Hamann, Johann Georg - Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. VI, p. 794

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

HAMANN, JOHANN GEORG. – Philosopher, born at Königsberg on 27 August 1730, died at Münster on 21 June 1788.

After a disordered youth, his reading of the Bible brought about in him a “conversion” of distinctly Pietistic character (1758). This sense of mystical “illumination” thereafter remained constant throughout his life and coexisted with the exaltation of sensuality as the “weapon of virility.” In an age of Enlightenment, H. experienced his own mission (Bestimmung) in a typically antirationalistic manner (even the most ordinary activity becomes prayer); in a mechanistic age, he did not believe in the abstract notion of a God who had “wound up” the universe once and for all, but experienced divinity as a spirit that is always “present.”

Indeed, in his various letters, aphorisms, and pamphlets (among his most important or entertaining works: Gedanken über meinen Lebenslauf; Golgatha und Scheblimini; Aesthetica in nuce; Abdelardi Virbii chimicristische Einfälle...; Des Ritters von Rosencreutz letzte Willensmynung..., etc.), he appears as a conscious irrationalist: existence is vastly superior to reason; history is a “sealed book” that reason itself cannot open; religion lies beyond the human gnoseological attempt (at a certain point, however, faith seems to be reduced to a cognitive organ); the “genius” of the individual surpasses abstract reason. On the political plane, H. opposed bureaucratic paternalism and enlightened despotism. His hermeticism also led him to discern in the unfathomable vital forces of language the unifying and determining elements of the Nation.

An unsettled spirit, fond of “mystery” (he was called the “magus of the North”), H. enjoyed immense success among the successive Romantic generations: his fragmentary style and hermeticism had in fact contributed to the crisis of geometric clarity and of the spirit of system, central elements of Enlightenment rationalism.

BIBL.: Schriften, edited by F. Roth, 8 vols., Berlin 1821–43; C. H. Gildemeister, J. G. H.s des Magus im Norden Leben und Schriften, 6 vols., Gotha 1857–73; Sibyllinische Blätter des Magus ausgewählt u. eingeleitet von R. Unger, Jena 1905; M. Petri, J. G. H.s Schriften u. Briefe, 4 parts, Hanover 1873–74; V. inoltre H. J. G., Tagebuch eines Christens, edited by I. Nadler, Vienna 1949. Studies: H. Weber, H. und Kant, Nördlingen 1903; J. Blum, La vie et l'oeuvre de J. G. H., Paris 1912; R. Unger, H. und die Aufklärung, Halle 1925; J. Nadler, Die Hamanunggabe, there 1930; L. Bianchi, H. und Herder, Bologna 1930; A. Gerbi, La politica del romanticismo, Bari 1932, pp. 64–114; E. Metzke, J. G. H.s Stellung in der Philosophie des 18. Jahrhunderts, Halle 1934; the introduction by S. Lupi to J. G. H., Scritti e frammenti di estetica, Florence 1938; C. Antoni, La lotta contro la ragione, there 1942, pp. 125–50; B. Croce, Storia dell'estetica per saggi, Bari 1942, pp. 156–60; P. Klosowski, Les méditations bibliques de H., Paris 1948. Massimo Petrocchi