| 1785 | Letters on the Teaching of Spinoza |
| p.33 | 24441 | Jacobi said Spinoza's pantheism is atheism, and his determinism destroys morality | |
| Full Idea: Jacobi argues that Spinoza's pantheistic belief that nature and God are the same thing is really equivalent to atheism, and the fatalist implications of his deterministic system was deemed incompatible with genuine freedom and moral responsibility. | |||
| From: report of Friedrich Jacobi (Letters on the Teaching of Spinoza [1785]) by David West - Continental Philosophy: an introduction 2 'Critics' | |||
| A reaction: Spinoza would only be atheistic if he reduces God to nature, rather than raising nature to God. European philosophy is dominated by this (false!) idea that responsibility needs perfect free will. |
| 1799 | Letters to Fichte |
| p.26 | 7072 | Jacobi was the first philosopher to talk of nihilism | |
| Full Idea: Jacobi was the first to philosophically employ the concept of nihilism. | |||
| From: report of Friedrich Jacobi (Letters to Fichte [1799]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.2 | |||
| A reaction: Critchley explains that it was Jacobi's fear that Fichte was drawing nihilist conclusions from Kant's philosophy. This fear may be seen as the beginning of what is loosely called 'continental philosophy'. A worthy subject for thinkers... |
| Ch.2 | p.27 | 7071 | Life and rationality are pointless if we can only contemplate the freedom of our own ego |
| Full Idea: If the highest upon which I can reflect, what I can contemplate, is my empty and pure, naked and mere ego, with its autonomy and freedom: then rational self-contemplation, then rationality is for me a curse - I deplore my existence. | |||
| From: Friedrich Jacobi (Letters to Fichte [1799], Ch.2), quoted by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro | |||
| A reaction: This is a rebellion against Fichte's interpretation of Kant. It is a lovely cry from the heart on behalf of everyone who resents lines of philosophical thinking that seem to imprison the mind and cut us off from the ordinary world and real life. |