The Young Hegelians, later known as the Left Hegelians, were a group of students
and young professors at the University of Berlin following
Georg Hegel's death in 1831. The Young
Hegelians were opposed to the mainstream Right Hegelians who chaired Academic departments and held other prominent positions in the university and the government.
Right & Left
The Right Hegelians felt that the series of historical dialectics had been completed, and that Prussian society as it existed was the culmination of all social development to date, with an extensive
civil service system, good universities, industrialization, and high employment. The Young Hegelians believed that there were still further
dialectical changes to come, and that the Prussian society of the time was far from perfect; examples given for Prussia's
imperfection included the poverty of the lower classes, government censorship, and the persecution of non-Lutherans.
Philosophy
The Young Hegelians interpreted the entire state apparatus as ultimately claiming legitimacy based upon religious tenets;
while this thought was clearly inspired by the function of Lutheranism in contemporary Prussia, the Young Hegelians held the theory to be applicable to any state backed by any religion. All laws
were ultimately based on religious tenets.
As such, their plan to undermine what they felt was the corrupt and despotic state apparatus was to attack the philosophical
basis of religion. In the process, they became the first non-religious Biblical scholars since Baruch Spinoza in his Theologico-Political Treatise.
Main Members
David Strauss
David Strauss wrote Das Leben Jesu (The Life of Jesus), in which he
argued that the original teachings of Jesus had slowly been perverted and warped over the
centuries for political purposes. Strauss argued that Jesus' original message was to the poor and downtrodden of society, not to
the establishment. These teachings had been usurped by the establishment to manipulate and oppress the populaces of the world by
promising them a reward in the afterlife if they keep in their place and refrain from fomenting unrest or rebellion against the
rich. This stands in direct opposition to the teachings of Jesus, who was leading a mass movement of the poor, and thus Strauss
felt that state religion was invalid.
Bruno Bauer
Bruno Bauer went further, and claimed that the entire story of Jesus was a
myth. He found no record of anyone named "Yeshua of Nazareth" in any then-extant
Roman records. (Subsequent research has, in fact, found such citations, notably by the
Roman historian Tacitus and the Jewish historian
Josephus, although a few suggest these may be forgeries.) Bauer argued that almost all
prominent historical figures in antiquity are referenced in other works (e.g., Aristophanes
mocking Socrates in his plays), but as he could not find any such references to Jesus, it was
likely that the entire story of Jesus was fabricated
Ludwig Feuerbach
Ludwig Feuerbach wrote a psychological profile of a believer called Das
Wesen des Christentums (The Essence of Christianity). He argues that the believer is presented with a doctrine that
encourages the projection of fantasies onto the world. Believers are encouraged to believe in miracles, and to idealize all their
weaknesses by imagining an omnipotent, omniscient, immortal God who represents the antithesis of all human flaws and
shortcomings.
Karl Neuwerck
Karl Neuwerck was a lecturer of Hegelian philosophy in Berlin who lost his teaching license
along with Bruno Bauer in 1842.[1]
Arnold Ruge
As an advocate of a free and united Germany, Arnold Ruge
shared Hegel's belief that history is a progressive advance towards the realization of freedom, and that freedom is attained in
the State, the creation of the rational General Will. At the same time he criticized Hegel for having given an interpretation of history which
was closed to the future, in the sense that it left no room for novelty.[2]
Max Stirner
Max Stirner would occasionally socialize with the Young Hegelians, but held views much to
the contrary of these thinkers, all of whom he consequently satirized and mocked in his nominalist masterpiece Der Einzige und Sein Eigentum (The Ego
and Its Own).
Younger Members
Karl Marx
Another Young Hegelian, Karl Marx, was at first sympathetic with this strategy of attacking
Christianity to undermine the Prussian establishment, but later formed divergent ideas and broke with the Young Hegelians,
attacking their views in works such as The German Ideology. Marx concluded
that religion is not the basis of the establishment's power, but rather ownership of capital -- land, money, and the means of
production -- lie at the heart of the establishment's power. Marx felt religion was just a smokescreen to obscure this true basis
of establishment power, and indeed, was a vital crutch for the oppressed proletariat -- "the
opium of the people," their sole solace in life which he would not wish to take
away.
Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels contributed alongside Karl Marx to The Communist Manifesto.
August von Cieszkowski
August Cieszkowski focused on Hegel's view of world history and reformed it to
better accommodate Hegelian Philosophy itself by dividing it into Past, Present, and Future. In his Prolegomena to
Historiosophy, Cieszkowski argues that we have gone from Art (the Past), which was a stage of contemplating the Real, to Philosophy (the
Present), which is a contemplation of the Ideal, and that since Hegel's philosophy was the summing-up and perfection of
Philosophy, the time of Philosophy was up, and the time for a new era has dawned - the era of Action. [3]
Karl Schmidt
Edgar Bauer
Legacy
The Young Hegelians were not popular at the university due to their radical views on religion and society. Bauer was dismissed
from his teaching post in 1842, and Marx and other students were warned that they should not bother
submitting their dissertations at the University of Berlin, as they would certainly be poorly received due to their
reputations.
References
Notes
- ^ Toews, John (Becoming Historical - Cultural Reformation and
Public Memory in Nineteenth-Century Berlin) [1]
- ^ Copleston, Frederick (A History of Philosophy, volume VII, p.
301)
- ^ www.nonserviam.com
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