of human beings should be the basis of all true religion – a religion that would just repeat all that natural law has to say would be completely futile. He is also convinced that in addition to Christianity no other religion in the world tackles this question (admittedly, he has only limited information on these other religions). Since Christianity is the only answer given to the problem of infinite guilt – in effect, the answer is that a) God has many aspects and that b) in one aspect he took the shape of a human being and by his death paid the infinite debt – it must be the true religion, just as long as we know that this dying person was truly divine (this is supposed to be proven by the second step, since resurrection is for Knutzen a clear sign of divine power).

Although Knutzen's proof is clearly full of holes, it does address an important issue – that people do have the feeling that they have something to pay for – and recognises that this feeling is a basis of lot of religious sentiments. Indeed, we might be able to draw a clear line from Knutzen's proof to the romantic idea of an alienation of human beings.

Joachim Darjes: Universal institutions of jurisprudence (1740)

Darjes is one of those philosophers who are not afraid to dabble in many fields of philosophy. We have already seen his take on logic and some of his metaphysical views, while the current work, Institutiones jurisprudentiae universalis, belongs to the same genre as Wolff's series on natural law, first volume of which was published in the same year as Darjes's book. Unlike Wolff, Darjes manages to go through the whole of natural law and the so-called law of nations within the space of one book.

Darjes uses a similar structure in his book as earlier writers on natural law – he starts from an individual human being and moves through simple interpersonal relationships to communities and finally to a civil state. Similarly familiar is Darjes's view of what makes up the good of human beings – because humans have body and soul and external possessions, they should take care of their physical, mental and economical state.

Body, soul and possessions are something we should respect in everyone – this is the basis for human interaction in Darjes's philosophy, and it is so fundamental that it holds even in an ”absolute human condition”, that is, the so-called state of nature, in which no communities yet exist. Darjes also admits that even before creating communities humans are capable of making pacts with one another and that they are indeed obligated to hold onto them – this is what forms the beginning of trade.

Yet, pacts are not the only thing pulling humans together, Darjes says, because there are certain natural reasons for human interaction – Darjes is speaking of marital relations and parental relations, but also of relations between master ans servant. All of these relations form then natural communities, the conglomeration of which is family (one does wonder what the relationship between master and servant does in this list). In comparison, all the other communities are then just hypothetical, in other words, they are not natural, but based on some further conditions.

It is then not surprising to see Darjes expounding next the theory of civil states. He does note the possibility of several families living in a state of anarchy – in principle, anarchy means for Darjes that all families are equal to one another. The need for civil state rises then in quite a Hobbesian manner from a need for security and involves giving some people the right to govern the whole collection of families. This right to rule does not mean complete abrogation of the rights of other citizens, but it does give the rulers the necessary authority for maintaining security. Darjes think rulers have even the right to restrict the emigration of the citizens of their civil state.

Interestingly, Darjes also considers religious communities. He firstly sets them under the authority of the civil state – civil state has a right to eradicate even religious communities within its borders, if they happen to threaten its security. Furthermore, religious communities must respect the right of conscience, which means that they can't forcefully convert other people to their cause. Then again, Darjes says, a religious community and its rulers have a right to homogenize the beliefs of their members. They can't really force anyone to change their views, but they can use their representatives to expound what dogmas their creed has – and they can excommunicate people who steer too far away from these dogmas.

The final part in Darjes's book consists of the so-called law of nations or the study of relations between states. The main idea of Darjes is that states live in a condition of nature toward one another. Like in case of individuals, the state of nature does not imply completely lawless state. Instead, Darjes thinks there are certain infringible rules of conduct that must be obeyed in international affairs. Thus, a state should respect he borders of other states, hold the treaties made with other states and declare a war only when the other state has given a just cause for it.

So much for Darjes and natural law. Next time we shall be one step closer to Kant, when we for the first time meet one of his teachers.

Johann Jakob Breitinger: Critical poetry (1740)

In the previous post I mentioned the conflict, which Gottsched had with the Swiss aestheticians Bodmer and Breitinger. In retrospect, this conflict was less to do with completely different notions of aesthetics and more to do with different emphasis: Gottsched was more keen to hold on to the principle of the imitation of nature and clear rules derived from this principle, while Bodmer and Breitinger thought wonder to be the essential element of aesthetic feeling. While previously we saw Bodmer's practical application of their notion of aesthetics, Breitinger's Critische Dichtkunst presents its basic theory.

One must at first note that despite Breitinger's animosity with Gottsched, he doesn't wonder too far from tenets of Wolffian philosophy. Thus, we hear philosophy or ”worldly wisdom” defined as a science of all things, in so far as humans are capable of knowing the ground of their possibility and actuality.

What Breitinger wants to modify in Wolff's philosophy is to add rhetoric and poetry as its parts. His justification is based purely on utilitarian grounds. While philosophy is based on intricate scientific reasoning, most people simply cannot follow it and they have to be educated by other needs, that is, with the help of rhetoric and poetry.

Furthermore, Breitinger also accepts the suggestion that poetry is imitation of nature. That is not to say that poetry would be just a retelling of what happens in world around us, somewhat like history. Instead, poetry should arouse a feeling of truth in its reader through sensuous images. In this sense, poetry resembles painting, which also tries to imitate nature by creating a semblance of truth in its watcher. Yet, painting affects us more forcefully, while poetry has the advantage in being able to use material from all senses, which is just recollected by hearing certain words.

Since Breitinger accepts the idea that the actual world is the best of all possible worlds, he is bound to accept that imitated natural things can be regarded good. Yet, Breitinger finds a certain difference – while the goodness of the actual world is intrinsic to it, goodness of poems lies in them being good imitations. Thus, one can have a good poem, even if its topic falls short of complete perfection.

As it was habit with Gottsched and Bodmer, Breitinger extends the notion of imitation from the actual to all possible worlds, and just like Bodmer, he extends it quite far, to improbable possibilities, in which animals and plants speak and all sorts of allegorical abstractions exist. Indeed, such fables are one end of poetic works, in which wondrous rules over probability. Still, even they have some share of probability, since human mind has the tendency to antropomorphise natural things and especially animals.

In general, Breitinger sees all poetic works balancing between wonder and probability. Too much of wonder and a poem loses its credibility. Then again, too little of wonder and a reader won't have any interest on the poem. Most of the art of poetics deals then with various ways to enhance both wonder and probability. Thus, even when describing quite ordinary things, poet can highlight some of their more extraordinary properties or show them in an unexpected light. Similarly, one must make e.g. actions and speeches of a person seem like they would flow naturally out of the character of the person.

I will not go further into the petty details of the conflict between Gottsched and Breitinger/Bodmer-duo, and hence, this will be last we'll hear of any of them. Next time, I shall look at a completely different discipline, namely, jurisprudence.

Bodmer: Critical inquiry on wondrous in poetry (1740)

It is always refreshing to see a philosopher reconsider his old ideas and to move away from positions he held earlier. This appears to be case with Bodmer, whose earlier work showed clear influences of Wolffian philosophy and regarded imitation as the basic principle of good poetry. By the time of writing his Critische Abhandlung von dem Wunderbaren in der Poesie und dessen Verbindung mit dem Wahrscheinlichen, Bodmer appears to have changed his opinion quite radically – art need not be limited by correspondence with actual objects, because in addition to actual world, poems can deal also with other possible worlds.

The topic of Bodmer's work is John Milton's Paradise Lost, a poem about the rebellion of Satan against God and of the fall of the first human beings from the grace. A number of French critics had attacked the book, notably because it had tried to overreach the limit of what is humanly imaginable and to describe things no human being could have ever witnessed. A good example is provided by the angels. Critics had complained that these are actually immaterial entities, but Milton describes them as having flesh and blood. When it comes to fallen angels, he even suggests they can feel bodily pain. Bodmer notes that Milton is just following an age-old tradition – even Homeric gods had a body, were bodily exhausted etc. Furthermore, he notes that a poet can refrain from literal imitation, if a powerful allegory demands it.

Even further in his dismissal of the principle of imitation Bodmer goes when he speaks of Milton's use of such entities like Death and Sin. The French critics had complained that these characters felt quite shadowy and that their presence in the poem mad the whole thing look quite improbable. Bodmer notes that a poet need not restrict oneself to mere probabilities, when the whole range of possibilities is available for him – and who can tell what wonders lie in the immaterial world?

Bodmer's aesthetical bent drives him then toward extending the range of what can be recounted in a work of fiction – not just probabilities, but also possibilities. This attack against very restricted theories of imitation is not the only philosophically interesting theme Bodmer considers. For instance, he notes that when Milton describes Satan as having momentary relief from pain, the poet is just telling the truth, since an infinite amount of pain is impossible for a limited entity, which even an angel must be. Or, when critics express puzzlement that Adam could know concepts of negative emotions, when all he had thus far had were positive emotions, Bodmer notes that Adam could well have abstracted the concept of a negative emotion from his experience of positive emotions – it wouldn't have been a distinct concept, but it would still have been a concept. Yet, the main aesthetic innovation of the work is just this attack on imitation as the sole principle of poetry.

Although Bodmer speaks of French critics, another probable target of his attack is Gottschedian school of aesthetics, in which naturalness was seen as the central element of poetry – so central that even operas were thought to be bad poetry, because people singing all the time is just artificial construct. Indeed, Bodmer's work can be seen as an integral part of his conflict with Gottsched, which was an important source of controversy in the 1740s. We shall have occasion to speak about this controversy with the next book, which was written by Johann Jakob Breitinger, an ally of Bodmer.

Friedrich II: Anti-Machiavelli (1740)

Friedrich II (1712-1786)

Royalty is not a common sight in lists of philosophers. Few clear examples come to mind immediately: Marcus Aurelius, princess Elisabeth of Bohemia – and Friedrich II of Prussia. Known by the title ”philosopher-king”, this enlightened despot appeared to have a golden touch. In his life time, Prussia rose from a slightly larger German territory into ranks of European superpowers, boomed economically and received a more modern system of justice. Furthermore, he strove to raise the status of Prussian culture to the level of French culture he loved and invited to his court many French litterateurs and philosophers, such as Voltaire. He even called back Christian Wolff, whom his father had long ago exiled because of suspicions of heresy.

Despite the grand sound of all these efforts, it might well be asked what this person is doing on a blog concentrating expressly on philosophical writings. Well, Friedrich II did write – poetry, but also some more philosophical works. It is especially his L'Anti-Machiavel that will now be my topic.

As the name of the book suggests, target of this critical work is Machiavelli and especially his most famous work, The Prince, famous for it utter immorality. In this work, Machiavelli had declared that a good prince should use all the means necessary to get to his ends – war, plunder, deception, murder, slander, you name it. Even if Machiavelli's advice appears rather cynical, he was in his heart a republican, and The Prince was merely an attempt to find a suitable local prince, who could use it for the honourable end of uniting Italy under a home-bred rule.

Friedrich connects his own work with quite another philosophical debate – he considers Machiavelli to be even greater threat than Spinoza, because while latter had erred only in matters of speculation, the former wrote falsities in important practical matters. If Spinoza was commonly seen as gateway to atheism, Machiavelli led to even worse immoralism – to the idea that a ruler should not strive for the good of his people.

While Friedrich's motives are clearly based on morality, his argumentation is not. Instead, he tries to show that a Machiavellian prince cannot even fulfill his own ends with the means of Machiavelli's book. A prince cannot really rule without the support of his citizens, as is witnessed by many revolutions against despised rulers, Friedrich notes. Deceptiveness and cruelty might help one in gaining kingship, but such qualities cannot be used for retaining one's rule.

Furthermore, Friedrich notes that Machiavelli's The Prince does not take into consideration relativistic nature of cultures. In other words, methods of rule fit for 16th century Italy – a time of petty principalities fighting for equally petty reasons – do not work in other lands, let alone at other times. In 18th century, small principality just couldn't afford to e.g. wage war alone, but should accept alliances with other principalities.

Interestingly, Friedrich's book touches even a more metaphysical question. One of the chapters of Machiavelli's book concerned the role of fortune in state affairs – and whether a prince could negate its influence. Here Friedrich notes that Machiavelli assumes, without further ado, that fortune exists. Yet, he notes skeptically, there has been no convincing proof showing that true fortune or contingency exists – nor, for that matter, any proof showing that e.g. providence has cared for everything

Next time, we'll move back to aesthetics.

Baumgarten: Ethics (1740)

Development of philosophical disciplines hasn't been one of steady accumulation and maybe even not a progress at all. Instead, one sees some paradigms used for some time and then replaced suddenly by other paradigms. When looked at from the viewpoint of the new paradigm, it might seem that there was no development at all happening before the shift. Thus, from the viewpoint of a modern logician, the centuries of Aristotelian logic might seem filled with no important insights nor even with any true variation in the views – everyone just learned their Baroccos. Of course, such an external reflection hides the fact that within this older paradigm there might have been differences of opinions – these differences just seem inessential when compared to the difference of paradigms.

Such a paradigm shift occurred in many disciplines with the advent of Kant's critique. Ethics seems to be no exception. Thus, when we post-Kantians consider Wolff's and Baumngarten's ethics, we might have difficulties noting any differences between the two, because they share so many similarities.

And indeed, there are features found in ethics of both thinkers. Both Wolff and Baumgarten say that the ultimate principle of ethics is perfection. Furthermore, both philosophers think that duties divide into three classes: those toward oneself, those toward others and those toward God.

Yet, Wolff and Baumgarten have interestingly different tendencies in their ethics, and these tendencies are based on subtly different features of their metaphysics. For Wolff, human soul is always essentially a loner. It is connected to physical world through hypothetical pre-established harmony, but truly determined just by its own progression. Hence, its primary duty is always perfecting itself. Duties towards others are mostly negative, since one should let others perfect themselves, while the most important duty toward God is to act ethically – religion is just a modification of ethics.

At first sight, Baumgarten's view of the human soul might seem quite similar. Human soul, like all monads, has no real influence on anything outside itself and is not influenced by anything, except God, which affects everything. Yet, despite the seeming similarity, Baumgarten at least emphasises different things. First of all, he is keen note that monads do have ideal influences to one another – that is, whenever monad affects another, the other monad is not just passive, but acts itself. In other words, Baumgarten merely says that the existence of causal processes between monads is just a matter of viewpoint – in some sense a monad affects another, in another sense it doesn't.

Furthermore, Baumgarten says that similar relations hold between all monads and thus between all substances. In other words, there is no obvious difference between physical and mental causality and both souls and bodies form a part of the same world, held together by the glue of ideal causality. In addition, Baumgarten also holds that souls form a sort of body of their own – mystical community, one might say, with God as its head.

It is then no wonder that Baumgarten places duties toward God as the central element of his own ethics. We should aim to know God truly and thus avoid all sorts of heresies, like Spinozism. Furthermore, it is not just about internal beliefs – we should also externalize our beliefs through prayers and other ceremonies, Baumgarten says. In other words, religion becomes the essence of ethics in Baumgarten.

While the role of divinity becomes more central, the role of individual becomes less central. Of course, one should make oneself more perfect – that is, one should e.g. improve one's mental capacities and keep oneself healthy. Yet, this all seems more like a necessary means for improving perfection in general – something Wolff thought was best left for individuals themselves. For Baumgarten, instead, spreading goodness everywhere is a primary duty of a human being – and human beings as composites of both body and soul are a good target of good actions. Indeed, Baumgarten goes even so far as to insist on conversational abilities as one duty of human beings – we should not be hermits, but instead we should communicate with other fellow humans.

Baumgarten's emphasis of religion and duties concerning other conscious beings takes Baumgarten into rather strange places. God is supposedly the only thing one should worship, thus, worshiping other conscious entities – like demons, whether they happen to exist or not – is completely forbidden. Even worse it is if one tries to use such worship to magically aid oneself or harm others – magic is placed under suspicion.

This concludes Baumgarten's account of ethics. Next time, we shall turn our interest to royalty.  

Christian Wolff: Natural right 1 (1740)

With the onset of 1740s Wolff begins his final great task, Jus Naturae, which would eventually consist of eight thick volumes and which is, in a sense, a crowning moment in the progress of his Latin works.

The topic of Wolff's Natural right is a continuation of his earlier books on general practical philosophy – as one might well remember, in the Wolffian tradition natural right was often regarded as an application of the general practical philosophy. Still, in the first volume, Wolff remains in a sense on quite a general level. The topic of this first volume is universal human right, where universal means what concerns all human beings. In other words, the volume is about rights and obligations of every person, no matter what her station in life.

Wolff's general idea is that the idea of an obligation precedes the idea of right. In other words, if there were no obligations, there would be no rights and therefore no jurisdiction. It comes as no surprise that Wolff then states the existence of some primitive obligations – such obligations should be based on the essence of humanity and are therefore applicable to all human beings.

Since these natural obligations are based on the essence of humanity, which is same for all human beings, it then appears that at least when it comes to these obligations, no human being should have any rights that were not rights of other people. This is especially true in the state of nature, where the only obligations are the natural obligations, while in civil state human beings might have made contracts restricting their natural rights.

The content of this universal natural right or law should then be familiar to us already from Wolff's German ethical writings. Particularly, Wolff divides the universal law into three departments, first of which concerns person's obligations towards oneself. This is the strangest part of Wolffian ethics for modern reader, but based on an essential notion of Wolffian practical philosophy – we are obligated to perfect ourselves. This means, firstly, that we should perfect our own soul. In other words, we should perfect our intellect and try to know things as distinctly as possible. We should also perfect our will and learn how to master our sensuous impulses.

Beyond soul, one should also train and care for one's body. As body is for Wolff something different from the soul and something given to it, he thinks it obvious that we cannot by ourselves decide to end its life. Then again, one should provide nourishment for the body, but not too much, since immoderate eating and drinking merely ruins one's body. One should also use medicine to fix bodily problems caused by diseases.

Human beings also have the right to use those external goods, which lie in their power. They can nourish the body, with products of nature, as long as they do not try to use bodies of other human beings for lunch. One has a right to make one's environment clean enough and even beautiful. Human beings can also spend their time manufacturing some raw materials to shape that is more use than the original.

Human beings have obligations not just toward oneself, but also toward other humans and God, Wolff says. Duties toward others seem mostly negative – one should not be rude to anyone, one should not molest anyone, mentally or physically. To put it short, one should not hinder anyone becoming more and more perfect, and in extreme cases, one should even actively help others to perfect themselves.

Duties toward God do not add that much new to the scheme. At most, one should try to have as accurate picture of God's characteristics as possible and thus avoid deism and other heresies. One should also promote the glory of God and lend one' own will for God's purposes. In practice, this means not much more than acting according to natural law.

So much for Wolff's natural law this time, next we shall see what Baumgarten has to say about ethics.