Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas (1804–1872)

Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas(1804–1872)

Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach, the German philosopher, theologian, and moralist, was born in Landshut, Bavaria. He studied theology at Heidelberg and Berlin and then, in 1825, under the influence of G. W. F. Hegel, transferred to the faculty of philosophy. He received his doctorate in 1828 at Erlangen, where he remained to teach as docent until 1832. In 1830 he published anonymously at Nuremberg a work—Gedanken über Tod und Unsterblichkeit—that created a minor scandal by interpreting Christianity as an egoistic and inhumane religion. When his authorship of this book became known, he was dismissed from the faculty. In 1836 he retired to Bruckberg, where he lived on a modest pension from the Bavarian government, income from his writings, and revenue provided by his wife's interest in a pottery factory.

Between 1836 and 1843 he collaborated with Arnold Ruge on Ruge's Hallische Jahrbücher für deutsche Wissenschaft und Kunst, in which many of Feuerbach's most important early writings on religion and philosophy first appeared. He broke with Ruge when the latter began collaboration with Karl Marx on the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, although he contributed to the one issue of that journal. He reappeared briefly in academic life in 1848–1849, lecturing to audiences of intellectuals and workers at Heidelberg at the request of students, for whom he had become a symbol of liberal thought.

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