Ernest Renan
Ernest Renan ( born February 27, 1823 in Tréguier (Côtes -d'Armor ); † October 2, 1892 in Paris) was a French writer, historian, archaeologist, religious scholar and orientalist and member of the Académie française.
Life
First student of Catholic theology, Renan was 1838 at the seminar Saint- Nicolas- du- Chardonnet in Paris, joined the seminary of Issy 1841 and 1843 at the Grand Séminaire de Saint- Sulpice. In 1844 he received the minor orders, but left the seminary in 1845, as it serious doubts about the historical truth of Scripture had come. He declined based on Christian dogma and morality enthusiastic about German Idealism and the critical " German exegesis " of the Bible ( " Tübingen School ").
1855 was Renan a historical- systematic concordance of Semitic languages out. Various trips, especially in the Middle East led to the emergence of his major work The Life of Jesus, whose first volume appeared in 1863. In this work, Renan attempted to explain life, the shape and the way of Jesus from the ancient relations of its time and figure out the figure of Jesus as the one man who was proclaimed after his death by his church to "God." In the paradigm of evolutionism oriented, Renan sees the religious history as progress towards ever greater moral perfection.
For his work Renan was initially fiercely attacked and lost in 1863 even temporarily its 1862 first obtained professorship at the Collège de France, but were sold by the French edition of The Life of Jesus sixty thousand copies within six months, and a support followed another. Renan was rehabilitated in 1871 and elected in 1878 as a member of the Académie française. From 1883 until his death he served as administrator of the Collège de France.
The Bavarian Academy of Sciences had voted for him in 1860 for foreign members.
Democracy
In his work, Dialogues et fragments philosophiques he writes in 1876:
" Reason and science are products of the human race, but immediately settle the people the reason and to realize them in the midst of this people - this is a chimera. It is not the nature of reason, that it is understood by all the world. If such a dedication should take hold, it would in any case not possible by some form of lower democracy, which seems to lead meaning that any finer culture and each higher order are canceled. The principle that the Company is solely responsible for the welfare and freedom of the individuals who make up, also does not match with the intention of nature, according to which only the type considered and the individual is sacrificed. There is much to be feared that the final result of this understanding of democracy would be a social state in which a depraved mass has no other concern than to indulge in the pleasure and the pleasure of the base average person. "
What is a nation?
Renan is also known for his speech of 11 March 1882 in the Sorbonne: What is a nation in which he gives the following modern definition?:
In this speech, which is often shortened to The nation is a daily plebiscite, he took early as 1882, the idea of the European Community first:
Indirectly, it was therefore a preparer of the Celts ideology in the wake of the Irish Renaissance.
Correspondence with al - Afghani
In 1883, Ernest Renan held at the Sorbonne a lecture on the relationship of Islam and modernity. Renan claimed that Islam stands against modernity in opposition.
" [ ... ] Just as it is initiated into his religion to the tenth to twelfth year of life, the Moslem child, who was until then sometimes still quite aroused, suddenly fanatic, saturated of that conceit, it possesses everything to him as absolute truth is considered as a prerogative over the Happy what makes straight his mental inferiority. This stupid arrogance is the vice that determines the whole being of the Mussulman. The apparent simplicity of his worship infuses him a little justified contempt for other religions. "
Jamal al-Din al - Afghani, an Islamic philosopher, sat down with the critical remarks of Renan Renan apart and sought to refute.
Jewish hostility or rejection of Judaism
In his Études d' Histoire Religieuse (Studies on the History of Religion ) he claims - in the tradition of Christian Lassen - " Semites " is a military, political, scientific and spiritual progress alien; Intolerance is the natural consequence of their monotheism, they would have slipped over the embossed from polytheism Aryans from their culture. Your arrogant Erwählungsbewusstsein was responsible for the hatred of them since 1800 years. By this he meant the Jews and the Muslims, especially the Arabs, like the Jews who belong to the Semitic language group and ethnicity. Among other things, Moritz Steinschneider, the Jewish bibliographer and co-founder of Judaism, disagreed with him and called Renan's estimates for the first time " anti-Semitic". Gottfried Müller analyzed Renan's Studies, which he founded was also at a lecture on March 29, 1883 are at the Sorbonne under the title "Islam and science " of his listeners, in the article " The Arab Science as a medium to ancient tradition in medieval Europe " ( in: J. Cobet, CF Gethmann and D.Lau (ed. ), Europe, the presence of the ancient tradition, Aachen, 2000. ), pointing to a connection with the imperialist colonial policy in Europe.
1862 came Renan - when comparing between Sanskrit and Hebrew - to the conclusion that the " terrible simplicity of the Semitic mind, the human brain to shrink and bring it closes any higher spiritual power over. "
In 1883, he certified in a " lecture on the Semitic peoples " to scientific incompetence and artistic achievements because "(...) the terrible simplicity of the Semitic spirit that makes the human mind every subtle idea, every subtle feeling, every rational research inaccessible to him find the same tautology ' God is God ' countered '.
Overall, Renan reduced Judaism to a precursor of Christianity. Because he believes in the viability and progress of mankind, he never uses terms of race theory, however, in a biologically - deterministic sense. Furthermore, he is convinced that the advancement of humanity just based on their mixing, so that individual races were losing more and more important. Against the emerging after 1870, anti-Semitism and racism he has spoken out decisively.
Writings
- The Desire of Ages, Paris, 1863, in first volume of his " Histoire des origines du christianisme " ( 7 volumes, 1863-1883 ).
- What is a nation? , Speech on March 11, 1882 at the Sorbonne. With an essay by John Locke European publishing house, Hamburg 1996; ISBN 3-434-50120-7.
- Islam and Science, inlaid. and ed. by Klaus H. Fischer, Schutter Forest / Baden 1997
- Spinoza, inlaid. and ed. by Klaus H. Fischer, Schutter Forest / Baden 1996.