FROHSCHAMMER, JAKOB. - Philosopher b. 6 Jan. 1821 at Illkoven (Ratisbon), d. 14 Apr. 1893 at Bad Kreut. Ordained priest in 1847, he taught, from 1850 as a lecturer, from 1854 as extraordinary professor of theology and from 1855 as ordinary professor of philosophy at the University of Munich.
A book published in 1854 on the origin of the human soul (Über den Ursprung der menschlichen Seele), in which he defended generationism, was placed on the Index in 1857. Three further writings: Einleitung in die Philosophie und Grundriss der Metaphysik (1858), Über die Freiheit der Wissenschaft (1861) and the first year's issue of the philosophical journal Athenaeum (1862), were prohibited by a letter of Pius IX, Gravissimus inter of 1 Dec. 1862 to the Archbishop of Munich (Denz-U, 1666-76). In it two errors are reproached to F.: the attribution to human reason of a natural capacity to know philosophically certain truths of a supernatural order; and the affirmation of an absolute and unlimited independence of philosophy in the face of the authority of the Church. F. did not retract and was therefore suspended in 1862. Subsequently he attacked in various writings the Church and the papacy, especially pontifical infallibility.
The philosophy of F. is a mixture of constructive idealism and rationalistic naturalism. Philosophy according to him must not limit itself to gnoseology alone; it is the science of ideal truth. It must start from a single universal principle, fantasy, while nevertheless relying on internal and external experience, on the facts of nature and of history. In the universe there is an objective, unconscious cosmic fantasy, a creative and formative force, which was initially intimately bound to matter. Under its influence the evolution of the world is accomplished. The cosmic process is the objective fantasy of God, from which it proceeds, without however being identified with him: God would therefore have to be conceived as the subjective, conscious fantasy, distinct from the world. In man fantasy becomes individual and conscious of itself, and in him it is also the principle of psychic life. The human spirit, produced by the evolution of the cosmic fantasy, participates, in the generative function, in the creative capacity to produce the whole individual, body and soul.
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Giovanni Muller