Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann (23 February 1842 – 5 June 1906) was a German philosopher, independent scholar and writer. He was the author of the influential Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869). von Hartmann's notable ideas include the theory of the Unconscious and a pessimistic interpretation of the "best of all possible worlds" concept in metaphysics.

Biography

Early life and military career

Von Hartmann was born in Berlin, the son of Prussian Major General Robert von Hartmann and was educated with the intention of him pursuing a military career. In 1858 he entered the Guards Artillery Regiment of the Prussian Army and attended the United Artillery and Engineering School. He achieved the rank of first lieutenant but took leave from the army in 1865 due to a chronic knee problem. After the great success of his first work Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869)—the publication of which led to von Hartmann being embroiled in the pessimism controversy in Germany—he rejected professorships offered to him by the universities of Leipzig, Göttingen and Berlin. For many years, he lived a retired life of study as an independent scholar, doing most of his work in bed, while suffering great pain.

Personal life and death

von Hartmann married Agnes Taubert (1844–1877) on 3 July 1872 in Charlottenburg. After her death, he married Alma Lorenz (1854–1931) on 4 November 1878 in Bremen. The marriages produced six children.

von Hartmann died at Groß-Lichterfelde on 5 June 1906

Philosophical work

His reputation as a philosopher was established by his first book, Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869; 10th edition 1890). This success was largely due to the originality of its title, the diversity of its contents (von Hartmann professing to obtain his speculative results by the methods of inductive science, and making plentiful use of concrete illustrations), its fashionable pessimism and the vigour and lucidity of its style. The conception of the Unconscious, by which Von Hartmann describes his ultimate metaphysical principle is, fundamentally, not as paradoxical as it sounds, being merely a new and mysterious designation for the Absolute of German metaphysicians.

Reception

thumb|right|240px|von Hartmann's grave in Berlin

Rudolf Steiner, referring to von Hartmann's Critical Establishment of Transcendental Realism (Kritische Grundlegung des transzendentalen Realismus, 2nd Edition Berlin, 1875), gave his opinion, in the preface to his own book Truth and Knowledge (1892), that von Hartmann's world-view was "the most significant philosophical work of our time", even though Steiner considered himself to be considerably misunderstood by Hartmann and was critical of some of Hartmann's postulates.

Carl Jung wrote in his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963), that he had read von Hartmann "assiduously".

Philipp Mainländer dedicated an essay to the philosophy of von Hartmann. He did not consider him to be a genuine philosopher, because he did not start his philosophy with an epistemological research, despite the warnings of Kant and Schopenhauer. The criticism has been described as an attack abounding in clean hits but marred by bitter sarcasm, such as "is the coitus a sacrifice the individual makes? You must be – I repeat it – a very strangely organized being", and for denying Schopenhauer's deduction that the will is the thing-in-itself: "you also have the sad honor, to stand at the same level as those who have misunderstood Copernicus and still confidently believe that the sun turns around the earth."

Friedrich Nietzsche offers a scathing criticism of von Hartmann, calling his philosophy "unconscious irony" and "roguery", in the second of his Untimely Meditations, On the Use and Abuse of History for Life. In Beyond Good and Evil he hurled the epithets "amalgamist" and "hotch-potch philosopher" at him.

British film-maker and author Edouard d'Araille provides a modern-day appraisal of the philosophy of von Hartmann in his introductory essay to the 2001 edition (3 volumes) of The Philosophy of the Unconscious. He evaluates von Hartmann as the vital link between the vitalism of Arthur Schopenhauer and the psychology of the Unconscious of Sigmund Freud.

Works

von Hartmann's numerous works extend to more than 12,000 pages. They may be classified into:

Systematic

  • Das Ding an sich und seine Beschaffenheit ("The thing in itself and its nature", 1871)
  • Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie ("Fundamental problems of epistemology", 1889)
  • Kategorienlehre ("Doctrine of the Categories", 1896)
  • Phänomenologie des sittlichen Bewußtseins ("Phenomenology of Moral Consciousness", 1879)
  • Die Philosophie des Schönen ("'The Philosophy of the Beautiful", 1887)
  • Die Religion des Geistes ("The Religion of the Spirit"; 1882)
  • Philosophie des Unbewussten ("Philosophy of the Unconscious", 3 volumes, which now include his, originally anonymous, self-criticism, Das Unbewusste vom Standpunkte der Physiologie und Descendenztheorie, and its refutation, Eng. trans. by William Chatterton Coupland, 1884)
  • System der Philosophie im Grundriss, ("Plan for a System of Philosophy", 8 volumes, 1907–09: posthumous)
  • Beiträge zur Naturphilosophie ("Contributions to Natural Philosophy", 1876)

Historical and critical

  • Das religiöse Bewusstsein der Menschheit (The Religious Consciousness of Mankind in the Stages of Its Development; 1881)
  • Geschichte der Metaphysik (2 volumes)
  • Kants Erkenntnistheorie
  • Kritische Grundlegung des transcendentalen Realismus (Critical Grounds of Transcendental Realism)
  • Uber die dialektische Methode
  • Lotzes Philosophie (1888) (a study on Hermann Lotze)
  • Zur Geschichte und Begründung des Pessimismus (1880)
  • Neukantianismus, Schopenhauerismus, Hegelianismus
  • Geschichte der deutschen Ästhetik und Kant
  • Die Krisis des Christentums in der modernen Theologie (The Crisis of Christianity in Modern Theology; 1880)
  • Philosophische Fragen der Gegenwart
  • Ethische Studien
  • Aesthetik (1886–87)
  • Moderne Psychologie
  • Das Christentum des neuen Testaments
  • Die Weltanschauung der modernen Physik
  • Wahrheit und Irrthum im Darwinismus (1875)
  • Zur Reform des höheren Schulwesens (1875)
  • Aphorismen über das Drama (1870)
  • Shakespeares Romeo und Juliet (1875)
  • Soziale Kernfragen (The Fundamental Social Questions; 1894)
  • Moderne Probleme
  • Tagesfragen
  • Zwei Jahrzehnte deutscher Politik und die gegenwärtige Weltlage (1888)
  • Das Judentum in Gegenwart und Zukunft (Judaism in the Present and the Future; 1885)
  • Die Selbstzersetzung des Christentums und die Religion der Zukunft (1874)
  • Gesammelte Studien
  • Der Spiritismus (1885)
  • Die Geisterhypothese des Spiritismus (The Ghost Theory in Spiritism; 1891)
  • Zur Zeitgeschichte

His select works were published in 10 volumes.

Notes

References

Further reading

  • Works by Eduard von Harmann at the Internet Archive