Johann Georg Hamanns Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten: Eine Auseinandersetzung mit dem Rationalismus der Aufklärung
Johann Georg Hamannʼs Sokratische Denkwürdigkeiten: A Polemic with Enlightenment Rationalism

Summary/Abstract: London, 1758 is a turning point in the life of Johann Georg Hamann (1730-1788). What happened that year in England’s capital was meaningful, and not just for Immanuel Kant, his adversary in Königsberg – Hamann’s London conversion turned him into a critic of the “Enlightenment philosophy of religion”. His Gedanken über meinen Lebenslauf should be considered as analogous to Augustineʼs Confessions.Hamann merits special attention in the context of the discourse of the “return of religion” and “New Atheism.” The groundbreaking analysis of the institutionalised power of “the public” (Öffentlichkeit), which he performed around the year 1750, is of exceptional importance because it attempts to combine the Christian message with a new understanding of reality, thereby becoming a source of inspiration for Søren Kierkegaard.In eighteenth-century debates, Hamann defended the individual’s existence from its appropriation by anonymous forces. From the point of view of the history of spirituality, it is also important to mention the fact that the philosopher referred to Hume’s criticism of metaphysics.

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