Das Wesen des Christenthums (The Essence of Christianity)

Leipzig: Otto Wigand, 1841. First Edition. original boards. Very good. First Edition of Feuerbachs Most Celebrated Work

FEUERBACH, Ludwig. Das Wesen des Christenthums (The Essence of Christianity). Otto Wigand, Leipzig, 1841. TP + [II]- X = Vorwort + [XI]-XII = Inhalt + [XIII] = Druchfehler (Corrections) + [1]-450, Octavo. First Edition.


Feurerbachs most celebrated work, which had a decisive influence on Marx and Engels. According to Engels, the crucial turning point for Hegelian philosophy was the publication of Feuerbachs Das Wesen des Christenthums in 1841; the work propelled Feuerbach into fame as the leading young Hegelian. Feuerbachs study led him to conclude that religion is a dream of human, not divine, development. He regarded religion as one of the forms of human thought and action by which man raised himself above the animal Feuerbach tried to determine the purely human significance of all mythological thought. He professed to be a unifomitarian in religious matters that is, he denied that past religious experiences differ from those that can be observed in the present thus anticipating the approach to religious experience of both James and Freud (EP, Vol. 3, p. 191). His work also laid the foundations for that phenomenological anthropology that has made him a source of information and insights for 19th century Russian thinkers and authors (Chernyshevsky) as well as such modern philosophers as Heidegger, Sartre and Karl Barth.

CONDITION: Very good or better in contemporary paper-covered boards. Name to top of title page. Some scuffing to boards and wear to spine. Title and author in gilt set inside burgundy label along spine. Slight browning to corners of paste down endpapers, but otherwise a bright and clean copy of an important book in the history of philosophy and theology and was quite influential in the emerging 19th century philosophical literature in Russia.


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