Feuerbach's philosophy is the final stage of classical German philosophy, presented by Kant, Hegel, Schelling and Fichte, and the beginning of the era of materialism in both German and world philosophy. The richness, brilliance of ideas and his wit are surprisingly combined with the instability of his views. He said of himself that his first thought was God, the second was reason, and the third and last was man. He survived the three phases of philosophy, which are visible throughout the history of mankind, and dwelled on the latter.
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804 - 1872) was born in the family of a criminalist, in his youth he studied theology, listened to Hegel himself in Berlin.
He considered the philosophy of idealism a rationalized religion, contrasting philosophy and religion in their very essence. At the heart of religion, he saw faith in dogma, and philosophy - knowledge and the desire to reveal the nature of things. Therefore, Feuerbach's philosophy is aimed at criticizing religion and ridding consciousness of religious illusions. He called man a part of (the most perfect) nature, and not a creation of God.
Feuerbach's focus is on a man whose soul and body are one. Moreover, the philosopher paid more attention to the body, which, in his opinion, constitutes the essence of the "I". Criticizing the idealists, their interpretation of knowledge and abstract thinking, Feuerbach turns to sensory contemplation. He believes that the only source of knowledge is sensations — sight, touch, hearing, smell, which have genuine reality. It is with their help that mental states are cognized.
He rejected supersensible reality and abstract knowledge with the help of reason, which he considered idealistic speculation. Such an anthropological philosophy of Feuerbach testifies to a new interpretation of the concept of “object”. According to Feuerbach, it is formed by the communication of people, so the object for a person is another person. Humanistic altruistic morality arises from the internal connection of people, which should replace people with an illusory love of God. He called the latter an alienated and false form of love.
Together with Hegel, he is convinced of the power of reason and the need for knowledge. A striking feature that Feuerbach's philosophy has is the doctrine of tuism. He believes that the authenticity of being is accessible to one’s own feelings. He never gives up his interest in the religious problem and ethics, therefore this side of his philosophy was developed much deeper and more complete than the questions of cognition.
The interesting side that Feuerbach's philosophy has is its interpretation of religion. This is his theory of the psychogenesis of religious worldviews. He seeks to show how the religious worldview has developed over the centuries in humanity. Denying the supersensible as everything lying outside the consciousness and nature of man, he inclines to naturalism and atheism.
Feuerbach presents his description of the psychogenesis of spiritual religious beliefs and feelings. Children, savages, and cultured people are equally keen to project their features outside (anthropomorphism). And religion is the most important form to realize such aspirations - to project the best features of your "I", your own thoughts, desires and feelings into a divine image. Such religious creativity helps a person to eliminate the inconsistency that inevitably arises between his desires and achievements and which is so painfully realized. Not God created man in his own image, but just the opposite, man himself always created his gods. And these gods are children of human desires.
This is Feuerbach's philosophy. Briefly it is given in the most interesting aspects. It is most interesting for its psychological, not metaphysical side. His attempt to explain the process of the origin of religious worldview is new and original. Feuerbach's deep ideas became the impetus for the study of the history of religion by Renan, Gave, Strauss, Prince. S.N. Trubetskoy et al. They were followed by a number of ethnographic studies of primitive religion (Lebbock, Taylor, Spencer, Gruppa, etc.). His ideas had a strong influence on the leaders of German social democracy: Marx, Engels and others.
