Other monists privileged other natural scientific disciplines and theories. As the founder of physical chemistry Wilhelm Ostwald developed an ‘energetic’ worldview in which everything turned on the concept of energy. For example, he thought that he could erect on this basis a ‘formula of happiness’ (Theorie des Glückes: 461). In this formula human happiness (=G) appears as composed of quanta of voluntarily activated energy (=E) and involuntarily activated energy (=W). The formula is:
G = (E+W) (E–W) or G = E2–W2.
Since Ostwald explicitly emphasizes that the key concept of ‘energy’ is to be understood in its ‘physical sense’, his formula was indeed physicalistic, but he did not want it to be understood as materialistic, because for him ‘energy’ was a concept defined in opposition to ‘matter’, so that materialism was to be replaced by ‘energism’. Haeckel too saw monism as an alternative not only to idealism but also to materialism (Die Welträthsel: 23). The very concept of ‘monism’ leaves open the question of whether the single existing substance is supposed to be material or ideal in nature. According to Haeckel, it is meant to be both at the same time. Already early in his career he had provided each cell with a soul, and in his late work Kristallseelen he pronounced that non-organic material is ensouled as well. Notwithstanding the commonalities in their worldviews and their reciprocal personal respect, this was a departure from the approach that Vogt, Moleschott, and Büchner had inaugurated. While Büchner aimed at a reductionist disenchantment of the world, Haeckel sought to re-enchant it monistically. His spiritualization of matter can be understood as a sort of Jugendstil in philosophy and worldview (Bayertz 1990), manifesting itself in his special interest in aesthetic questions.
The monistic movement continued the practical ambitions of natural scientific materialism with even less deviation. Its political programme aimed at a reform of society in accordance with natural scientific principles. But in practice this to a considerable extent amounted to supplying widespread prejudices in Imperial Germany with a natural scientific underpinning. Accordingly, it seemed clear to Haeckel that the white race was intellectually superior to all other races and that social inequality had biological roots. The monistic understanding of religion was especially torn: religion was violently attacked, but at the same time imitated. Thus Haeckel announced a ‘monistic religion’ (Die Welträthsel: 383ff.) and Ostwald gave monistic Sunday sermons which he published in several volumes (Monistische Sonntagspredigten 1911). Like the natural scientific materialists before them, the monists had not even the faintest idea that the inference from ‘is’ to ‘ought’ might be a fallacy. Ostwald was therefore able to proclaim an ‘energetic imperative’ (Monistische Sonntagspredigten: 97). It said, ‘Waste no energy!’ and Ostwald held that to contravene it amounted to a sin.
The central commonality between natural scientific materialism and monism is their scientism: their view that all problems have natural scientific solutions. On the ethical–political plane this produces a seamless continuity. But as we have seen, that is not the case on the philosophical–theoretical plane. There, monism, by presenting itself as an overcoming of materialism, at the same time makes it clear that materialism (like itself) does not follow from the natural sciences of their very nature, but is the result of an interpretation of them from the perspective of a philosophy or worldview. Whatever we might sensibly want to understand by the term ‘materialism’, it is inevitably going to be a matter of a philosophy or worldview.
31.6 RECEPTION
If one asks what effect scientific materialism had on the history of philosophy, one might at first think that it was rather small; for there was no consistent continuation of the materialist programme for more than a century in German (academic) philosophy. Only in the last third of the twentieth century were some of its theoretical ideas taken up again; mostly, however, under names such as ‘realism’ or ‘naturalism’. But, on the whole, the strictly anti-materialist reactions, amongst which we can count the irrationalism of neo-idealism and Lebensphilosophie and, later, of existentialism, but also current ones such as neo-Kantianism and phenomenology, were more influential. At second view, however, one can make out a sustained effect. But it remains unclear whether it stems from materialism as a philosophy, as a worldview, as a political programme, or as a ‘Zeitgeist’.
An example of this is neo-Kantianism. Several of its later proponents began their philosophical careers from positions that had loose affinities with materialism. In 1866 Friedrich Albert Lange published his Geschichte des Materialismus (History of Materialism) in which he argued against the materialist tendency to synthesize scientific results into a metaphysical system, but at the same time defended materialism as the appropriate maxim for studying nature and even claimed that it is an ‘integral part of the Kantian system, without the latter losing its idealistic character’ (Vol. II: 594). Thus he saw Kantian philosophy and materialism as closer to one another than some believed. This friendly but critical approach was superseded by the strict rejection of materialism by other neo-Kantians in the 1870s. Together with empiricism, positivism, and naturalism, materialism was now seen as the main adversary, against which Kantian transcendental idealism had to take a stand. In the 1880s, 1880 then, an ‘idealist turn’ (Köhnke 1986: 404ff.) took place and the emphasis of neo-Kantian theorizing shifted to ethics. The world of ‘values’ was now construed as a separate world, completely independent of the natural world. In this manner the ethical Indifferentism or even Nihilism promoted as a consequence of the sciences, industry and socialism was to be counteracted. Materialism, therefore, remained present throughout the history (not only) of neo-Kantian thought: albeit as an enemy.
Nietzsche reacted differently. He read Lange’s Geschichte des Materialismus very early and was significantly influenced by it. What he liked about materialism and the sciences was their potential for destruction and disillusionment: they were the front line in the battle against religion, metaphysics, and idealism; they formulated a critique of an anthropocentric worldview and of a morality shaped by Christianity. In his writings we find, up to the very end, several ideas and theorems that were also advocated by materialists. Amongst these is the ‘Death of God’, a critique of any kind of teleology, the rejection of freedom of the will and responsibility, the naturalization of man, and a revaluation of his instincts as well as a naturalization of morality. In one of his several outlines for possible books we read: ‘The place of moral values is taken by naturalist values. Naturalisation of morality.’ (Nachgelassene Fragmente: 342). But that is only one side of his thought. On the other hand, he rejects all attempts at offering a positive materialist system as regression into metaphysics and vehemently rails against the moral and political message tied to this system which, in his eyes, was too close to traditional morality and friendly to democratic ideas. In his first Unzeitgemäße Betrachtung (Untimely Meditation) of 1873 he polemicizes against David Friedrich Strauß, in whose plea for a ‘new faith’ he saw mainly a refusal to consistently draw the conclusions resulting from natural science. Any attempt at appeasing man with a pointless universe or any affirmation of traditional morality was, for Nietzsche, an expression of cowardice and philistinism. By contrast, Nietzsche draws hyper-radical conclusions from the natural sciences; he uses them like a vacuum pump to create an absolute metaphysical void which can only be filled by ‘great minds’ which freely create values that no longer exist in the world. While fragments of materialist thought are kept alive in Nietzsche’s philosophy, it at the same time tries to trump materialism by taking it to extremes.
A much greater affinity to scientific materialism can be seen in the logical empiricism that emerges in the twentieth century. It adopts the basic approach to the sciences that is expressed in the programmatic principles (1) and (2) (see section 31.3), but with an important modification. The materialists of the nineteenth century had seen in the sciences a great and constantly growing stock of true assertions about nature, that is, a stash of epistemic products
. For the logical empiricists, by contrast, the sciences were first and foremost an innovating project, an attitude to the world and a method. Thus the interest in summarizing, systematizing, generalizing, and popularizing scientific results, which had been the mark of the older materialism, was done away with. Under the impression of fundamental changes in physics around 1900, hopes had to be abandoned that the ultimate particles of reality could be identified and a final model of the world given. Against this background, Moritz Schlick pledged allegiance to a methodical monism that declares the scientific type of knowledge as general and without alternative. Such a way of thinking contains ‘all the useful features that made nineteenth century materialism so successful with a public which, unburdened by epistemological scruples, found satisfaction in materialism’s strong drive toward a unified, closed world picture’ (General Theory of Knowledge: 326), but no longer pursues a substantial image of the world or a normatively contentful worldview. Rudolf Carnap two decades later argues similarly when he strictly distinguishes between the metaphysical claims of materialism and the logical and methodological properties of science:
From the logical viewpoint of construction theory, no objection can be made against scientific materialism. Its claim, namely, that all psychological (and other) objects are reducible to physical objects is justified. Construction theory and, more generally, (rational) science neither maintain nor deny the additional claim of metaphysical materialism that all psychological processes are essentially physical, and nothing but the physical exists.
(The Logical Structure of the World: 95)
Logical empiricism replaced substantial scientism that claimed to be able to construct a positive image of the world with a methodological scientism that focuses on the methods of science and makes its rationality the yardstick for an appropriate attitude to the world. Logical empiricism and subsequent analytic philosophy bridge the historical gap between nineteenth-century scientific materialism and the different variants of naturalist thought in contemporary philosophy.
(Translated by Rudolf Owen Müllan.)
BIBLIOGRAHPY
Primary Sources
L. Büchner, Force and Matter. Empirico-Philosophical Studies, Intelligibly Rendered. Ed. J. Frederick Collingwood (London: Trübner, 1864). Original: Kraft und Stoff. Empirisch-naturphilosophische Studien, in allgemein-verständlicher Darstellung (Frankfurt: Meidinger, 1855).
Carnap, R. The Logical Structure of the World (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company, first printing 2003). (Reprinting, with minor corrections, of the edition by University of California Press, 1969.) Original: Der logische Aufbau der Welt (Berlin, 1928).
Feuerbach, L. Notwendigkeit einer Veränderung. In Kleine Schriften (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1966), 220–35. Translation: Necessity of a Reform.
Feuerbach, L. Grundsätze der Philosophie der Zukunft (1843). In Kleine Schriften (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1966), 145–219. Translation: Principles of the Philosophy of the Future.
Haeckel, E. Über die Entwicklungstheorie Darwins. In Gemeinverständliche Werke, ed. H. Schmidt, vol. 5 (Leipzig und Berlin: Kröner und Henschel, 1924), 3–32.
Haeckel, E. Generelle Morphologie der Organismen, 2 vols. (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1866).
Haeckel, E. Die Welträthsel. Gemeinverständliche Studien über monistische Philosophie (Bonn: Emil Strauß, 1899). Translation: The Riddle of the Universe at the Close of the Nineteenth Century.
Haeckel, E. Kristallseelen. Studien über das anorganische Leben (Leipzig: Kröner, 1917).
Lange, F. A. Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart. 2 vols., ed. Alfred Schmidt (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1974). Translation: History of Materialism.
Moleschott, J. Lehre der Nahrungsmittel, für das Volk (Erlangen: Ferdinand Enke, 1850). Translation: The Chemistry of Food and Diet.
Moleschott, J. Der Kreislauf des Lebens. Physiologische Antworten auf Liebig’s Chemische Briefe (Mainz: Viktor von Zabern, 1852),
reprinted in Vogt, Moleschott, Büchner: Schriften zum kleinbürgerlichen Materialismus in Deutschland. ed. D. Wittich, 2 vols. (Berlin: Akademie, 1971), 127–322. Translation: The Circle of Life.
Nietzsche, F. Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen. In Kritische Studienausgabe, ed. G. Colli and M. Montinari, vol. 1 (München und Berlin/New York: dtv und de Gruyter, 1980), 157–242. Translation: Untimely Meditations.
Nietzsche, F. Nachgelassene Fragmente 1885-1889. In Kritische Studienausgabe, ed. G. Colli und M. Montinari, vol. 12 (München und Berlin/New York: dtv und de Gruyter, 1980). Translation: Posthumous Fragments.
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Ostwald, W. Monistische Sonntagspredigten (Leipzig: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft, 1911).
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Schlick, M. General Theory of Knowledge (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company, second printing, 2002). (First edition published 1985 as a reprinting of the edition by Springer 1974.) Original: Allgemeine Erkenntnislehre (Berlin, 1918).
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* * *
1 Initially published in 1855 Kraft und Stoff went through no less than 21 editions by 1904 and was translated into virtually all European languages. The first English translation was published in 1864 under the title Force and Matter.
2 Further proponents are mentioned in Gregory
1977. One should also mention the important poet Georg Büchner, the older brother of Ludwig Büchner.
3 We also find this name in Gregory 1977. Even more common are names such as ‘mechanical’ or ‘vulgar materialism’, but they carry unnecessarily polemical connotations.
4 Note that Vogt’s (in)famous comparison was only partially accepted by Moleschott (Der Kreislauf des Lebens: 284 et seq.) and rejected outright by Büchner (Force and Matter: 135 et seq.).
CHAPTER 32
PERSPECTIVISM
SONGSUK SUSAN HAHN
32.1 HISTORICAL VARIETIES OF PERSPECTIVISM
Historically, perspectivism originated as a method for solving conflicts between standpoints, so that what appears absurd from one viewpoint may be legitimate from another. This gave the method a lasting appeal to a wide range of subject matters that lend themselves to inconsistencies and contradictions, and which stress the contributions made from the spectator’s standpoint. Perspectivism appealed particularly to areas of interpreting historical and literary texts, with the aim of constructing a contextualized interpretation that tolerates a pluralism of values and interpretations. Thus it is a fine irony that a method that originated as a means of resolving conflicts appears later in Nietzsche [1844–1900] to generate more inconsistencies and paradoxes than it solves.
The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century Page 114
