THE METAPHYSICS OF FINITUDE AS A
CRITIQUE OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
IN THE YOUNG LUDWIG FEUERBACH

Ezequiel Burstein, Antônio Adriano de Meneses Bittencourt, Eduardo Ferreira

Chagas, Jorge Luís Carneiro Lopes, Raylane Marques Sousa

► To cite this version:

Ezequiel Burstein, Antônio Adriano de Meneses Bittencourt, Eduardo Ferreira Chagas, Jorge Luís Carneiro Lopes, Raylane Marques Sousa. THE METAPHYSICS OF FINITUDE AS A CRITIQUE OF THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL IN THE YOUNG LUDWIG FEUERBACH. Feuerbach: ética, antropologia e crítica da religião, Editora Fi, pp.57-80, 2024, 978-65-5272-005-4. 10.22350/9786552720054. hal-04780125

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Antônio Adriano de Meneses Bittencourt

Eduardo Ferreira Chagas

Jorge Luís Carneiro Lopes

Raylane Marques Sousa

FEU
ER
BA
CH

Ética, antropologia
e crítica da religião

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /></figure>
FEUERBACH
# Direção Editorial

Lucas Fontella Margoni
(in memoriam)

# Comitê Científico

**Dr. Antonio Francisco Lopes Dias**
Universidade Estadual do Piauí (UESPI)

**Dr. Eduardo Ferreira Chagas**
Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC)

**Dr. Ermínio de Sousa Nascimento**
Universidade Estadual vale do Acaraú (UVA)

**Dr. Francisco Brandão Aguiar**
Instituto Federal do Amazonas (IFAM)

**Dr. Frederico Jorge Ferreira Costa**
Universidade Estadual do Ceará (UECE)

**Dr. José Aldo Camurça de Araújo Neto**
Instituto Federal do Sertão Pernambucano (IFSertãoPE)

**Dr. José Eudes Baima Bezerra**
Universidade Estadual do Ceará (UECE)

**Dr. José Pereira de Sousa Sobrinho**
Universidade regional do Cariri (URCA)

**Dra. Maria Artemis Ribeiro Martins**
Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia do Ceará (IFCE)

**Dra. Maria Luz Mejias Herrera**
Universidad Central Marta Abreu de Las Villas (UCLV)

**Ma. Nericilda Bezerra da Rocha**
Instituto Federal do Ceará (IFCE)

**Dr. Renato Almeida de Oliveira**
Universidade Estadual Vale do Acaraú (UVA)

**Dr. Rosalvo Schütz**
Universidade Estadual do Oeste do Paraná (UNIOESTE)

**Dr. Vilson Aparecido da Mata**
Universidade Federal do Paraná (UFPR)

**Dra. Wildiana Kátia Monteiro Jovino**
Universidade Aberta do Brasil (UECE)
FEUERBACH

ÉTICA, ANTROPOLOGIA E CRÍTICA DA RELIGIAÇÃO

Organizadores

Antônio Adriano de Meneses Bittencourt

Eduardo Ferreira Chagas

Jorge Luís Carneiro Lopes

Raylane Marques Sousa
Dados Internacionais de Catalogação na Publicação (CIP)

F423 Feuerbach: ética, antropologia e crítica da religião [recurso eletrônico] / Antônio Adriano de Meneses Bittencourt, Eduardo Ferreira Chagas, Jorge Luís Carneiro Lopes e Raylane Marques Sousa (orgs.). – Cachoeirinha : Fi, 2024.

231p.

ISBN 978-65-5272-005-4

DOI 10.22350/9786552720054

Disponível em: http://www.editorafi.org

1. Filosofia – Antropologia da religião – Ética – Crítica. I. Bittencourt, Antônio Adriano de Meneses. II. Chagas, Eduardo Ferreira. III. Lopes, Jorge Luís Carneiro. IV. Sousa, Raylane Marques.
*Ezequiel Burstein<fnref n="1" />*

> "Standing on the ruins of the present life, in which he sees nothingness, all at once there awaken in the individual the feeling and consciousness of his own inner nothingness; and in the feeling of this double nothingness there flow from him, as from a Scipio on the ruins of Carthage, the compassionate teardrops and soap bubbles of the world of the future."

L. FEUERBACH, *Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit<fnref n="2" />*

> "If we don't start dying again, we have no future"

J. SARAMAGO,

Death with interruptions

<footnote n="1">¹ Profesor de Filosofía por la Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina) y Magíster en Filosofía y religión por la École Normale Supérieure-PSL (París, Francia), con una tesis dirigida por el Dr. Vincent Delecroix sobre la filosofía del joven Ludwig Feuerbach en los *Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit*. Ha sido becario UBACYT Estímulo (2017-2018), así como adscripto a la cátedra de Antropología Filosófica (2017-2020, FFyL-UBA). Es miembro fundador de la Cátedra Libre de Estudios Judíos "Moses Mendelssohn" (FFyL-UBA), así como del grupo de investigación sobre L. Feuerbach dirigido por el Dr. Pablo Uriel Rodríguez. Actualmente se encuentra realizando una Maestría en Filosofía contemporánea en la Universidad Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris-1, Francia), con una investigación sobre el rol de la noción de amor en la filosofía de Ludwig Feuerbach. École Pratique des Hautes Études-PSL / Université Paris 1– Panthéon-Sorbonne</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² L. Feuerbach, *Thoughts on Death and Immortality*, tr. en. J. Massey, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1980, p. 15. We take as reference the English edition of the text, translated and annotated by James Massey and published by University of California Press in 1980. This edition is excellent not only for the quality of its translation, but also for the value of its introduction and its notes. Moreover, it is one of the only translations to date – along with the French – that provides the reader with the text in its entirety, based on the original 1830 edition “A”; the 1846 edition “B” was heavily modified by the author when he revised it for his complete works. This translation is based on the critical edition prepared by W. Schuffenhauer for Akademie Verlag in 1981 (GW I, pp. 175-515). The second epigraph is a passage from the novel by J. Saramago, *Death with interruptions*, tr. en. M. J. Costa, New York, Harcourt, 2008, p. 146.</footnote>
Ludwig Feuerbach has never been a particularly valued member in the history of philosophy. In fact, he has never been considered as an important philosopher in his own right. Most readings of Feuerbach have focused on his role as a transitional figure built by the nineteenth-century tradition of Western thought in order to understand a transition from point A to point B, particularly from the philosophy of Hegel to that of Marx. In this way, almost all of Feuerbach's work was condemned to remain under a hermeneutic veil, victim of his time.<fnref n="3" />

Against this background of interpretative rigidity, we can imagine the place that might be granted to his early works, and more particularly to the seminal *Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit*<fnref n="4" /> –

<footnote n="3">³ An example would be Friedrich Engels' classic *Ludwig Feuerbach und der Ausgang der klassischen deutschen Philosophie* de Friedrich Engels (1888), which H.-M. Sass argues was responsible for inaugurating this tradition. H.-M. Sass, « The 'transition' from Feuerbach to Marx », in *Studies in Soviet Thought* 26, No. 2 (August 1983), D. Reidel Publishing Co., p. 124. Sass was in charge of the re-edition and completion of one of the editions of Feuerbach's complete works, commonly marked "SW". However, this is not the one regarded as critical and currently used by Feuerbachian scholars, who generally favour W. Schuffenhauer's edition (1967 ff.), which includes all of Feuerbach's texts in their original, complete versions.</footnote>

<footnote>Furthermore, Albert Lévy's thesis, *La philosophie de Feuerbach et son influence sur la littérature allemande, Paris, Félix Alcan Ed., 1903* ; the study by Manuel Cabada Castro, *El humanismo pre-marxista de Ludwig Feuerbach, Madrid, Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, 1975* ; and Marcel Xhaufflaire, *Feuerbach et la théologie de la sécularisation, Paris, Les Éditions du Cerf, 1970*, which, according to Henri Arvon (1972) does no more than "return to the Marxist perspective of Feuerbachian humanism, making it a simple passage between Hegelian idealism and Marxist praxis." H. Arvon, « Feuerbach et la théologie », *Revue Internationale de Philosophie* 26, no. 101 (3), 1972, p. 355-363. Arvon judges Xhaufflaire's stance to be a product of his time, which saw a renewed interest in Feuerbach's philosophy in Marxist-Althusserian key and guided by J.-P. Osier's introduction to the new French translation of the Essence of Christianity. J.-P. Osier, « Présentation », in L. Feuerbach, *L'essence du christianisme, Paris, Maspero, 1968*, pp. 355-356.</footnote>

<footnote>Similarly, Friedrich Lange (1879), in his History of Materialism, states unequivocally that "Feuerbach showed from an early age a serious, active nature, [but] more strength of character than intellectual vivacity (...)", never achieving "a clear logic". F. A. Lange, *Histoire du matérialisme et critique de son importance à notre époque*, Tome second, Paris, Éd. C. Reinwald et Cie., 1879, pp. 88-89.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ Indeed, the great classical commentaries on the philosopher from Bruckberg mention the *Gedanken* only tangentially, if at all: M. Wartofsky, *Ludwig Feuerbach, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977 devotes only one line to them in his study which runs over four hundred pages; A. Schmidt, *Emanzipatorische Sinnlichkeit: Ludwig Feuerbachs anthropologischer Materialismus*, Munich, Carl Hanser Verlag, 1973, is even more succinct and only mentions *Thoughts* in the detailed chronology at the end of his book; even Löwith (1941), in his famous *Von Hegel zu Nietzsche*, only names him in a footnote. K. Löwith, *From Hegel to Nietzsche*, tr. en. D. E. Green, New York, Columbia University Press, 1964. Only M. Xhaufflaire, *Feuerbach et la théologie de la sécularisation*, Paris, Cerf, 1970 et Cabada Castro (1975) make</footnote>
*Thoughts on Death and Immortality*<fnref n="5" /> – for which Feuerbach had to endure the ostracism of German academia, and which condemned him to a state of intellectual pariah for much of his life.

One of the common denominators among scholars is the “cursed” or “traumatic” character of this text, due to the effects caused by its anonymous publication in 1830 – although its author was soon recognised<fnref n="6" /> – forcing Feuerbach to give up teaching and retire to the village of Bruckberg on account of its strongly anti-Christian content, particularly its criticism of pietism. These historical consequences on the life of the German philosopher seem to have shrouded this text in a veil of invisibility, rendering it impossible to attribute any specific weight to it in the context of his work in general and of his time in particular; it is as if the biographical fate provoked by the publication of the *Gedanken* somehow obturated the philosophical relevance of this work.

Be that as it may, we adopt Philonenko's position here, which states without reserve the scope of *Thoughts*: “Returning to the text [of the *Gedanken*, in 1846, sixteen years later], Feuerbach observes (...) that, *ab initio*, his entire philosophy is concentrated in this text, which, from then on, envelops his absolutely fundamental intuition.”<fnref n="7" /> According to

<footnote>an effort to devote at least a few pages to a treatment of the *Gedanken*, even though they do not attach any specific importance to this work in the whole of his oeuvre.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ The complete title reads as follows: *Thoughts on death and immortality from the papers of a thinker, along with an appendix of theological-satirical epigrams, edited by one of his friends*. In its German original, published anonymously in Nürnberg, 1830, by J. A. Stein: “*Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit aus den Papieren eines Denkers, nebst einem Anhang theologisch-satirischer Xenien, herausgegeben von einem einer Freunde*”. A copy of the original anonymous edition can be found at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, site François Mitterrand (Paris, France).</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶ *Vid. W. Schuffenhauer, « Vorbemerkung zum Band 1 », in L. Feuerbach, GW I, pp. LXI-LXXVII.*</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ A. Philonenko, *La jeunesse de Feuerbach. 1828-1841. Introduction à ses positions fondamentales*, Paris, Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1990, p. 152. Although we share Philonenko's hermeneutical intuition regarding the central role played by the *Todesgedanken* in Feuerbach's work as a whole, this discussion goes well beyond the limits of the present study. We will therefore confine our analysis of Feuerbach's</footnote>
the French philosopher, the work had a much greater influence on the young Feuerbach's philosophical development than is usually assumed.<fnref n="8" />

The specificity of this work therefore lies in its constant tension between metaphysics, philosophy of religion and philosophical anthropology, aimed at providing a solution to the problem of the Christian doctrine of the immortality of the soul, which cedes neither the domain of finitude – both sensible and individual – nor that of the spirit – as unifying and totalising. Feuerbach's critique of this doctrine serves as a nodal point not only for his analyses of religion, but also for his metaphysical concerns: the aspiration of sensitive man to the infinite, not through the delusional fantasy of a personal afterlife, but rather through the way of Thought, Memory and Love for and with the other. Thus, the *Gedanken* see in this doctrine the cornerstone to be dismantled in order to destroy all false thinking caused by the primacy of the modern subject; reflection on the immortality of the soul should therefore serve as an prototype for anthropological philosophical analysis.<fnref n="9" /> Our approach in this work will be to develop this problem in all its specificity.

Belief in this doctrine is above all an egoistic belief, since it implies that the person as such is divine and infinite, which thus constitutes an affront to God, the origins of which Feuerbach traces to the Protestant

<footnote>attack on the belief in the afterlife, which forms the backbone of his metaphysical approach. A broader investigation of this kind has yet to be undertaken.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ "It is therefore reasonable to think that during all those years [1830-1841] when he studied Leibniz, Bayle and the moderns, Feuerbach was supported by the philosophy of the *Todesgedanken*, which was sufficient, as it contained so many precise themes, while awaiting the production of the masterpiece." A. Philonenko, *op. cit.*, p. 153. Cesa (1963) follows the same line: "The interest of this work lies precisely in its wealth of ideas; and the singular reason is to be found in the tension – which rarely subsides – to hold together two fundamentally antithetical positions: the speculative and the realistic." C. Cesa, *Il giovane Feuerbach*, Bari, 1963, p. 133-134, our translation. This appreciation is also shared by A. Zecca, *Religión y cultura sin contradicción. El pensamiento de Ludwig Feuerbach*, Buenos Aires, EDUCA, 1990, p. 135.</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ A. Philonenko, *op. cit.*, p. 163-164.</footnote>
understanding of faith, since in this view each believer prevails in
himself. Above all, he sees in this version of faith a subjectivation of
reality: only the bare personality obtains value, and that which is not a
pure and essential personality – hence most of worldly life – is
discredited. Belief in personal immortality is selfish, moreover, because
it insists on abstracting from the world the essential of the person; we
are here at the heart of the central theme of its argument: the doctrine
isolates the ego from worldly life. Since pure ego is identified as what is
good, the sensual and determinate life is neither whole nor perfect;
bodies are not essential. Pure individuality excludes other humans and
any possibility of defining the human through intersubjective
relationships, particularly through Love.<fnref n="10" />

In our paper, therefore, we aim to establish the main theoretical
axes that structure the metaphysical approach proposed by Feuerbach
in this early work, thereby seeking to contribute to its further
development. In this sense, we will see how the philosopher makes the
critique of the immortality of the soul the pillar of his positive
philosophical construction; in this way, he will develop a line of thought
that builds on the notion of *limit* to found a vision that understands
difference within the whole, and thus manages to provide a
philosophical foundation for the true and irreversible nature of death.

To this end, we will examine various passages of the book in order
to arrive at a comprehensive characterisation of the Feuerbachian
argument. Firstly, we shall focus on the Introduction to the book in
order to define, along with the author, the immortality of the individual
soul as a theoretical adversary, and more specifically the origins and
evolution of this belief through the ages. We will then attempt to

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ C. Wilson, *Feuerbach and the Search for Otherness*, New York, Peter Lang, 1989, p. 155-156.</footnote>
develop in detail the features of Feuerbach’s metaphysics as presented
in the *Gedanken* – particularly in the first chapter, in order to establish
the way in which he derives his own philosophy from his religious
criticism.<fnref n="11" /> Finally, we propose a conclusion to evaluate and synthesise
the way in which Feuerbach responds, from his post-Hegelian
sexualist philosophy, to this particular Christian belief.

**Introduction: periodising a fundamental belief**

Right from the outset of the Introduction, the reader is presented
with a “history of the development of the spirit of European humanity”,
which broadly distinguishes three<fnref n="12" /> periods: the ancient period – in
particular Greece and especially Rome – the Middle Ages and
Modernity. As Massey (1976) points out, the aim of this historical
account is to demonstrate the connection between the loss of real
communal identity and the consequent “unreality” of ideal personal
immortality.<fnref n="13" />

The first stage, to which Feuerbach only devotes one page, sets out
the way in which the Romans related to their community, Rome,
considered as a whole of which they were an integral part: “The Roman
lived only in Rome; the Roman people were, so to speak, the sole and
only space that contained his soul and defined the horizon of his public
life.” In this way, the Roman had only one means of ensuring his

<footnote n="11">¹¹ For reasons of extent, we are not able to dwell on the initial epigraphs and poems, nor on the satirical-theological epigrams (the “Xenien”), which offer an aesthetically remarkable insight into the author’s intention from the very first lines of his writing. Such an analysis remains to be carried out.</footnote>

<footnote n="12">¹² With regard to this tripartite division in a – seemingly – typically Hegelian manner, we refer to Tomasoni (2011): “Feuerbach takes as frame of reference the relationship of the individual with the community and designates three phases according to the Hegelian model, but with a divergent result since the third phase does not represent the synthesis, but rather the ultimate antithesis due to the prevalence of the individual.” F. Tomasoni, *Ludwig Feuerbach. Biografia intellettuale*, Brescia, Morcelliana, 2011, p. 82, our translation.</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³ J. Massey, « Feuerbach and Religious Individualism », in *The Journal of Religion*, Chicago, n° 56, p. 371.</footnote>
survival after death, namely in the continuing life of his own community, to which he belonged as an individual in an absolute manner.<fnref n="14" /> “The Roman was the soul, the “I” of the Roman; he was something and was aware that he was something, not on his own, but only in union with his people, only in and through them.”<fnref n="15" /> The immortality of the Roman was in fact the immortality of Rome (naturally, before the ruin of the Empire); for the individual, his community was “his exclusive spiritual horizon in which was manifested the only life it was possible for him to conceive”.<fnref n="16" />

Feuerbach immediately offers us the key to understanding what separates the ancient from the modern conception of the immortality of the soul; this belief, in the modern sense, he asserts, “rests on the separation of potentiality from actuality and efficacy; when these are one, this modern belief disappears.” Indeed, just as with the Romans, with the Greeks Feuerbach places not community but beauty as the dominant value, which was “all-ruling, all-permeating and all-inspiring”, resting “precisely on the presentability of inner spiritual reality in actual visible form.”<fnref n="17" /> In short, where there is the possibility of reconciling real life with ideal life, there is no room left for the desire

<footnote n="14">¹⁴ On this point, Philonenko adds: “There is something touching and even impressive about the man who sees his immortality in the continuing purity of his family, his people, and his deserved strength and honours, and who, looking even further ahead, discerns in the growing royalty of Rome, with which he identifies, his own immortality. As for himself, when he thinks about it, the Roman wants no other immortality than that of the grateful memory of his family and of Rome”. A. Philonenko, *op. cit.*, p. 62. It is by no means unimportant that the commentator uses the term “memory”, which will become one of the fundamental concepts that Feuerbach will designate as the totalising instance of finite individualities.</footnote>

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 6.</footnote>

<footnote n="16">¹⁶ It is interesting to observe the way in which Philonenko questions the notion of “historical period”, leaning in favour of the notion of “horizon”: according to the French commentator, Feuerbach would not have wanted “to really sketch a history of the idea of the immortality of the soul, but to determine roughly, in broad strokes, the sentimental horizons in which it had unfolded. An idea is not always sensitive to the heart in the same way.” A. Philonenko, *op. cit.*, p. 61-62.</footnote>

<footnote n="17">¹⁷ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 6.</footnote>
for individual immortality; it becomes superfluous. Feuerbach's task,
then, is to explore the causes of the divorce between the *possible* and the
*real*, or between the *potential* and the *effective*.

The second period corresponds to the “Christian Catholic” period
of the Middle Ages, where we know the immortality of the soul became
a universal doctrine – namely, in 1513, under the fifth Council of the
Lateran.<fnref n="18" /> Nevertheless, Feuerbach points out that it would be
“extremely superficial” to regard this dogma as the specific feature that
characterised the essence of the period; on the contrary, he argues that
this position was occupied by the “living belief in the actual existence
of divine grace and of the highest supersensible goods, the unqualified,
all-inclusive belief in the entire positive content of the Christian
religion.”<fnref n="19" /> Thus, while belief in the immortality of the soul was in fact
part of Christian dogma, the latter did not make the former a core
proposition in the body of its doctrines.

In fact, precisely because this period was characterized by the
belief in the concrete manifestation or appearance in the sensible world
of the supernatural – of divine grace – and because the locus of this
appearance was a visible community, namely the Church, the
attainment of salvation and beatitude in the afterlife did not depend on
the decision of the individual as a result of his inner dependence on that
which distinguished him from others.<fnref n="20" /> In Feuerbach’s words: “The

<footnote n="18">¹⁸ A ce sujet, Philonenko rappelle le célèbre cas de l'assassin en série Gilles de Rais, qui n'avoua ses crimes que « lorsqu'il fut persuadé du péril en lequel se trouvait son âme immortelle » ; il cite M. Herubel, *Gilles de Rais et le déclin du Moyen Âge*, Paris, 1986, p. 189.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">¹⁹ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 42. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul was only one of several doctrines within medieval Christianity. In fact, rather than the individual, Feuerbach argues that this particular article of faith was more concerned with heaven and hell; in this sense, the essential point was belief in "the reality of good and the nullity of evil", rather than the possibility of eternal life for the individual. The person in its individuality was not the essential moment, but only a mediation in the fundamental object: the retribution of Good and Evil. A. Philonenko, *op. cit.*, p. 65.</footnote>

<footnote n="20">²⁰ J. Massey, *op. cit.*, p. 371.</footnote>
individual man had not yet attained the desolate and empty
consciousness of his individuality, of his isolated autonomy (...). He had
been received and included in the holy communion of believers (...). *The
highest being is communal being, the highest enjoyment is the enjoyment and
feeling of unity.* But the Catholic church was just this communal being,
the gathering together of all spirits into one Spirit and one belief." This
institution was above all individuals, and this in a clear and unequivocal
manner; the Church was at once the here below and the hereafter, "a
sensibly suprasensible and supersensibly sensible world" where true
being became effective.<fnref n="21" />

Here again we find that man can only be understood as an entity
that places – and draws – its essence in and from the community,
particularly here in the religious community, which must be
understood, once again, as a *whole*. We are therefore in a position to
realise that the "developmental history of belief" proposed by
Feuerbach offers us, first of all, two initial periods closer to each other
than farther apart, insofar as in both cases it is not the immortality of
the individual soul that determines man's existence, but rather his
belonging to a community – or ethical totality – which constitutes his
horizon.

If, however, we want to look for the origin of the immortality of
the soul within the belief system of primitive Christianity, Feuerbach
locates it precisely in the belief in the *resurrection of the body*. In this
way, he affirms that, contrary to nature and art, where the original
precedes the copy, in history the shadow precedes the original: thus, the
belief in the immortality of the soul comes only *after* the belief in the

<footnote n="21">²¹ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 7-8. Our italics, to highlight what will become a fundamental thesis within the *Gedanken*: man as an essentially communitarian being.</footnote>
resurrection of bodies, which was “the symbol, the enigmatic picture,
the shadow of the belief in the immortality of the individual as such.”<sup>22</sup>
Not without reason, Philonenko offers a historical perspective that
sheds light on the collapse of the ethical totality that was the Catholic
Church: he places this moment at the time of the Black Death of 1348,
when “this very strange, but also very monstrous thing happened, that
the living were often not numerous enough to bury the dead.”<sup>23</sup> The
appalling experience of witnessing the putrefaction of bodies in the
street had a profound effect on human consciousness, which naturally
aspired to the resurrection of bodies.

Finally, Feuerbach proceeds to the third – and most decisive –
period: the modern age, when “the belief in the immortality of the
individual as such emerges on its own ground and without disguise”; it
is at this point that this doctrine rose to such centrality that it became
an essential characteristic of culture<sup>24</sup>, to such an extent that it forms a
characteristic historical moment “determinate and determining, that
should be grasped and brought to prominence for its own sake.”<sup>25</sup>
According to Feuerbach, the defining feature of modernity is that man
as a person and as a singular individual perceives himself as divine and
infinite: this is its fundamental distinguishing feature.

This change took shape, firstly, with the historic advent of
Protestantism, which professed the idea of a supreme principle that was
not deposited in the Church as a totality embracing Being in its unity,
but deposited rather in “individual faith and conviction”. This is
particularly illustrated by the principle of *Sola Scriptura*, which confers

<footnote n="22">22 L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 9.</footnote>

<footnote n="23">²³ A. Philonenko, *op. cit.*, p. 65. The commentator refers the reader to Bocaccio’s *Decameron*, I, 1.</footnote>

<footnote n="24">²⁴ J. Massey, *op. cit.*, p. 371.</footnote>

<footnote n="25">²⁵ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 10.</footnote>
hermeneutical independence to the individual in regard to the Church, which was previously the sole authority that centralised the power of biblical interpretation.

The inversion took place in the following way: “No longer was the church the principle of belief, but belief became the foundation and the principle of the church.”<sup>26</sup> As a result, salvation ceased to be a state that could be attained through the community; instead, it became accessible only through *individual* faith and conviction, in which the authority of the universal unity of the Church was dissolved and replaced by the individual’s belief in his or her own immortality.<sup>27</sup> It is significant to observe – as does Feuerbach in his introduction – that, in Protestantism, the centre becomes Christ, “the God-man, or the essence of humanity unified with the essence of God in the shape and form of Christ.”<sup>28</sup> The relationship between God and the individual becomes therefore immediate.

The shift from veneration of the singular person of Christ to veneration of the singular person *altogether* is a natural one, as the philosopher argues: “Protestantism developed further to the point that, no longer the person of Christ, but the person as person was the focal point of individual belief; thus each person in himself and in his own interior reality became a focal point to himself. Accordingly, Protestant evangelicalism became rationalism and moralism. Thus pietism must be recognized as the point transitional to these latter forms.” The

<footnote n="26"><sup>26</sup> *Ibid*.</footnote>

<footnote n="27"><sup>27</sup> A. Philonenko, *op. cit.*, p. 66.</footnote>

<footnote n="28"><sup>28</sup> L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 10. This veneration of the individual person of Christ extended, among Pietists, to the worship of dead flesh itself; Feuerbach provides a quotation from a Pietist text (although he does not give the source): “Those who wish to be and to remain blessed must be kissed by the pale, dead, icy lips of Jesus, must smell the dead corpse of the Savoir, and must be penetrated with the breathe of his grave”.</footnote>
individual person who then becomes the core of this *Weltanschauung* is no longer the actual Christ himself; it has become “the shape that Christ assumes in the interior of the subject, the Christ who is taken up into the heart, who exists only in feeling and disposition, *the Christ who has become the very I of the believing individual*.”<fnref n="29" /> In this way, the Protestant conscience internalises Christ.<fnref n="30" />

Therefore, since the pietist sacralises only the personal traits of Christ as an individual – which thus become the object of representation – “only the subjective becomes an object for the subject and the subject truly becomes his only object [of adoration].” The transition to rationalism and moralism<fnref n="31" /> is already prepared, for their essence consists precisely in being “precisely the forms of Spirit in which the object of the subject is solely the subject himself, in which the person alone is everything, is the essential and infinite reality.”<fnref n="32" /> Feuerbach finds precisely here the reason why the belief in individual immortality emerges as a “characteristic and essential” trait only with Pietism, and then becomes all the more important with rationalism and moralism.

**The metaphysics of the *Gedanken*: the concept of limit**

The main aim of the book being the recognition, once and for all, of man's death as true, real, effective and definitive<fnref n="33" />, the notion of *limit* is bound to emerge very quickly as central to Feuerbach's thesis. It is

<footnote n="29">²⁹ *Ibid*., our italics.</footnote>

<footnote n="30">³⁰ A. Philonenko, *op. cit.*, p. 67.</footnote>

<footnote n="31">³¹ Tomasoni adds critically in this respect: “The important role of Pietism in the Frühaufklärung is here reinterpreted as a ‘transition point’ towards rationalism and moralism, according to an obvious historical simplification.” F. Tomasoni, *op. cit.*, p. 84.</footnote>

<footnote n="32">³² L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 11.</footnote>

<footnote n="33">³³ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 15.</footnote>
precisely this limit that Feuerbach demands the pietists respect: overwhelmed by the idea of death, instead of confronting it face to face, they choose to create an imaginary fantasy that allows them to ground the belief of their immortality in a future world and time.

However, the question of limit emerges everywhere in real life: by de-limiting us, these limits de-fine us, they make man a particular and singular individual, different from the rest, but also always a member of the whole, of that totality which is humanity. This limit, taken in its internal and spiritual sense, will prove to be crucial for the justification of external, natural death: "temporal death presupposes a death beyond time; sensible death presupposes a supersensible death. And this eternal death, this supersensible death, is God himself." God is operated here by Feuerbach as the metaphysical-temporal backdrop against which changes in the spatio-temporal dimension of nature occur. "Sensible death is, as it were, nothing but the tone by which the temporal thing gives voice to and proclaims its timeless death (...) That in which divine [or infinite] reality did not dwell could not die. Thus, to wish, to long for something after death is boundless error. For death is produced by an inner longing of nature."<fnref n="34" />

<footnote n="34">³⁴ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 20-21, our italics. This return to death as a phenomenon in itself, as opposed to the reality-possibility distinction where the individual posits his being in an afterlife, is revisited by J. Vuillemin (1952) as a *thanatodicy*, which would replace *theodicy* – and the *dissociation* of subject and object that derives from it – to propose in its place an *original unity*. In this sense, "thanatodicy tells us that God is the true cause of death, since the mystery of creation and incarnation is a dialectic internal to the self-consciousness of the absolute." The French philosopher places particular emphasis on Feuerbach's priority treatment of nature, which is conceived of *qualitatively* by *thanatodicy*, unlike the *quantitative* conception of nature by *theodicy*. "Feuerbach's atheistic humanism finally confers on Nature its full meaning"; according to Vuillemin, here takes place a reversal of philosophical consciousness in favour of empirical consciousness, accustomed to being relegated to the background. Thus, "the speculative necessity of death stems precisely from the fact that the objective spirit [the idea] can only constitute itself in its necessary appearance to finite empirical consciousness [individual and limited man] as destruction and sacrifice, as commitment and anguish". J. Vuillemin, « La signification de l'humanisme athée chez Feuerbach et l'idée de nature », *Être et Penser. Cahiers de Philosophie, Deucalion* (4), octobre 1952, cahier n. 36, p. 23-29. Vuillemin adopts the term *thanatodicy* from F. Jodl, co-editor</footnote>
What proves to be singular in Feuerbach's approach is the fact that God, instead of being merely “he who is”, according to the biblical verse<fnref n="35" /> – that is, a pure identity with himself – is here that which contains *difference* within himself as a consequence of the divine self-activity by which nature is created. As the reader will have gathered, God and Nature are here one and the same thing: “Thus, if the distinction from God is not within God himself, if he does not include within himself an essence that is distinct from his person (...) and if his essence does not include his opposite, then he is indeed distinguished from nature, but this distinction is not a result of his own activity.”<fnref n="36" />

This activity of self-differentiation that takes place within God is also found in the essence of man: it is what constitutes man as divine, as spiritual: “Why is the human a spiritual being? Not just because he is distinct from nature, but because his distinction from nature is a result of his own activity of distinguishing.”<fnref n="37" /> As already stated, this differentiation – or even, this negation, this limit – that exists within man will be the *metaphysical* foundation of the natural, i.e. the *physical*, death of the individual man. Moreover, this means above all that man's empirical death can in no way give way to a new, perfect and infinite life in the hereafter, as this would deny precisely the essential limit or negation that man has in his inner ontological nature. If this were the case, “If there were no nature in him, or rather, if he were not nature,

<footnote>among with W. Bolin of the second edition of the Complete Works of Ludwig Feuerbach, the *Sämmtliche Werke*, Stuttgart, Frommanns Verlag, 1903. Vid. SW 1, Preface, p. XII.</footnote>

<footnote n="35">³⁵ *Exodus*, 3:14: “God said to Moses: I am he who is.”</footnote>

<footnote n="36">³⁶ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 25. Here is a glimpse of the pantheistic aspect of young Feuerbach’s approach, which fully unfolds in the second and third chapters of the *Gedanken*, particularly in his treatment of the subject of Love as the totalising moment of the individual in the community. This subject being beyond the scope of our work, we refer the reader to the excellent studies by C. Wilson, *op. cit.*, p. 153-258, and by T. Gooch, « 'Bruno Reincarnate'. The Early Feuerbach on God, Love and Death », *Journal for the history of modern theology* (Vol. 20, No. 1, p. 21-43), Berlin/Boston, De Gruyter.</footnote>

<footnote n="37">³⁷ *Ibid*.</footnote>
then the impulse, the beginning, and the initiative to activity and
distinction would lie outside of him; he would be a spiritless essence,
activated only from without.”<sup>38</sup> In short, man must himself be the
source of his differentiations, caused by internal self-activity; being not
only a self-conscious person, but also a power of creation and
differentiation, man is and conceals within himself that from which he
differentiates himself.

This brings us to the core of the metaphysics behind *Thoughts*: the
limited and finite nature of the human being. Nevertheless, this is not
simply an inner, spiritual and ontological limit; on the contrary, this
fundamental condition also bears a correspondence to the existing
world around man, and to all the things that populate it. In this sense,
Feuerbach affirms: “Those things and essences that exist outside you,
that you distinguish from yourself, that you acknowledge as different
from your I and your self, and that you order under the species-concept
of object or nature, all these things are points that limit and negate your
self.”<sup>39</sup>

These things, as limits to the being of the Self, are therefore to be
considered as actual empirical manifestations of the *death* of the Self,
of its true nihilisation; such is the extent of the notion of limit in man.
In the words of the author: “As much and as far as other things and
essences exist outside of you, so much and so far you do not exist. And
as many of these things as exist, so many edges and boundaries, in and
at which you and your being cease, have you. In every tree, every wall,
every table that you touch, you touch your death, as it were, you touch
the boundary and the edge of your existence. To bring to mind your end,

<footnote n="38"><sup>38</sup> *Ibid*.</footnote>

<footnote n="39"><sup>39</sup> L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 31.</footnote>
you do not need to take a walk to the cemetery (...). Every punch in the ribs, every squeeze, every impact, is a living *memento mori*; all of nature is a cemetery of your selfishness.”<fnref n="40" /> What Feuerbach proposes here is certainly curious: the foundation of the Self’s death need hardly be sought elsewhere, either in biological theories or in philosophical or religious speculations; on the contrary, the surrounding space already provides it with all the evidence of its finitude that it needs.

We should certainly not fail to recall – as noted above – the fact that the ultimate principle of this limit is to be found in God, who thus appears as “the ultimate and principal ground of your death”, just as much as he is “the ground of your existence.”<fnref n="41" /> Notwithstanding, the limit entailed by God as fundamental support, and which is expressed in each being as an internal limit, is also expressed in an “external, objective existence in things; their aggregate is objectivity in general.” Finally, Feuerbach delivers the verdict: “If no object existed, the subject would be infinite and therefore immortal *per se*. If the personal subject existed alone, it would be impossible to conceive of its end, its limit, its death. But *the existence of an objective reality is the factual proof of the finitude of subjectivity*.”<fnref n="42" />

Another way of approaching the notion of limit is to take it directly through the effect it implies, i.e. the annihilation of being, its true death. In this way, it is important to consider the way in which Feuerbach characterises this phenomenon that is so essential to life itself; in his view, death is nothing other than the *condition of possibility* of existence, even though it only manifests itself at a later stage. In this sense, it

<footnote n="40">⁴⁰ *Ibid*.</footnote>

<footnote n="41">⁴¹ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 31-32.</footnote>

<footnote n="42">⁴² L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 32, our italics on the final sentence.</footnote>
represents an *a priori* truth for man, as a “presupposed and preceding condition” for existence. “As you depart from existence in death, so you enter existence only in death. Is not the end of something always its true beginning?”<sup>43</sup> We are faced with the idea of limit as positive negativity: we can only fully apprehend the being of any one thing at its end, at its limit, which in turn allows us to properly define it.

In exploring the finite-infinite dyad, Feuerbach once again poses the question of how creation and annihilation can both arise from the infinite, starting from the premise that the infinite cannot be generated. In this respect, he distinguishes the dimension of *time* from that of *essence* by the fact that “all that is sequential in time is one and the same time in essence. (...) Everything, therefore, the multiple, particular, finite, is one and at once in essence.”<sup>44</sup> In this way, essence proves to be a true *principle of unification* of all that is distinct and, consequently, limited and finite, a “negating unity” in the sense that it denies and limits finite beings, of whom it also constitutes the foundation.

Furthermore, it is as such that essence becomes, “as it negates, time”; here we have the first formulation of what will become a fundamental theme in *Thoughts*, especially in the second chapter. Time is therefore a negating unit, for within it all births and deaths take place: “The essence, as it negates, is time. As negation negates, it posits and creates; that is, it posits the particular, the finite, the multiple, which is one in essence and infinite in this unity.”<sup>45</sup> What we find here is nothing other than an alternative version of what Feuerbach had argued earlier, concerning the existence of difference – and the self-

<footnote n="43"><sup>43</sup> L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 42.</footnote>

<footnote n="44"><sup>44</sup> L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, pp. 44.</footnote>

<footnote n="45"><sup>45</sup> *Ibid*.</footnote>
activity of differentiation – within God; God is essence, and essence is God.<fnref n="46" /> “Time is only essence in action”, which is in turn defined as “the disposition in which everything that exists at once one and identically is posited in succession.”<fnref n="47" /> We are here on the plane of nature that develops from the internal action of God/Essence. In other words, we are here on the plane of *existence*.

That is to say, this existence only arises within the bounds of two fundamental principles: *Time* (which we have referred to above) and *Space*. Following this logic, Feuerbach affirms these two premises as the origin of *both* life and death: “Space and time are affirmations of your being but also negations of your being. You *exist* only in space and time; you *begin* in them, but you also *end* in them.”<fnref n="48" />

Thus, we have the individual who, against the ontological background of the infinite-God, develops his finite existence from the moment of his creation until his final limit: death. Nevertheless, Feuerbach is careful to add a detail that proves crucial to his overall approach: even though he has a material frontier – and this frontier literally *defines* his being – individual man is not merely a body. Rather, he also has a *soul* which not only defines him (it is characterised by Feuerbach as his *destiny* or *destination*<fnref n="49" />), but which also provides him

<footnote n="46">⁴⁶ Feuerbach will add more names to designate *Totality* as he develops his *Gedanken*, such as *Infinity*, *Spirit*, *Thought*, *Love* and *Memory*.</footnote>

<footnote n="47">⁴⁷ *Ibid*.</footnote>

<footnote n="48">⁴⁸ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 45.</footnote>

<footnote n="49">⁴⁹ “The body is determined only for the soul; the soul is the purpose, the determination of the body’s existence. (...) In fact, the soul, as the purpose of the body, is the body’s inward, concealed spiritual cause, the hidden ground and principle.”; “The parts of the organic body are not parts but members. (...) They are one by their purpose, their essence, which is their soul.”; Every human has a destiny, a purpose and a rational determination of his existence. This is principally manifested in the individual as drive, desire, talent, inclination; the determination of purpose of the individual’s life is itself his power, his capability, his talent. The destiny of the individual is his sacred, inviolable essence, is the drive of all drives, the soul of his soul, the principle of his life, his protecting and defending guardian spirit, the inner necessity, the provident and defending guardian. (...) The human lives as long as his destiny is still</footnote>
with his fundamental capacity to transcend his corporality by
ascending towards Thought, Spirit and Consciousness. However,
Feuerbach is explicit in his monistic conception: "Body and soul in unity
constitute your life." He then goes on to portray man as not only
material but also spiritual: "Not only do you exist spatially and
temporally and with life, but you are also a human, a conscious, spiritual
being."<fnref n="50" /> It is interesting to observe the way in which Feuerbach,
defining the individual as an essentially conscious being, includes the
noun "man", as if he were deliberately trying to emphasise the
importance of consciousness and spirituality in the very definition of
what it means to be human.<fnref n="51" />

Then, outlining the structure of the foundations of man's death,
Feuerbach offers a synthesis: firstly, God (or the infinite) is presented
as the *indeterminate infinite* foundation of man's death; secondly, Time,
Space and Life (nature, existence) are the *determinate and sensible*
foundations. Finally, Reason, Spirit and Consciousness (taken as
equivalents) are the *determined infinite* foundation of man's death: we
see how this third stage operates synthetically as a connection between
the infinity of God and the determination of the individual. In addition,
the philosopher ends by — albeit discreetly<fnref n="52" /> — outlining the
metaphysical and *formally Hegelian*<fnref n="53" /> structure of this work: first part,

<footnote>destiny, as long as it still exists in him and is one with him." L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 62, 89-90 and 132, respectively.</footnote>

<footnote n="50">⁵⁰ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 46.</footnote>

<footnote n="51">⁵¹ Even more: "The individual is not just a sensible reality; he does not exist only in the sensible, but he exists also beyond the sensible, in consciousness and reason." L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 47.</footnote>

<footnote n="52">⁵² C. Berner, in L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 75, note 48.</footnote>

<footnote n="53">⁵³ A number of scholars agree in their readings that the *formal structure of the Gedanken*, divided into three parts, represents no more than a *superficially Hegelian legacy*. *Vid.* for instance: C. Cesa, *op. cit.*, p. 133, 160; F. Tomasoni, *op. cit.*, p. 82; A. Zecca, *op. cit.*, p. 123-124.</footnote>
"God"; second part, "Time, Space, Life"; third part, "Spirit, Consciousness".

In addition, this metaphysical argumentation plays a specific role, namely in Feuerbach's criticism of what he calls "materialists, empiricists and naturalists", i.e. those who believe that death is caused only by the effects of time, space and life. Against them, Feuerbach argues that one must precisely consider all the dimensions exposed (God-Infinity, Time-Space-Life, Consciousness-Spirit), otherwise one would not be presenting a foundation but only consequences, manifestations, middle terms. "The belief in individual immortality is *true* and has a *foundation* only as opposition and contradiction to this naturalistic grounding of death"; in fact, on this point Feuerbach equates this plain materialist-naturalist with the Christian who believes in personal immortality. Both of them view the end of the individual within a sensible limit.<fnref n="54" />

Now, how does man go beyond his sensitive limits? Precisely through his spiritual dimension, his being-conscious, his thinking activity. It is here that he crosses his existential boundaries of Space and Time, to succeed in being one with the general consciousness: "As conscious and as thinker, you have been *spiritually* destroyed, have been absorbed in Spirit. You are conscious of yourself only in Spirit's consciousness of itself. Only in the pure and universal light of Spirit can you, the determinate individual, see and know yourself. The external realization of this spiritual negation is death."<fnref n="55" /> Not only is Feuerbach referring here to his *Dissertatio* of 1828, which dealt with thought as the

<footnote n="54">⁵⁴ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 46, our italics. Thus, he states: "As little as sensible reality is true and ultimate, so little is a death that is only sensibly grounded true and ultimate; it is not the end and conclusion of life." *op. cit.*, p. 47.</footnote>

<footnote n="55">⁵⁵ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 47-48.</footnote>
metaphysical principle of the unity of all men, but also, with this statement, he is coming closer particularly to elements of Platonic idealism, namely the theory of *participation*, where the individual who thinks about “x” *participates* in the perfect and paradigmatic Idea of “x”.<fnref n="56" /> He also adopts the idea that death as a sensory and bodily negation occurs only on the basis of a more fundamental negation: that of the inner and spiritual negation that takes place at the moment when the individual becomes one with – and dissolves within – Spirit.

## Conclusion

In conclusion, we can affirm that the Feuerbachian ontology of limit finds, in mind and consciousness, the culminating point of resolution and unification of the dispersion to which finite individuals would be subject under the spatio-temporal determination of the absolute forms of existence in nature: “The self-consciousness of the mind is the absolute ground and principle of your personhood and makes it possible for you to be conscious of your individuality.”<fnref n="57" />

In this way, the critique of the Christian belief in the afterlife – a belief that is individual, egoistic and subjectivist – reaches its conclusion when Feuerbach categorically states that the only valid definition of a belief in immortality is nothing other than “the belief in Spirit itself and in consciousness, in their absolute substantiality and infinite reality.” This means precisely that immortality is only possible in the general or universal level that goes beyond the sensitive individuality of singular

<footnote n="56">⁵⁶ In the following chapter, the author will state: “You are one with thinking, not as an individual and in your individual being, your properties, and the like, but only *in* thinking itself. (...) Thinking is a timeless activity.” L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 52.</footnote>

<footnote n="57">⁵⁷ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 110.</footnote>
man; this totalising level is defined as “the infinity of spirit”.<fnref n="58" /> The
following epigram offers a summary of this vision:

> “The human lives eternally. Therefore humans die,
> For the eternal is nothing but the death of all that is temporal.

> True, you will turn to dust someday; but whatever noble
> thoughts you had,
> Whatever you have deeply loved never passes.”<fnref n="59" />

As a result, to believe in this infinity is to believe “in the everlasting youth of humanity, in the inexhaustible love and creative power of Spirit, in its eternally unfolding itself into new individuals out of the womb of its plenitude and granting new beings for the glorification, enjoyment and contemplation of itself.”<fnref n="60" /> Individual finitude, which drives both the Christian pietist and the rationalist to glorify their pure being-for-itself, is thus absorbed by the dimension of human totality, expressed in universal Consciousness, Spirit and Memory. The original desire for personal immortality that mobilises this belief thus proves powerless in the face of the recognition of true transcendence in the eternal sphere of humankind.

Bibliography

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<footnote n="58">⁵⁸ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 137.</footnote>

<footnote n="59">⁵⁹ Epigram n. 300, "On Death and Eternity", L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 238.</footnote>

<footnote n="60">⁶⁰ L. Feuerbach, *op. cit.*, p. 137.</footnote>
L. Feuerbach, *Thoughts on Death and Immortality*, tr. en. J. Massey, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1980.

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C. Cesa, *Il giovane Feuerbach*, Bari, Laterza, 1963.

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F. A. Lange, *Histoire du matérialisme et critique de son importante à notre époque*, Tome second, Paris, C. Reinwald et Cie., 1879.

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K. Löwith, *From Hegel to Nietzsche*, tr. en. D. E. Green, New York, Columbia University Press, 1964.

J. Massey, « Feuerbach and Religious Individualism », *The Journal of Religion*, Chicago, n° 56, 1976, p. 366-381.

A. Philonenko, *La jeunesse de Feuerbach. 1828-1841. Introduction à ses positions fondamentales*, Paris, Vrin, 1990.

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H.-M. Sass, « The 'transition' from Feuerbach to Marx », *Studies in Soviet Thought* 26, No. 2 (August 1983), D. Reidel Publishing Co., p. 123-142.

A. Schmidt, *Emanzipatorische Sinnlichkeit : Ludwig Feuerbachs anthropologischer Materialismus*, Munich, Carl Hanser Verlag, 1973.
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J. Vuillemin, « La signification de l'humanisme athée chez Feuerbach et l'idée de nature », *Être et Penser. Cahiers de Philosophie, Deucalion* (4), octobre 1952, cahier n. 36, p. 17-46.

M. Wartofsky, *Ludwig Feuerbach*, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1977.

C. Wilson, *Feuerbach and the Search for Otherness*, New York, Peter Lang, 1989.

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No ano em que se completa 200 anos do nascimento de Feuerbach, esta obra dedica-se a apresentar uma ampla e rica visão sobre o filósofo. Os textos que o leitor agora tem em mãos diferenciam-se por atualizar – por meio de novos estudos de sua obra – a perceção quanto à sua recepção aos problemas enfrentados em seu tempo, seja no campo do debate entre espiritualismo e materialismo, seja na discussão sobre a natureza orgânica e inorgânica, seja sobre a natureza humana, seja no tocante à esfera ético-política. Esta obra é, também, um convite indispensável a todos que se interessam pelo pensamento filosófico e, em especial, pela história da filosofia alemã do século XIX, ao oferecer-se como oportunidade para o conhecimento dos intrigantes argumentos de Feuerbach – muitos deles pensados para responder a provocações de diferentes naturezas, refutar conceitos de filósofos que ele desacreditava ou delimitar o seu próprio itinerário teórico. A obra distingue-se, finalmente, por servir de consulta para estudos e pesquisas sobre Ludwig Feuerbach no Brasil.

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