A little bit more than twenty years ago, the attention of bioethics community was attracted by the discovery of the work of Fritz Jahr (1895-1953), a theologian and teacher from Halle (Germany), who had conceived both the term and the discipline of bioethics (Bio-Ethik, 1926) by broadening Kant’s categorical imperative onto animals and plants. Today, dozens of papers deal with Jahr’s bioethics ideas, but his work related to other topics remains almost unknown. In the present paper, we address Jahr’s article (...) from 1930, devoted to education ("Gesinnungsdiktatur oder Gedenkfreiheit? Gedanken über eine liberale Gestaltung des Gesinnungsunterrichts" [Dictatorship of worldview or freedom of thought? Considerations on the liberal structuring of teaching of attitudes]). In the article, published in Die neue Erziehung, Jahr advocates a set of ten quite progressive and free-minded principles, including objectivity, pluriperspectivism (verschiedene Gesinnungseinstellungen), tollerant dialogue, autonomy, rationalism, liberalism, and democratization of education system and of the development of worldview at school. We devote particular attention to the comparison of Jahr’s ideas to the doctrine of Pietism and August Hermann Francke, who established the Foundation in which Jahr spent a significant part of his life, first as a student, and later as a teacher. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider Baumgarten’s views on the soul in the context of the Pietist critique of Wolff’s rational psychology. My primary aim is to account for the largely unacknowledged differences between Wolff’s and Baumgarten’s rational psychology, though I also hope to show that, in some cases, the Pietists were rather more perceptive in their reading of Wolff than they are typically given credit for as their criticisms frequently succeed in drawing attention to significant omissions in Wolff’s discussion.

Among all the isms worthy of examination in any study of eighteenth-century German philosophy, Wolffianism is undoubtedly among the worthiest. Broadly defined as adherence to teachings of Christian...

The doctrine of Kantian natural piety says that rational human animals are essentially at home in physical nature. In this essay, I apply the doctrine of Kantian natural piety directly to the natural sciences, and especially physics, by showing how they have a cognitive, epistemic, metaphysical, practical/moral, aesthetic/artistic, religious, and sociocultural/political grounding in Kantian sensibility, both pure and empirical. This is what I call Kantian scientific pietism, and it is to be directly and radically opposed to scientific naturalism.

Notre article propose d’explorer la réception de Pierre Poiret au sein du piétisme radical en Allemagne. Dans ce milieu spirituel a émergé une traduction allemande de l’Œconomie Divine (1687) (7 vol. 1735-1742). Nous souhaitons donner quelques éclairages sur la réalisation de ce projet, les personnes qui y ont été associées, ainsi que sur la manière dont le texte de Poiret a été transposé en langue allemande. Poiret et ses traducteurs piétistes partagent la conviction que la vérité religieuse n’est accessible que (...) par l’illumination divine. Mais la tension entre l’inspiration divine de la vérité et son agencement systématique et rationnel dans le volumineux traité de Poiret se trouve encore renforcée par les stratégies érudites mises en place par les traducteurs, notamment par Johann Christoph Edelmann qui se muera de piétiste radical en représentant des Lumières radicales. (shrink)

Accounting for the Commandments in Medieval Judaism explores the discursive formation of the commandments as a generative matrix of Jewish thought and life in the posttalmudic period. Each study sheds light on how medieval Jews crafted the commandments out of theretofore underdetermined material. By systematizing, representing, or interrogating the amorphous category of commandment, medieval Jewish authors across both the Islamic and Christian spheres of influence sought to explain, justify, and characterize Israel's legal system, divine revelation, the cosmos, and even the (...) divine order. This volume correlates bodies of knowledge-such as jurisprudence, philosophy, ethics, pietism, and kabbalah-that are normally treated in isolation into a single conversation about a shared constitutional concern. (shrink)

This article engages with Michel Foucault’s idea of confession as the central Christian strategy of subjection or subjectivation and the link he proposes between confession and obedience. The article also wishes to show how confession can become counter-conduct. I apply Foucault’s conceptions to early modern Lutheran confessionalism, elucidating how the confessional apparatus of the orthodox Lutheranism of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Sweden strived to mold obedient subjects who are able to conduct themselves. I also examine the transformation and overthrow of these (...) subjectivation techniques in Radical Pietism, analyzing a dissident confession of faith by the Radical Pietist Peter Schaefer, who exemplifies perfect subjection, constituting himself as a perfectly obedient subject, and yet a failure of subjectivation in the sense of submission, insofar as for him, obedience becomes a strategy of empowerment. (shrink)

The ego-focus of pioneer women on the South African frontier, 1760–1860, reflects distinct traits of mystical spirituality. The pioneer spirituality of women on the borders increasinglycame to expression in ego-texts with experiential inclinations. The leaning towards Jesuscentredmystical spirituality developed parallel to pietistic tendencies in Holland and Germany,and allegorical and tropological applications of the bridal metaphors in the Song of Songsformed a distinct element of female pietism on the frontier. Women believers in the interiorfavoured tropological applications of bridal metaphors in (...) the Song of Songs. The popularity ofsuch tropological applications can firstly be attributed to the physical conditions under whichpioneer women found themselves. Secondly, the availability of German pietistic workscontributed towards the religious culture of mystical and individualistic readings of bridalmetaphors in the Song of Songs. Tropological readings of the Song of Songs’ bridal metaphorsare traced to the theology of Bernard of Clairvaux particularly and other pre-reformationalmystical sources. (shrink)

On this occasion, I shall try to respond to the suggestions that I report what it was like to be a graduate student at Harvard in the early 1930s engaged in writing a dissertation which took the shape in print of the monograph, Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth-Century England. This, quite some time before the sociology of science had emerged with a cognitive and social identity. I shall not attempt an account – let alone an explanatory account – of (...) the micro-environment at Harvard back then that provided local context for that study. Indeed, I suspect that the Gerald Holton, Everett Mendelsohn and Arnold Thackray reconstructions come closer to the intellectual and social reality of that time and place than anything I might reconstruct. (shrink)

Table of Contents: Chapter 1: Wolff and the Refinement of the Mathematical Method / Chapter 2: Wolff’s Emendation of Ontology / Chapter 3: Soul, World, and God: Wolff’s Metaphysics / Chapter 4: Women and the Wolffian Philosophy / Chapter 5: The Abuse of Philosophy: Pietism and the Metaphysics of Freedom / Chapter 6: Reason beyond Proof: Debating the Use and Limits of the PSR / Chapter 7: The Paradoxes of Sensation/ Chapter 8: G. F. Meier on the Fate of (...) the Soul / Chapter 9: Moses Mendelssohn and the Ghost of Spinoza . (shrink)

The mystical and spiritual authors of the thirteenth to eighteenth centuries provided rich inspiration for Kierkegaard's religious thought. Kierkegaard owned numerous works by these authors, who are associated with the spiritual traditions of Rheno‐Flemish mysticism, Devotio Moderna, post‐Tridentine and Baroque Catholicism, and Reformed Pietism. The accurate spiritual diagnostics and the apt methods of spiritual formation found in (Pseudo‐)Tauler, Theologia Deutsch, Abraham a Sancta Clara, and François Fénelon deeply impressed Kierkegaard. He adopted and further developed motifs from the mystical and (...) spiritual authors in a variety of his writings, and his journals contain abundant reflections on themes from Thomas à Kempis, Ludovicus Blosius, and Gerhard Tersteegen, such as the imitation of Christ, spiritual guidance, or divine pedagogy. The best testimony to the importance of spiritual literature for Kierkegaard is the fact that he sought counsel in it in a personal crisis when he was deciding on the future of his religious authorship. (shrink)

Introduction -- From paideia to humanism -- Pietism and the problem of human craft (Menschen-Kunst) -- The harmonious harp-playing of humanity: J. G. Herder -- Ethical formation and the invention of the religion of art -- The rise of the Bildungsroman and the commodification of literature -- Authorship and its resignation in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister -- "The Bildung of self-consciousness itself towards science": Hegel.

From the seventeenth century onwards, English Reformed ministers engaged in lively correspondence and publishing exchanges with men from different countries and Protestant traditions. In the eighteenth century, appreciation of their shared intellectual and cultural heritage and a desire to sustain the patterns for religious living it encouraged inflected the content and style of textual interactions among Halle Pietists, English dissenters and New England Congregationalists. Interest in the present state of religious life was also important, and therefore news about awakenings and (...) materials for pastoral care circulated around Europe and North America through existing channels and by new means. Their encounters and the texts that they produced were mutually generative, and the language and manner of the participants' personal interactions were important features of published works. These personal associations, publishing activities and discursive styles can be understood as aspects of the literary sociology of a religious culture that valued intellectual and emotional engagements and sought to inculcate religion through education and friendship. (shrink)

Russian occupation of Königsberg during the Seven Years’ War had a great impact on the residents of East Prussia capital. That time significantly changed the cultural city life, i.e. there was a release from narrow-mindedness and prejudices of the Protestant city that was influenced by Pietism; social mores were liberalized; in comparison with pre-war time the university started playing a more significant part, and the status of university professors rose. All these changes positively affected Kant’s life and his philosophical (...) formation. Because of the occupation Kant remained in contact with Prussian, Austrian, and Russian officers for many years, and made friends with a number of merchants. This influenced his position regarding the war, history understanding, and his assessment of Frederick the Great’s role and significance. (shrink)

Research on the history of ethics has ignored Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten miserably. And that even though Kant based his lectures on moral philosophy on Baumgarten's text books over the course of decades. This article takes up the cudgels for this "in ethicis" most independent follower of Wolff. In addition to Baumgarten's epistemological elevation of perception, which is known to have resulted in the new foundation of aesthetics as an independent discipline, his reception of two lines of tradition was primarily decisive (...) for an original further development of Wolff's basic approach. First, Baumgarten gave his practical philosophy a strong legal flavor through orienting it toward the natural law theory of his Jena teacher Heinrich Köhler. This legal character can be seen mainly in the then resulting predominance of the concept of obligation. Second, Baumgarten secularized the heritage of pietism in Halle by emphasizing the need for lively perception in order to act morally. Both with his orientation toward an ethics of duty, as well as with his highlighting of motivation, he laid the foundation for Kant's seminal transformations in this field.Die ethikgeschichtliche Forschung hat Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten bisher sträflich vernachlässigt, obgleich Kant über Jahrzehnte hinweg dessen Handbücher seiner Vorlesung über Moralphilosophie zugrundegelegt hat. Demgegenüber möchte der vorliegende Beitrag eine Lanze für den auch 'in ethicis' selbständigsten Wolffianer brechen. Neben der erkenntnistheoretischen Aufwertung der Sinnlichkeit, die sich bekanntlich in der Neubegründung der Ästhetik als einer eigenen Disziplin niederschlug, war vor allem die Rezeption zweier Traditionslinien für eine originelle Fortentwicklung des Wolffschen Grundansatzes maßgeblich: Zum einen verlieh Baumgarten seiner praktischen Philosophie durch die Orientierung am Naturrecht seines Jenenser Lehrers Heinrich Köhler ein stark juridisches Gepräge, wie dies vor allem an der nunmehrigen Vorherrschaft des Verbindlichkeitsbegriffs abzulesen ist. Zum anderen säkularisierte er das Erbe des Halleschen Pietismus, wenn er etwa die Notwendigkeit lebendiger Erkenntnis für das sittliche Handeln unterstrich. Sowohl mit der pflichtethischen Ausrichtung als auch mit der Akzentuierung des Motivationsproblems hat er Kants epochemachenden Umwälzungen auf diesem Gebiet entscheidend vorgearbeitet. (shrink)

Western academic theology do not succeed in accounting for the identity and faith culture of African Pentecostals for at least two reasons. In the first place, because as part of the Pentecostal movement it grew from the holiness, divine healing and revivalist movement that went back to Pietism and emphasised a holistic effective spirituality, and secondly, because it links with the holistic tradition of African traditional religions and worldview that share some aspects of the Old Testament realist way of (...) thinking. African Pentecostalism needs another language to describe its unique way of doing theology in direct conjunction with spirituality. It is argued that the language of the time-honoured practice of mysticism is suitable for explaining its spirituality. Theology and spirituality should mutually inform and constitute each other, as emphasised in mystical theology, for Pentecostal theology to be a valid reflection and meditation on the experience of consciousness of the involvement of God. African Pentecostals will benefit by learning from this ancient tradition by using concepts of mystical theology to find words to state the unsayable. The article closes by asking what the language of mysticism would entail for Pentecostals. Several aspects that define Pentecostal spirituality demonstrate their relation with mystical theology, such as a separate experience of sanctification, an acknowledgement of affections in expressing religious sentiments, a different way of interpreting and participating in reality, ecstatic speech and a continual emphasis on a personal, experiential encounter with the Spirit of God. (shrink)

This book sets out to present Kant as a theological thinker. His critical philosophy was not only destructive of "natural" theology, with its attempt to prove devine existence by logical argument, it also left no room for "revelation" in the traditional sense. Yet Kant himself, who was brought up in Lutheran pietism, certainly believed in God, and could fairly be described as a religious man. But he held that religion can be based only on the moral consciousness, and in (...) his last major work, "Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone"ódiscussed here in detailóhe interpreted Christianity purely in terms of moral symbolism. (shrink)

Hegel and the Spirit explores the meaning of Hegel's grand philosophical category, the category of Geist, by way of what Alan Olson terms a pneumatological thesis. Hegel's philosophy of spirit, according to Olson, is a speculative pneumatology that completes what Adolf von Harnack once called the "orphan doctrine" in Christian theology--the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Olson argues that Hegel's development of philosophy as pneumatology originates out of a deep appreciation of Luther's dialectical understanding of Spirit and that Hegel's doctrine (...) of Spirit is thus deeply interfused with the values of Würtemberg Pietism. Olson further maintains that Hegel's Enzyklopdie is the post-Enlightenment philosophical equivalent of a Trinitätslehre and that his Rechtsphilosophie is an ecclesiology. Thus Hegel and the Spirit demonstrates the truth of Karl Barth's observation that Hegel is the potential Aquinas of Protestantism. Exploring Hegel's philosophy of spirit in historical, cultural, and personal religious context, the book identifies Hegel's relationship with Hölderlin and his response to Hölderlin's madness as key elements in the philosopher's religious and philosophical development, especially with respect to the meaning of transcendence and dialectic. (shrink)

Quakerism is the first Anglo-American religion that has gained ground in Germany, especially in the north, in the second half of the 17th century. Contrary to older church historiography, this was not a marginal phenomenon. Rather, stable congregations developed, as did a Europe-wide network of missionary work and a differentiated culture of polemic writings. These points of encounter allowed the Quakers to establish contact with supporters of Böhme and radical pietists while at the same time enabling an Antiquakeriana campaign against (...) them. At the center of this study lies the question for the religious-historical positioning of Quakerism. The author argues that due to impulses of extra-ecclesiastical pietism, positions arose that transgressed Christianity's frame of reference. Therefore the reference to the early modern understanding of esoterism has proven especially useful. (shrink)

Classical scholarship played a vital role in the intellectual concerns of early nineteenth-century Germany. Situated at the crossroads of religion, history, and explorations of the development of the human mind, Greek mythology in particular was expected to shed light on the origins of civilization. In the search for the true nature of myth, the hermeneutic problems involved in historical understanding were intensified. As myth was held to be of a different nature than rationality, to read the sources was to look (...) for a completely different referent of the texts than was the case in historical reconstruction. In the quests for a scientific mythology, K. O. Müller was often regarded as an opponent of F. Creuzer . Yet an analysis of their published work and of their private documents shows that they had much in common, a fact they both appreciated. In particular they held similar, deeply Romantic views on the religious origin of culture, in Müller's case inspired by Pietism, in Creuzer's by neo-Platonism. Creuzer's influence is revealed in Müller's Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mythologie and more specifically in his interpretation of the Amazons as worshippers of sexuality in Die Dorier . Nevertheless, Müller differed from Creuzer in his views on the relationship of myth to history. Myth was not the reflection of a universal religion, sustained by a priestly class , but the outcome of the encounter between the mental endowment of a people and local, historical circumstances. In the case of the Amazons, however, Müller assessed the connection of myth to history in defiance of his own theory, guided by his views on gender difference and on sexual morality. (shrink)

1735 veröffentlichte Johann Georg Zur Linden in Jena die "Ratio meditationis hermeneuticae imprimis sacrae methodo systematica proposita". Sein Werk ist das Resultat eines unerwarteten Bündnisses zwischen der wolffschen Aufklärung und dem Pietismus nach dem harten Zusammenstoß dieser beiden Richtungen, der seinen Höhepunkt in der Verbannung Wolffs aus Halle fand. In den folgenden Jahren trat eine neue kulturelle Figur in Erscheinung, der Aufklärer-Pietist oder umgekehrt, der die Hoch- und Spätaufklärung beherrschte und zu dessen ersten Repräsentanten Zur Linden zählt. Obgleich die Ratio (...) von den Vorschriften der logischen Hermeneutik ausgeht, beruht sie auf einer Aufwertung der Themen der antiken Rhetorik und konzipiert die Hermeneutik als eine auf die Mittel-Zweck-Rationalität gestützte Technik, der die Aufgabe zukommt, die besten Mittel für das Verstehen von Texten und Reden festzulegen. Die heilige Hermeneutik von Zur Linden zeichnet sich durch wenigstens vier innovative Aspekte aus: 1. Den Vorschlag einer allgemeinen Hermeneutik probabilistischer Art. 2. Eine eingehende Untersuchung der verschiedenen Sinnbegriffe und ihrer Wechselbeziehungen. 3. Die Kritik am Besserverstehen als Auslegungsziel. Die kritischen Punkte des Textes dürfen nicht zugunsten seiner Nichtwidersprüchlichkeit ausgemerzt werden, weil jede Verbesserung leicht in eine Manipulation des Sinns ausarten kann. 4. Die mögliche Nichtübereinstimmung zwischen dem, was der Autor sagen will, und dem, was er tatsächlich sagt. Für Zur Linden hat der Textsinn unzweifelhaft Vorrang und bildet den einzigen möglichen Zugang zum Autorsinn. Seine autorbezogene Texthermeneutik stellt sich noch heute als originelle, beachtenswerte Leistung dar. In 1735 Johann Georg Zur Linden published his "Ratio meditationis hermeneuticae imprimis sacrae methodo systematica proposita" in Jena. His work was the result of an unexpected alliance between the Wolffian Enlightenment and Pietism, after the fierce clash between these two trends which had culminated in Wolff’s banishment from Halle. In the years that followed a new cultural figure appeared, the Enlightener-Pietist, or vice versa, who was to dominate the high and late Enlightenment and of whom Zur Linden was one of the first examples. Although the Ratio takes as its starting-point the rules of logical hermeneutics, it is based in an evaluation of the themes of classical rhetoric, and conceives hermeneutics as a technique, grounded in means-end rationality, the task of which is to determine the best method for understanding texts and speech. Zur Linden’s sacred hermeneutic theory is distinguished by at least four innovative aspects: 1. The proposal of a general hermeneutics of a probabilistic type. 2. An intensive examination of the different concepts of sense and their interrelationships. 3. The critique of better understanding as the goal of exegesis. The critical points of the text should not be obliterated in favour of its consistency. 4. The possible lack of agreement between what the author intends to say and what he actually says. For Zur Linden the sense of the text takes undoubted precedence and constitutes the only possible access to the author’s sense. His author-related textual hermeneutics can still be seen today as an original and noteworthy achievement. (shrink)

Der vorliegende Band versammelt drei Texte: Johann Gustav Reinbecks 'Abhandlung Von dem Gebrauch der Vernunfft Und Welt-Weißheit In der GOttes-Gelahrtheit' (1733) und 'Erörterung Der Philosophischen Meynung von der sogenandten Harmonia Praestabilita (1737) und Johann Friedrich Bertrams dagegen gerichtete 'Beleuchtung Der Neu-getünchten Meynung von der Harmonia Praestabilita' (1737). Stellt die erste der drei Abhandlungen - schon mit ihrem Titel - so etwas wie Reinbecks Programmschrift des auf die Übereinstimmung von Vernunft und Offenbarung bedachten 'Theologischen Wolffianismus' dar, so dokumentieren die zwei anderen (...) die Debatte Reinbecks mit einem nicht unbedeutenden Vertreter des Halleschen Pietismus über ein zentrales Lehrstück des Leibnizischen Philosophie, die Praestabilierte Harmonie, zu der allerdings auch Reinbeck als Theologe eine differenzierte Meinung hat. (Aus dem Vorwort von Stefan Lorenz) This volume brings together three texts: Johann Gustav Reinbeck’s 'Abhandlung von dem Gebrauch der Vernunfft und Welt-Weißheit in der Gottes-Gelahrtheit' (1733) and 'Erörterung Der Philosophischen Meynung von der sogenandten Harmonia Praestabilita' (1737) and Johann Friedrich Bertram’s refutation of these, 'Beleuchtung Der Neu-getünchten Meynung von der Harmonia Praestabilita' (1737). While the first of these works presents – even in ist title – in effect Reinbeck’s programmatic statement of ‘theological Wolffianism’, concerned with the harmonisation of reason and revelation, the other two document Reinbeck’s debates with a not insignificant representative of Halle Pietism about a central teaching of Leibniz’s philosophy, pre-established harmony, which Reinbeck as a theologian had a sophisticated understanding. (From the introduction by Stefan Lorenz). (shrink)

Introduction: Religious experience in modernity : faith itself as the "unknown God" -- Fides qua creditur : the Enlightenment mind and the theology of the heart -- Within the bounds of reason alone : the subjective justification of religious belief in the thought of Immanuel Kant -- Schleiermacher's "higher order Pietism" : subjectivity and Protestant liberal thought -- Søren Kierkegaard and the paradox of faith : subjectivity in Christian existentialism -- Subjectivity and religious belief in Anglo-American revivalism : Jonathan (...) Edwards and John Wesley -- Subjectivity and religious belief in Anglo-American revivalism : George Whitefield and Charles G. Finney. (shrink)

Kant's final conception of the relation of God and morality, and the fullest development of the metaphysical context of morality is to be found in the large collection of notes and jottings written down by Kant between about 1790‐1803, which have been collected as the Opus Postumum. There is a development in the Opus Postumum from the Critical doctrine that ‘God’ is a postulate which can have no direct influence on the moral life, an unknown, unexperiencable somewhat which makes the (...) summum bonum possible. The basic problem is that Kant has left a deeply religious ethics expressed in a radically humanistic terminology. He propounds a view of man as involved in an impersonal but purposive nature. In trying to replace speculative rationalism by a voluntaristic rationalism, Kant attempts to find a via media between the rationalism of Wolff and the stress on individual moral freedom of Pietism. (shrink)

German Lutheran scholar Johann Friedrich Weitenkampf (d.1758) sets out to explain and refute the Turkish concept of fate, dividing his dissertation into two sections: the first outlining the Turkish-Muslim view of fate; and the second seeking to prove the invalidity of the Muslim concept of fate with philosophical argumentation. He begins with some brief notes on the historical origin of the Turks, turning then to the backstory of the Qur’an, which he claims can be divided into six sections or topics, (...) the last of which concerns its teachings on fate. According to Weitenkampf, in mainstream Islamic thought, fate is predetermined and immutable. Weitenkampf categorizes most Turks as Jabrites who believe that God is the source of all evil and that men do not have free will. Therefore, men are compelled to do evil or good through God’s omnipotence. He offers examples of how this belief is manifested in the actions and values of the Turks. According to Weitenkampf, since Turks believe in predestination, they do not flee plague-ridden cities or shun contact with those infected. They do not fear death. If they suffer, they believe fate decreed it. In battle, this makes them brave to the point of foolhardy. Weitenkampf also paraphrases an exhortation from the Qur’an in which Muslims are told not to avoid danger, as God has already determined their fate. . . . Weitenkampf’s dissertatio is a symptom of the struggle between the weakened Lutheran orthodoxy and the rise of Pietism and rationalism in the wake of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. Unlike other Lutheran authors, he analyzes Islamic thought through systematic philosophical argumentation, deeply influenced by his logic and metaphysics teacher Knutzen, who tried to combine Wolffan Enlightenment rationalism with pietistic spirituality. (shrink)