A History of Philosophy, Vol. VII: Fichte to Nietzsche

Summary

Fichte to Nietzsche, the seventh volume of Frederick Copleston's A History of Philosophy, was published in 1963. It picks up German thought at the point where the previous volume left Kant, and it follows the extraordinary century in which Kant's successors tried to complete his critical philosophy as a single system of reality, then watched that ambition break apart into materialism, existential protest and Nietzsche's revaluation of all values. An introductory chapter explains why Kant's thing-in-itself seemed to his successors an unstable remainder, and why the young idealists thought the whole of experience could be derived from the activity of a self or spirit. Johann Gottlieb Fichte is presented as the philosopher of the striving ego, who treats the world as the field of moral action. Friedrich Schelling moves from a philosophy of nature and of art toward a late philosophy of mythology and revelation. Friedrich Schleiermacher receives a chapter for his account of religion as the feeling of absolute dependence. G. W. F. Hegel then occupies three chapters: the dialectic and the Absolute as spirit, the philosophy of right and of history with its account of the state, and the triad of art, religion and philosophy in which Hegel claimed to give Christian doctrine its rational form. The second part traces the reaction. Copleston follows the split of Hegel's followers into right and left, then gives Arthur Schopenhauer two chapters on the world as blind will, the pessimism that follows, and the partial escapes through art, compassion and ascetic denial. Ludwig Feuerbach turns theology into anthropology, and Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels turn the dialectic toward economic production and class conflict. Søren Kierkegaard, though Danish, is included for his protest on behalf of the single individual who must choose before God rather than be absorbed into a system. The third part surveys the scientific materialists of mid-century, the neo-Kantian return to epistemology, and the revival of metaphysics in Lotze and others, before two chapters on Friedrich Nietzsche: his early work on tragedy, his critique of Christian morality as slave morality, the will to power, the superman and eternal recurrence. A closing retrospect asks what questions this century handed to the twentieth. Copleston had already written short books on Nietzsche (1942) and Schopenhauer (1946), and those chapters show long familiarity. His evaluations, written from a Catholic and broadly Thomist position, are restrained: he admires the speculative daring of the idealists, judges Hegel's treatment of Christianity to be a transformation of it rather than a defence, and takes Nietzsche's attack seriously as a challenge believers must answer with argument. In a classical Christian upper school the volume is most useful as a guide to the sources of ideas students will meet in history and literature: Marxism, existentialism and the announcement that God is dead. Single chapters can precede a reading of the Communist Manifesto, Fear and Trembling or the Genealogy of Morality. The book is under copyright, so the library provides a summary and study guide only.

Plot or Argument

• From Kant's critique to absolute idealism

  An introduction explains how the thing-in-itself and the unity of reason led Kant's successors to attempt a system derived from the activity of spirit, and how Romanticism shaped that attempt.

• Fichte, Schelling and Schleiermacher

  Fichte's ego positing the non-ego as the arena of moral striving and his later religious and political writings; Schelling's philosophy of nature, of art as the organ of philosophy and of freedom and revelation; Schleiermacher's grounding of religion in the feeling of dependence.

• Hegel's system

  The Absolute as self-thinking spirit, the dialectical logic, nature and finite spirit, the philosophy of right and the state, the philosophy of history as the march of freedom, and absolute spirit in art, religion and philosophy.

• Schopenhauer, Feuerbach and Marx

  The divided Hegelian school; Schopenhauer's world as representation and will, his pessimism and his doctrines of aesthetic contemplation and compassion; Feuerbach's reduction of theology to anthropology; and the dialectical and historical materialism of Marx and Engels.

• Kierkegaard's protest

  The aesthetic, ethical and religious stages, the leap of faith, subjectivity as truth and the polemic against Hegelian system and against complacent Christendom.

• Materialists, neo-Kantians and Nietzsche

  Scientific materialism and monism, the neo-Kantian schools, the revival of inductive metaphysics, Nietzsche's critique of morality and religion, will to power and eternal recurrence, and a concluding retrospect and prospect.

Characters

• Johann Gottlieb Fichte, subject

  Idealist who made the free, striving self the first principle and addressed the German nation during the Napoleonic occupation.

• Friedrich Schelling, subject

  Philosopher of nature, art and freedom whose long career runs from Romantic Jena to lectures on mythology and revelation in Berlin.

• G. W. F. Hegel, subject

  Systematic idealist who held that reality is spirit coming to know itself through history, the state, art, religion and philosophy.

• Arthur Schopenhauer, subject

  Pessimist who interpreted the world as blind striving will and found relief in art and the denial of the will.

• Karl Marx, subject

  Revolutionary theorist who, with Engels, recast Hegel's dialectic as the history of material production and class struggle.

• Søren Kierkegaard, subject

  Danish Christian writer who defended the individual's passionate decision before God against speculative system.

• Friedrich Nietzsche, subject

  Philologist turned philosopher who proclaimed the death of God and called for a revaluation of values.

Lessons

• The ambition of a complete system

  Fichte, Schelling and Hegel believed philosophy could show the whole of reality as the self-development of reason. Copleston conveys both the grandeur and the cost of that hope: in Hegel the Christian story of creation, incarnation and spirit is reinterpreted as moments of the Absolute. Students can learn to admire intellectual daring while asking whether a system that explains everything has left room for a personal God who acts freely.

  • Why did Kant's successors think the thing-in-itself had to be removed?
  • In what sense does Hegel say that the real is rational?
  • Does Hegel's account of religion as picture-thinking preserve Christianity or replace it?

• Will, suffering and the temptation of pessimism

  Schopenhauer takes suffering seriously and offers art, compassion and renunciation as relief from a world driven by blind will. Copleston's chapters let students see a serious answer to evil that has no Creator and no redemption, and to compare it with the Christian account of a good creation marred by sin.

  • Why does Schopenhauer think life oscillates between pain and boredom?
  • What role does music play in his escape from the will?
  • How does Christian hope differ from Schopenhauer's compassion and renunciation?

• From Hegel's spirit to Marx's matter

  Feuerbach declared that theology is anthropology in disguise, and Marx took the step from critique of religion to critique of society. Following this transformation in Copleston's chapters helps students see how a philosophical method detached from its original metaphysics was turned into a program for revolution, and why Marx thought philosophers should change the world rather than interpret it.

  • What does Feuerbach mean by saying man projects his own essence onto God?
  • Which elements of Hegel does Marx keep and which does he reverse?
  • Can a philosophy of history be true if it denies that history has a transcendent purpose?

• The single individual and the death of God

  Kierkegaard and Nietzsche both attacked the comfortable culture of nineteenth-century Christendom, one in order to call people to costly faith, the other in order to call them beyond faith altogether. Copleston treats both with care, which allows students to see that a critic of nominal Christianity may be either a friend or an enemy of the gospel.

  • What does Kierkegaard mean by the leap of faith, and how does Abraham illustrate it?
  • What does Nietzsche think will follow once Europe realizes that God is dead?
  • Where do Kierkegaard's and Nietzsche's criticisms of Christendom agree, and where do they part?

Context

The volume appeared in the early 1960s, when Marxism governed half of Europe, existentialism was a dominant intellectual fashion in France and beyond, and Anglo-American philosophy had largely turned away from the German idealists. Copleston wanted English-speaking students to understand where these movements came from, and to read Fichte, Schelling and Hegel as serious metaphysicians rather than as curiosities.

Composition

Published in 1963 by Burns and Oates in London and the Newman Press in Maryland, the book drew on Copleston's earlier monographs Friedrich Nietzsche: Philosopher of Culture (1942) and Arthur Schopenhauer: Philosopher of Pessimism (1946). Image Books later split it into two paperbacks, and Continuum reissued it in 2003 as 18th and 19th Century German Philosophy.

Reception

Reviewers commended the volume as one of the few accessible English accounts of post-Kantian idealism. Later scholarship, especially the revival of interest in Hegel and Schelling from the 1970s onward, has refined many of its interpretations, but its chapters remain a common starting point for students.

Comparisons

• A History of Philosophy, Vol. VI: Wolff to Kant

  The preceding volume ends with Kant's critical philosophy, whose unresolved thing-in-itself is the problem this volume's idealists set out to solve.

• The Philosophy of History

  Copleston's chapter on Hegel's philosophy of history follows these lectures, including their claim that world history is the progress of the consciousness of freedom.

• Philosophy of Right

  The chapter on Hegel's political thought draws on the Philosophy of Right for the family, civil society and the state as the actuality of ethical life.

• The World as Will and Representation

  The two Schopenhauer chapters are a condensed guide to this book, from the world as representation in Book I to the denial of the will in Book IV.

• The Communist Manifesto

  The Manifesto gives in polemical form the theory of history and class conflict that Copleston expounds more systematically in his Marx and Engels chapter.

• Fear and Trembling

  Kierkegaard's meditation on Abraham and the teleological suspension of the ethical is the clearest primary text for Copleston's account of the religious stage.

• Thus Spoke Zarathustra

  The superman and eternal recurrence, which Copleston discusses in his second Nietzsche chapter, receive their poetic statement in Zarathustra.

• On the Genealogy of Morality

  Copleston's account of master and slave morality and of Nietzsche's attack on Christian ethics rests largely on the Genealogy.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

• Why Kant's successors were dissatisfied with the unknowable thing-in-itself.
• How Hegel's dialectic treats contradiction as the engine of development.
• How Feuerbach and Marx keep Hegel's method while discarding his spirit.
• What Kierkegaard means by existing as a single individual before God.
• Where Copleston praises Nietzsche's honesty while rejecting his conclusions.

Key terms and names

Absolute idealism

The view, chiefly Hegel's, that reality as a whole is the self-expression of infinite spirit or reason.

Dialectic

In Hegel, the movement by which a concept passes into its opposite and both are taken up into a richer whole.

Will (Schopenhauer)

The blind, endless striving that Schopenhauer took to be the inner nature of everything.

Historical materialism

Marx's theory that the mode of economic production shapes law, politics, religion and ideas.

Leap of faith

Kierkegaard's term for the committed decision to believe that cannot be reached by rational demonstration alone.

Will to power

Nietzsche's name for the basic drive to grow, master and create values.

Seminar Questions

1. Comprehension What does Fichte mean when he says the ego posits the non-ego?
2. Comprehension What are the three stages of existence in Kierkegaard?
3. Comprehension How does Schopenhauer think aesthetic contemplation frees us from the will?
4. Interpretation Why does Copleston think Hegel's philosophy of religion transforms Christian doctrine rather than defending it?
5. Interpretation How does Marx turn Hegel's dialectic, in Engels' phrase, right side up?
6. Interpretation Why does Nietzsche call Christian morality a slave morality, and is his genealogy historically persuasive?
7. Big Question If a culture ceases to believe in God, can its moral convictions survive, as some Victorians hoped, or must they change, as Nietzsche predicted?

Faith Connections

• Colossians 2:8 (Scripture)

  Paul's warning against philosophy that follows human tradition rather than Christ applies to systems such as Feuerbach's, which explicitly reduce God to human nature.

• 2 Corinthians 12:9–10 (Scripture)

  Strength made perfect in weakness answers Nietzsche's charge that Christian humility is merely resentment of the strong.

• Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (Great Conversation)

  Ivan Karamazov's reasoning that without God everything is permitted dramatizes the question Nietzsche's chapters raise.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: German philosophy after Kant moved from the attempt to grasp all reality as spirit to a series of reactions that put will, matter, the individual or power in spirit's place, and these reactions supplied the principal ideologies and protests of the twentieth century.

Rhetorical device: genealogy of ideas. Copleston shows Feuerbach, Marx and Engels transforming Hegel's idealism step by step, so that the materialist conclusions appear as descendants of the idealist system.

Debate: Resolved: Kierkegaard's criticism of Hegel is more damaging than Marx's.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Using Copleston's Kierkegaard and Nietzsche chapters, compare their criticisms of nineteenth-century Christendom and explain which a faithful Christian ought to take to heart.

Comparison with Fear and Trembling: Read Copleston's account of Kierkegaard's religious stage and then the 'Problemata' of Fear and Trembling; explain how Abraham fits or strains the categories in the summary.

Medical Lens

Several figures in this volume matter to the history of psychology and psychiatry. Schopenhauer's account of a blind will that operates below conscious reason is often cited as an anticipation of later theories of the unconscious; the link is a reading by historians rather than a claim Schopenhauer made. The mid-century scientific materialists treated thought as a product of brain chemistry, and Lotze, discussed among those who revived metaphysics, also wrote on medical psychology. Nietzsche's mental collapse in Turin in January 1889 ended his working life; its cause has been debated, and the older diagnosis of syphilitic paralysis is contested, so it should be presented as uncertain.

• Schopenhauer chapters, on the will in nature and in man

  The will as an unconscious striving that governs the intellect, read by later writers as a precursor of depth psychology.

  Psychology Unconscious
• Part III, chapter on non-dialectical materialism

  Mid-nineteenth-century attempts to reduce mind to physiological processes of the brain and nervous system.

  Mind Body
• Nietzsche chapters, biographical opening

  Nietzsche's ill health, his resignation from Basel and the collapse of 1889 that ended his writing.

  Madness Psychosis

Creative Prompts

• Dialogue

  Imagine Kierkegaard and Hegel meeting in Berlin in 1841: let Hegel explain how faith is taken up into philosophy and Kierkegaard reply that no system can make his decision for him.

• Classroom

  Build a family tree of ideas on the classroom wall from Kant to Marx, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, labelling each branch with the doctrine it inherited and the doctrine it rejected, using Copleston's chapters as the guide.

• Essay

  Write an essay assessing Feuerbach's claim that God is a projection of human nature, answering it with arguments drawn from Scripture and from the classical theistic tradition.

• Fiction

  Write a short story about a nineteenth-century German pastor's son who reads Schopenhauer in secret and must decide what to say when his father asks why he has stopped praying.

Further Reading

• Friedrich Nietzsche: Philosopher of Culture, Frederick Copleston

• Arthur Schopenhauer: Philosopher of Pessimism, Frederick Copleston

• From Hegel to Nietzsche, Karl Löwith

• The Sickness unto Death, Søren Kierkegaard

• The Essence of Christianity, Ludwig Feuerbach

• Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche