Babel Of Reason

The theme in this dissertation is Hamann's critique on the Enlightenment in eighteenth century, especially on the rational philosophy of Kant and on the rational theology of Mendelssohn. The whole text is divided into four parts.It is necessary to investigate and introduce the intellectual background of Hamann's thought on account of that the most part of his writings is to contend with his contemporaries and that the research on Hamann is nearly vacuum in Chinese Academia. The Enlightenment movement in eighteenth century makes an attempt to establish the court of human reason and its absolute autonomy, which is one of the important backgrounds of Hamann's thought. The Pietism movement occurred in Germany is another one. The religious conversion during the London travel is the most important event in Hamann's life. Since then, he would hold fideism as his fundamental standpoint and attitude for practice. As many enlighteners who treat David Hume as their theoretical ally, Hamann takes Hume as his ally on the critique of Enlightenment. From his perspective, it is Hume's skepticism which shows us the limit of our reason and the necessity of belief and even faith in our daily life. The last point in Chapter one is on Hamann's style. Hamann intentionally presents the obscure and enigmatic style against the clear style the enlighteners boasted of. Lots of personal content appears in many places of his writing. The most characteristic in Hamann's thought is holism against the dualism between mind and body, subjectivity and objectivity. The methods often used in his writing are metaschematism, typology, and cento, etc.Hamann's critique on the rational claim of Kant and others is the focus of the second part. Sokratische Denkwurdigkeiten presents to us Hamann's understanding of Socrates which is different from the enlighteners'understanding of Socrates. He argues that the real Socratic ignorance is the recognition, admitting and frank profession on his limit. The purpose of the Socratic ignorance is to reveal the enlighteners'arrogance and prejudice. Hamann criticizes the purism of reason in Kant's philosophy, and takes it as the fundamental error of his transcendental philosophy. He claims that language has the genealogical priority to reason. And language includes both aesthetical capacity and rational capacity; however, language itself can only emerge in tradition and experience, so the pure reason is impossible. Sensibility and Understanding are the opposite sides of the unity of language, but Kant's sharp distinction between sensibility and understanding is detrimental to the relationship of unity of opposites.The theme in chapter three which consist of two subsections is on Hamann's critique of Mendelssohn's rational theology. The former subsection outlines Mendelssohn's rational theology. On the base of Hobbes and Locke, Mendelssohn proposes his own theory of natural law and further his strict distinction of function between state and church. He argues that state has perfect rights to constraint our outward behavior; while religious faith belongs to the field of inner conviction, church only has the imperfect rights of persuasion and consolation but no enforcement at all. On this basis Mendelssohn proposes his claim of religious tolerance and defends his faith of Judaism. For Mendelssohn, the fundamental doctrines of the particular Judaism are not in conflict with the universal and rational natural religion, therefore, the Jews should obey the laws of secular state on the one hand, and on the other hand they have right to insist their religious faith freely. The later subsection focuses on the Hamann's critique. From the viewpoint of Hamann's fideism, Mendelssohn actually bases his religious faith on the secular principles of reason and reduces the mystery of God's revelation in history into the mere philosophy which in fact betrays the real spirit of Judaism. Firstly, Hamann questions the fundamental principles of doctrines of natural laws, he points out the confusions and fallacy of supposition of natural state and other concepts such as right, duty, morality, justice and the relationship between them. For Hamann, when Mendelssohn attributes to perfect rights of constraining outward behaviors to state, he has no inconformity with Hobbes'insistence on supremacy of state. Secondly, the real spirit of Judaism for Hamann is the typology of Jesus Christ, not mere legalism. Mendelssohn's defense for his faith virtually abandons his faith and turns to the rational philosophy, in other words, taking Athens as Jerusalem. In the last chapter, the history of assessment of Hamann's thought is investigated in short. Hamann's thought has been paid much attention by Goethe, Hegel and Kierkegaard. Goethe summarizes Hamann's thought with Holism. Although Hegel considers Hamann's thoughtfull of energetic originality, he criticizes that Hamann do not go beyond the individual and subjective level, lacking of objective content. Against Hegel's attack, Dickson makes some defense for Hamann. Kierkegaard is indebted to Hamann for his style,"indirect communication" and understanding of Socrates.