Principles Of The Philosophy Of The Future by Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach. Translated by Manfred Vogel

This book, translated for the first time into English, presents the major statement of the philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach. Here, in his most systematic work, Feuerbach’s thought on religion and on the philosophy of nature achieves its full maturity. Central to the thought of Feuerbach is the concept that man not God is the creator, that divinities are representations of man’s innermost feelings and ideas. Philosophy should turn from theology and speculative rationalism to sound factual anthropology. “My aim in these Lectures,” writes Feuerbach, “is to transform friends of God into friends of man, believers into thinkers, worshippers into workers, candidates for the other world into students of this world, Christians, who on their own confession are half-animal and half-angel, into men––whole men.”

Never translated before, 'Thoughts on Death and Immortality' was the first published work of Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872). The scandal created by portrayal of Christianity as an egoistic and inhumane religion cost the young Hegelian his job and, to some extent, his career. Joining philosophical argument to epigram, lyric, and satire, the work has three central arguments: first, a straightforward denial of the Christian belief in personal immortality; second, a plea for recognition of the inexhaustible quality of the only life we have; and third, a derisive assault on the posturings and hypocrisies of the professional theologians of nineteenth-century Germany.

Feuerbach is now recognized as a central figure in the history of nineteenth-century thought. He was one of Hegel's most influential pupils: he dominated German radical philosophy in the 1840s and was the leader of the Young Hegelians; his 'anthropological' critique of Hegel's idealism decisively influences the materialism and humanism of Marx and Engels; his critique of religion pointed the way for the philosophers of religion; and his psychological analyses found a place in Freudian thought and the existential and phenomenological traditions. In this 1977 text, Professor Wartofsky wishes to go beyond this conventional view to establish Feuerbach as much more than a transitional figure between Hegel and Marx or an influence on important later developments. He seriously considers Feuerbach's philosophy on its own terms and seeks to demonstrate its continuing importance. He therefore traces Feuerbach's development in detail, emphasizing its dialectical character, and finds fundamental originality in his epistemology.

In the preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, published in Berlin, 1859, Karl Marx relates how the two of us in Brussels in the year 1845 set about: "to work out in common the opposition of our view" -- the materialist conception of history which was elaborated mainly by Marx -- "to the ideological view of German philosophy, in fact, to settle accounts with our erstwhile philosophical conscience. The resolve was carried out in the form of a criticism of post-Hegelian philosophy. The manuscript, two large octavo volumes, had long reached its place of publication in Westphalia when we received the news that altered circumstances did not allow of its being printed. We abandoned the manuscript to the gnawing criticism of the mice all the more willingly as we had achieved our main purpose -- self-clarification!" Since then more than 40 years have elapsed and Marx died without either of us having had an opportunity of returning to the subject. We have expressed ourselves in various places regarding our relation to Hegel, but nowhere in a comprehensive, connected account. To Feuerbach, who after all in many respects forms an intermediate link between Hegelian philosophy and our conception, we never returned.