Abstract
In this paper we attempt to prove that it was Ludwig Feuerbach’s anthropology that influenced Bakunin’s philosophical path. Following his example Bakunin turned against religion which manipulates, as Hegelianism does, the only priority human being has—another human being. Although Feuerbach’s philosophy did not involve social problems present at Bakunin’s works, we would like to show that it was Feuerbach himself who laid foundation for them and that Bakunin’s criticism of the state was the natural consequence of Feuerbach’s struggle for the individual. Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin proved that Feuerbach’s attempts to rise anthropology to the rank of theology are not sufficient to free the individual from the power of abstractions as in his opinion it is not only God (religion) that should be overthrown but also the state.
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Notes
Włodzimierz Rydzewski (1973, p. 110).
This position is taken by, among others, R. Panasiuk who writes: “This is how things are with (…) the negation of religion in Bruno Bauer and Ludwig Feuerbach. In political philosophy Bakunin, Edgar Bauer, Arnold Ruge and others applied the category of negation understood in such a way” (Panasiuk 1969, p. 65). However A. Kamiński writes “Negativity is a decisive constituent element of every opposition. (…) Since the only task of negativity is continuous and absolute destruction of all that exists positively, (…) Bakunin rejects the mediation of the negation point: negation is to be a complete dissolution, complete destruction of that which is negated. Negation may be only complete and absolute,” (Kamiński 2004, p. 262).
Leszek Kołakowski writes, “Hegel deprived human individuals of reality, treating them as manifestations of the general spirit,” (Kołakowski 2000, p.195).
Inconsistent because Feuerbach did not draw extreme conclusions: “They were drawn for him by Max Stirner thwarting the humanistic content of anthropologism,” (Walicki 1959, p. 117). K. Löwith states that “Feuerbach, Bauer, and Marx, in their attempt to create man ignored the real man—since in fact there is only individual man,” (Löwith 2001, p. 384). The German scholar suggests that the critique by Feuerbach and the others ended in failure.
Cf. Włodzimierz Rydzewski (1973), p. 109. Also: “Bakunin remained in the circle of individualistic interpretations of Hegel, and in this he was similar to Feuerbach, Stirner, and Kierkegaard,” (Kamiński 2004, p. 281–282, 311), where there is a discussion on Feuerbach’s influence on Bakunin. On Feuerbach’s ideas permeating Bakunin’s writing, see also: Temkinowa (1964, p. 182), Przebinda (1998, p. 28, 447), Walicki (1973, p. 399), Walicki (1959, p. 377), Berlin (2003, p. 151).
See Szabała (2000, p.13).
Complementing the philosopher’s words, Paul McLaughlin says: “Religion has its origin, according to Feuerbach, in the unique and defining inner existence of man, that is, in man`s unique capacity to converse with himself” (McLaughlin 2002, p. 162).
Lech Nijakowski, “Ludwik Feuerbach. Wokół mitu nowożytnego Prometeusza,” Rubikon no.1, 1998, http://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/~rubikon/Nr1/feuer.htm. Feuerbach wrote that “God is a book of remembrance for the highest feelings and thoughts of man, an album where he writes the names of the dearest, holiest beings,” (Feuerbach 1959, p. 132). McLaughlin notes that, according to Feuerbach “Religion, the consciousness of the infinite or God, is therefore nothing but the self-consciousness of man. (…) religious consciousness is characterized by ignorance of this identity: to it the divine and the human are antithetical. (…) The development of religious consciousness, however, consists in the emergence of such an identification, so that what was formerly contemplated and worshipped as God is now perceived to be something human” (McLaughlin 2002, p. 162–163).
Kornilov 1915, p. 331, 378.
According to Feuerbach “the essence of man is contained only in a community, in a unity of man with man—a unity which is however based only on the reality of the difference between Me and You. (…) unity is freedom (…), man together with man—unity of Me and You—is God” (Feuerbach 1988, vol. 2, p. 88).
Camus 1993, p. 79. It is difficult to imagine that the apocalyptic Camus was right in saying that Bakunin, the defender of man, waged a merciless and amoral war against a world that can be saved only by annihilation. Bakunin, in stating that the joy of destruction is a creative joy, wanted the destruction of the form (the arrangement) of the world and not of the world itself. He was in this sense a radical.
The essence of Feuerbach’s work is expressed in the following sentence: “all my writings have, to be precise, one aim, one intention, one thought, and one topic. This topic is religion and theology and all that is connected with it,” (Feuerbach 1953, p. 12).
God, according to Bakunin, has to step back before man: “God exists—and so man is a slave. Man is rational, just, and free—and therefore there is no god. I call on anyone to refute this reasoning,” (Bakunin 1965, vol. 2, p. 283). I presume to answer Bakunin’s challenge: there is a God—it is man, for whom the Russian anarchist is ready to give his life, and who for him is the highest value. Nikolai Berdyaev represents another approach: “the basic weakness of his viewpoint is the lack of whatsoever any carefully thought-out idea of person. He rebels against the state and all power, but it is not a rebellion in the name of human individual. The individual is subordinated to a collective and is lost in the populace” (Bierdiajew 1999, p. 158) A similar objection may be raised in relation to Feuerbach—his individual melts away in the community. The individual is absorbed by the generic being of mankind. Max Stirner even claims that Feuerbach’s considerations got stuck within theology. See Stirner (1995, p. 37).
Lech Nijakowski, “Ludwik Feuerbach. Wokół mitu nowożytnego Prometeusza,” Rubikon no.1, 1998, http://venus.ci.uw.edu.pl/~rubikon/Nr1/feuer.htm.
“The consciousness of God is the self-knowledge of man, and the cognizance of God is the self-cognition of man” (Feuerbach 1959, p. 56).
It is for this reason that J. Kłoczowski writes: “Still, in The Essence of Christianity we come across texts where Feuerbach maintains that religious rationalism loses what is the most precious in rationalism because it denounces reason for faith, and that it also loses what is the most precious in religion since it denounces feeling in favour of thinking” (Kłoczowski 1974, p. 385).
Feuerbach notices that “if human being is the highest being for man, so in practice the highest and first rule must be man’s love for man. Homo homini Deus est—this is the highest practical principle—this is the turning point in the history of mankind” (Feuerbach 1959, p. 435). Stirner commented on Feuerbach’s words thus: “in fact only God—deus—changed, love remained. There, love to superhuman God—here, to human, to homo as Deus, so Man became for me—holy. And all truly human is for Me holy! (…). Who is his God? Man! What is divinity? That which is human! Therefore, in fact, only the predicate was changed into the subject and instead of saying that God is love, it is said now that Love is divine; instead of saying: God became Man, Man became god, etc. It is only a new religion” (Stirner 1995, p. 66–67).
Hanna Temkinowa stresses that for Bakunin, “thought and revolt, striving for knowledge and freedom which change the history of the human species into the history of humankind, are contrary to the institutions of state and religion; they cannot be reconciled” (Temkinowa 1964, p. 184).
Who in fact opposed Bakunin and Feuerbach and called their philosophies atheistic, since even though they do not propose the cult of God, they do require the cult of man. For Stirner they both participated in a theological revolts: “rebellions against God are nothing more than the last spasms of the study of God—that is theological revolt” (Stirner 1995, p. 30).
And there man sees the sense of the development of himself—this is the theory of humanistic egoism, (Łosski 2000, p. 67). “Both [Feuerbach and Bakunin—J.U.] use the concept of idealism not in the philosophical but in the moral sense—for Feuerbach it means compassion, love, a new religion for humanity; for Bakunin—striving for humanization, for a complete and whole liberation of society.” Rydzewski (1973), p. 103).
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Uglik, J. Ludwig Feuerbach’s conception of the religious alienation of man and Mikhail Bakunin’s philosophy of negation. Stud East Eur Thought 62, 19–28 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-010-9098-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11212-010-9098-7