The Philosophy and Politics of Bruno Bauer

This is a comprehensive study in English of Bruno Bauer, a leading Hegelian philosopher of the 1840s. Inspired by the philosophy of Hegel, Bauer led an intellectual revolution that influenced Marx and shaped modern secular humanism. In the process he offered a republican alternative to liberalism and socialism, criticized religious and political conservatism and set out the terms for the development of modern mass and industrial society. Based on in-depth archival research this book traces the emergence of republican political thought in Germany before the revolutions of 1848. Professor Moggach examines Bauer’s republicanism and his concept of infinite self-consciousness. He also explores the more disturbing aspects of Bauer’s critique of modernity, such as his anti-Semitism. This book will be eagerly sought out by professionals in political philosophy, political science and intellectual history.

• A study of major disciple of Hegel who shaped the thinking of Marx • Cross-disciplinary interest especially in political philosophy, political science and history of ideas

Preface; Introduction: \'the friend of freedom\'; Part I. Foundations: Aesthetics, Ethics and Republicanism: 1. \'The idea is life\': Bauer’s aesthetics and political thought; 2. \'Free means ethical\': idealism, history and critical theory; Part II. Judging the Old Order: 3. \'The other of itself\': the critique of the religious consciousness; 4. \'Revolution and the Republic\': the state and self-consciousness; Part III. The Emancipatory Project: 5. \'Only the ought is true\': Hegel, self-consciousness and revolution; 6. \'To the people belongs the future\': universal right and history; Part IV. Judging the Revolutionary Movement: 7. \'The fire of criticism\': revolutionary dynamics, 1843–1848; 8. \'The republic of self-consciousness\': revolutionary politics in 1848; Epilogue: after the revolution: the conclusion of the Christian-Germanic age; Appendix: Bruno Bauer, \'On the Principles of the Beautiful\' (1829); Notes; Bibliography; Index.

‘It is the product of over a decade of sustained research and has been built, not only upon a familiarity with the current concerns of political theory, but also upon an important archival discovery which significantly alters our conception of the foundations of Bauer’s thought … It will undoubtedly establish itself as the standard work in this field and should attract a readership beyond German and Hegel/Marx specialists since it is one of the few studies to apply new questions about republican thought to Hegelianism and nineteenth-century German thought.’

– Gareth Stedman Jones, King’s College, Cambridge