Ludwig Feuerbach
God is a projection: humans put their own best qualities into heaven and worship them – so theology is really about humanity.
Placement
Left Hegelian whose critique of religion became a starting point for Marx: religion is a projection of human nature – theology is anthropology.
Key ideas
- Projection theory
- Anthropological materialism
Teachers: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Influence
Influenced by 1
Baruch de Spinoza
influenced by ✓
In Principles of the Philosophy of the Future (1843) Feuerbach read Spinoza’s identification of God and nature as a step from theism towards materialism, likening him to Moses. L. Feuerbach, Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft (1843); Geschichte der neuern Philosophie von Bacon von Verulam bis Benedict Spinoza (1833); SEP “Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Baruch de Spinoza › 1632–1677
Influenced 4
Mikhail Bakunin
influenced ✓
Bakunin took up Feuerbach’s critique of religion as the projection of human qualities onto God and turned it against the state (God and the State, 1882). M. Bakunin, Dieu et l’État (written 1871, publ. 1882); P. McLaughlin, Mikhail Bakunin: The Philosophical Basis of His Theory of Anarchism (2002)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Mikhail Bakunin › 1814–1876
Friedrich Engels
influenced ✓
Engels recalled that Feuerbach’s Essence of Christianity (1841) made ‘us all’ Feuerbachians at once and restored materialism against Hegel’s system (Ludwig Feuerbach, 1886). F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach und der Ausgang der klassischen deutschen Philosophie (1886); L. Feuerbach, Das Wesen des Christentums (1841); SEP “Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach”
Friedrich Engels › 1820–1895
Nikolai Chernyshevsky
influenced
In The Anthropological Principle in Philosophy (1860) Chernyshevsky followed Feuerbach in treating the human being as a single natural organism, against any dualism of body and soul. N. Chernyshevsky, Antropologičeskij princip v filosofii (1860); A. Walicki, A History of Russian Thought (1979)
Evidence: AI draft
Nikolai Chernyshevsky › 1828–1889
Martin Buber
influenced
Buber credited Feuerbach’s Principles of the Philosophy of the Future (1843) with discovering the Thou (What Is Man?, 1938), a source of his dialogical thought. M. Buber, What Is Man? (lectures 1938), in Between Man and Man (1947); L. Feuerbach, Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft (1843); SEP “Martin Buber”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Martin Buber › 1878–1965
Criticism
Criticized by 2
Max Stirner
criticised by
Stirner charged that Feuerbach had merely replaced God with ‘Man’, another sacred spook set above the individual (The Ego and Its Own, 1844). M. Stirner, Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (1844), Part I; SEP “Max Stirner”
Evidence: AI draft
Max Stirner › 1806–1856
Karl Marx influenced
influenced ✓
Marx turned Feuerbach’s inversion of subject and predicate against Hegel’s theory of the state (1843) and adopted his ‘species-being’ in the Paris Manuscripts (written 1844). K. Marx, Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie (written 1843, printed 1927); Ökonomisch-philosophische Manuskripte (written 1844, printed 1932); SEP “Karl Marx”
criticised by
Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach (1845) objected that Feuerbach grasps reality only as an object of contemplation, not as practice, and abstracts human essence from social relations. K. Marx, Thesen über Feuerbach (1845; publ. by Engels 1888), Theses I and VI; SEP “Karl Marx”
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Criticizes 1
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel studied with
studied with ✓
Feuerbach moved to Berlin in 1824, nominally to study theology with Schleiermacher and Neander but in fact drawn by Hegel, whose lectures he heard for two years; in 1828 he sent Hegel his Erlangen dissertation with a covering letter. SEP “Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach”; L. Feuerbach to G. W. F. Hegel, 22 Nov. 1828
Evidence: AI draft
criticised
Feuerbach called Hegel’s speculative philosophy the last rational support of theology, inverting subject and predicate by making thought rather than sensuous being primary (Vorläufige Thesen, 1842). L. Feuerbach, Vorläufige Thesen zur Reformation der Philosophie (1842); Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Philosophie (1839); SEP “Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach”
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
Works
God is the projected essence of humanity.
Position
Feuerbach turned theology into anthropology. In The Essence of Christianity he argued that God is nothing but humanity’s own essence – reason, love, will – projected outward and worshipped as a separate being. Religion therefore alienates people from themselves: the richer God becomes, the poorer humanity. The task is to take these qualities back and recognise them as human, so that love of humanity replaces love of God. Against Hegel’s abstract spirit he insisted on the sensuous, bodily, real human being. This critique directly inspired Marx and Engels, who wanted to extend it from religion to society, and later influenced Freud.
Life & context
Feuerbach studied theology in Heidelberg before turning to philosophy under Hegel in Berlin. An anonymous early work questioning personal immortality ended his academic career. He lived for decades as a private scholar in rural Bruckberg in Franconia, became one of the leading Young Hegelians, and spent his last years in poverty near Nuremberg.
Further main works
- Thoughts on Death and Immortality (1830)
- Provisional Theses for the Reformation of Philosophy (1843)
- Principles of the Philosophy of the Future (1843)
Appears in
- Journey ‘Hegel’s Heirs’ · Stop 3 of 10
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