Johann Georg Hamann

Johann Georg Hamann ( born August 27, 1730 in Königsberg, † June 21, 1788 in Münster ) was a German philosopher and writer. He was decisively shaped by a Christian awakening experience. Hamann came from the Socratic ignorance and interpreted this as a plea for faith. A higher unit can not be detected by the divisive mind. He criticized the Enlightenment and stressed that there could be no reason from language and history. After Hamann based the ability to think in language. He is considered a pioneer of the Sturm und Drang. Goethe called him one of the brightest minds of his time.

• 2.1 descent into hell of self-knowledge
• 2.2 of writing passion
• 2.3 Socratic ignorance
• 2.4 God as a writer
• 2.5 Unity of Opposites
• 2.6 Critique of Enlightenment

Life and work

Origin and studies

The father, Johann Christoph Hamann (1697-1766) came from the Lausitz, the Mary Magdalene, born Nuppenau (1699-1756) from Lübeck. The eponymous late baroque writer Johann Georg Hamann ( the Elder) ( 1697-1733 ) was his uncle. The father was a barber-surgeon who served as surgeon. Hamann was first taught by different tutors. 1746, he joined the Royal Albertus University of Königsberg to study theology. Later he moved to jurisprudence. But he dealt primarily with languages ​​, literature and philosophy, and also with the natural sciences and acquired an encyclopedic erudition. Hamann stuttered and was assessed a hypochondriac. He was one of the editors of the weekly magazine Daphne, who appeared in Martin Eberhard thorn in Königsberg from 1749 to 1750 and was published as an anonymous collective work. The authors and publishers understood at that time as a local reconnaissance and were mostly French spirit and flavor committed. Hamann left in 1752 without a degree, the university and was in Livonia Hofmeister. During this time he continued his wide-ranging private studies. He was influenced by Giordano Bruno, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Spinoza and Neoplatonism. With Immanuel Kant, he was a friend.

London experience

Hamann's first major publication was a translation of a trade policy writing. He was hired on in 1756 when trading house Berens in Riga. With the merchant Johann Christoph Berens, one of his co-editor of the weekly magazine Daphne, Hamann was intimately familiar. He wooed his sister Catharina, the relationship failed but later. In 1757 he traveled for commercial reasons on Königsberg, Berlin, Lübeck, Hamburg and Amsterdam to London, where he remained until the early summer of 1758. He failed as a business-oriented world man, fell into bad company and was plagued by financial difficulties. In deep crisis, he studied intensively the Bible. It was an awakening experience.

"A friend who could give me a key to my heart, the guide of my labyrinth, was often a wish that I did, without understanding and view the contents of the same right. God be praised! I found this friend in my heart, who sneaked into selbiges because I found the emptiness and the dark and the desert of the same most felt. I had read the Old Testament come to an end and the new twice where I am not mistaken, in time. [ ... ] The further I got, the more recent it was me, the divine, I learned the content and the same effect. "

Distance to educate

After Hamann Christian awakening experience, tensions arose with the Berens 's circle, who now thought he was a useless bourgeois Christian fanatics. Berens was trying to regain his old friend and collaborator for the ideas of the Enlightenment. Kant should help and teach, but he was not successful in doing so. In the context of this dispute, the Socratic Memorabilia emerged as vindication against Berens and Kant In a critical attitude to the Enlightenment philosophers Hamann championed from now on a return to motifs such as God's provision, creation and divine incarnation, as well as to the unity of reason and sensibility, the General and single or term and perceptible character. He recognized in thinking the most random and most abstract mode of human existence. Capturing reality with the mind he faced feeling and faith, who committed the whole person inevitable. Our own existence and the existence of all things external to us had believed and could be " identified no other way " on. The faith come as a greater certainty as to the reason. Berens and Kant threw Hamann unrealistic enthusiasm before, but he was unimpressed. He declined, a number of articles from the Encyclopédie Diderot translate. He said that none of the articles in question was worth a translation.

Return to Königsberg

Beginning of 1759 Hamann returned because of a serious illness of his father to Königsberg back there and took a civilian job on, but which was rather unimportant for him. Because of a speech impediment he could neither preach nor give lectures. His erudition and knowledge of foreign languages ​​were helpful in his extensive literary activity. He cared for the sick father and his mentally disabled brother. Anna Regina Schumacher, the handmaid of the father, supported him in the care. A friendship connected him with the publisher Johann Friedrich Hartknoch. His' Essais à la Mosaique " as well as a collection of small writings published by Hartknoch. 1762 began his friendship with Johann Gottfried Herder, he taught in English literature and language and strongly influenced. In 1764 he traveled at the invitation of Friedrich Karl von Moser to Frankfurt, the hope of finding a job as an educator came to nothing, however. In 1765 he worked in Jelgava as secretary of a lawyer. After the death of his father he returned to Königsberg. Hamann received in 1767 through the mediation of Kant in the Prussian customs administration for a job as a translator. With Anna Regina Schumacher, he began a never legalized marriage of conscience, she gave him four children. In 1777 he was appointed Packhofstraße administrator. The occupation gave him enough time to write and to extensive reading, but the financial situation was still tense. From 1764 to 1779 he was a member of Königsberg 's scholars and political newspapers, for which he wrote many book reviews.

Westphalian patrons

To 1782, the net worth Franz Kaspar Bucholtz became aware of the work of Hamann. Bucholtz was Lord of Welbergen, a moated castle between Steinfurt and Ochtrup. He decided to help Hamann, and asking him to accept him as a son. In November 1784, he had over 4000 Hamann Reichstaler a Konigsberg bank. Of the interest Hamann was the education of his children deny that economic distress was at an end. Also Princess Amalie of Gallitzin (1748-1806) in Münster became aware of Hamann by Buchholz. He wanted to visit his patron and therefore constituted repeated vacation requests, which were finally answered with the retirement. Together with his son Michael and a doctor, he traveled in 1787 to Münster, where he arrived ill. In the summer he visited Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi in PEMPELFORT, the winter he spent sick on the water castle Welbergen. In March 1788, he returned to Münster and was spiritual director of the Princess Gallitzin. When he already wanted to leave again for the return journey to Konigsberg, he died there on 21 June 1788. Hamann was buried in the garden of the Princess. His grave is located today on the historic overwater Cemetery in Muenster.

The view of the world through language

Descent into hell of self-knowledge

Hamann stepped through its London identity crisis of a descent into hell of self-knowledge. Inspired by the story of fratricide in the fourth chapter of the first book of Moses then broke up with him on the evening of March 31, 1758 of the nodes and he learned the biblical word new and immediate. This experience, he did not in an isolated moment, but in a context wide-ranging reading and writing. He wanted to because of that you can hear it deliberately and precisely in its inscrutability find out alive. But he feared that the revealed depths of his heart could be misused to build a to " tower of reason ',' the tip reaches up to the sky and through the brick and slime we intend to make us a name and the flag of the erring to serve amount as a token. "That's why he wanted to " not be seen as wrong dear. "

Of writing passion

Hamann's writings, which are usually quite short, are permeated with quotations, allusions and metaphors. Hamann himself describes his style as " Emphasiologie " and " style of writing and the Restless". Passion for him is connected with the experience of transcendence, with the holiness of emotions. The path of knowledge leads him first in one's own self, to let in a second step through the appropriate use things seem to be. It is for him a close connection between style and individual knowledge.

"The life of style thus depends on the individuality of our terms and passions, and by the same skillful application of knowledge and revelation of the objects by similar means. The local self-knowledge seems to be the unit that determines the amount and content of all external knowledge. "

Hamann contributes his thoughts frequently incoherent and short aphoristic. "Truths, principles, systems, I 'm not grown. Chunks, fragments, grilling, ideas. Every man to his land. "His associative style is in contrast to the clarity of the rationalist ideal of science. With intuition, senses and sensations he seeks to penetrate the world and to recognize the fundamental creative forces. Hamann tries to persuade the reader to strive to be tested and reading. Therefore, he offers no finished product that can be easily consumed. Hamann offers a reading act that " is able to fill in the missing notes and so in searching, look up and find runs through its own process of cognition. " His writings draw many registers of scholarly criticism and philology. In his correspondence he maintained a clearer and simpler manner of presentation.

Socratic ignorance

Hamann raises the subjectivity of genius on the critical thinking head. The Enlightenment rationality autonomy rejects Hamann. During the enlightenment of knowledge encountered optimistic, he looks at reality skeptical and is also open to the mystery. The belief corresponds to it rather than the rational knowledge. Convinced that play our mental impulses in a semi-darkness, Hamann uses a sometimes difficult -to-understand language. He linked the motto of the Oracle of Delphi "Know thyself! " With the maxim of Socrates "I know that I know nothing! " And requires the poets and thinkers the "heart heat of arbitrariness ." Hamann analyzes the ignorance of Socrates as a radical self-knowledge, perception and belief. The Socratic ignorance was based no work of reason and as little as taste and sight on reasons. The flip side of ignorance of Socrates was his daimon. Socrates could not describe his daimon. He was gifted, but do not have his creative power under control. He deceives his fellow citizens to a hidden truth. Socrates respect his daimon as a critical authority and regard it with fear of God. Knowledge conceit are store and the new life must follow the love of God. In the gracious God turning to open a new creative freedom space for people. True self-knowledge and knowledge of God are not to be detached from one another.

" Hence we see how necessary the same our self in the Creator is established that we are not in us [ erer ] have the knowledge of our own power, that to the extent auszumäßen the same, we bit into the lap of deity dring [ s ] must which alone can d [ as] whole mystery determine us [ older ] essence and dissolve. [ ... ] God and my neighbor that is part of my self-knowledge, to my self-love. "

God as a writer

For Hamann God is a writer and it reveals the poetry of God in the books of nature and history. Reason is language ( λόγος ). " Every phenomenon of nature was a word - the sign, symbol and pledge of a new, secret, unspeakable, but the more intimate union, Mitt healing and community of divine energies and ideas. Everything the man heard at the beginning, [ ... ] was a living word; for God was the Word. "Poetry of God is the mother tongue of the human race. Her speech is figurative. The truth and the essence of things could be seen by the finite creatures only in parables. Senses and passions understand nothing but images. The Bible is the key to the book of nature and the book of history. The books of nature and history are nothing but ciphers, hidden characters that have the key necessary. Your interpretations are, the same as that of the Scriptures, only human interpretations of a divine text, and as such never final.

"Speak, that I may see you! - This wish was fulfilled by the creation, which is a speech to the creature through the creature; because one days sagts the other, and one night thuts known the other. Their solution runs on any climate, to the very end and in each dialect we can hear her voice "

Unity of opposites

For Hamann includes the unity of creation, both the past and the future. The total reality he considered as a unit of opposite. True thought and life be fulfilled only in the Absolute, which can coincide with the contrasts and contradictions and overcomes it. The coincidentia oppositorum, the coincidence of opposites, is a fascinating thought for Hamann. He points him in the Christian mysteries as well as the mysterious union of body and spirit, of sensibility and reason, or of fate and responsibility in human life. The mystery of divine wisdom exists precisely to unite things that seem to contradict each other and destroy themselves. God reveals himself to just the mystery of the " contradiction at the pillory of the Cross". The coincidentia oppositorum stands in a relation to the irony that comes to life in his writings often. It shows a spiritual kinship with the novels of Laurence Sterne, the Hamann has estimated.

Critique of the Enlightenment

Hamann was, like his friend Herder, an enlightened Enlightenment critics, who himself wanted to act as a Christian author. In his critique of Kant's critique of reason Hamann rejected the strict separation between sensuality, which are given by the objects, and mind, are thought by which these decreases. Hamann calls this critique of reason than meta-critique criticism. It is a neologism Hamann, in the title of his work appeared in 1784 metacritique over the Purismum reason and then by Herder in Scripture sense and experience. A meta-critique of the Critique of Pure Reason was taken up in 1799.

In the language Hamann saw the original unity of sensibility and understanding. Because the whole thinking is based on language, give us " the poor bosom serpent of the common vernacular, the most beautiful parable of the hypostatic union of the sensual and intelligible natures ". Reason from language and history can not exist. Philosophy without history are " crickets and verbiage ."

" The first cleaning the philosophy was nehmlich in the misverstandenen partly, partly mislungenen attempt to make sense of all tradition, tradition and belief independent. "

Hamann accuses Kant, to always want to know the scope of reason in advance and thereby limit the reason to himself and to make them unreceptive to new ideas and especially the address of God. Reason should not deny their dependency and finitude. Reason is mediated by education, experience and the senses and ultimately historically. Therefore, it would also influenced by likes and dislikes.

" The health of the reason is the wohlfeilste, intrinsically powerful and shameless self- glory, through whom everything is set in advance what was to prove just, and which all free men of investigation of truth will gewaltthätiger excluded as the infallibility of the Roman Catholic Church. "

After Hamann all knowledge is based on beliefs that can not be justified or refuted by reason itself. Anyone thinking about something and understand something here, it will bring a its own requirements. The then stamping his findings.

Reception

Friedrich Karl von Moser designated Hamann for his part, dark voice and alluding to Hamann's writing The Magi from the East (1760 ) as " Magus of the North". Hamann was a pioneer of the Sturm und Drang, as the prophet he has been called, and the romance. He influenced Herder, Jacobi, Goethe, Hegel, Schelling, and Ernst von Lasaulx. Søren Kierkegaard studied Hamann's writings extensively and developed from motives which he found in Hamann, his own philosophy. Also proven is an influence on Ernst Jünger. The Hamann's writings have also been well received in the philosophy of language.

In Protestant theology acts Hamann's understanding of the Bible, for example, in the Halle tradition ( Martin Kähler, Julius Schniewind, Otto Michel ). Hamann takes the verbal inspiration of the Bible, but does not holds on as inerrancy or stylistic perfection. Rather, he accepts the historical conditioning of the Bible seriously, but understands it as a work of the Holy Spirit, who has " what foolish things of the world " chooses (1 Cor 1.27 EU). So the Bible according to him, is from the rationalist point of view, quite aside; with the eyes "of a friend, a confidant, a lover ," one could in her but the " rays of heavenly glory perceive ".

Friedmar Apel sees the poetics Herta Müller as strongly influenced by Hamann and borrows the sign of Hamann's Aesthetica in nuce for dissection or for ripping of texts the term " Turbatverse ".

It is controversial whether one can accuse Hamann of irrationalism. This view was represented by Isaiah Berlin. In contrast, it is argued that Berlin see the enlightened elements in Hamann and height irrationalism of a national German property. It is common ground might be that Hamann human nature can not be rationally understood as essential and that which goes beyond human reason kept for much.

Remembrance

June 20 in the Protestant calendar name.

Works

• Biblical Reflections, 1758
• Thoughts on my CV, 1758/59
• Socratic Memorabilia, 1759 ( digitized and full text in German Text Archive )
• Essay on an academic question, 1760
• Aesthetica in nuce, 1760 (see links! )
• The Magi from the East, 1760
• Mixed comments about the addition of the French language word, 1761
• Clouds. A sequel Sokrat. Memoirs, 1761
• Abaelardi Virbii chimera. Ideas about the tenth part of the letters concerning the recent literature, 1761
• Crusades of the philologist, 1762 ( collection, including Aesthetica in nuce )
• Essais à la Mosaique, 1762
• Writer and art critic, 1762
• Reader and critic, 1762
• The Knight v. Rosencreuz last Willensmeynung over the Göttl. u menschl. Origin of Language, 1772
• New Apology of the letter h, 1773
• Christiani Zacchaei Teleonarchae Prolegomena on the latest interpretation of the oldest deed, 1774
• Attempt to Sibylle on marriage, 1775
• Konxompax. Fragments of an apocryphal. Sibylle on apokalypt. Mysteries, 1779
• Calvary and Scheblimini. From a preacher in the Desert, 1784
• Metacritique over the purism of reason, 1784

Editions of her work:

• Johann Georg Hamann. A selection from his writings. Edited by Martin rope. Brockhaus, 2nd, revised. and ext. Edition, Wuppertal 1987. 1st edition ersch as disrobing and Transfiguration. Union Verlag ( VOB), Berlin 1963. ISBN 3-417-29327-8
• Hamann 's writings. 8 volumes. Edited by Friedrich von Roth. Reimer, Berlin 1821-1843 ( digitized )
• Complete Works. 6 volumes. Edited by Josef Nadler. 1949-1957, reprint 1999 (not undisputed historical- critical edition )