http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ludwig-feuerbach/#5 The first systematic articulation of these ( Feuerbach's) themes occurred in the two monographs published in 1842 and 1843: Preliminary Theses on the Reform of Philosophy, and Principles of the Philosophy of the Future. Both are brief and although the criticisms of Hegel are clearly intelligible, the statements constituting the "new philosophy" are often rhetorical and aphoristic, which is one of the reasons they are often judged to be unsatisfactory as philosophy. For example, "Love is objectively as well as subjectively the criterion of being, of truth, and of reality" (GW IX:319; PPF 54). Nevertheless, one may discern the outlines of a position that some recent commentators have thought worth developing. If some of the elements of this outline now sound commonplace, it is worth reminding the reader how powerful they seemed to a generation struggling to formulate an alternative to the dominant, institutionalized Hegelianism.
Many of the themes are, of course, formulated in antithesis to idealism and, hence, an affirmation of some mode of materialism. The argument is that modern philosophy in its search for something immediately certain founded itself on self-consciousness, that is, the thinking ego. But this self-consciousness was only a being conceived and mediated through abstraction. The new philosophy claims that "certainty and immediately are only given by the senses, perception, and feeling" (GW IX: 320; PPF 55). Only the sensuous is clear and certain. Hence, "the secret of immediate knowledge is sensuousness" (GW IX: 321; PPF 55).
Whereas the old philosophy started by saying, "I am an abstract and merely a thinking being to whose essence the body does not belong," the new philosophy, on the other hand, begins by saying, "I am a real, sensuous being and indeed, the body in its totality is my ego, my essence (Wesen) itself." (GW IX: 320; PPF 54) Consequently, the new philosopher thinks in harmony and peace with the senses. If the old philosophy thought in terms of that "realization" of the idea, the new philosophy argues that the realization of the idea can only mean that it makes itself an object of the senses. If the old philosophy thought the knowledge could only be conveyed in universals, the new philosophy is concerned with concrete individuals, with "this" and "that." The new philosophy is dedicated to thinking of the concrete not in an abstract but concrete manner. If the old philosophy was concerned with Being as such, the new philosophy considers "being as such" as only the name for the totality of interacting beings, and these beings are given as really existing beings.
Being as the object of being-and this alone is truly, and deserves the name of being-is sensuous being; that is the being involved in sense perception, feeling, and love. (GW IX: 317; PPf 52) As I have noted, the anthropology that underlies the new philosophy is one of the elements that some contemporaries have found interesting. The human body is said to be the way in which the human organism is in the world. It is through the body that the "I" is related to the environment impinging upon it and through which the world is defined and appropriated. The body is always situated in some definite time and space. Consequently, Feuerbach argued that time and space are not mere forms of appearance but are conditions of being, laws of existence.
To-be-here (Dasein) is the primary being, the primary determination. Here I am — this is the first sign of a real, living being. (GW IX:327; PPF 62)
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