Hen Kai Pan: The Influence of Spinoza on German Romanticism at the Intersection of Theology and Philosophy
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DOI:
10.12730/is.1737120Abstract
Spinoza was not merely one of the 18th century’s pioneering thinkers who influenced German thought. He also played a pivotal role in shaping post-Kantian German philosophy in the 19th century. Having first entered the German intellectual scene through the pantheism debate at the intersection of theology and philosophy, Spinoza later spurred considerable upheaval in the intellectual climate. Over time, Spinoza’s work has been continually reinterpreted. After the initial pantheism debate, he was reimagined as a serene monist sage who links everything to God-Nature. The early Romantics, in turn, portrayed him as a Protestant revolutionary figure who advocated for religious tolerance against established religious dogmas. Finally, Schelling presented a new synthesis by reconciling the seemingly incompatible ideas of anti-naturalist Kantian-Fichtean conceptions of freedom with naturalistic Spinozism. This study focuses on the particular influence of Spinoza on German Romanticism, rather than on Spinoza’s own ideas or on the question of whether the German philosophers correctly appropriated Spinoza’s ideas. This article proposes that the shifting Romantic receptions of Spinoza can be systematically understood as conceptual responses to three interlocking crises in late-eighteenth-century German thought –namely, the theological crisis of faith and reason, the philosophical crisis of the mechanistic paradigm, and the political crisis of authority and emancipation– illuminated through the heuristic function of the Spinozist motto hen kai pan. By showing the historical transformation of Spinoza at the intersection of theology, philosophy, and politics, this article offers a systematic review of German Romanticism.
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