Individualism and Orientation towards World in Philosophy of Law of L. Feuerbach

Abstract

The article attempts to find individualist ideas in the philosophy of L. Feuerbach. The completion point of German classical philosophy is Feuerbach’s philosophy, which is also the beginning of the age of materialism and contains a critique of Hegel’s objective idealism and has anthropological nature. Although Feuerbach had a Hegelian period of philosophical development, he proposed the antithesis of his «absolute idealism» — anthropological materialism. According to Feuerbach, only nature and human are single objective real things. He encourages to move from reflection on supernatural things to study of a man and nature, as idealists do. It is determined that L. Feuerbach’s human is the most complete part of eternal nature, and therefore is the starting point of philosophy; its basis should not be an absolute idea, but a human. The philosopher uses the anthropological principle in his own science. The advantages of this principle, in Feuerbach’s opinion, are that they require to consider human essence not in a shadowy world, but in reality and to avoid break between spirit and body, specific for idealistic and dualistic philosophy. According to the thinker, the supreme goal of a human is taking care of himself. Hence, egoism or selfishness, as manifestation of individualism, expresses true essence of human nature. It is found that Feuerbach’s anthropological materialism is based on the following individualist ideas: a human is not a creation of God, not self-consciousness, as according to Hegel, but is the most complete part of eternal nature; the subject of philosophy is a real, living, particular person who has anthropological peculiarities as a natural being; the philosopher considers any human action as harmonization of human behavior with human essence; the supreme goal of a human is taking care of himself; there is no man without selfishness, as egoism is man’s love for himself; egoism or selfishness expresses true essence of human nature and is a manifestation of individualism; protection of individualist concepts, namely, private interests of personality; a human has addictions, which influence his values, ensure defense reaction, act both with selfish purposes and achieve ultimate goals; love contains the essence and purpose of a human and is the decisive force of social and moral progress, it is perceived as the highest expression of sensuous nature of a human, as the most complete mechanism of regulation of social relations, as a principle of social organization.