Religious believers sometimes maintain that belief in God is the key to a meaningful life. Consider this argument, advanced by the theologian William Lane Craig. He argues that if God did not exist, life would be absurd. Key to his view is that if there is no Creator who has imbued our lives with meaning, then nothing ultimately matters.
Craig’s argument hinges on an unstated assumption. Namely, in order for God’s will to actually provide direction and meaning for our lives, we wouldn’t simply need to know that God existed; we would also need to know what God actually expected of us. Of course, religious people think they know what God wants. But what if everything we say about, and attribute to, God is actually a projection of ourselves?
Today, we are going to consider the perspective of Ludwig Feuerbach who argued that we have made God in our image—and necessarily so: only a God that is created in our image could be recognized as a God. If Feuerbach is correct, that suggests that having a conception of what God expects of us doesn’t really get us out of the existential predicament with which Craig is concerned—it only appears to.
In this video, William Lane Craig argues that life is absurd without God.
Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) was a German philosopher and secular theologian who studied under G.W.F. Hegel. Feuerbach’s theory of God and religion was deeply influenced by Hegel, so it’s helpful to begin with a short characterization of Hegel’s philosophical project.
Hegel had maintained that history progressed through a dialectical process. The basic structure of a dialectic is composed of three phases: a thesis is realized, which is then contradicted by an antithesis; these are then resolved and combined in a synthesis. This new synthesis becomes a new reigning thesis, and the process continues. Here’s a somewhat simplified example. The medieval notion of the divine right of kings was challenged by an antithetical movement: the notion of popular sovereignty. Constitutional monarchy can be understood as a synthetic position that emerged out of that conflict. Hegel argued that history and philosophy unfold in this manner. At some point, a synthesis would be realized which had the capacity to integrate and resolve all conflicts. He thought that such a final, consummating synthesis was being realized in his time. In a sense, history was coming to an end; the future wouldn’t be radically different. Instead, it would simply be more of the same. All future conflict would be worked out within the Western institutions that were evolving during the 19th Century, especially those associated with Protestant Christianity and the nation-state.
Feuerbach became disillusioned with Hegel’s system of thought. He thought that there were contradictions internal to Christianity, which could not be resolved on Christianity’s own terms. In his book, The Essence of Christianity, he sought to expose these contradictions. In doing so, he developed a critical philosophy according to which religions and religious development are understood in fully anthropological terms. Indeed, his whole project aimed to show that “all theology is anthropology.” If you’re interested, the full text of The Essence of Christianity can be found here.
Higher Consciousness – The sort of consciousness that mature human beings possess, but which other animals do not. Consists in being able to think abstractly in terms of general concepts and categories.
Perfections – The end to which a faculty or power is ordered. For example, omniscience would be the perfection of the intellect. Traditionally, God is said to possess all perfections.
Faith – Belief in and fidelity to a transcendent divine subject like God.
God the Subject – God, taken as an infinite and mysterious being who cannot be exhaustively described. From the perspective of orthodox faith, God is a subject who exceeds human understanding.
Feuerbach begins by noting that humans are a religious animal. Although we share much in common with many other species, we are the only species that orients itself to a conception of a transcendent reality. From this insight, he sets his guiding principle: whatever accounts for our religiosity is a function of how our consciousness is different from other forms of animal consciousness.
Chapter I, §1. The Essential Nature of Man.
Religion has its basis in the essential difference between man and the brute—the brutes have no religion […]
But what is this essential difference between man and the brute? The most simple, general, and also the most popular answer to this question is—consciousness:—but consciousness in the strict sense; for the consciousness implied in the feeling of self as an individual, in discrimination by the senses, in the perception and even judgment of outward things according to definite sensible signs, cannot be denied to the brutes. Consciousness in the strictest sense is present only in a being to whom his species, his essential nature, is an object of thought. The brute is indeed conscious of himself as an individual—and he has accordingly the feeling of self as the common centre of successive sensations—but not as a species: hence, he is without that consciousness which in its nature, as in its name, is akin to science. Where there is this higher consciousness there is a capability of science. Science is the cognisance of species. In practical life we have to do with individuals; in science, with species. But only a being to whom his own species, his own nature, is an object of thought, can make the essential nature of other things or beings an object of thought.
Hence the brute has only a simple, man a twofold life: in the brute, the inner life is one with the outer; man has both an inner and an outer life. The inner life of man is the life which has relation to his species, to his general, as distinguished from his individual, nature. Man thinks—that is, he converses with himself […] Man is himself at once I and thou; he can put himself in the place of another, for this reason, that to him his species, his essential nature, and not merely his individuality, is an object of thought.
Many people assume human beings are different in kind from non-human animals. In the past, philosophers and scientists often assumed that animals were incapable of reasoning, planning, using language and so on. Nowadays, we more commonly describe the differences as matters of degree not kind.
Feuerbach maintains that mature human consciousness differs in a profound way from the consciousness exhibited by non-human animals. Although non-human animals can discriminate between sensory objects, they don’t think in terms of abstract categories. We, however, do. We don’t simply sort things by how we perceive them; we also identify and classify things in terms of abstract categories. For example, you don’t need to have an actual acorn in front of you to think about what acorns are, and you can accurately answer abstract questions about acorns without having to examine a specific one. (For example: “Can an acorn develop into a maple tree?”) This sort of cognition is a function of our capacity to think in terms of species of things, and it is what Feuerbach has in mind when he refers to “higher consciousness.”
Having established that human beings can think both in terms of individuals and species, Feuerbach goes on to unpack what is included in our conception of our species. Specifically, he identifies three “perfections” that correlate with three faculties that we have.
Chapter I, §1, continued.
Religion being identical with the distinctive characteristic of man, is then identical with self-consciousness—with the consciousness which man has of his nature. But religion, expressed generally, is consciousness of the infinite; thus it is and can be nothing else than the consciousness which man has of his own—not finite and limited, but infinite nature […]
What, then, is the nature of man, of which he is conscious, or what constitutes the specific distinction, the proper humanity of man? Reason, Will, Affection. To a complete man belong the power of thought, the power of will, the power of affection. The power of thought is the light of the intellect, the power of will is energy of character, the power of affection is love. Reason, love, force of will, are perfections—the perfections of the human being—nay, more, they are absolute perfections of being. To will, to love, to think, are the highest powers, are the absolute nature of man as man, and the basis of his existence. Man exists to think, to love, to will. Now that which is the end, the ultimate aim, is also the true basis and principle of a being. But what is the end of reason? Reason. Of love? Love. Of will? Freedom of the will. We think for the sake of thinking; love for the sake of loving; will for the sake of willing—i.e., that we may be free. True existence is thinking, loving, willing existence. That alone is true, perfect, divine, which exists for its own sake. But such is love, such is reason, such is will. The divine trinity in man, above the individual man, is the unity of reason, love, will. Reason, Will, Love, are not powers which man possesses, for he is nothing without them, he is what he is only by them; they are the constituent elements of his nature, which he neither has nor makes, the animating, determining, governing powers—divine, absolute powers—to which he can oppose no resistance.
Every mature human has the power of thought, the power of will, and the power of feeling. Feuerbach refers to a human who actually has these faculties as “a complete man.” In calling such a person “complete,” he doesn’t mean that they exercise these faculties perfectly. He only means they possess the powers that are essential to human persons.
Here’s an analogy: a piece of furniture is a chair insofar as it can support the weight of a person sitting on it. Lots of particular artifacts meet this description, and so they are, to that extent, “complete” chairs. However, some chairs are better than others: they are easier to move around, they are at table height, they are more or less comfortable, more or less durable, etc. And to the extent that every chair will ultimately get worn out, no chair is a perfect chair. The perfections of a chair are abstractions which we understand because we understand what a chair is; they aren’t really qualities of particular chairs. Likewise with human perfections: they are perfections at the level of our species, not because any particular individuals fully manifest those perfections. Individual humans are finite and limited beings; even the best of us is imperfect to some degree, and all of us exercise human faculties in only a limited way. Nevertheless, we can ask, “What would it be for these faculties to be unlimited? What would constitute the absolute perfection of each faculty?”
Feuerbach holds that love is the perfection of our affections, reason (or rational thought) is the perfection of our intellect, and freedom (or autonomy) is the perfection of our will. He asserts that these perfections are intrinsically valuable and serve as the ends to which the faculties are ordered.
Having established that there are perfections that animate and direct our essential faculties, Feuerbach proceeds by unpacking his claim that these perfections—love, reason, and freedom—are divine.
Chapter I, §2. The Essence of Religion Considered Generally.
In the perceptions of the senses consciousness of the object is distinguishable from consciousness of self; but in religion, consciousness of the object and self-consciousness coincide. The object of the senses is out of man, the religious object is within him, and therefore as little forsakes him as his self-consciousness or his conscience; it is the intimate, the closest object. “God,” says Augustine, for example, “is nearer, more related to us, and therefore more easily known by us, than sensible, corporeal things.” The object of the senses is in itself indifferent—independent of the disposition or of the judgment; but the object of religion is a selected object; the most excellent, the first, the supreme being; it essentially presupposes a critical judgment, a discrimination between the divine and the non-divine, between that which is worthy of adoration and that which is not worthy. And here may be applied, without any limitation, the proposition: the object of any subject is nothing else than the subject’s own nature taken objectively. Such as are a man’s thoughts and dispositions, such is his God; so much worth as a man has, so much and no more has his God. Consciousness of God is self-consciousness, knowledge of God is self-knowledge. By his God thou knowest the man, and by the man his God; the two are identical. Whatever is God to a man, that is his heart and soul; and conversely, God is the manifested inward nature, the expressed self of a man,—religion the solemn unveiling of a man’s hidden treasures, the revelation of his intimate thoughts, the open confession of his love-secrets.
Feuerbach is claiming that God is the perfection of human nature. In other words, when we think about God we are actually thinking about our own perfected nature, even if we don’t realize this. His reasoning can be formalized into a standard-form argument in this way:
Premise 1: An object of consciousness is the divine object of religious consciousness if and only if that object is (a) more intimately knowable than all other things, (b) more excellent than all other things, and (c) supremely worthy of adoration.
Premise 2: Consciousness of human nature is (a) the most intimate form of knowledge, and the perfections of that nature are (b) more excellent than all other things, and (c) supremely worthy of adoration.
Conclusion: Consciousness of human nature and its perfections is the divine object of religious consciousness.
Feuerbach correctly notes that many philosophers have asserted some version of premise 1; he explicitly references the early Christian theologian, Augustine of Hippo. He also suggests this comports with common sense: whatever God is, God must be intimately knowable, most excellent, and worthy of adoration.
Proposition 2(a) follows from his theory of consciousness, and so it is plausibly true, assuming that theory is true. Claims (b) and (c) are the most contentious elements of the second premise. Feuerbach maintains that when we properly understand love, reason, and freedom as the “constituent elements” of our nature, we cannot resist their attraction and awesomeness.
Feuerbach has argued that consciousness of God is really a form of self-consciousness. He will now go on to address the obvious fact that religious people don’t take this to be the case—they think God is a supreme being that exists independently of us and the rest of creation. This, he argues, is the confusion at the basis of religious faith: religious people invert the causal order and say that God created humans in God’s image, rather than that we created God in our image.
Chapter I, §2, continued.
But when religion—consciousness of God—is designated as the self-consciousness of man, this is not to be understood as affirming that the religious man is directly aware of this identity; for, on the contrary, ignorance of it is fundamental to the peculiar nature of religion. To preclude this misconception, it is better to say, religion is man’s earliest and also indirect form of self-knowledge […] Religion is the childlike condition of humanity; but the child sees his nature—man—out of himself; in childhood a man is an object to himself, under the form of another man. Hence the historical progress of religion consists in this: that what by an earlier religion was regarded as objective, is now recognised as subjective; that is, what was formerly contemplated and worshipped as God is now perceived to be something human. What was at first religion becomes at a later period idolatry; man is seen to have adored his own nature. Man has given objectivity to himself, but has not recognised the object as his own nature: a later religion takes this forward step; every advance in religion is therefore a deeper self-knowledge. But every particular religion, while it pronounces its predecessors idolatrous, excepts itself—and necessarily so, otherwise it would no longer be religion—from the fate, the common nature of all religions: it imputes only to other religions what is the fault, if fault it be, of religion in general. Because it has a different object, a different tenor, because it has transcended the ideas of preceding religions, it erroneously supposes itself exalted above the necessary eternal laws which constitute the essence of religion—it fancies its object, its ideas, to be superhuman. But the essence of religion, thus hidden from the religious, is evident to the thinker, by whom religion is viewed objectively, which it cannot be by its votaries. And it is our task to show that the antithesis of divine and human is altogether illusory, that it is nothing else than the antithesis between the human nature in general and the human individual; that, consequently, the object and contents of the Christian religion are altogether human.
Thousands of years ago (c. 540 BCE), the ancient Greek philosopher Xenophanes criticized the anthropomorphic ways in which we think about gods. He allegedly said, “Mortals suppose that the gods are born (as they themselves are), and that they wear man’s clothing and have human voice and body. But if cattle or lions had hands, so as to paint with their hands and produce works of art as men do, they would paint their gods and give them bodies in form like their own—horses like horses, cattle like cattle.”
Feuerbach agrees that we create gods in our own image. It is easy to see the point when we consider pagan gods, who seem like comic book characters and are portrayed having human form and dress. However, he argues this is true even with respect to religions like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which explicitly reject that God can be represented by pictures and which insist that God exceeds human understanding. He argues that the monotheistic conception of God, even though it lacks pictorial form, is a projection based on our conception of human perfections. When monotheists say that God is a perfect being (all-knowing, all-loving, all-powerful, etc.), they are imagining a being that possesses all human perfections. So, although the major monotheistic religions say God isn’t to be imagined as having a human body, Feuerbach holds they nevertheless rely on anthropomorphisms.
Feuerbach devotes the bulk of his book to examining the core doctrines of Christianity in light of the anthropological theory that we’ve just discussed. He argues that, within Christianity, human love becomes implicitly identified with the divine. However, this hasn’t been consciously realized or made explicit by believers.
In the later chapters, his aim is to show that failure to make this explicit leads Christians into a practical contradiction. On the one hand, their faith requires that they love and serve an incomprehensible and mysterious deity who is distinct from human beings. On the other hand, it claims that they should love others, especially strangers and enemies. While theologians may say there is no conflict—obeying God requires actively loving others and not withholding our love from them—history shows that there is a real, practical contradiction. Out of a concern with maintaining and preserving orthodoxy, religious communities have shunned, excommunicated, and even murdered perceived enemies of their faith. This is because they held they had a duty to God that trumped their duty to love others, which is a consequence of mistakenly thinking of God as a subject distinct from love.
CHAPTER XXVI
The essence of religion, its latent nature, is the identity of the divine being with the human; but the form of religion, or its apparent, conscious nature, is the distinction between them. God is the human being; but he presents himself to the religious consciousness as a distinct being. Now, that which reveals the basis, the hidden essence of religion, is Love; that which constitutes its conscious form is Faith. Love identifies man with God and God with man, consequently it identifies man with man; faith separates God from man, consequently it separates man from man, for God is nothing else than the idea of the species invested with a mystical form,—the separation of God from man is therefore the separation of man from man, the unloosening of the social bond. By faith religion places itself in contradiction with morality […] Faith isolates God, it makes him a particular, distinct being: love universalises; it makes God a common being, the love of whom is one with the love of man. […]
Faith at first appears to be only an unprejudiced separation of believers from unbelievers; but this separation is a highly critical distinction. The believer has God for him, the unbeliever, against him […] But that which has God against it is worthless, rejected, reprobate; for that which has God against it is itself against God. To believe, is synonymous with goodness; not to believe, with wickedness […] In its view the unbeliever is an enemy to Christ out of obduracy, out of wickedness. Hence faith has fellowship with believers only; unbelievers it rejects […]
God is love. This is the sublimest dictum of Christianity. But the contradiction of faith and love is contained in the very proposition. Love is only a predicate, God the subject. What, then, is this subject in distinction from love? And I must necessarily ask this question, make this distinction. The necessity of the distinction would be done away with only if it were said conversely: Love is God, love is the absolute being. Thus love would take the position of the substance. In the proposition “God is love,” the subject is the darkness in which faith shrouds itself; the predicate is the light, which first illuminates the intrinsically dark subject. In the predicate I affirm love, in the subject faith. Love does not alone fill my soul: I leave a place open for my uncharitableness by thinking of God as a subject in distinction from the predicate. It is therefore inevitable that at one moment I lose the thought of love, at another the thought of God, that at one moment I sacrifice the personality of God to the divinity of love, at another the divinity of love to the personality of God.
Feuerbach asserts that the Biblical proposition, “God is love” (1 John 4:8) betrays the fundamental contradiction between faith and love. What he has in mind turns on a recognition that this proposition is not taken to be an identity claim; it is, rather, taken to be a predicate claim.
The difference between identity claims and predicate claims turns on how the verb (“is”) is used. In an identity claim of the form “X is Y,” the verb serves to fully identify X with Y; hence, such claims can be converted (the order can be swapped) without changing the meaning of the statement. If X is Y, then necessarily Y is X. For example, if it is true that “Clark Kent is Superman,” then it is also true that “Superman is Clark Kent.” Conversion is not possible with predicate claims of the form, “S is P.” The converse of the proposition “Squares are rectangles” would be “Rectangles are squares.” The first is true, but the second is false. This is because the first formulation attributes rectangularity to squares. When we convert the proposition, we end up asserting a substantively different false claim: we attribute the property of being square to rectangles.
Feuerbach is pointing out that the claim “God is love” is not taken to be an identity claim within philosophical theology. If it were, we would be content to say, “Love is God.” However, religious people often balk at such ways of talking because faith requires that we think of God as a subject who is not identical to, or exhaustively described by, any attributions. Faith needs to maintain the mysterious “otherness” of God. It is unacceptable from that perspective to “reduce” God to something understandable, especially a human sentiment like love.
Since Feuerbach fully believes in the divinity of love—he holds that love is the supreme good, complete in itself—and since faith in God causes people to be partial and unloving, God must be dispensed with.
Chapter IV
So long as love is not exalted into a substance, into an essence, so long there lurks in the background of love a subject who even without love is something by himself, an unloving monster, a diabolical being, whose personality, separable and actually separated from love, delights in the blood of heretics and unbelievers,—the phantom of religious fanaticism. Nevertheless the essential idea of the Incarnation, though enveloped in the night of the religious consciousness, is love […] Love conquers God. It was love to which God sacrificed his divine majesty. And what sort of love was that? another than ours? than that to which we sacrifice life and fortune? Was it the love of himself? of himself as God? No! it was love to man. But is not love to man human love? Can I love man without loving him humanly, without loving him as he himself loves, if he truly loves? […] God loves man for man’s sake, i.e., that he may make him good, happy, blessed. Does he not then love man as the true man loves his fellow? Has love a plural? Is it not everywhere like itself? What then is the true unfalsified import of the Incarnation but absolute, pure love, without adjunct, without a distinction between divine and human love? For though there is also a self-interested love among men, still the true human love, which is alone worthy of this name, is that which impels the sacrifice of self to another. Who then is our Saviour and Redeemer? God or Love? Love; for God as God has not saved us, but Love, which transcends the difference between the divine and human personality. As God has renounced himself out of love, so we, out of love, should renounce God; for if we do not sacrifice God to love, we sacrifice love to God, and, in spite of the predicate of love, we have the God—the evil being—of religious fanaticism.
According to Feuerbach, the moral essence of Christianity can be summarized as the insight that love is divine and we ought to love one another unconditionally. In other words, love should be our matter of ultimate concern. Religious faith stands in tension with this because it teaches that obedience to God, understood as a mysterious divine other, ought to be our matter of ultimate concern. These are two very different potential matters of ultimate concern. We are not, however, faced with a genuine dilemma. He thinks the choice is clear. If we choose love, we choose what affirms our very being. And since faithful allegiance to the mysterious God-being of traditional theology militates against love, morally serious people ought to give up on the God-subject. This does not entail giving up on divinity. Feuerbach’s whole point is that love is divine. But he thinks we need to be clear about what this means: namely, that love is the highest good, and it is the standard against which we judge our actions and order our lives.
In The Essence of Christianity, Feuerbach theorizes that God is a projection of our human nature; God’s attributes are ultimately human perfections imaginatively conceived as attributes of a transcendentally removed substantial being. The process of projecting our nature onto a fictional external reality results in a dangerous idea: we come to think of God as a mysterious subject who isn’t essentially love. To the extent that we are faithful to this mysterious divine Other, we are willing to withhold our love. But since love is the ultimate expression of our very being, we ought to give up on faith in a mysterious divine other for the sake of love.
Check out this episode about Feuerbach from the podcast Philosophize This!
If you’re interested in digging into the details of Feuerbach’s philosophical theology, continue reading The Essence of Christianity. For more detailed accounts concerning the influence of earlier thinkers on Feuerbach’s work, check out the entries from the Boston Collaborative Encyclopedia of Western Theology and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
This work has been adapted from the Project Gutenberg eBook version of The Essence of Christianity. This work is in the Public Domain. All images were created using Midjourney and are the property of the Philosophy Teaching Library.
Lammer-Heindel, Christoffer. 2024. “For the Love of Humanity! Ludwig Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity.” The Philosophy Teaching Library. Edited by Robert Weston Siscoe, <https://philolibrary.crc.nd.edu/article/for-the-love-of-humanity>.
Occasionalism — a theory claiming that God is the only true cause of changes in the world. For example, when you high-five me, you’re not really the cause of the stinging sensation I experience. God is the cause. Your high five is just the occasion on which God causes it.
Interactionism — a theory claiming that things in the world can truly cause changes in each other. For example, when you high-five me, you truly cause me to experience a stinging sensation in my hand.
Substance Dualism — a theory claiming that the mind (or soul) and body are two distinct and very different things.
Body — what it sounds like! The body is the physical part or aspect of a thing and has characteristics like shape, size, etc.
Soul — that part or aspect of a thing involving mental aspects of their existence, e.g., thoughts, feelings, decisions, etc. The “soul”, in this sense, is more or less just the mind.
Causal Interaction — When one thing acts (i.e., itself does something) and in so acting makes another thing change. For example, when you high-five me, you cause me to experience a stinging sensation in my hand.
God as God – The phrase “God as God” is basically a synonym for “God the subject.” In other words, it refers to God precisely in God’s status as an incomprehensible divine Other.
Incarnation – The Christian doctrine of the incarnation is the notion that the word of God became fully human in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. It is closely associated with the doctrine of the trinity, which asserts that God the Father, God the Son (Jesus as the word made flesh), and God the Holy Spirit are one God.
Religious Fanaticism – In Feuerbach’s use of the term, a religious fanatic is someone who is unwaveringly faithful to God as an utterly mysterious superhuman being. They subordinate other things—especially the love of other humans—to submission before this divine other.
God the Subject – When Feuerbach refers to God as a subject, he is referring to the commonplace religious belief that God is a being who has various attributes, like a loving nature.
Faith Separates Man From God – Faith separates God from man in this sense: it treats God as a mysterious other, a being radically distinct from us.
Faith – Belief in and fidelity to a transcendent divine subject like God.
Orthodoxy – Orthodoxy refers to “right belief,” and it is concern with identifying heresies and ensuring that people believe and practice correctly.
Indirect Form of Self-Knowledge – Feuerbach’s view is that religious belief is a naive way of relating to our human nature and its perfections. It is naive or childlike because it treats these as external realities that belong to God. He believes a mature and contemplative person realizes these don’t belong to God, but rather to our species, abstractly conceived.
Above the Individual Man – The human perfections are “above the individual” insofar as no particular individual ever perfectly realizes them. They are abstractions.
Divine Trinity – Feuerbach is having fun here. He is using the theological phrasing of the Trinity to talk about human perfections. In calling reason, love, and freedom of the will “divine,” he means they are absolutely good; they are activities whose goodness is intrinsic to their practice or exercise. This isn’t a novel philosophical view. For example, Immanuel Kant argued that autonomy or a good will is the only thing which is unconditionally good.
Perfections – The end to which a faculty or power is ordered. For example, omniscience would be the perfection of the intellect. Traditionally, God is said to possess all perfections.
Love – When Feuerbach writes about love, he is referring to unconditional concern for others and the desire for fellowship with them. He is here asserting that love, understood in this sense, is the perfect activity of the affective faculty. In other words, our feelings and passions are fully actualized and engaged in an intrinsically valuable activity when we genuinely love others.
Infinite – The infinite is whatever can be understood as unbounded or unlimited. Human nature in the abstract is unbounded and unlimited. It is only bounded or limited in its concrete form as it is realized by particular material individuals.
Higher Consciousness – The sort of consciousness that mature human beings possess, but which other animals do not. It is “higher” than animal consciousness because it involves thinking abstractly about the form or essence of things.
Science – Feuerbach uses the term science in its classical sense, meaning systematically organized knowledge. Any body of knowledge founded on an understanding of first principles and the essences of things is a science in this sense.
Popular Sovereignty – The view that a government’s authority to rule comes from the people, making a ruler subject to the will of their citizens.
The Divine Right of Kings – The theory that kings are chosen by God and thus that political revolt is a rebellion against the will of God.
Synthesis – The prefix ‘syn-’ means “together,” so a synthesis “brings together” or combines elements of both a thesis and its antithesis.
Antithesis– An antithesis is the contradiction of a thesis. For example, internationalism could be understood as the antithesis of nationalism.
Thesis – In Hegelian terms, a thesis can be understood as a position or theory. Examples include any of the “-isms” that we discuss in science, history, and philosophy, such as Darwinism, capitalism, nationalism, etc.
Progressor’s Temptation – a unique temptation for those making progress in which pride impedes their further progress and leads to backsliding.
Progressors – those who are not yet expert Stoic practitioners, but who are also aware of the fact that they must change their lives in that direction. They are working on making progress.
Intellectualism – the philosophical view that our motivations and emotions are all judgments. The reason why you do something, your motivation, is because you believe it’s the right thing to do. The reason why you feel good or bad about something, an emotion, is because you believe that something good or bad happened to you.
Duties – acts of service, obedience, and respect that we owe to each other. The duties we owe to each other depend on what kind of relationship we have.
Askeses – exercises of Stoic thought and practice that make the lessons and habits of Stoic philosophy second-nature for Stoic practitioners.
Externals – things that are not under our control but that are all-too-easily confused with things that should be important to us, like wealth, status, and pleasure. Too many people believe externals like these are necessary for the good life, and the Stoic path is to focus not on these things but rather what is up to us.
The Fundamental Division – the division between things that are under our direct control and those that are not. The important lesson is to care only about the things we can control.
The Greatest Happiness Principle – A principle which says that actions are right insofar as they promote happiness and wrong insofar as they promote unhappiness
Higher and Lower Pleasures – Types of pleasures that differ in terms of their quality. Things like food and drugs create lower pleasures. Things like intellectual pursuits and doing the right thing create higher forms of pleasure.
The Doctrine of Swine – An objection that utilitarianism entails that if people would be happy rolling in mud, that’s what would be morally best for them to do, so we should reject the theory.
Utilitarianism – A normative theory of which actions are right or wrong. Utilitarianism says the right action is that which maximises utility.
Jeremy Bentham – Considered by some as the father of utilitarianism, Bentham was a moral philosopher and one of John Stuart Mill’s teachers
Epicurus – an ancient Greek philosopher and one of the first to advocate that the ultimate good is experiencing pleasure and avoiding pain.
Utility – The thing that is ultimately valuable in itself. For Mill, this is happiness, which he then understands as pleasure and the absence of pain.
Contract Theory – a modern political theory identifying consent as the sole justification for government. Contract theory is associated with Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704), Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), and more recently, John Rawls (1921-2002)
Prejudice – a foundational, strongly held, unreasoned (but not necessarily irrational) moral opinion or belief. We might believe, for example, that parents have special obligations towards their own children.
A Priori – a philosophical term of art meaning (in Latin) “prior to experience,” which refers to knowledge that is innate or arrived at purely through reasoning, like the truths of mathematics.
Rights – moral claims invoking immunity from (or entitlement to) some specific treatment (or good) from others. Commonly recognized rights include the right to free speech or the right to healthcare.
Reform – a change in the social order that originates from the existing character of society. An example would be market-based healthcare reform in a capitalist society.
Conservatism – a modern political ideology that aims to preserve and promote the existing (or traditional) institutions of society. These institutions typically include the rule of law, property, the family, and religion.
Contingent Being – A being that can fail to exist. Its existence is not guaranteed. This being might come to exist or it might not.
Necessary Being – A being that can’t fail to exist. Its non-existence is impossible. This also means that such a being has always existed.
Want to read more about why the infinite regress option doesn’t work in the Second Way? Check out Sean Floyd’s entry in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Efficient Cause – An efficient cause is something that directly makes another thing exist or move. An example of this is when I kick a ball down a hill. I am the efficient cause of the ball rolling down the hill because I make it move down the hill.
Infinite Regress: Begin with some fact. We begin to explain that fact by appealing to another fact, where these facts are related by either causality or dependence. To create the regress, you keep appealing to more and more facts about causality and dependence without end.
Actuality – An ability or action something is currently exercising. Imagine that I am sitting comfortably at my desk, and then I stand up to take a break from reading. In this case, I am now actually standing.
Potentiality – What something has the capacity to do, but isn’t currently doing. Imagine I am sitting comfortably at my desk. Even though I’m not currently standing, I have the capacity to be standing. So, even while I’m not standing, I have the potential to stand.
Theists and Non-Theists – A theist is someone who believes that God exists, while a non-theist does not. Non-theists include atheists, who believe that God does not exist, and agnostics, who are uncertain about whether God exists.
Glaucon – one of Plato’s brothers and one of Socrates’ main interlocutors in the Republic dialogue. In that dialogue, he challenges Socrates to provide a compelling justification for why one should be a just person beyond merely following conventions or avoiding punishment. This sets up Socrates’ defense of justice as intrinsically worthwhile. Throughout the Republic, Glaucon prods Socrates to fully explain his theories of the ideal society, philosopher-kings, and the Form of the Good.
Aristotle – a Greek philosopher (384-322 BC) who studied under Plato and went on to be one of the most influential philosophers to ever live. Simply called “The Philosopher” by Thomas Aquinas and others in the medieval period, Aristotle’s views would eventually be synthesized with Christian theology, laying the intellectual foundation for later scholarly developments in Western Europe.
Understanding – Socrates describes education as turning one’s “understanding” in the right direction. The word “understanding” here translates the ancient Greek term “to phronēsai,” which means “understanding,” “being conscious,” or “having insight.” People who are wicked focus their “understanding” on how best to accomplish their selfish and narrow desires. Those who are wise, in contrast, have learned to focus their “understanding” on what is truly good and beneficial.
The Form of the Good – Socrates characterizes the ultimate goal of education as coming to know “the Form of the Good.” The Form of the Good is his technical term for the meaning of goodness: what it is to be good. Socrates is clear that this “knowledge of the Good” is not simply theoretical knowledge, but also knowledge in the sense of “knowing how”: knowing how to achieve what’s good, to do what’s good, to accomplish what’s good. Mere “book knowledge” or simply being smart is not enough.
The Intelligible – Socrates uses “the intelligible” to name the aspects of the world that we can only grasp through thinking or insight. With my eyes I can see the tree outside my window, but what it means to be a tree is something I can only comprehend in thought. Likewise, I can see the people around me, but human nature, human dignity, and what it means to be human is something I can only grasp conceptually. “The intelligible” is the world insofar as it “makes sense” and can be comprehended.
The Visible – By “the visible,” Socrates means those aspects of the world we can perceive with our five senses and our imagination—those aspects of the world we can see, hear, taste, smell, touch, and imagine. For example, with my eyes I can see the sky, trees, people around me, and so on as visible things. “The visible” is the world insofar as it can be perceived and imagined.
Education – Socrates says that the allegorical story he tells represents the effect of education on human nature. “Education” here is a translation of the ancient Greek word “paideia,” which means “education” in the widest sense of the term. “Paideia” doesn’t mean “education” in the sense of going to school or getting good grades. Instead, it refers to the process of becoming a wise, intelligent, good, and well-rounded human being.
Allegory – An allegory is a symbolic narrative where characters, events, and/or settings represent abstract ideas or convey deeper meanings beyond the literal story. Socrates tells such a symbolic narrative in the passages below. The characters, events, and setting of his narrative symbolize the effect of what he calls “education.”
Self-knowledge – Knowledge of the contents of one’s own mind, such as one’s own beliefs and desires. Self-knowledge can be gained through introspection, that is, by reflecting on what one thinks and experiences. Some philosophers believe that self-knowledge has special properties that our knowledge of the external world lacks, such as being clearer, more reliable, or more valuable.
Dualism – The view that the mind is entirely distinct from the body. This view is usually contrasted with different kinds of monism, which hold that the mind is ultimately just a part of the body (materialism) or that the body is ultimately just a part of the mind (idealism). Dualists hold that the mind and the body are fundamentally different aspects of reality, and both categories are needed to properly describe the universe, especially the human person.
The Self – What the ‘I’ in ‘I am, I exist’ refers to; the part of you that really makes you you. Many philosophers have provided rich accounts of what the self ultimately is, including the soul, the mind, one special feature of the mind (such as consciousness), a mixture of all these elements, or perhaps a mere illusion.
The ‘Cogito’ – Descartes’ famous claim ‘I think, therefore I am’ is often referred to as the cogito. The name comes from the Latin rendering of this phrase, which is ‘cogito, ergo sum.’ Descartes held that one can always believe this proposition with certainty. We cannot doubt our own existence, so the cogito survives his exercise of intense doubt. The cogito appears several times in Descartes’ writings, and he often phrased it slightly differently each time. It appears in the Second Meditation as ‘I am, I exist.’
Certainty – When one believes something with certainty, one is maximally confident that it is true. A certainty is something that is beyond dispute or immune to doubt. Although this captures the basic idea, like many epistemological notions, clarifying precisely what the notion of certainty amounts to is an ongoing area of philosophical research.
Vice – A bad habit that we learn over time through instruction or instinct and that we develop through repetition. What makes the habit bad is that, once we have that habit, our tendency is to do the incorrect thing in certain types of situations. We may choose to do something entirely uncalled for in that situation, or we may act at the wrong time, in the wrong way, to the wrong degree, or with the wrong attitudes, or for the wrong reasons.
Relative Mean – The “Goldilocks amount” of some type of action or emotion. When you act in this way, according to Aristotle, you act exactly as is required under the current circumstances. This means that you do what is called for by the situation at hand, rather than doing something too extreme or not doing something extreme enough. You do something in the moderate amount (the mean amount) relative to the specific situation you are in when you need to act.
Excellence/Virtue – A good habit that we learn over time through instruction and repetition. What makes the habit good is that, once we have that habit, we have a strong tendency to do the right thing at the right time, in the right way, to the right degree, with the right attitudes, whenever we are confronted with a situation that we know calls us to exercise that habit.
Doxastic Voluntarism – the view that we have at least some control over what we believe.
Evidence – information that increases the probability that a claim is true.
Sufficient – enough of something for a particular purpose. Whether something is sufficient is context-dependent.
Solon – In the Histories of Herodotus, Solon visits Croesus, the king of Lydia. Even though Croesus shows Solon all of his wealth, Solon refuses to call him the happiest man who ever lived because he does not know how Croesus will die
Priam – According to Greek mythology, Priam was the final king of Troy during the Trojan War. Despite his wealth and political power, he was killed by Achilles’ son Neopotolemus during the Sack of Troy
Virtue – The consistent and reliable tendency to perform one’s function excellently. When a person has a certain virtue, like courage, they have spent time developing the habit, in this case reacting to danger well, using their human abilities. The virtues then make it possible for us to live a life of flourishing
Sardanapalus – An Assyrian king described by the historian Diodorus as living a life of extreme decadence. Sardanapalus indulged himself with food, alcohol, and many concubines, even going so far to say that physical gratification is the purpose of life. Chrysippus said that, on his tomb is inscribed the following: “Though knowing full well that thou art but mortal, indulge thy desire, find joy in thy feasts. Dead, thou shalt have no delight […] I have only what I have eaten, what wantonness I have committed, what joys I received through passion; but my many rich possessions are now utterly dissolved.”
Function – the characteristic activity of a given thing which makes it what it is. The function of a knife is cutting, while the function of a heart is to pump blood
Eudaimonia – Frequently translated as ‘happiness’, eudaimonia means the attainment of active human flourishing, and is the end Aristotle identifies as humanity’s highest final good
Final Good – A good that we pursue for its own sake. Common examples of final goods include happiness, knowledge, and friendship
Instrumental Good – A good that we pursue for the sake of some other good. A common example is money, as money allows us to purchase other kinds of goods
Anytus – an Athenian politician, war general, and one of the primary accusers behind Socrates’ prosecution. Anytus feared that Socrates would undermine the young Athenian democracy he had helped create and defend
Oracle of Delphi – the high priestess at the temple at Delphi, the oracle was one of the most sought after seers of the ancient world and was thought to relay messages from the god Apollo
Chaerephon – an ancient Greek from the city Sphettus, Chaerephon is remembered as a loyal friend of Socrates, also making an appearance in two other Platonic dialogues, the Charmides and the Gorgias
Meletus – A poet and citizen of Athens and one of Socrates’ accusers. Amongst other things, Meletus accused Socrates of corrupting the youth
Apollo – the ancient sacred site Delphi was dedicated to the god Apollo, an ancient Greek god and the god that Socrates refers to throughout the Apology
Virtue – a character trait, acquired through habitual practice, that enables one to act well. The virtues can also be thought of as excellences of human character, as they make it possible for us to live a life of flourishing. Examples of the virtues include courage, prudence, and justice
The Evil Demon Argument – Argues that we cannot hold any of our beliefs with certainty because we could be radically deceived by an evil demon. A classic argument given by Descartes for doubting the reliability of almost all of our beliefs
Philosophical Skepticism – The position that we do not know many things that we ordinarily take ourselves to know
A Posteriori Knowledge – Knowledge that can only be acquired through having particular, concrete experiences. Such knowledge can be gained simply through our everyday experiences, or through more complex means like controlled scientific experiments
A Priori Knowledge – Knowledge that can be gained without having any particular concrete experiences. Such knowledge is typically gained by rational insight or intuition
Cartesian Method of Doubt – A process employed by René Descartes of rejecting all beliefs that he had at least some reason to doubt in order to see if he had any beliefs that he could know with certainty
Revelation – Theological truths that have been made known by means of some religious text, testimony, authority, or experience, or the act or process in which such truths are made known.
Rationalism – The view that the only reliable means of coming to know truths about God is reason. As a result, what we might otherwise believe by means of faith ought to be disregarded or even rejected in favor of what we must believe by means of reason.
Fideism – The view that the only reliable means of coming to know truths about God is faith. As a result, what we might otherwise believe by means of reason ought to be disregarded or even rejected in favor of what we must believe by means of faith.
Faith – The act of accepting a proposition as true for which there is less than demonstrable evidence, which rises above mere opinion but falls short of logical or scientific demonstration. Faith can also refer to a particular religious tradition or the body of beliefs that are central to that religious tradition.
Virtue – a character trait, acquired through habitual practice, that enables one to act well. The virtues can also be thought of as excellences of human character, as they make it possible for us to live a life of flourishing. Examples of the virtues include courage, prudence, and justice
Socratic Ignorance – an awareness of one’s own ignorance, and the reason that Socrates was deemed wise by the Oracle of Delphi. A person who lacks Socratic Ignorance may believe they know many things they actually don’t, leading them to overestimate how well they understand the world
Apology – a formal defense of justification of an action or belief. A Christian apologist, for example, is someone who defends their faith and seeks to justify it through an appeal to reason.
