Anatoly Lunacharsky 1929
Written: 1929
First published: 1929 in Great Soviet Encyclopedia, first edition, Volume 14, pp. 453-454
Source: ru.wikisource.org
Translated by: Anton P.
Johann Georg Hamann (1730-1788), the most original representative of of the so-called “Philosophy of identity” (Originalitaetsphilosophie), which adjoined the literary and poetic movement “Storm and Onslaught”, this cult of genius individuality. The philosophy of identity began with Herder, its representatives, except for Hamann were Johann Kaspar Lavater and Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. The social basis of this trend is formed by individualistic tendencies generated by the development of the German petty-bourgeois intelligentsia in the second half of the 18th century. The starting point of Hamann’s philosophical reflections is formed by the idea of antinomic individualism. Hamann equally rejected the philosophy of Spinoza, with his rationalistic ethics, which saw in the concept of individuality only one obscure fiction, and the critical philosophy of Kant, striving. to an exact delimitation of spiritual “abilities” and to the limitation of theoretical knowledge by the rational synthesis of categories. Together with David Hume, Hamann reduces knowledge to faith, seeing the roots of this faith in the usual connections of experience. At the same time, Hamann opposes the sensationalism and skepticism of Hume with a belief in the cognitive power of mystical experience. The last basis of all knowledge is formed, according to Hamann, by revelation, based on the direct intuition of feeling. The failure of the analytical reason is reflected in its inability to understand the basic fact of life – contradiction. In the face of contradiction, idealism and materialism are equally powerless: both do not allow contradictions either in being or in cognition. Meanwhile, contradiction is the true basis of all life and the only source of true knowledge. In the highest synthesis of being, contradictions form a unity. Adhering to Giordano Bruno and Nicholas of Cusa, Hamann proclaims the principle of coincidentia oppositorum (coincidence, or unity, of contradictions) as the highest principle of being and knowledge. In being, the bearer of the unity of opposites is the human personality in all its manifestations: thus, every word of human speech is an objectified thought, a materialized spirit; but in all other spheres, personality is revealed as a unity of opposites: man himself is both matter and spirit, and human consciousness is together both sensuality and reason. In cognition, the unity of opposites is accessible only to the revelation of feeling: it is necessary to completely abandon the principles of formal logic and, first of all, from the prohibition of contradiction and the law of sufficient reason; another necessary condition is a return to the primitive order of life, to natural moral relations (cf. Jean Jacques Rousseau). Not being an orthodox Protestant, Hamann nevertheless considers Christianity to be the highest form of religious feeling, emphasizing in it an antinomical content, irreconcilable with rationality.
Expressed in a dark aphoristic form, Hamann’s ideas nevertheless had a huge impact on his contemporaries. The historical significance of Hamann is in the criticism of rational formalism given by him and in the restoration of the dialectical principle of the unity of opposites. However, the mystical form that Hamann gave to his teaching, sharp and frank illogism, disregard for the scientific categories of thinking and cognition, persistent defense of the provisions of Christian dogma, hypertrophy of emotionalism make him Hamann not a representative of a scientific form of dialectics, but rather one of the representatives of reactionary mystical tradition in the history of dialectics.