The German Aufklärung and British philosophyManfred KuehnINTRODUCTIONThe German Enlightenment was not an isolated phenomenon.1 It was closely connectedwith developments in other European countries and in North America. Like the thinkersin other countries, the Germans were advocating a new ideal of knowledge. They wereconcerned with a critical examination of previously accepted doctrines and institutionsfrom the point of view of reason. Though the German Enlightenment had its owndistinctive voice, it would have been very different without influences from abroad. Twocountries were especially important in shaping the German Enlightenment, namelyFrance and Great Britain. It is perhaps not too much of an exaggeration to say that theGerman Enlightenment would have been impossible without these British influences. Thefollowing chapter will investigate the influence of British philosophers on the GermanEnlightenment.It would be easy to enter into a dispute as to when the Enlightenment actually began.Some scholars have argued that the family of ideas and attitudes that characterize whatwe today call ‘the Enlightenment’ originated in the second half of the seventeenthcentury, others have argued that it was essentially an eighteenth-century phenomenon.2There are even good reasons for the claim that the ‘enlightenment’ as we understand ittoday really began to flower only at the middle of the eighteenth century.3 However, itwould be very easy to exaggerate the importance of such periodizations. There is no ‘realchasm’ between the Enlightenment and the period that preceded it. As Ernst Cassirer haspointed out, the new ideal of rationality developed ‘steadily and consistently from thepresuppositions which the logic and theory of knowledge of the seventeenth century…had established’ ([12.19], 22). There is a change in emphasis, not a radical break. Whilesuch seventeenth-century philosophers as Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza were ratheroptimistic in believing that all knowledge could actually be reduced to rational principlesand thus be raised to a strict science, the eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers weremore sceptical about how this could be done. There is a move away from the principles tothe phenomena, and from the general to the detail, but no abandonment of the goal ofrational explanation. For this reason, we should expect difficulties in determining whodid or did not ‘belong’ to the Enlightenment, but for the very same reason we must saythat not much rides on such classifications.4In any case, it is much easier to determine the beginning (and the end) of theEnlightenment in Germany than in most other countries. It clearly has its beginnings inthe disputes between the followers of Christian Thomasius (1655–1728) and ChristianWolff (1679–1754) early in the eighteenth century at the University of Halle. Thepietistically influenced Thomasians strongly opposed Wolff’s rationalistic philosophy onreligious grounds and they ultimately were successful in having Wolff not only expelledfrom the University, but even from Prussia (in 1724). Wolff’s formal address to theUniversity of Halle “On the Practical Philosophy of the Chinese’ of 1721 may be taken tobe the culmination of this dispute, and it may also be taken as the starting-point for thediscussion of the history of the Enlightenment in Germany. Wolff argued in this addressthat ethics was not dependent on revelation, that Chinese ethics and Christian ethics werenot fundamentally different, that happiness need not have a religious basis, and thatreason was sufficient.5Wolffian philosophy became the dominant force at German universities after 1720. Itsinfluence began to wane only after the middle of the century. However, when Wolff diedin 1754, it was no longer at the centre of the philosophical discussion. From about 1755on the Germans opened up more to external influences, and the Enlightenment inGermany began to resemble more closely the Enlightenment in France and Great Britain.This lasted until the early 1790ss. With the first successes and transformations of Kantianphilosophy Germans turned inwards again. This change also marks the end of theGerman Enlightenment. Accordingly, it will be convenient to divide the GermanEnlightenment into two different periods, namely that of the early Enlightenment, or ‘TheWolffian Period’, which lasted from about 1720 to 1754, and that of the lateEnlightenment or of ‘popular philosophy’, lasting from about 1755 to 1795.
THE EARLY ENLIGHTENMENTThe years between 1720 and 1754 are characterized mainly by the religious disputebetween the Wolffians and Thomasians. While the Thomasians, deeply influenced byPietism, advocated an almost mythical view of nature, the Wolffians were, on the whole,not religiously inclined and motivated by scientific concerns ([12.46]). Though bothgroups knew the major works of British philosophers, and especially those of JohnLocke, neither one had any deep affinities for them, and the influence of Britishphilosophy on German thought during the Wolffian period was rather peripheral.
The ThomasiansThomasius and his followers did not have much to offer by way of original thoughtaddressed to philosophical problems.6 They regarded most of the classical problems ofperception and knowledge as sceptical quibbles of no consequence, believing thatultimately these problems could all be explained as the result of the Fall upon man’sfaculty of knowledge. Accordingly, they also believed that if the influence of the evil willwere to be eliminated, everything would find its proper place and perspective. TheThomasian epistemology was therefore rather meagre. Its most distinctive characteristicsare: (i) an extreme sensationalism, and (ii) a correspondence theory of truth, and (iii) thesubordination of the faculty of knowledge to that of the will, and thus (iv) thesubordination of philosophy to theology. Many of their psychological views exhibit agreat resemblance to Locke’s theories. And while Locke definitely had an influence ontheir theories, these influences are not very interesting. In fact, everything that makesLocke philosophically interesting and important, namely his detailed investigations ofparticular epistemological problems and their consequences for metaphysics, is almostcompletely absent from the works of Thomasius and the Thomasians.7 When they werenot engaged in criticizing particular doctrines in Wolff, most of them excelled in generaldiscussions of commonplaces.Crusius, one of the last adherents of this way of thinking, is usually regarded as themost important of all the Thomasians. Following the earlier Thomasians, Crusiuscriticized rationalism from a pietistic point of view, objecting strongly to the optimisticfaith in the omnipotence of reason. He argued that reason is limited and can be shown tobe more dependent upon sense perception than the Wolffians wanted to admit. While heno longer accepted Thomasius’s simple-minded sensationalist account of the origin ofknowledge, and tended toward some sort of compromise between the rationalist belief ininnate ideas and principles and Thomasian sensationalism, he is far from being clear onthe details. Thus he did not want to reject entirely the doctrine of innate ideas, and he leftthe matter undecided. The following passage is perhaps typical:At the occasion of external sensation the ideas of certain objects arise. We thensay that we sense these objects. There are two possible explanations for this.Either the ideas themselves already lie in the soul, and are made lively by theseconcurring conditions…or we have only the immediate cause and the power toform them at the moment of the concurrent condition and in accordance with it.We cannot know for certain which of these two possibilities is true. But weassume less, if we assume the latter.([12.5], 153)According to Crusius, rationalism was not necessarily wrong, though it may bepresumptuous.Crusius was at his strongest when he criticized Wolff and at his weakest when he triedto develop his own theory. Indeed, this can be said of all the Thomasians. Though theyfound in Locke a welcome ally in criticizing Wolff, they hardly ever went beyond him.Furthermore, their strong theological convictions usually got in the way of theirphilosophical arguments, making it very difficult for them to appreciate Locke’s moresubtle philosophical analysis. Accordingly, most of the similarities between the Germansensationalists and British philosophers were incidental and remained without significantphilosophical consequence.
The WolffiansThe Wolffians were philosophically more interesting.8 However, since theirphilosophical project was essentially defined by the attempt to work out in a clearer andmore systematic fashion the ideas of Leibniz, they had little use for such philosophers asHobbes and Locke. Believing that the Leibnizian principles of contradiction, of sufficientreason, of the identity of indiscernibles, and of pre-established harmony were essentiallycorrect, they also thought that philosophy was well on its way to becoming an exactscience by following the ‘mathematical model’. The British philosophers, whoemphasized the role of sensation in all of knowledge, appeared to be of little use in thiscontext.However, they were not dismissed. Wolff was clearly not a ‘rationalist’ in the sense ofdiscounting empirical observation altogether. In fact, empirical observation formed forhim the very starting-point, even ‘foundation’, for philosophy because he thought that by‘means of the senses we know things which are and occur in the material world’. Yetphilosophy is not so much concerned with establishing and describing things as theyexist, or as we may be acquainted with them by the senses. For Wolff, things ‘which areor occur possess a reason from which it is understood why they are or occur’, andphilosophy is the enterprise of finding these reasons and putting them into systematicorder by demonstrating how they are connected. Put differently, whatever exists or occursis by that very fact possible. Philosophy’s task is to show how they are possible.Accordingly, ‘philosophy is the science of the possibles insofar as they are possible’. Itmust demonstrate from ‘certain and immutable principles’ and with ‘complete certainty’why ‘those things which can occur actually do occur’ ([12.13] 3–20). Once this has beendone, we have also demonstrated the ‘reality’ of the concepts of these objects, and wehave gone from mere sensible and ‘historical’ knowledge to true philosophicalunderstanding. In demonstrating why the things that can occur do occur, Wolff followsessentially Leibnizian lines, appealing to the principles of contradiction and sufficientreason. It is obvious that such philosophers as Locke could not be of much help in thatenterprise. However, they could be important in determining what things exist or occur.Accordingly, one can find references to Locke in Wolff’s discussion of ‘empiricalpsychology’. He also appears to have made use of Locke in his moral philosophy. Someof his comments on Locke are negative, but many were much more positive than onemight expect.9Yet it would be easy to exaggerate the importance of Locke for Wolff. Though hecould use some of the ideas of this British philosopher to his own end, he was ultimatelymore interested in developing his own metaphysics, i.e. in demonstrating the possibilityof things and the reality of concepts. This was the part of his work that he considered tobe most important. In fact, it was only this part that he considered to be trulyphilosophical. Locke entered really only into the pre-philosophical or ‘historical’ parts ofhis system. Even later, when such Wolffians as Baumgarten attempted to develop anaesthetic theory on Wolffian principles, this did not change. Aesthetics remained anattempt to show how beauty only appeared to be sensible, and that it was really alsorational or conceptual. Accordingly, British philosophy could be for them, at best,marginally important.10 It was only with Wolff’s death and the end of the conflictbetween the Wolffians and the Thomasians that the Germans began to open up to Britishphilosophers.11
THE LATE ENLIGHTENMENT AND POPULAR PHILOSOPHYMoses Mendelssohn (1729–86), one of the best-known and most important philosophicaltalents of the second period, described the philosophical situation during the 1750s as oneof ‘general anarchy’, in which philosophy, ‘the poor matron’, who according toShaftesbury had beenbanished from high society and put into the schools and colleges…had to leaveeven this dusty corner. Descartes expelled the scholastics, Wolff expelledDescartes, and the contempt for all philosophy finally also expelled Wolff; andit appears that Crusius will soon be the philosopher in fashion.12This crisis was not a special German phenomenon, but one of European thought ingeneral. In fact, it clearly was largely imported. While in Britain empiricism and rejectionof ambitious all-inclusive speculative systems could already look back on a long anddistinguished tradition, during the early part of the Enlightenment most Germanphilosophers were still engaged in attempting to develop and work out such systems. InFrance, the mood had already changed under the British influence. Thus Condillac wasasking in his
Treatise on Systems (1749) for a synthesis of the positive or empiricistapproach with a more systematic or rationalistic one, differentiating between the ‘espritsystématique’ and the ‘esprit de système’, rejecting the latter, while advocating theformer. Voltaire had previously published his
Lettres philosophiques (1743) and his
Elements de la philosophie de Newton (1738), in which he attacked Cartesianism andargued for Newton’s approach. Diderot, in his
On the Interpretation of Nature (1754),advocated the experimental method and gave expression to his belief that mathematicshad run its course and could not develop further. Rousseau’s
Discourse on the Arts andSciences was published in 1750, and Buffon began to exert great influence when the firstvolume of his
Natural History came out in 1749. Given the fact that most educatedGermans could speak French and looked to France for literary and cultural models, it wasinevitable that these developments would also have profound effects upon theseGermans. Furthermore, since this empiricist turn in France was closely connected with anew appreciation of British natural science and British philosophy (indeed with anenthusiasm for anything British), the same also had to happen in Germany.When Frederick the Great assumed power in 1740, he almost immediately began towork at reorganizing the Berlin Academy of Sciences. His intent was to raise its status,and to make it at the very least a worthy rival of the French Academy. To achieve thisgoal, he appointed to the Academy two of the leading Newtonians of the time, namely theFrench natural philosopher Pierre L.M. Maupertuis (1698–1759) and the gifted Swissmathematician Leonhard Euler (1707–83). The perpetual secretary of the Academy,J.B.Merian, was also a Newtonian and therefore also anti-Wolffian. The King also invitedpromising Wolffians because he wanted a balance of Wolffians and Newtonians in theAcademy.13 However, between 1744 and 1759, it was clearly the Newtonians who hadthe upper hand. The questions for the regular prize essays were designed to discreditLeibniz-Wolffian philosophy, and to advance the course of Newton in Germany([12.48]). This also involved close attention to British philosophy. The anti-Wolffians inthe Academy knew and appreciated not only Locke, but also such thinkers as Berkeleyand Hume ([12.50]) And Hume appears to have played an especially important role in thedispute between the Wolffians and the Newtonians at the Academy. Though it is not clearthat the Newtonians always understood Hume correctly, they did invoke him againstLeibniz and Wolff.14 Indeed, both the German and the French translations of Hume’s
Essays clearly were occasioned by the interest of the Newtonian members of theAcademy.15This clearly had important consequences. As one of the earliest historians of thisperiod put it:Around the middle of the century…German scholars familiarized themselvesmore and more with other languages and especially with the beautiful andphilosophical literatures of the French and the English. This…not only madethem aware of the deficiencies and imperfections of the German language andthe German national taste in the sciences and fine arts; and created not only themost lively passion to educate, to refine the sciences and the arts, and tocompete with the foreigners in all kinds of beautiful representations, but it alsomade the Leibniz-Wolffian method of the school hitherto followed distasteful tothe better talents. The strict systematic form, which the Wolffians had accepted,appeared to put oppressing chains upon the free flight of philosophical genius.Moreover, in a number of philosophical works by foreigners they also foundthoroughness and systematic spirit, but no pedantry and coercion…even thetextbooks of foreign philosophers were much more readable than those of theGermans.16What looked at first like philosophical anarchy gave rise, under the influence of Britishmodels, to a new way of philosophizing. In the following I would like to say more aboutthese effects.
Philosophical Style and MethodHume’s first
Enquiry appeared in German as the second volume of the
VermischteSchriften in 1755. Johann Georg Sulzer (1720–79), the editor of the German translationof the first
Enquiry, gave Hume high praise as a philosophical writer. He found thatHume could write clearly and elegantly about the most profound and difficult problemsof metaphysics. Indeed, he claimed that in Hume ‘thoroughness and pleasantness seem tofight for priority’, and he praises Hume’s work as the model for a truly popularphilosophy, expressing his hope that the Germans would imitate Hume in this regard.17Closely connected with the problem of a popular philosophical style is for Sulzer—aswell as most of his contemporaries—the problem of common sense. In fact, popularexpression is seen only as the external expression of the principle of common sense([12.14]). Therefore, Hume’s philosophy could also be a model for philosophers whowant to combine philosophical reasoning with common sense. However, one of Sulzer’smost important reasons for publishing the translation was his belief that philosophers whoare uncritically received become lax and superficial, and that the German philosophersare in this situation. They had allowed their weapons to become blunt and rusty ‘duringthe long peace’ of the Wolffian period.18 Hume could be useful as a critic of Germanphilosophers. Sulzer hoped that ‘the publication of this work will interrupt their leisurelyslumber and give them a new occupation’.19MendelssohnOne of the philosophers who was most impressed by Hume’s style was Mendelssohn. Infact, he openly emulated it in his own works. Thus in his anonymous ‘Letter of a YoungScholar in B’. he spoke ofthe beautiful philosophical writers, those who have noticed that the systematicway of representation is not always the best, those like Leibniz, Shaftesbury,Hume or the author of the
Letters on Sensation, who often digress, but whoalways get back to the point.20According to most Germans of the period, Mendelssohn succeeded admirably. Theypraised the elegance and thoroughness of his writings—comparing them explicitly withthose of Hume. This shows that Hume provided these Germans with a new model forwriting philosophy.GarveHowever, it would be a mistake if it were thought that this was a
merely stylistic manner.We can see this clearly in another philosopher, who found Hume important for his styleof writing, namely in Christian Garve (1742–98). Differentiating between a number ofmethods of thinking, he called special attention to what he called the method ofobservation.21It starts neither from the most general principles nor from common experiences;it is neither a systematic deduction of the appearances from rational concepts,nor a Socratic ascent from facts to the ideas and principles of reason. Thephilosopher… leads his readers…right into the materials, allowing necessaryand preparatory ideas to flow in at certain occasions.The philosopher who follows this method does not represent himself as a teacher amongstudents. Rather, he presupposes that his readers know what any well-educated personknows about the subject, ‘and his only goal is to add to the common stock of knowledgesome new discoveries from his experience, and to fill in, or even discover some gaps’.According to Garve it is natural that ‘all such new ideas…are only fragments’. Hethought that the essays of David Hume were full of such fragmentary ideas. Furthermore,Garve argued that the value of these fragments was enhanced by Hume’s scepticalapproach. As a sceptic, Hume evaluates both reasons for and against any view underconsideration. Since this is done in a masterful fashion by Hume, both in his
History andin his philosophical writings, Hume could serve as the model for a new way ofphilosophizing. While his philosophy may have a bad name for some ‘ever since its aimhas been identified as empirical’, it need not be contradictory to systematic philosophy.Indeed, such a philosophy of observation can itself be systematic, and ‘an investigationthat consists only of observations can possess true philosophical thoroughness as Hume’sand Montesquieu’s works which are written in this spirit prove’. Hume’s cautious andmethodological scepticism became an alternative to the dogmatic way of doingphilosophy, and many Germans followed Hume without ever openly referring to him.Feder and MeinersSimilar methodological considerations also motivated the Göttingen philosophers JohannGeorg Heinrich Feder (1740–1821) and Christian Meiners (1747–1810). Though bothopposed radical scepticism, they also considered themselves as moderate sceptics. In fact,Feder described himself as having ‘wavered between Wolffian dogmatism andscepticism’ early in his life, and he further characterized his early scepticism as havingbeen ‘unrefined’, ‘unchecked’ and ‘without system’. His later thought consists exactly ofa refined or checked scepticism, or a scepticism with a system. The same may also besaid of Meiners. His
Revision der Philosophie of 1772 relied mostly on the ‘wise Locke’and the ‘brave and good-natured Hume’. He also found that for strict or ‘esoteric’philosophy ‘no other method is as favourable as the sceptical method’. This scepticismtowards all philosophical theories brought Feder and Meiners into the proximity of suchcommon-sense philosophers as Thomas Reid. Like Reid, they felt that philosophersaimed too high in their conception of philosophy, attempted to obtain knowledge out ofreach for human beings, and believed that ‘whatever else man may try, he can only thinkwith
his own understanding’ and not with some superhuman faculty of thought whichgrants absolute certain knowledge. Our understanding is very limited and not the best wecan imagine, but it is all we have: ‘to despise it for this reason, or not to be satisfied withit…would be neither philosophy nor wisdom’. According to Göttingers, philosophy hadto become more modest. It had to learn from common sense, which is stronger thanphilosophical speculation. Indeed, the circumstance that common sense and the principlesof morals, upon which human happiness depends most, have been conserved in spite ofall the many artificial webs of error shows the beneficial frame of nature, which does notallow us to drift too far from these wholesome truths in the course of exaggeratedspeculation. Obscure feelings indicate them for us and instinct leads us always back tothem. Accordingly, for the Göttingers the real task of philosophy could only be toestablish these principles of common sense and morality more clearly and to defend themagainst the exaggerated speculations of certain philosophers.However, their works had a tendency to become what Kant called a mere ‘critique ofbooks and systems’. Rather than concentrating on analyzing philosophical problems andsolving them on their own, they collected all the different theories others had advancedwith regard to them. While their philosophical approach is therefore usually characterizedas ‘eclecticism’ or ‘syncretism’, it is perhaps better to call it ‘indifferentism’ or‘methodical scepticism’, for the Göttingers did not set out simply to give a collection ofdifferent philosophical opinions, but they tried to develop a consistent philosophicalsystem. Their study of different philosophical theories was no end in itself, but amethodological tool. As Feder put it, for instance: ‘In order to protect myself from thedelusions of one-sided representations and to reach well-founded insights it is necessaryto compare different ways of representation and to study several systems’.This approach to philosophy became very influential during the latter half of theeighteenth century. Indeed, most popular philosophers followed this approach.22 At leastpartially as a result of this tendency to mere eclecticism, most did not succeed in makinginteresting contributions to the discussion of philosophical problems, and their worksdeteriorated into a mere listing of different philosophical opinions.
New Problems in Metaphysics and EthicsThe increased attention to the observations and problems raised by British philosophersalso had definite influence on what these Germans viewed to be the philosophicalproblems that needed to be solved. The early Wolffians had been occupied mainly withthe rational side of man, or with logic and metaphysics, and they had neglected almostcompletely our sensitive side (or, like Baumgarten, simply treated it ‘in analogy toreason’). The works of the British philosophers brought the importance of man’ssensitive nature most forcefully home to them. Accordingly, the younger Germanphilosophers tried to supplement the Wolffian theory by relying on British observations,or they simply rejected Wolffianism altogether. Psychology and anthropology, aestheticand educational theories based upon more empirical methods began to replace logic andrationalistic metaphysics as the key disciplines for an understanding of the world andman’s place in it. The discipline of metaphysics itself was transformed by this. While theWolffians had already differentiated between an ‘empirical’ and a ‘rational’ or ‘pure’discipline within metaphysics, they had also clearly emphasized the work of puremetaphysics as the most distinctive and fundamental occupation of philosophy. Duringthe second part of the German Enlightenment, the empirical part became more and moredecisive. Yet only few were willing to give up pure metaphysics altogether. In their heartof hearts, most of these philosophers remained Wolffian.MendelssohnOne of the philosophers who most resisted the move in this direction, while at the sametime paying a great deal of attention to incorporating British observations into aestheticsand ethics was Mendelssohn.23 Brought up on Wolffian logic and ontology,
rationaltheology and
philosophia practica universalis, he had early discovered that this way ofphilosophizing was exhaustive neither of the world nor even philosophical discussion. Hefound that British philosophers also had something to offer. The works of Locke,Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and almost every other British philosopher of note werefull of problems that needed solution and observations that needed to be explained, ifGerman philosophy of the traditional sort was to succeed, and most of these problemsseemed to have do with the analysis of sensation in theoretical, moral, and aestheticcontexts. Mendelssohn had formulated a new problem or task for himself (and the otherGermans). This task was conceived by him—at least at first—as one of incorporatingBritish ‘observations’ in a comprehensive theory. As he noted at the occasion of a reviewof Edmund Burke’s
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublimeand Beautiful:The theory of human sensations and passions has in more recent times made thegreatest progress, since the other parts of philosophy no longer seem to advancevery much. Our neighbours, and especially the English, precede us withphilosophical observations of nature, and we follow them with our rationalinferences; and if it were to go on like this, namely that our neighbours observeand we explain, we may hope that we will achieve in time a complete theory ofsensation.24What was needed, he thought, was a
Universal Theory of Thinking and Sensation, andsuch a theory would explain the relation of sensation and thinking in theoretical, moraland aesthetic contexts.25 It would use British ‘observations’ and German (speak:Wolffian) ’explanations’.Mendelssohn had also definite ideas about the general approach that had to befollowed. It had to be shown that the phenomena observed by British philosophers andtraced by them to a special sense are really rational. Thus it was wrong, he argued, tofollow certain British philosophers in speaking of a special ‘moral sense’ or ‘commonsense’, for instance. Though they may appear to be independent faculties of the mind,they must be reduced to reason. Though he admitted that this reduction to reason isdifficult in the case of moral judgements, since our moral judgements ‘as they presentthemselves in the soul are completely different from the effects of distinct rationalprinciples’, he did not think that this means they could not be analysed into rational anddistinct principles.26 Our moral sentiments are ‘phenomena which are related to rationalprinciples in the same way as the colours are related to the angles of refraction of light.Apparently they are of completely different nature, yet they are basically one and thesame’.27 Moral phenomena are phenomena in the Leibnizian sense, but they are also
‘phenomena bene fundata’ because they are ultimately founded in something rational. Inthis way Mendelssohn also set for himself and others a most important task, namely thetask of explaining how the rational principles are related to what appear to be thecompletely different moral sentiments, for the colour analogy, though very sugges-tive,does not explain anything about the actual relation between rational principles and moraljudgements. It was precisely this task that defined one of the central concerns of Germanmetaphysicians and moral philosophers during the second half of the eighteenth century,namely to show how ‘sense’ could be reduced to ‘rational principles’, or how Britishobservations could be incorporated into a framework that remained more or less Wolffian.Most philosophers in Germany between 1755 and 1790 were working on this problem insome way or other. In the following I shall briefly summarize two of the most importantand influential attempts, namely those of Johann Nicolaus Tetens and Immanuel Kant.TetensJohann Nicolaus Tetens may well be the German philosopher of this period who learnedmost from British thinkers. He is sometimes referred to as the ‘German Locke’, but hemight also have been called the ‘German Reid’, for Tetens always starts his owndiscussion of philosophical issues at the point where Reid left off, and his epistemologicaltheory is deeply influenced by the Scottish analysis of the problem of perception.Dissatisfied with the state of German speculative philosophy as he found it, Tetens turnedto observational psychology for his method and to common sense for the subject-matterof his philosophy. Thus he declared that the method he has used ‘is the method ofobservation; the one which Locke and our psychologists have employed in their empiricalpsychology’, and that ‘the cognitions of common sense are the field which must beworked in philosophy’. Yet even Tetens did not believe that Locke’s method couldexhaust all of philosophy. Rather, he believed that even if we were to succeed indetermining and describing all the principles of the human mind ‘in accordance with theanalytic method, used by Locke, Hume, Condillac, and others (including some Germanphilosophers)’, there would still be much more work to be done; we would have to go onto develop a basic science that has to do with the ‘universal reason’ of things. ThoughTetens spent most of his efforts pushing further along the lines of Locke, Hume, Reid andCondillac, he argued that speculative philosophy is not only possible, but even desirable.Ultimately, his work was meant to show that, once the human mind had been correctlydescribed, and its fundamental concepts and principles had been catalogued, metaphysicscould be freed from the contradictions which make up such a large part of it. Metaphysicswould then be able to progress without further difficulties. In fact, Tetens believed that ametaphysics is possible even without a complete delineation of the basic features of thehuman mind. That this is possible is shown by the fact that there ‘exist already, atpresent, many particular speculative theories from general concepts, which ourmetaphysicians have developed, and which secure for the understanding that knows howto use them great, extensive and fertile vistas just as they are’. We need only to developfurther these fragments of metaphysics that exist in order to arrive at the truths that definethe fundamental science of metaphysics.These truths will, according to Tetens, be objective truths, not merely subjectiveconvictions. Since Locke’s analytic method can yield at best ‘subjective necessity whichforces us to think in accordance with universal laws of the understanding’, he must showhow objective necessity arises, or how it is that we can legitimately ascribe ‘what wecannot think otherwise’ to properties in the objects themselves. Tetens tries to accomplishthis by first showing that this question can only mean ‘whether the laws of thought areonly subjective laws of our own faculty of thought or whether they are laws of anyfaculty of thought whatsoever’. After these reformulations, Teten’s answer to thequestion concerning the objectivity of knowledge has become surprisingly simple. Sincewe cannot think any other faculty of thought than our own—for if there were such afaculty of thought with other laws, it could not be called ‘thought’ in the same way as ourfaculty—the truths of reason ‘are objective truths, and the fact that they are objectivetruths is just as certain as the fact that they are truths in the first place. We cannot doubtor deny the former, just as we cannot doubt or deny the latter’.Kant and the end of the EnlightenmentIt was in this philosophical situation that Kant first conceived of the problem of a criticalphilosophy and began to work towards his
Critique of Pure Reason. His own work owesjust as much to such philosophers as Locke, Hume, Reid, Hutcheson and Smith as it doesto the earlier German discussions of their theories. Indeed, Kant’s ultimate theory is inone important sense no different from the reactions of his German contemporaries. He isalso concerned with developing a universal theory of thought and sensation. He alsowanted to show that the mere subjective necessity of sense that appeared to be sufficientfor British philosophers to speak of certainty, can be shown to be objective. Furthermore,he also followed the lead of the other Germans in trying to show that sense-perceptionpresupposes concepts. Though his account of how the senses presuppose concepts isdifferent from those given by his contemporaries, it owes a great deal to them, and italone does not radically differentiate his position from theirs. His a priori ‘categories andprinciples of understanding’ are closer relations of Tetens’s ‘laws of theunderstanding’.28 However, what differentiates him from his contemporaries is that hewas willing to take a step they apparently could not make, namely to accept as trueHume’s principle of significance, or the claim that we cannot possibly know anythingthat goes beyond what can be experienced through our senses. Sensations withoutconcepts may be blind, but concepts without sensations are empty. Kant argued thatmetaphysics in the traditional sense was a dead end and an illusion, while they were alltrying to revise or repair it so that it could take into account sense-perception in a betterway than traditional Wolffian metaphysics had allowed it.One might say that Kant finished the task that Mendelssohn had earlier formulated.The (British) observations had been incorporated into a (German) theory. His
Critique ofPure Reason is, at least by intention, the kind of
Universal Theory of Thought andSensation that Mendelssohn was asking for and that most of the Germans of the periodwere trying to develop. But when the
Critique appeared it was not seen as the solution ofthat problem, but rather as a problem itself. Indeed, it was seen to give rise to a greatnumber of problems. During the 1790s, Germans began to concentrate more and more onthe problems posed by Kant. Though British philosophers were still mentioned, theirviews were hardly ever discussed. In this context we find such oddities as a review of aGerman translation of Hume’s
Treatise that neither says anything about the contents ofthe work nor about the quality of the translation, but offers just a discussion of Kant’sdeduction of causality as an a priori principle.29 British philosophy had become irrelevantfor the problems the Germans were discussing now. This turn-away from British sourcescoincided with the end of the Enlightenment in Germany.
NOTES1 This chapter should be compared with the fuller treatment of the Enlightenment given byLewis White Beck in [12.17].2 Hazard [12.27], suggests such an early beginning. See also [12.28], xvi. Beck, [12.16], 243,suggests ‘1687–1688, the publication of Newton’s Principia and the Glorious Revolution’ asa convenient date for its beginning and ‘1790–1793, the publication of Kant’s last Critiqueand the Reign of Terror’ as the date for its end. I shall follow Beck’s suggestion.3 This is suggested by Cassirer in [12.19].4 See also [12.21].5 I agree with Beck that both Thomasius and Wolff are important for the GermanEnlightenment. However, I am not sure that it is quite correct to refer to the two as the ‘twofounders of the German Enlightenment’, and that besides the rationalistic form of theEnlightenment of Wolff, there was also a Pietistic version of it. (See [12.16], 243ff.) I amdubious as to whether Thomasius and his followers really should be viewed as belonging tothe ‘Enlightenment’ per se. In many ways they are better characterized as belonging to theenemies of the Enlightenment. It is not insignificant that Wolff gave this address when hehad to leave Halle because of pressure from the Thomasians.6 The most important members of this school are Christian Thomasius, Johann FranciscusBudde (1667–1729), Joachim Lange (1670–1744), Andreas Rüdiger (1673–1731), and veryremotely A.F.Hoffmann (1703–41) and Christian August Crusius (1715–75). Johann JakobBrucker (1696–1770) also deserves to be mentioned. His influential Historia criticaphilosophiae is said to have been the source of Diderot’s articles on the history of philosophyin the Encyclopédie. See [12.26], 1:346–8.7 For details (and a more positive account) see [12.45], 33–72.8 The names of the Wolffians are legion. They are too numerous to mention, since they heldpositions at almost every institution of higher learning in Germany. Some of the mostimportant are Ludwig Wilhelm Thümmig (1697–1728), Bernhard Bilfinger (1693–1750),Friedrich Christian Baumeister (1709–85), Gottsched (1700–66), Georg Friedrich Meier(1718–77), and especially Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–62).9 Wolff clearly also knew of Berkeley and Collier, and he found it necessary to offer arefutation of idealism that is meant to refute them along Leibnizian lines. It is not clear howwell he knew Berkeley.10 Nationalist historians of philosophy have attempted to show that the Germans never tookBritish philosophy seriously, and that the entire eighteenth century can be explained byGerman sources alone. Dessoir, for example, tried to show in [12.22], 53, that ‘the basicdirection of this development [of German thought in the eighteenth century] can beunderstood even without referring to England’ by relating Kant to the later Thomasians andespecially Crusius. And Max Wundt argued that Kant’s critical problem arose ‘from aconnection of the subjective and psychological approach of Thomasius with the objective andontological principles of Wolff, claiming that Kant’s ‘transcendental logic must be derivedfrom this tension within German philosophy and not from foreign influences’ ([12.43], 250and 254).11 The following can trace only the rough outline of the German-British relation. It would takeseveral monographs to do it justice. Above all, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Lord Kames, Hume,and Reid and Ferguson were found to be extremely important by the Germans. ForShaftesbury, see [12.41]. For Henry Home, Lord of Kames, see [12.42], [12.32] and [12.65].For a general account of the state of discussion concerning Home’s influence in Germany see[12.37]. On Ferguson not very much work has been done. But see [12.24]. See also Pascal[12.65]. For Reid see [12.30] or [12.31] and for Hume see [12.29].12 Mendelssohn, Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend 1(1 March 1759): 129–34.13 See [12.51]. See also [12.49].14 See, for instance, [12.8]. See also [12.9]. Both are discussed in [12.53], 70ff-Merian’s interestin Hume did not decline. Thus on 16 December 1763 Mr. Merian read ‘une Piece traduite deHume “Sur l’Eloquence”’ ([12.52], 282). For the 1790s see [12.10].15 Thus the translator of [12.15] with the first Enquiry as volume I, was the perpetual secretaryof the Berlin Academy, J.B.Merian. The writer of the Preface was another prominent memberof this institution namely J.H.S. Formey, and the entire enterprise is said to go back to asuggestion by Maupertuis, the president of the Berlin Academy. Johann Georg Sulzer, aprominent Wolffian in the Academy thought that Hume was important for precisely the samereasons that Maupertuis, Merian and Formey believed him to be important. He also believedthat Hume’s scepticism constituted a most significant objection to Leibnizian philosophy,and it was for that reason he thought that the refutation of Hume was most important. Thushe became the editor of the German translation of the first Enquiry, and took the occasion toprovide this dangerous work with an introduction and a running commentary, designed torefute Hume’s theories.16 See [12.4], 4:503f., see also [12.4], 5: i-x, and [12.6], 1:289.17 [12.14], Vorrede. That Sulzer is not the translator is clear from the following: ‘Es haben michzwei Gründe zu der Bekanntmachung dieser Übersetzung bewogen, die ich durch einenblossen Zufall in die Hände bekommen habe’.18 Sulzer obviously did not think that the criticisms put forward by the Thomasians were seriousobjections to Wolff.19 Kant later in the Prolegomena seems to allude to just this passage when he says that he wasawakened by Hume from his Dogmatic slumber’, and that this gave his enquiries a ‘newdirection’. See also [12.72] and [12.74].20 [12.2], 524f. Since Mendelssohn himself was the author of the Letters on Sensation, heexplicitly identifies himself as a Humean in so far as writing is concerned. He goes on towonder whether Shaftesbury and Hume followed ‘a single line of inferences’, but he declinesto answer the question because this exegetical question can only be answered by a closerstudy of the actual texts. Shaftesbury was also important. The Philosophische Gespräche, forinstance, are patterned after a dialogue of Shaftesbury (see [12.53], if. and [12.54], 37ff). His‘Briefe über die Empfindungen’ are even more indebted to Shaftesbury’s style ([12.53], 86–90). Mendelssohn also began a translation of Shaftesbury’s essay on the sensus communisbecause he liked that work so much. What he seems to have appreciated the most wasShaftesbury’s suggestion that ridicule could serve as a test of truth ([12.54], 109–12).Hume’s Enquiries also played a large (though mainly negative) role in Mendelssohn’sthought. In fact, his essay ‘Über die Wahrscheinlichkeit’ is, at least in part, an attempt toanswer Hume’s doubts about experiential judgements and their basis in analogy andinduction (see [12.16], 321n. and [12.53], 233).21 Actually, he differentiates six methods. ‘The first is the method of education or thesystematic method, the second, the method of invention or the Socratic method, the third thehistorical, the fourth the method of refutation, the fifth the method of commentary, and thesixth that of observation.’ As the best example of the systematic method he mentionedDescartes. It is the method of those who already know what they want, and who want to getto their goal as efficiently as possible. The second method was for him that of the inventorsof ideas. He mentioned Franklin and Plato as examples. The third, fourth, fifth and sixthmethods are really only subgroups of the second. The third is really the methods of geneticexplanation. It is either that of an individual of a species and either true or fictional. Themethod of refutation might be thought to be the one he assigns to Hume, but he doesn’t. It isfor him really a German method. Leibniz and Kant are characterized by it. As he puts it:Leibniz, whose name honours that of Germany found his way to most of his truthsby refuting or correcting the concepts of Locke and Descartes. And even thatphilosophy by which our age will distinguish itself for posterity and which beginsto communicate its form, though not always its spirit to German writings in alldifferent kinds really is the fruit which developed from the germ of an examinationand refutation of the skeptical claims of Hume and the dogmatic assertions ofLeibniz.22 The most important philosophers in this group are Dietrich Tiedemann (1748–1803),Christian Lossius (1743–1813), and Ernst Platner (1744–1818). Their theories are in many
BIBLIOGRAPHY(This should not be viewed as a complete bibliography of the subject, but only as asupplemented bibliography of ‘works cited’. For more comprehensive bibliographies seeespecially [12.17], [12.29], [12.30], [12.35], [12.36], and [12.40].)
Primary Sourcesways not much more than the stricter application of the principles of Feder and Meiners. Infact, some of them, like Tiedemann, for instance, actually studied in Göttingen. Others, likePlatner, Irwing and Lossius, were more independent. But in general, it may be said that whilethe Göttingers were content with a careful consideration of various theories and oftensuspended final judgement, the sensationalists had a strong bias towards physiologicalexplanations. They were convinced that sensation and its basis in human physiology was thekey for understanding human nature and thus for putting philosophy on a scientific basis.They all rejected Wolffian rationalism as being fundamentally mistaken and leading to aform of idealism. But they were by no means radical materialists. For they denied neither theexistence and immortality of the soul nor the existence of God. Though they tended evenfurther towards empiricism and sensationism than either the Berliners or the Göttingers, theirgeneral aim may still be described as the attempt to achieve a synthesis of British andGerman thought. And no matter how far they go in the direction of empiricism, they stillremain deeply influenced by Wolffianism.23 Mendelssohn is sometimes grouped together with other thinkers as belonging to the ‘BerlinEnlightenment’. This group includes such names as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing andMendelssohn. But there are also such lesser known figures as Sulzer (1720–79), JohannAugust Eberhard (1739–1809), Johann Heinrich Lambert (1728–77), Thomas Abbt (1738–66), Freidrich Gabriel Resewitz (1728–1806), and a number of even more minor thinkers.Because they all remained to a significant degree Wolffians they have also been called ‘neo-Wolffians’ by some historians.24 Bibliotbek der schönen Wissenschaften und der freyen Künste II, 2 (1759), I quote from the2nd edn of 1762, pp. 290f.25 This is the title of a book by Eberhard (Berlin, 1776). The book was a response to a questionby the Prussian Academy, asking for a more precise theory of thinking and sensation.Eberhard reports that the question specifically demanded that ‘(i) one precisely develop theoriginal conditions of this twofold power of the soul as well as its general laws; thoroughlyinvestigate how these two powers of the soul are dependent on each other, and how theyinfluence each other, and (iii) indicate the principles according to which we can judge howfar the intellectual ability (genius) and the moral character of man depends upon the degreeof the force and liveliness as well as on the increase of those two mental faculties’, (p. 14f).26 [12.3], 2:183.27 [12.3], 2:184.28 Compare [12.17].29 [12.7], 4 (1791): 155–69. Feder’s only reference to the work reads: ‘The many merits of thiswork have without doubt already been decided for most readers. Therefore I do not think itnecessary to say anything about it’.(i) Complete and Selected Works12.1 Garve, Christian
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