Abstract

Goethe said that he had a high opinion of Franz von Baader, but unfortunately he could not understand what the Bavarian thinker wrote. Despite the efforts of Franz Hoffmann in the last century and of Eugene Susini in our days, Baader remained a closed book, even though his complete works have been recently reprinted. The extraordinary interest of Baader's oeuvre lies in his complex historical position: though he belongs to the world of speculative idealism, this Catholic thinker fundamentally rejects its monistic inspiration. The present author treats Baader's conception of transcendence as rooted in an existential metaphysics of the will, through a very contemporary philosophical language which does not always successfully blend with Baader's own complicated parlance.—M. J. V.