Abstract

This essay analyzes the central role played by the concept of love in Feuerbach’s early pantheistic idealism as articulated principally in his first book, Thoughts on Death and Immortality. After contextualizing this work in relation to the pantheism controversy inaugurated by the publication in 1785 of Jacobi’s famous letters to Moses Mendelssohn On the Doctrine of Spinoza, the author goes on to argue 1) that the position developed by Feuerbach here is far more coherent than has been recognized by previous commentators; 2) that the historical importance of this work consists in the effort undertaken in it to produce a philosophical account of the divinity as One and All, and thereby to provide an avenue for the religious aspirations of those members of Feuerbach’s generation who found themselves unable to “stomach” more orthodox conceptions of the divinity like the ones that Lessing was scandalously reported by Jacobi in his Spinoza-letters to have rejected in favor of pantheism; and 3) that appreciation of these circumstances is crucial for understanding Feuerbach’s role in the history of modern European thought, as well as a number of otherwise baffling claims he makes about the human species-essence in the opening chapters of The Essence of Christianity.