1.1 The Human Consciousness and its Material Truth
The first chapter of Introduction (Einleitung) from The Essence of Christianity is titled The essence of man in general (Das Wesen des Menschen im Allgemeine) and opens with some reflections on religion as something that differentiates humans specifically in order to concludes that the (human essence) is the foundation and content of religion.
The method can be called Feuerbachian reduction. The anthropological reasons for this reduction, ie the argument that Feuerbach based on his remarks about the essence of man, which can be grouped around two fundamental ideas:
1) The identity of the subject (consciousness) and object, college or body and object. The reason is that the identity of the object is nothing more than the essence objectified. The object of human consciousness can not be more than the human essence. This identity involves, for Feuerbach, the highest perfection, that is, autonomy, self-sufficiency and infinite essence of each.
2) The concept of gender and human essence, which shows the identity of the object of consciousness and the object of religion. God is nothing more than the personification imaginary, fanciful representation of the human race as a person.
Identity between Subject and Object
The basic thesis in this regard is that the consciousness of the object is always self-consciousness, since the object is nothing but the very essence objectified. Feuerbach says, "But the object with which a subject relates essentially necessarily nothing more than the essence itself, the objective of this subject."
It is assumed in this statement that "man is nothing without an object" can not know or be self-conscious without an object, ie you must first is the parting expression or utterance (Entzweiung, Entdusserung), then the assumption of object, recognize themselves and come up with a new identity. Do not immediately reach the self, but only through the mediation of the object or objectification of the essence. Feuerbach says: "So the man takes consciousness of itself through the object: the object of consciousness is the consciousness that man has of himself."
To explain this relationship of identity between subject and object Feuerbach mentions the following model:
Great men, male specimens, which reveal the essence of man, confirmed this statement with your life. They had only one dominant fundamental passion: the achievement of the goal that was the essential goal of their activity.
Feuerbach, in effect, emphasizes both the subjectivity and the fact that the objects, whatever, both the spiritual and the sensible, are but the very essence objectified, which seems to deny all objectivity out of consciousness, the otherness of the object ahead to consciousness. Says:
Through the object if you know the man, it appears you its essence, the object is the essence revealed his true self, goal. And this is valid not only for spiritual objects, but also for the senses. S also the most distant objects are revelations of man's human essence, and because this and while they are objects for him. Also the moon, the sun and the stars scream gnot sauton, you know him (sic) yourself. Because he see them and see the way he sees them, all this is already a testimony to its very essence.
If this reasoning is understood only as an explanation and consequence of relationship self-knowledge, then does not necessarily mean a total denial of objectivity.
Precisely in the fact of being an object for consciousness is supposed objectivity. Moreover, as this relationship is to say only that in the objectivity of the object of consciousness, one becomes aware and emerges own subjectivity, self-consciousness. Feuerbach says, showing that she falls into a subjectivism absolute:
The fact that the objects, and because while man knows them, are mirrors of their essence, do not follow the unreality of the objects or the pure subjectivity of knowledge.
Although both the spiritual objects as sensitive are manifestations of the essence, exists between them in this respect, a difference; sensible objects are distinguished in consciousness, living beyond, while immediately coincide with the religious consciousness, has its existence only to it. Feuerbach says: "The sense object is outside of man, it is religious, and even intimate [...] is actually the closest, the closest."
The relationship between subject and object, however, that distinguishes the two as such, is reduced to one element: the subjective, despite the attempt to maintain objectivity Feuerbach. This identity that would follow from the cognitive process open and earner of new knowledge make it impossible to acquire new knowledge, because one can know only the objects that are objectivations the very essence, the predicates that are in it.
On this exclusive, ie that man is conscious only of himself, Feuerbach supports the infinity of consciousness and spirit. Consciousness without a strict sense (specifically human), which is the human essence, is the awareness of their own gender and of the essence, thus closing the circle of immediate identity.
The essence and consciousness, therefore, coincide limits are one of the other, and splits as well as coherent and without mediation, can not understand consciousness, properly speaking, no limit, or something external to it or to the essence.
The infinity is therefore unable to note the very limit, the essence of integrity, autonomy, self-sufficiency. The awareness is already by definition, in which the essence is the subject herself.
Given the total identity of essence and consciousness, it can not understand unless to itself, its essence, its subject is objectified essence, consciousness can not be more than self-consciousness. This total identity between consciousness and essence extends to all colleges; no college can transcend, be above, not even realizing it, the limits of the essence.
This identity forces applied to the constituents of the human essence (reason, heart, will) result in the impossibility of that, through them, one realizes that something is not the essence or who perceive its limits, leading to the subjectivity of the object, ie , reducing the object to the organ of perception.
Feuerbach, prolonging and deepening the critique of Hegel, the incompatibility of philosophy and religion, reason and faith.
Then, generalizing his criticism, denouncing the claim of Hegel to reduce to unity of spirit and matter, man, doing and the world, making back to the whole spirit of the real. The path followed so far by speculative philosophy, from abstract to concrete, from ideal to reality, is a way of nonsense. According to Feuerbach, being, by which philosophy begins, can not be separated from the consciousness or awareness of being.
Nature exists independent of consciousness outside of nature and man there is nothing but fantastic and deceptive representations.
The Hegelian system was thus reversed: where Hegel says "spirit," says Feuerbach "matter" where Hegel says, "God," Feuerbach said "man." It is not God that alienates the man is the man who is alienated in God.
Feuerbach summarizes his thinking on a formula that Marx resume verbatim in his critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Place the predicate in place of the subject and the subject in place of the predicate. The being is the subject, the thought is the predicate, to say that the idea, according to Feuerbach, is a reflection of the world and not vice versa.
The effect of this statement, this inversion was wonderful on the Young Hegelians.
Undoubtedly, the work of Feuerbach is a milestone in the development of post-Hegelian. Until then, for example, the Young Hegelians, especially Bruno Bauer and Karl Marx, Hegel opposed to Christian theology, Feuerbach, by contrast, defines the philosophy of Hegel as Christian theology and deciphered by the dialectic, showing the close relationship between idealism and absolute religion, according to Feuerbach, if not abandoned the philosophy of Hegel, not to abandon theology.
The main thrust of Feuerbach is the idea of alienation.
The sale is for the man, considering the fact as a reality outside and above it, like a strange reality, which is actually his own work, the fruit of his creation.
In The Essence of Christianity, Feuerbach defines the divestiture: the man makes the subjective, or does what only exists in his thought, in his representation in imagination something that exists outside of his thought, his representation, your imagination. Thus Christians tear the man's body spirit, soul and spirit make this a separate, private body, God. He adds, in his lesson VII, to characterize this reversal: deduce God's nature is as if to infer the image, copy the original, deduct one from the idea of this thing.
In view of Hegelian idealism all the material world is an alienation of the spirit. In Feuerbach, the transcendence of God is a sale, "the man projects his essence out of itself, the opposition of the divine human being is illusory opposition, all determinations are determinations of the divine being of human beings." In a word, it was not God who created man in his image, was the man who created in his image, his gods.
According to Hegel, Feuerbach says, man is an alienation from God. We must reverse the formula: God is an alienation of man. The man is the subject, God is the predicate. The man is not the individual, is the human race, and God is the ideal he projects beyond itself in the sky. This alienation is the result of the division of man himself. She is overcome by the knowledge that dissolves the transcendence of God, as in Hegel it melted the externality of the object.
The purpose of the story is so changed, for Hegel was the realization of God in man, for Feuerbach is the realization of man in man when he ceases to project onto God. Feuerbach's goal is to free the man of religion, realize the unity of man with man. It is this humanism that Feuerbach calls communism: the divided man of religion find again your drive in communism.
This philosophical communism is not connected with the struggle for the interests of the proletarian class, much less a radical transformation of bourgeois society: it tends only to be replaced in the consciousness of men, the traditional religion of humanism which says a materialist and atheist.
We are not there but a reversal of the Hegelian system. However, reinvesting the Hegelian system is not changing his list is to build a dogmatic materialism, symmetrical dogmatic idealism of Hegel. Hegel's ghost haunts the materialism of Feuerbach who is a naturalized Hegelianism. The dialectic that Hegel attributes to the absolute spirit is introduced here, under a dogmatic way, in nature. Metaphysics of Hegel becomes anthropology, and the real man is a religious man alienated.
This anthropology is, according to Feuerbach, the truth of religion. He fails to free itself from theology, is a justification for her man: the man, he said, is the human race, God is his ideal. The reconciliation of man with others in love is done humanism. Feuerbach thus replaced one religion for another, deifying love, a dialogue of I and TU.
1.1.1 The Infinite Consciousness
Feuerbach starts the first chapter of The Essence of Christianity with his famous quote: "Religion is based on the essential difference between man and animal, animals have no religion."
It is necessary, however, what constitutes the difference. Still are, Feuerbach: "But what is this essential difference between man and animal? The simple answer and most common, also the most popular to this question is: consciousness. "
According to Feuerbach, this essential difference is consciousness taken in the strict sense. At this point, has two kinds of consciousness, one's own human being, consciousness in the strict sense, and another that is also present in animals, without a broad sense.
The essential difference between man and animal is consciousness, but consciousness in the strict sense, because consciousness in the sense of self, capacity for understanding sensory perception and even of things outside of court as certain sensory characteristics, such a consciousness can not be denied to animals. Consciousness in the strict sense exists only when, for a being, object is its genre, its quiddity. In fact the animal is subject to himself as an individual, why does he feel himself, but not as a genre, so it lacks a conscience, whose name derives from knowledge. Where there is awareness of genres. In life we deal with individuals with gender in science. But only a being to which one's own gender, its quiddity becomes the object, the object may have the other things or beings according to their essential nature.
Consciousness in the broadest sense would be the sense of himself, sensory discrimination, which also characterizes the animals. According to Feuerbach, the animal may be an object for himself, not as a genre, but only as an individual. Consciousness, however, in the strict sense "exists only when, for a being, is subject to its genre, its quiddity."
For Feuerbach, in addition, awareness is related to a knowledge, which is clear from the words in Latin scire (to know), scientia (knowledge) and conscious (consciousness) and German between Wisen (which means to know and whose past participle is gewusst) and Bewusstsein.
So the animal has only a simple life, but one man is twofold: on the animal's life inside the outside, the man has an inner life and a pool. The inner life of man is life related to their gender, with its essence. The man thinks, he talks, talks to himself. The animal can not perform any function of gender thinking, speaking (because thinking and talking about gender roles are legitimate) without one another.
Man, unlike animals, has a double life, one indoor and one outdoor, due to their conscience. The inner life of man is life related to their gender, with its essence. He says: "Man is to himself while U.S. and TU, he can stand in the place of others just because their gender, their essence, not only his individuality, he is to object."
Firstly, Feuerbach wants to show that religion has as a precondition to consciousness in its specificity and, therefore, the human essence is the foundation (Grund) of religion. But beyond that, if consciousness is the ground of religion only in its human specificity, ie as an object has its own genre, that "the essence of man, in contrast with the animal, not just the foundation but also the object of religion ", for consciousness, as the founding of the religion, it takes the object itself, is self-awareness, awareness of the genre.
The first part of this proposition (the essence of humanity is the basis of religion) is clearly substantiated by the fact that religion is something distinctively human, and therefore must have its reason for being at the essence of man is based on specific human difference .
The second part (the human essence is the object of religion) it follows the first or best, way to understand consciousness as a specifically human, because only the awareness of gender, universal human essence and not only the individual being, is human consciousness itself. And thus the founding of the religion provides awareness at the same time that its object: the human essence. Thus, evidence is the basis and object of religion.
The essence of man, in contrast to the animal, not just the foundation but also the object of religion.
From this identity of the object of conscience and religion, Feuerbach forward with the object of replacing, without any loss to human by the divine essence, showing that it was stated that the infinity of the divine essence corresponds to the human essence. He says: "But religion and consciousness of the infinite, so it is not and can not be more than the consciousness that man has its essence not finite, not limited, but infinite."
If the human essence is not only the foundation but also the object of religion and is regarded as the conscience of the infinite, then the infinity that is said of religion, it appears the infinity of human essence. If the man was not the infinite, because its essence is the specific object and determines its consciousness.
There is, therefore, an identity between consciousness and essence (in the strict sense of awareness, specifically in the human sense and be aware of the essence, the human essence is made up of reflection about herself, the awareness of the essence). And so it can be stated that "the limit of essence is also the limit of consciousness." In this excerpt, Feuerbach compares man's consciousness to the caterpillar.
He said. There is a difference between conscience and instinct, the caterpillar (Roupe) has instincts, but not consciousness. Limited awareness, like the caterpillar, can not be called consciousness, because this implies infinity universality. He says: "Consciousness in the strict sense or self and consciousness are inseparable concepts of infinity" and then adds: "The consciousness of the infinite is nothing that awareness of the infinitude of consciousness. Or: the consciousness of infinity is the infinity of its very essence an object to the conscious. "
That consciousness in the strict sense, as awareness of the genre, Feuerbach argued that the principle as the basis of religion, it is now as awareness of the very essence of infinity, that is, in itself took the same religion. Religion served as a middle term in this syllogism, whose starting point was the conscience of man as distinctive; this starting point was phenomenologically evident thanks to religion. The religion was first given the badge of the man and only in search of the ground of religious behavior came to the consciousness.
So then, thanks to religion, we can define the content and infinite dimensions of consciousness, which were transferred from religion to consciousness and its object, the human essence.
Feuerbach is using arguments that present the same figure as historical fact in the development of the history of religious consciousness: religion is the first, albeit indirect, that is, through the consciousness of another (God), self-consciousness of man, that when is converted into direct consciousness disappears as a religion, because it is founded on the supposed separation between the core object (religion), and the essence (the object of consciousness), and overcome the separation, anthropology emerges as denial and assumption of religion.
This so far only assumed and asserted identity, which is shown by the interpretation of the history of religious consciousness, Feuerbach attempts to demonstrate, examining the subject-object relationship, consciousness-essence.
1.2 The Strangeness of Consciousness
Once you have tasted the full identity between consciousness and object, and therefore to exclude from consciousness anything other than self-awareness, following Feuerbach consequently showing that the desired object of religion is no longer the object of self-consciousness , ie the very essence of man. Therefore, it should ask for the identity of the object of consciousness with that of religion, as Feuerbach understood the essence of man, his relationship with gender, gender relations, individual, and how this object of consciousness can be had for religious object, this is God.
The essence of man is what constitutes the genre, the humanity in man, which means that man is man. The human essence is made up of reason, will and heart, these are the three perfections absolute essential constituents of the absolute essence of man. Feuerbach says, "But what then is the essence of man, of which he is conscious, or who performs the genre, the very humanity of man? The reason, at will, the heart. "
There are perfections that man has in abundance, but part of them and it is through them that man is defined; forces are constitutive elements or principles that animate and define it. These qualities are so perfect, that have in themselves the end of man, whose action, therefore, is always immanent. Feuerbach says, "But what is the purpose of reason? The reason. Love? Love. Will? The free will. Know to know, love to love, want to want, i. is. to be free. "
It is understood, then the total immanence or immediate identity and undifferentiated (exclusive subjectivist) because, given its absolute character, these perfections is not from the very beginning, determining any object or outside it, and it derives its infinity and municipality.
These forces are essential, because through them the essence of man, transcending individuals, driving them beyond the limits of its finitude: the ratio tends to the indefinite continuation of the reflection, the ethical will is, in itself, and the power of unconditional feeling breaks all boundaries in the act of giving full. It is therefore through these forces that impel the individual besides yourself, that carries the essence of man as a species.
The reason, desire and love are the perfections, force, of which the individual participates, as if perfection or substantialized hypostatizes, universal and infinite constituent of man's being, but higher above the individual achievement of them. His achievement takes place in the genre.
The individual, in turn, is limited and must be recognized and feel as such, qualitative difference in the gender front. Exactly the kind of consciousness or essence, which has the status of infinity is that the individual becomes aware of its limitation and finitude. This awareness of their own limitations by the individual against the genre, is its specific difference against the animal.
The consideration of the human essence as infinite, and thus substitute for God, and the essence of the genre appear similar, lying within the plane of infinity, while the individual is in terms of finitude. The essence of man is the generic essence, which certainly is the absolute essence of the individual but does not identify with him. The individual has no essence in itself, but in the genre, the genre is the essence of the individual. It states: "The natural man does not in itself has in it the ess6encia man neither as a moral being, not as thinking being. The ess6encia of man is contained only in community, in the unity of man with man. "
The identity and essence of consciousness, lies therefore in the generic plan, then it was the man, not its concretion in the finite individual, considered himself the human being as a generic and not individually, or as is reasonable in extent that it can perform generic functions.
Just as when considering the relationship consciousness-essence stated the identity, so when considering the relationship between individual and essence or gender, is said to qualitative difference. The lack of difference is the actual origin of the idea of God. The individual, by ignoring gender, hypostasizes infinity of qualities peculiar to the genre, the object of his consciousness, like God, imagines the genre with an individual, deifying him because to grant it the infinity of the genre itself.
Based, therefore, the religious alienation on the one hand, the very structure of consciousness and, secondly, the tension between individual and species would entail. Firstly, the man is conscious of itself, that is, he is able to make their own essence as the object of his consciousness. The objective consciousness, while awareness of the object is assumed, constitutionally, the difference between self and object. However, in the case, the self is experienced as finite, marked by many boundaries, that is, the finite self as an individual, is experienced in its existential facticity, infinitely different from what it can be.
Thus, human consciousness emerges in the fundamental tension between the self (the individual, limited and finite) and kind man (infinity that transcends all boundaries).
The infinite possibility, which is man, which makes him an indefinite task, is updated by a projection, a being distinct from man, then why, for Feuerbach, "the man converts his God, what he wants to be or as the man thinking, as is intended, so is his God. " God is simply the man released the limits that constrain the existence of individuals. Is reversed, thus the milling biblical "God created man in His own image" (Genesis 1:27) because, according to Feuerbach, "the first man created God, not knowing and wanting, according to his image."
1.3 God's Image and Likeness of Man
The thinker of Landshut, as a consequence of reducing the object to the subject (the essence of consciousness), operates a reduction of the divine predicates to its basic elements, the human predicates, and the assignment to their true human subject, resulting in the alleged divine essence is only human. Feuerbach does not, therefore, predicates, but only its elusive subject.
Feuerbach, in order to demonstrate that the divine essence is nothing more than human, preserves the predicates of the divine essence and attributes to the real subject, the human essence. Consider God as the subject is the fundamental illusion of religion. Nega therefore predicates attributed to God, leading to an outright negation of the subject-god, since in his view, "the negation of the predicates is therefore the negation of the subject." States that "if the predicates are divine qualities of the human essence, also the subject belongs to the same human essence."
The predicates enjoy facing the subject of autonomy and independent existence, having value and meaning in themselves and not by their application to a subject. Feuerbach says: "And in no way a negation of the subject is also necessarily the negation of the predicate itself. The predicates have a meaning of its own, autonomous. "
The subject is determined by the predicates, which are the determinants. The relationship is only unilateral, and in no time, Feuerbach shows that the predicates are affected by the allocation to a subject.
Therefore, the concept of self depends entirely on its determination. In the case of God, the predicates are not divine by their membership or references intrinsic to God, are attributed to him, because in themselves are divine. He says: "Not the quality of divinity, the deity but the quality is the first true essence of God. So, all the theology and philosophy until now considered as God, absolutely essential, not God. "
He adds:
Goodness, justice, wisdom chimeras are not so because of the existence of God is a chimera, or truths by the fact that this is true. The concept of God is dependent on the concept of justice, goodness, wisdom, a God who is not good, not fair, is not wise, not God, but not vice versa. Quality is not divine because God possess it, but God has the divine because she is in and of itself, because without it God would be an imperfect being.
The concept of God depends, therefore, the determinations and qualities that apply to you, and not vice versa, because "the need of the subject is just in need of the predicate."
Says:
With respect to the predicates, ie, attributes or properties of God that is accepted without discussion, but not concerning the subject, ie, the fundamental essence of these predicates. The denial of the subject is taken by irreligion, of atheism, but not the negation of the predicates [...]. Undo all qualities is the same as removing the very essence. A being without qualities is a being without being a objectively and without objectivity is a be invalid. So when the man cut all the quality of God is this God for it just be a negative.
Thus, the denial of the subject does not imply the negation of predicates implies the negation of the subject. This proposition must be understood in Feuerbach's intention to retain the divine predicates and apply them to the real subject (the human race) and denying them the elusive subject (God). Predicates assigned to the divine essence belongs, in fact, the human essence. Give it a replacement of the subject, the man taking the place of God.
The consideration of predicates that aims to show what man says God actually says about himself. Thus, it can mean nothing The essence of Christianity as a refund of theological language predicamental the man when he came to the conclusion that theology is anthropology. Feuerbach says:
Only then can a true unity, satisfied itself of the divine essence with the human, the unity of human essence with itself, so only when, then we no longer have a philosophy of religion or theology different from psychology or anthropology, but when recognize one's own theology as anthropology.
The predicates attributed to God are human generic determinations. The concept of deity coincides with that of mankind.
1FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.46. Afirma Feuerbach também: e aqui vale sem restrição o princípio; o objeto do homem nada mais é que a sua própria essência objetivada, p. 55.
2FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p. 46.
3FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p. 46.
4FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p. 46.
5FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p. 46.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.55.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.55.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.41.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.41.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p. 43.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p. 43.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p. 44.
FEUER FEUERBACH, L. op., cit.,p. 44.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.44
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.44
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.44.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.44.
FEUERBACH, L. op,. cit., p.45.
ou coração – cf. A essência do cristianismo, p.111.
FEUERBACH, L. Princípios da filosofia do futuro e outros escritos. Lisboa: Edições 70, 1989, p. 59.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.55.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.158.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.61.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.66.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit.,p.63.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit.,p.63.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit.,p.64.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.61.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.57.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.271.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.64. É interessante notar que originariamente o termo theós (deus) era utilizado como nome predicativo. No sentido em grego clássico.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.64.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.158.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.64.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.59.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.41.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.56.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.212.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.55.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.56.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.56.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.56.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.239.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.77.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.68.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.68.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.56-57.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.56.
The first chapter of Introduction (Einleitung) from The Essence of Christianity is titled The essence of man in general (Das Wesen des Menschen im Allgemeine) and opens with some reflections on religion as something that differentiates humans specifically in order to concludes that the (human essence) is the foundation and content of religion.
The method can be called Feuerbachian reduction. The anthropological reasons for this reduction, ie the argument that Feuerbach based on his remarks about the essence of man, which can be grouped around two fundamental ideas:
1) The identity of the subject (consciousness) and object, college or body and object. The reason is that the identity of the object is nothing more than the essence objectified. The object of human consciousness can not be more than the human essence. This identity involves, for Feuerbach, the highest perfection, that is, autonomy, self-sufficiency and infinite essence of each.
2) The concept of gender and human essence, which shows the identity of the object of consciousness and the object of religion. God is nothing more than the personification imaginary, fanciful representation of the human race as a person.
Identity between Subject and Object
The basic thesis in this regard is that the consciousness of the object is always self-consciousness, since the object is nothing but the very essence objectified. Feuerbach says, "But the object with which a subject relates essentially necessarily nothing more than the essence itself, the objective of this subject."
It is assumed in this statement that "man is nothing without an object" can not know or be self-conscious without an object, ie you must first is the parting expression or utterance (Entzweiung, Entdusserung), then the assumption of object, recognize themselves and come up with a new identity. Do not immediately reach the self, but only through the mediation of the object or objectification of the essence. Feuerbach says: "So the man takes consciousness of itself through the object: the object of consciousness is the consciousness that man has of himself."
To explain this relationship of identity between subject and object Feuerbach mentions the following model:
Great men, male specimens, which reveal the essence of man, confirmed this statement with your life. They had only one dominant fundamental passion: the achievement of the goal that was the essential goal of their activity.
Feuerbach, in effect, emphasizes both the subjectivity and the fact that the objects, whatever, both the spiritual and the sensible, are but the very essence objectified, which seems to deny all objectivity out of consciousness, the otherness of the object ahead to consciousness. Says:
Through the object if you know the man, it appears you its essence, the object is the essence revealed his true self, goal. And this is valid not only for spiritual objects, but also for the senses. S also the most distant objects are revelations of man's human essence, and because this and while they are objects for him. Also the moon, the sun and the stars scream gnot sauton, you know him (sic) yourself. Because he see them and see the way he sees them, all this is already a testimony to its very essence.
If this reasoning is understood only as an explanation and consequence of relationship self-knowledge, then does not necessarily mean a total denial of objectivity.
Precisely in the fact of being an object for consciousness is supposed objectivity. Moreover, as this relationship is to say only that in the objectivity of the object of consciousness, one becomes aware and emerges own subjectivity, self-consciousness. Feuerbach says, showing that she falls into a subjectivism absolute:
The fact that the objects, and because while man knows them, are mirrors of their essence, do not follow the unreality of the objects or the pure subjectivity of knowledge.
Although both the spiritual objects as sensitive are manifestations of the essence, exists between them in this respect, a difference; sensible objects are distinguished in consciousness, living beyond, while immediately coincide with the religious consciousness, has its existence only to it. Feuerbach says: "The sense object is outside of man, it is religious, and even intimate [...] is actually the closest, the closest."
The relationship between subject and object, however, that distinguishes the two as such, is reduced to one element: the subjective, despite the attempt to maintain objectivity Feuerbach. This identity that would follow from the cognitive process open and earner of new knowledge make it impossible to acquire new knowledge, because one can know only the objects that are objectivations the very essence, the predicates that are in it.
On this exclusive, ie that man is conscious only of himself, Feuerbach supports the infinity of consciousness and spirit. Consciousness without a strict sense (specifically human), which is the human essence, is the awareness of their own gender and of the essence, thus closing the circle of immediate identity.
The essence and consciousness, therefore, coincide limits are one of the other, and splits as well as coherent and without mediation, can not understand consciousness, properly speaking, no limit, or something external to it or to the essence.
The infinity is therefore unable to note the very limit, the essence of integrity, autonomy, self-sufficiency. The awareness is already by definition, in which the essence is the subject herself.
Given the total identity of essence and consciousness, it can not understand unless to itself, its essence, its subject is objectified essence, consciousness can not be more than self-consciousness. This total identity between consciousness and essence extends to all colleges; no college can transcend, be above, not even realizing it, the limits of the essence.
This identity forces applied to the constituents of the human essence (reason, heart, will) result in the impossibility of that, through them, one realizes that something is not the essence or who perceive its limits, leading to the subjectivity of the object, ie , reducing the object to the organ of perception.
Feuerbach, prolonging and deepening the critique of Hegel, the incompatibility of philosophy and religion, reason and faith.
Then, generalizing his criticism, denouncing the claim of Hegel to reduce to unity of spirit and matter, man, doing and the world, making back to the whole spirit of the real. The path followed so far by speculative philosophy, from abstract to concrete, from ideal to reality, is a way of nonsense. According to Feuerbach, being, by which philosophy begins, can not be separated from the consciousness or awareness of being.
Nature exists independent of consciousness outside of nature and man there is nothing but fantastic and deceptive representations.
The Hegelian system was thus reversed: where Hegel says "spirit," says Feuerbach "matter" where Hegel says, "God," Feuerbach said "man." It is not God that alienates the man is the man who is alienated in God.
Feuerbach summarizes his thinking on a formula that Marx resume verbatim in his critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Place the predicate in place of the subject and the subject in place of the predicate. The being is the subject, the thought is the predicate, to say that the idea, according to Feuerbach, is a reflection of the world and not vice versa.
The effect of this statement, this inversion was wonderful on the Young Hegelians.
Undoubtedly, the work of Feuerbach is a milestone in the development of post-Hegelian. Until then, for example, the Young Hegelians, especially Bruno Bauer and Karl Marx, Hegel opposed to Christian theology, Feuerbach, by contrast, defines the philosophy of Hegel as Christian theology and deciphered by the dialectic, showing the close relationship between idealism and absolute religion, according to Feuerbach, if not abandoned the philosophy of Hegel, not to abandon theology.
The main thrust of Feuerbach is the idea of alienation.
The sale is for the man, considering the fact as a reality outside and above it, like a strange reality, which is actually his own work, the fruit of his creation.
In The Essence of Christianity, Feuerbach defines the divestiture: the man makes the subjective, or does what only exists in his thought, in his representation in imagination something that exists outside of his thought, his representation, your imagination. Thus Christians tear the man's body spirit, soul and spirit make this a separate, private body, God. He adds, in his lesson VII, to characterize this reversal: deduce God's nature is as if to infer the image, copy the original, deduct one from the idea of this thing.
In view of Hegelian idealism all the material world is an alienation of the spirit. In Feuerbach, the transcendence of God is a sale, "the man projects his essence out of itself, the opposition of the divine human being is illusory opposition, all determinations are determinations of the divine being of human beings." In a word, it was not God who created man in his image, was the man who created in his image, his gods.
According to Hegel, Feuerbach says, man is an alienation from God. We must reverse the formula: God is an alienation of man. The man is the subject, God is the predicate. The man is not the individual, is the human race, and God is the ideal he projects beyond itself in the sky. This alienation is the result of the division of man himself. She is overcome by the knowledge that dissolves the transcendence of God, as in Hegel it melted the externality of the object.
The purpose of the story is so changed, for Hegel was the realization of God in man, for Feuerbach is the realization of man in man when he ceases to project onto God. Feuerbach's goal is to free the man of religion, realize the unity of man with man. It is this humanism that Feuerbach calls communism: the divided man of religion find again your drive in communism.
This philosophical communism is not connected with the struggle for the interests of the proletarian class, much less a radical transformation of bourgeois society: it tends only to be replaced in the consciousness of men, the traditional religion of humanism which says a materialist and atheist.
We are not there but a reversal of the Hegelian system. However, reinvesting the Hegelian system is not changing his list is to build a dogmatic materialism, symmetrical dogmatic idealism of Hegel. Hegel's ghost haunts the materialism of Feuerbach who is a naturalized Hegelianism. The dialectic that Hegel attributes to the absolute spirit is introduced here, under a dogmatic way, in nature. Metaphysics of Hegel becomes anthropology, and the real man is a religious man alienated.
This anthropology is, according to Feuerbach, the truth of religion. He fails to free itself from theology, is a justification for her man: the man, he said, is the human race, God is his ideal. The reconciliation of man with others in love is done humanism. Feuerbach thus replaced one religion for another, deifying love, a dialogue of I and TU.
1.1.1 The Infinite Consciousness
Feuerbach starts the first chapter of The Essence of Christianity with his famous quote: "Religion is based on the essential difference between man and animal, animals have no religion."
It is necessary, however, what constitutes the difference. Still are, Feuerbach: "But what is this essential difference between man and animal? The simple answer and most common, also the most popular to this question is: consciousness. "
According to Feuerbach, this essential difference is consciousness taken in the strict sense. At this point, has two kinds of consciousness, one's own human being, consciousness in the strict sense, and another that is also present in animals, without a broad sense.
The essential difference between man and animal is consciousness, but consciousness in the strict sense, because consciousness in the sense of self, capacity for understanding sensory perception and even of things outside of court as certain sensory characteristics, such a consciousness can not be denied to animals. Consciousness in the strict sense exists only when, for a being, object is its genre, its quiddity. In fact the animal is subject to himself as an individual, why does he feel himself, but not as a genre, so it lacks a conscience, whose name derives from knowledge. Where there is awareness of genres. In life we deal with individuals with gender in science. But only a being to which one's own gender, its quiddity becomes the object, the object may have the other things or beings according to their essential nature.
Consciousness in the broadest sense would be the sense of himself, sensory discrimination, which also characterizes the animals. According to Feuerbach, the animal may be an object for himself, not as a genre, but only as an individual. Consciousness, however, in the strict sense "exists only when, for a being, is subject to its genre, its quiddity."
For Feuerbach, in addition, awareness is related to a knowledge, which is clear from the words in Latin scire (to know), scientia (knowledge) and conscious (consciousness) and German between Wisen (which means to know and whose past participle is gewusst) and Bewusstsein.
So the animal has only a simple life, but one man is twofold: on the animal's life inside the outside, the man has an inner life and a pool. The inner life of man is life related to their gender, with its essence. The man thinks, he talks, talks to himself. The animal can not perform any function of gender thinking, speaking (because thinking and talking about gender roles are legitimate) without one another.
Man, unlike animals, has a double life, one indoor and one outdoor, due to their conscience. The inner life of man is life related to their gender, with its essence. He says: "Man is to himself while U.S. and TU, he can stand in the place of others just because their gender, their essence, not only his individuality, he is to object."
Firstly, Feuerbach wants to show that religion has as a precondition to consciousness in its specificity and, therefore, the human essence is the foundation (Grund) of religion. But beyond that, if consciousness is the ground of religion only in its human specificity, ie as an object has its own genre, that "the essence of man, in contrast with the animal, not just the foundation but also the object of religion ", for consciousness, as the founding of the religion, it takes the object itself, is self-awareness, awareness of the genre.
The first part of this proposition (the essence of humanity is the basis of religion) is clearly substantiated by the fact that religion is something distinctively human, and therefore must have its reason for being at the essence of man is based on specific human difference .
The second part (the human essence is the object of religion) it follows the first or best, way to understand consciousness as a specifically human, because only the awareness of gender, universal human essence and not only the individual being, is human consciousness itself. And thus the founding of the religion provides awareness at the same time that its object: the human essence. Thus, evidence is the basis and object of religion.
The essence of man, in contrast to the animal, not just the foundation but also the object of religion.
From this identity of the object of conscience and religion, Feuerbach forward with the object of replacing, without any loss to human by the divine essence, showing that it was stated that the infinity of the divine essence corresponds to the human essence. He says: "But religion and consciousness of the infinite, so it is not and can not be more than the consciousness that man has its essence not finite, not limited, but infinite."
If the human essence is not only the foundation but also the object of religion and is regarded as the conscience of the infinite, then the infinity that is said of religion, it appears the infinity of human essence. If the man was not the infinite, because its essence is the specific object and determines its consciousness.
There is, therefore, an identity between consciousness and essence (in the strict sense of awareness, specifically in the human sense and be aware of the essence, the human essence is made up of reflection about herself, the awareness of the essence). And so it can be stated that "the limit of essence is also the limit of consciousness." In this excerpt, Feuerbach compares man's consciousness to the caterpillar.
He said. There is a difference between conscience and instinct, the caterpillar (Roupe) has instincts, but not consciousness. Limited awareness, like the caterpillar, can not be called consciousness, because this implies infinity universality. He says: "Consciousness in the strict sense or self and consciousness are inseparable concepts of infinity" and then adds: "The consciousness of the infinite is nothing that awareness of the infinitude of consciousness. Or: the consciousness of infinity is the infinity of its very essence an object to the conscious. "
That consciousness in the strict sense, as awareness of the genre, Feuerbach argued that the principle as the basis of religion, it is now as awareness of the very essence of infinity, that is, in itself took the same religion. Religion served as a middle term in this syllogism, whose starting point was the conscience of man as distinctive; this starting point was phenomenologically evident thanks to religion. The religion was first given the badge of the man and only in search of the ground of religious behavior came to the consciousness.
So then, thanks to religion, we can define the content and infinite dimensions of consciousness, which were transferred from religion to consciousness and its object, the human essence.
Feuerbach is using arguments that present the same figure as historical fact in the development of the history of religious consciousness: religion is the first, albeit indirect, that is, through the consciousness of another (God), self-consciousness of man, that when is converted into direct consciousness disappears as a religion, because it is founded on the supposed separation between the core object (religion), and the essence (the object of consciousness), and overcome the separation, anthropology emerges as denial and assumption of religion.
This so far only assumed and asserted identity, which is shown by the interpretation of the history of religious consciousness, Feuerbach attempts to demonstrate, examining the subject-object relationship, consciousness-essence.
1.2 The Strangeness of Consciousness
Once you have tasted the full identity between consciousness and object, and therefore to exclude from consciousness anything other than self-awareness, following Feuerbach consequently showing that the desired object of religion is no longer the object of self-consciousness , ie the very essence of man. Therefore, it should ask for the identity of the object of consciousness with that of religion, as Feuerbach understood the essence of man, his relationship with gender, gender relations, individual, and how this object of consciousness can be had for religious object, this is God.
The essence of man is what constitutes the genre, the humanity in man, which means that man is man. The human essence is made up of reason, will and heart, these are the three perfections absolute essential constituents of the absolute essence of man. Feuerbach says, "But what then is the essence of man, of which he is conscious, or who performs the genre, the very humanity of man? The reason, at will, the heart. "
There are perfections that man has in abundance, but part of them and it is through them that man is defined; forces are constitutive elements or principles that animate and define it. These qualities are so perfect, that have in themselves the end of man, whose action, therefore, is always immanent. Feuerbach says, "But what is the purpose of reason? The reason. Love? Love. Will? The free will. Know to know, love to love, want to want, i. is. to be free. "
It is understood, then the total immanence or immediate identity and undifferentiated (exclusive subjectivist) because, given its absolute character, these perfections is not from the very beginning, determining any object or outside it, and it derives its infinity and municipality.
These forces are essential, because through them the essence of man, transcending individuals, driving them beyond the limits of its finitude: the ratio tends to the indefinite continuation of the reflection, the ethical will is, in itself, and the power of unconditional feeling breaks all boundaries in the act of giving full. It is therefore through these forces that impel the individual besides yourself, that carries the essence of man as a species.
The reason, desire and love are the perfections, force, of which the individual participates, as if perfection or substantialized hypostatizes, universal and infinite constituent of man's being, but higher above the individual achievement of them. His achievement takes place in the genre.
The individual, in turn, is limited and must be recognized and feel as such, qualitative difference in the gender front. Exactly the kind of consciousness or essence, which has the status of infinity is that the individual becomes aware of its limitation and finitude. This awareness of their own limitations by the individual against the genre, is its specific difference against the animal.
The consideration of the human essence as infinite, and thus substitute for God, and the essence of the genre appear similar, lying within the plane of infinity, while the individual is in terms of finitude. The essence of man is the generic essence, which certainly is the absolute essence of the individual but does not identify with him. The individual has no essence in itself, but in the genre, the genre is the essence of the individual. It states: "The natural man does not in itself has in it the ess6encia man neither as a moral being, not as thinking being. The ess6encia of man is contained only in community, in the unity of man with man. "
The identity and essence of consciousness, lies therefore in the generic plan, then it was the man, not its concretion in the finite individual, considered himself the human being as a generic and not individually, or as is reasonable in extent that it can perform generic functions.
Just as when considering the relationship consciousness-essence stated the identity, so when considering the relationship between individual and essence or gender, is said to qualitative difference. The lack of difference is the actual origin of the idea of God. The individual, by ignoring gender, hypostasizes infinity of qualities peculiar to the genre, the object of his consciousness, like God, imagines the genre with an individual, deifying him because to grant it the infinity of the genre itself.
Based, therefore, the religious alienation on the one hand, the very structure of consciousness and, secondly, the tension between individual and species would entail. Firstly, the man is conscious of itself, that is, he is able to make their own essence as the object of his consciousness. The objective consciousness, while awareness of the object is assumed, constitutionally, the difference between self and object. However, in the case, the self is experienced as finite, marked by many boundaries, that is, the finite self as an individual, is experienced in its existential facticity, infinitely different from what it can be.
Thus, human consciousness emerges in the fundamental tension between the self (the individual, limited and finite) and kind man (infinity that transcends all boundaries).
The infinite possibility, which is man, which makes him an indefinite task, is updated by a projection, a being distinct from man, then why, for Feuerbach, "the man converts his God, what he wants to be or as the man thinking, as is intended, so is his God. " God is simply the man released the limits that constrain the existence of individuals. Is reversed, thus the milling biblical "God created man in His own image" (Genesis 1:27) because, according to Feuerbach, "the first man created God, not knowing and wanting, according to his image."
1.3 God's Image and Likeness of Man
The thinker of Landshut, as a consequence of reducing the object to the subject (the essence of consciousness), operates a reduction of the divine predicates to its basic elements, the human predicates, and the assignment to their true human subject, resulting in the alleged divine essence is only human. Feuerbach does not, therefore, predicates, but only its elusive subject.
Feuerbach, in order to demonstrate that the divine essence is nothing more than human, preserves the predicates of the divine essence and attributes to the real subject, the human essence. Consider God as the subject is the fundamental illusion of religion. Nega therefore predicates attributed to God, leading to an outright negation of the subject-god, since in his view, "the negation of the predicates is therefore the negation of the subject." States that "if the predicates are divine qualities of the human essence, also the subject belongs to the same human essence."
The predicates enjoy facing the subject of autonomy and independent existence, having value and meaning in themselves and not by their application to a subject. Feuerbach says: "And in no way a negation of the subject is also necessarily the negation of the predicate itself. The predicates have a meaning of its own, autonomous. "
The subject is determined by the predicates, which are the determinants. The relationship is only unilateral, and in no time, Feuerbach shows that the predicates are affected by the allocation to a subject.
Therefore, the concept of self depends entirely on its determination. In the case of God, the predicates are not divine by their membership or references intrinsic to God, are attributed to him, because in themselves are divine. He says: "Not the quality of divinity, the deity but the quality is the first true essence of God. So, all the theology and philosophy until now considered as God, absolutely essential, not God. "
He adds:
Goodness, justice, wisdom chimeras are not so because of the existence of God is a chimera, or truths by the fact that this is true. The concept of God is dependent on the concept of justice, goodness, wisdom, a God who is not good, not fair, is not wise, not God, but not vice versa. Quality is not divine because God possess it, but God has the divine because she is in and of itself, because without it God would be an imperfect being.
The concept of God depends, therefore, the determinations and qualities that apply to you, and not vice versa, because "the need of the subject is just in need of the predicate."
Says:
With respect to the predicates, ie, attributes or properties of God that is accepted without discussion, but not concerning the subject, ie, the fundamental essence of these predicates. The denial of the subject is taken by irreligion, of atheism, but not the negation of the predicates [...]. Undo all qualities is the same as removing the very essence. A being without qualities is a being without being a objectively and without objectivity is a be invalid. So when the man cut all the quality of God is this God for it just be a negative.
Thus, the denial of the subject does not imply the negation of predicates implies the negation of the subject. This proposition must be understood in Feuerbach's intention to retain the divine predicates and apply them to the real subject (the human race) and denying them the elusive subject (God). Predicates assigned to the divine essence belongs, in fact, the human essence. Give it a replacement of the subject, the man taking the place of God.
The consideration of predicates that aims to show what man says God actually says about himself. Thus, it can mean nothing The essence of Christianity as a refund of theological language predicamental the man when he came to the conclusion that theology is anthropology. Feuerbach says:
Only then can a true unity, satisfied itself of the divine essence with the human, the unity of human essence with itself, so only when, then we no longer have a philosophy of religion or theology different from psychology or anthropology, but when recognize one's own theology as anthropology.
The predicates attributed to God are human generic determinations. The concept of deity coincides with that of mankind.
1FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.46. Afirma Feuerbach também: e aqui vale sem restrição o princípio; o objeto do homem nada mais é que a sua própria essência objetivada, p. 55.
2FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p. 46.
3FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p. 46.
4FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p. 46.
5FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p. 46.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.55.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.55.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.41.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.41.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p. 43.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p. 43.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p. 44.
FEUER FEUERBACH, L. op., cit.,p. 44.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.44
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.44
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.44.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.44.
FEUERBACH, L. op,. cit., p.45.
ou coração – cf. A essência do cristianismo, p.111.
FEUERBACH, L. Princípios da filosofia do futuro e outros escritos. Lisboa: Edições 70, 1989, p. 59.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.55.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.158.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.61.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.66.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit.,p.63.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit.,p.63.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit.,p.64.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.61.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.57.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.271.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.64. É interessante notar que originariamente o termo theós (deus) era utilizado como nome predicativo. No sentido em grego clássico.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.64.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.158.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.64.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.59.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.41.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.56.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.212.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.55.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.56.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.56.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.56.
FEUERBACH, L. A essência do cristianismo. Campinas: Papirus, 1988, p.239.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.77.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.68.
FEUERBACH, L. op. cit., p.68.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.56-57.
FEUERBACH, L. op., cit., p.56.
.jpg)
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário