FROHSCHAMMER, Jacob. - Philosopher, b. 6 Jan. 1821 at Ilkoven (Regensburg), d. 14 Apr. 1893 at Bad Kreuth. Ordained priest in 1847, he taught, from 1850 as a *libero docente*, 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 annotated issue of the philosophical journal *Athenaeum* (1862), were prohibited by a letter of Pius IX, *Gravissimas inter*, of 11 Dec. 1862, addressed to the Archbishop of Munich (Denz.-U., 1666-76). In it, errors were reproved: the attribution to human reason of a natural capacity to know philosophically certain truths of a supernatural order; and the assertion 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 the Church and the papacy in various writings, especially papal infallibility.
Frohschammer’s philosophy is a blend of constructive idealism and rationalistic naturalism. Philosophy, according to him, must not be limited to epistemology alone; it is the science of ideal truth. It must proceed from a single universal principle, imagination, while still relying on internal and external experience, on the facts of nature and history. In the universe there is a cosmic and creative imagination, an unconscious force that creates and forms, which was initially intimately bound to matter. Under its influence, the evolution of the world takes place. The cosmic process is the objective imagination of God, from which it proceeds, without, however, being identified with Him: God must therefore be conceived as the subjective, conscious imagination, distinct from the world. In man, imagination becomes individual and self-conscious, and in him it is also the principle of psychic life. The human spirit, a product of the evolution of cosmic imagination, participates, in the generative function, in the creative capacity to produce the entire individual, body and soul.