Western History 171: How did the German Enlightenment differ from the French Enlightenment?

 The French Enlightenment spread throughout the continent in the 18th century and were popularized by the writings of Voltaire (1694–1778), Montesquieu, Quesnay, D’ Alembert and Diderot

It made the case that man was not inherently depraved. It stressed the importance of the current life over the after-life and took a dim view of superstition, state power arguing for a more inter-connected world bereft of dogma. It was extremely critical of existing French institutions.

Voltaire Picture source: Biography.com

The German Enlightenment had its champions in Christian Wolff (1659-1754) and Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781). The former was the heir to the great philosopher Gottfried Leibniz. He sought to bring together rationalism and naturalism but took a hard line versus English Empiricism.

Lessing was very concerned with the art of feeling, criticized the work of John Locke and laid the foundation for Georg Hegel’s later work on the philosophy of religion.

German Enlightenment thinking was very much influenced by the Romantic Movement and is suffused with the notions of both a cultural and a spiritual awakening that carries with it nationalistic overtones. At the same time it is driven by an analytical approach and has more of an abstract element to it than that of the French version.

This was seen in the writings of both Herder (1774-1803) and J. W. Goethe (1749-1832). It was Goethe, the author of the masterpiece, Faust, who was taken by the romanticism of the Sturm and Drang (Storm and Stress) movement that looked at the cost to one’s soul of the modernization drive of the early Industrial Revolution.

However the greatest of all German 18th century Enlightenment philosophers was Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant popularized a type of systematic rationalism that drew heavily from Wolff and Leibniz however he was not as critical of the empiricism of the English as was Wolff. He wrote considerably but his three great works were the Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgement.

Immanuel Kant Picture source: Biography.com

Kant sought to discover the limits of thought. He was also concerned about divide between metaphysics and science. Kant valued reason but believed that it had its limits, that centered on the domain of the practical sphere

In his view actions performed for self interest were immoral and he in turn advanced a law of rational morality. He expressed his view with this statement - “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law”.

Kant wrote extensively in other fields as well. He impacted the philosophical branch of aesthetics. While he saw art as not intrinsically objective he argued that we should act as it if were. This allows for the formalization of better judgement. Art in Kant’s view should have a Purposiveness to it. His work influenced Friederich von Schiller (1759-1805) and the belief that art was central to both private and public life.

It was from Kant’s work that we see the German Idealism of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814). Fichte worked with Kant’s ding-an-sich (the thing in itself) to argue for example that to have character and to be German were largely the same thing. This was of course pretty convenient for all of German nationalism