Rosenkranz Hegel Baader

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THE DIFFERENCE OF BAADER FROM HEGELAuthor(s): T. Davidson and KARL ROSENKRANZSource: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1868), pp. 55-56Published by: Penn State University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25665634 .

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TheDifferenceofBaader fromHegel. 55applying the principle of contradiction ifhe regarded things as phenomenal, i. e. asoutside of their true being. It is only wnenwe, for practical purposes, regard things as15xed?as having permanent being, just asthey are?that we regard them as selfidentical, and as not contradictory. Thusit is not in our rational consciousness, butin our first stages of reflection, that weapply these principles. We abstract fromthe concrete object before us, and applythe principle to the abstraction which wehave made. Such a procedure is all wellenough until

we undertake to know theConcrete, in and for itself. Then we haveto leave these abstract principles for principles as concrete as the truth itself. Noabstraction holds when we apply to it the"Form of Eternity." Truth does not need"different points of view" to save it fromcontradiction: its Negative Unity dissolvesall distinction in its resistless menstruum,

and rays forth creatively through the samenegative self-relation. Formal Logic andFormal Metaphysic can never seize anything in its genesis, hut always goes behindone phase merely to posit the same identical distinction over and over again; it holdsthat "like produces like," and that distinction comes from distinction and cannot be cancelled. On the other hand, theSpeculative Insight always regards the process,?sees all things in their genesis3 andthus can comprehend synthesis as well asanalysis. It does not need to keep somedistinction "on hand for seed," fearing,lest it come to the assistance of the worldwith such principles as "Ex nihilo nihiljit"and the "Eternity of Matter and Force,"that it can never comprehend the phenomena therein. It is aware that he whowould seize the world rationally, and bepresent at its creation, must first ascendinto the creative thought.

THE DIFFERENCE OF BAADER FROM HBGEL.[We lay before our readers the following communication from Professor Karl Rosenkranz. Aside from the curiosity naturally awakened to hear the words of the philosopherwho has occupied for nearly forty years the chair formerly occupied by Kant, the subjectitself is one of special interest, particularly in the present connection, as it is discussedin several articles of this number. We are indebted toMr. Davidson for the translation.

?Editor.]To thePresident of thePhilosophical Society of St. Louis:

At the end of the third number of theJournal of Speculative Philosophy, thereappears a letter from Dr. Hoffmann, Professor atWiirzburg, wherein he recommendsthe study of the philosophy of Franz vonBaader. Dr. Hoffmann is now the mostdistinguished representative of this philosophy. With great personal sacrifices, withadmirable perseverance, with genuine enthusiasm, he has made himself its apostle,and has brought out a complete edition ofthe works of his master, which deserves tobe called a model. In the above mentionedcommunication to you, Mr. President, hehas had the kindness tomake reference toa work of mine? The Science of the Logical Idea?in terms of distinction, forwhichI cannot be otherwise than grateful to him.

When, however, he places it in such a relation toBaader's philosophy as to give the

impression that I, a Hegelian, had comeunusually close to it, I feel myself compelled to remark that I have, in part I., pp.330 sqq. of my work, drawn a perfectlydefinite distinction between myself andBaader.

Permit me, Mr. President, in a few wordsto state as clearly as possible the groundsof this distinction.1. I have endeavored, in my logic, tocombat the confusion which has arisen in

the school of Hegel between the conceptof opposition and that of contradiction.Every opposition, oppositio, may become acontradiction, repugnantia, but in itself itis not necessarily one. It is not a contradiction when I say that the human speciesis opposed to itself in the difference between woman and man, or that the state isopposed to itself in the distinction betweengovernment and governed, and so on.2. Opposition becomes contradiction

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56 The DifferenceofBaader fromHegeLwhen things, in themselves opposed, manifest, instead of their proper unity, thediremption thereof.* This possibilitv isnecessary, but the actualization of it isaccidental.

3. If this actualization takes place, theexistence will either (a) be destroyed bythe diremption, or (b) overcome the diremption, and reinstate itself in the harmoniousunity of opposites: as, for example, theUnion has just done in the reconstructionof its Constitution against the insurrectionof the Southern States.

Hence, contradiction, as a phenomenon,may have (a) a merely negative, or (b) apositive result.

Therefore, in the concept of the negative,the destructive and the productive directions must be distinguished. It is plainthat along with the concept of the true, theconcept of the false is necessarily given(verum index sui etfalsi, as Spinoza says)with that of life, that of disease, with thatof the beautiful, that of ugliness, with thatof good, that of evil; but it is also plainthat the true, life, the beautiful, the good,are the absolute, the positive conditions ofthe false, disease, ugliness, the evil, respectively. They are theprius of the negative forms of their-existence, which are, asexistences, accidental.

Now, I have endeavored, in the doctrineof contradiction as well as in the doctrineof the negative, to deduce and to explainall the

possibleforms of the negative as amoment of the evolution of the idea. In

connection with this, I have, in certainpoints, in the concepts of usurpation, ofdegradation, ofmonstrosity, approximatedto Herr von Baader; but as regards themethod in which he derives such formsoriginally from a "Fall" which he supposesto lie away beyond the origin of the world?from a hypothetical spirit-world?I haveassumed a position of decided opposition.Jhave always combatted the main doctrine

of Baader, which holds to a twofold Nature:a Nature in God, which is supposed to bewithout matter, and a Nature which wasproduced in time and space, as matter,only through the Fall; for I have no ideaof an immaterial Nature, nor can I, in theuniversality of law which the study ofNature discovers to us, find any groundfor believing in a diabolic production of it.In a skeptical investigation, entitled TheTransfiguration ofNature, (in the first volume ofmy Studies, 1839, pp. 155-204,) Ihave gone into some detail on this subject;in 1853, I published a work with the sametendency, viz.: The ^Esthetics of the Ugly,&c, &c.

Mystical Logic says, for example, thatlife is a contradiction of the concept ofdeath; I say, Death is the opposition immanent in, and necessary to, the conceptof life. All living must die. On the otherhand, disease is a contradiction of life toitself. I cannot say All living must become diseased. Herr von Baader had profound insights into the region of the diabolical; but when he comes to diabolizecold, heat, rage, hurricanes, volcanoes, poisons, savage beasts, &c, I reject such adoctrine as much as the doctrine of de

mons, devils, angels, &c, who are supposedto influence us.I consider theworld, notwithstanding its

evils,as rational; and I see in the freedomwhich is conscious of itself, the origin ofthe good no less than of the evil, withoutmaking either angels or devils responsiblefor them.

You will, perhaps, much respected Mr.President, find a page for this brief explanation in the Journal of the Society ofwhich I have the honor to be a member.

With much esteem,Yours, very faithfully,KARL ROSENKRANZ.

Konigsberg, 7th Jan., 1868.

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Rosenkranz Hegel Baader

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