I recently had the pleasure of reading a very peculiar, small, old book, Ludwig Feuerbach's 1843 piece Principles of the Philosophy of the Future. I read it with one of my closest friends and my intellectual collaborator, Keir. Feuerbach is often framed as a transitional figure between Hegel and Marx. He was one of the pivotal rallying points of the 'Left Hegelians' or 'Young Hegelians'. I put these words in quotes because I don't understand this period of intellectual history deeply enough to evaluate the significance or legitimacy of these labels. In any case, Keir and I became concerned with Feuerbach because Keir is currently working on a dissertation on Marx. We are trying to get a handle on this period, what Marx was dealing with. I say 'we' because I feel thoroughly invested in Keir's dissertation, as I regard it as part of a larger joint intellectual project that can be crudely construed as 'leftist Straussianism'. We, in other words, are attempting to rebel against probably the most intellectually significant figure of our young intellectual lives: Leo Strauss. We find Strauss' conservatism both distasteful and misguided. I say nothing of the crude students who bastardized, distorted, and capitalized on Strauss' already objectionable conservatism.
Feuerbach's text opens in alarming fashion: "The task of the modern era," he writes, "was the realization and humanization of God--the transformation and dissolution of theology into anthropology." I was pleased to see Feuerbach being so frank about the theological core of modernity. I recently completed an integration paper where I argued that modernity was always a project of mastery, one that took aspirations to god-like control as its chief goal. At this point it is too easy to talk about Descartes' claim that natural science will make us like 'masters and possessors of nature'. Indeed, the first section of the book is an explication of the way in which Descartes and Spinoza laid the groundwork for the theological ambitions of modernity. My recent encounters with the bizarre and provocative work of Brayton Polka has given me similar insights. The bible, Polka argues, offered Descartes, Spinoza, and modernity broadly, a model of sovereignty, mastery, that persists to this day. The core of modernity, in other words, is a theological-political. This, at least, is something that I think Strauss was correct about.
I applied this framework to twentieth century psychology and psychotherapy. I argued that many of the major forms of psychology still basically conceptualized themselves as projects of mastery. This is obviously true of B.F. Skinner's behaviorism; but I believe it is also true of Carl Rogers' humanistic psychology and existential psychology broadly. I was not surprised to see Skinner speak flippantly of 'playing god' in Walden Two, nor was I shocked to see that Beyond Freedom & Dignity ends with nearly explicit advocacy for the project of transhumanism. I also wasn't surprised to see that Sartre, Heidegger, Levinas, Rollo May, and other in the existential-phenomenological camp succumb to theological immoderation. I was, however, shocked to see that Rogers argue that an authentic organismic being is a power more commanding then the dictates of gods and governments alike. Rogers book on 'personal power' ends up looking an awful lot like the Nietzsche's will to power, and his organismic, authentic individual like Nietzsche's Ubermensch. Carl Rogers, the closet Nietzschean. I can hear the distant laughter.
Thank god that Feuerbach is here to show me that the theological immoderation of modernity is not incidental. Feuerbach knew it and he said it plain as day.
The second portion of the book is an extended critique of Hegel as the pinnacle of modern philosophy and science. He takes Hegel to task for ultimately upholding a radical diremption between thinking and being. Feuerbach, in the third portion of the book, offers a possible unity of thinking and being through his conception of materialism, which he also calls humanism, naturalism, and empiricism. Feuerbach seems to be radically conflating many things that ought to be kept distinct. He ends up advocating for a consensual model of truth, and making confusing arguments about the ultimate unity of love and empiricism. Buber apparently took him seriously in this regard, and there is much to take seriously.
As I said to Keir, however, I do not believe this text to be worthy of deep, serious study. There are contradictions in it. Feuerbach was not so powerful of a thinker that the apparent contradictions are solved at a deeper level. There are problems. I may sort it out at some point.
But for now, Feuerbach has done me an invaluable service. He has shown me that many understood the core of modernity to be fundamentally theological. I was not, in other words, off when I pointed to the theological and masterful elements of contemporary psychology. They are part and parcel with modernity. This becomes perhaps more compelling in light of the way that American psychologists learned extensively from German laboratory psychologists in the late nineteenth century; or from the fact that the American university system absorbed large amounts of German intellectual emigrees. As Bloom and Collingwood both noted, there is a profound connection between our present situation and the thought of German speaking peoples.
My current intellectual task is to compress my 161 page integration paper into a 15-25 page publishable piece. This will be my first genuine effort at publishing something. I was encouraged to undertake this project by my professor that supervised the writing of the integration paper. I am tremendously flattered by her suggestion, as I regard her as the best teacher I had at SU, and one of the most interesting and intelligent people I've had the joy to meet.
I want to return to this blog, to begin to leave traces here. I need to move deeper into my thinking. I need to move deeper into my writing, again. I want to be careful, though. I used to run from myself by writing. My stomach feels empty and anxious as I acknowledge this. But right now I have many more things happening. I have a budding career in mental health; I am working very hard on my painting; I am taking serious care of my body and soul; I am working on healing from the things that have hurt me. It is important that I write. I must write.
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