HARTMANN, EDUARD von. – Philosopher, born in Berlin on 23 February 1842, died 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). Its derivation from Schopenhauer, rethought through Schellingian and also Hegelian motifs, is evident. H.’s thought cannot be fully understood without also taking into account the scientific theories—especially that of evolution—and the materialism of the sciences against which he reacts.
In the Absolute Principle, or Unconscious, will and intellect are found, unconscious of themselves, co-present and opposed. Here, following Schelling, H. departs from Schopenhauer, who instead derives representation from the will. H. observes that a will without an idea of the end toward which it tends is impossible; thus intellect, in addition to will, is also 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 regard it as a blind force? H., in fact, constructs his system upon an antithesis: from willing derive the irrational existence of the world, evil, and the unhappiness of finite beings; from intellect, on the other hand, derive purposiveness and real unity in its development. The ultimate aim 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 suffering—is achieved through consciousness and the development of civilization in four stages: 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 brief, the supreme purpose of cosmic development, through the drama of finite existences, is the annihilation of rational willing and the affirmation of intellect alone. This process of redemption is a process of the Absolute’s self-redemption, whereby, through evolution, it frees itself from the irrational element constituting it and realizes itself as pure and complete intellect.
H.’s philosophy displays little originality, and the point at which he departs from Schopenhauer entails 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 aforementioned 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).