HARTMANN, EDUARD von. - Philosopher, b. in Berlin on 23 Feb. 1842, d. on 5 June 1906 in the suburb of Gross-Lichterfelde, where he lived in meditation and solitude.
The fundamental lines of his philosophy are already all present in his first work Philosophie des Unbewussten (Berlin 1869; 2nd ed., Sachsa 1904). Evident in it is its derivation from Schopenhauer, rethought through Schellingian and also Hegelian motifs. H.'s thought cannot be fully understood without also taking into account scientific theories (above all that of evolution) and the materialism of the sciences, to which he reacts.
In the absolute Principle, or the Unconscious, will and intellect are found unconscious of themselves, co-present and opposed. And it is here that H., harking back to Schelling, departs from Schopenhauer, who on the contrary derives representation from the will. H. observes that a will is not possible without an idea of the end toward which it tends; therefore the intellect too, besides the will, is an original datum. But is it not contradictory to admit that the will has an idea of its end and at the same time to consider it as a blind force? H., in fact, constructs his system on an antithesis: from the will derive the irrational existence of the world, evil and the unhappiness of finite beings; from the intellect, on the other hand, derive finality and the real unity in its development. The ultimate goal of evolution and of the process of history, through the struggle of the two original elements, is the dissolution of the existence of finite beings, of the will to live. Liberation from irrational existence (and with it from evil and pain) is brought about through consciousness and the development of civilization in four moments: a) ethical, as the overcoming of individual ends in universal ones; b) aesthetic, as the revelation of the harmony of the real beyond its irrationality; c) religious, as the aspiration of consciousness to free itself from the finite; d) philosophical, as the universal freedom of consciousness from all the deceptions produced by the will to live. In short, the supreme finality of cosmic development, through the drama of finite existences, is the annihilation of rational will and the affirmation of intellect alone. This process of redemption is a process of self-redemption of the Absolute itself, which, through evolution, liberates itself from the irrational element that constitutes it and realizes itself as pure and full intellect.
H.'s philosophy displays scant originality, and the point at which he departs from Schopenhauer involves a contradiction: if the Unconscious is constituted by will and intellect, its development as a process of annihilation of the irrational is a process of annihilation of a part of itself. Moreover, liberation from the irrational is liberation from the world, which is the effect of the irrational, through the world itself: finite existences are instruments and victims of the Absolute, which in order to realize itself as pure intellect must sacrifice and destroy the world. H.'s pantheism is acosmism.
Principal works, besides the already cited Ph. d. U.: Phänomenologie des sittlichen Bewusstseins (Berlin 1879; 2nd ed., ibid. 1886); Religionsphilosophie (ibid. 1882, 3rd ed., ibid. 1906-1907); Aesthetik (ibid. 1886-87); Das Grundproblem der Erkenntnisstheorie (ibid. 1889); Geschichte der Metaphysik (ibid. 1899-1900); System der Philos. im Grundriss (8 vols., Sachsa 1906-1909).
Bibliography5 works
Michele Federico Sciacca