Krause, Karl Christian Friedrich(1781–1832)
Karl Christian Friedrich Krause, a German pantheistic philosopher, was born at Eisenberg in Thuringia. He studied at Jena, where he came under the influence of Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Schelling. In 1812 he became Privatdozent, but his many efforts to secure a professorship were all unsuccessful. For a time he taught music in Dresden. In 1805 he joined the Freemasons, to further his ideal of a world society. His internationalist leanings were responsible for his failure to be appointed professor in Göttingen, and in Munich his chances were spoiled by the opposition of Schelling. Just as he finally obtained a position, Krause died of a heart attack.
Like several of his contemporaries, Krause claimed to be developing the true Kantian position. His orientation, however, was mystical and spiritualistic. The obscurity of his style is awesome; he expressed himself in an artificial and often unfathomable vocabulary which included such monstrous neologisms as Or-om-wesenlebverhaltheit and Vereinselbganzweseninnesein—word s that are untranslatable into German, let alone into English. He called his system the theory of essence (Wesenlehre) and presented an elaborate set of categories, including Unity, Selfhood, Propositionality (Satzheit), "Graspness" (Fassheit), Unification-in-propositionality (Satzheitvereinheit), and so forth. The system was intended to mediate between pantheism and theism; hence Krause called his position "Panentheism," to suggest the idea that God or Absolute Being is one with the world, though not exhausted by it.
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