Contemplation on the destiny of man

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Contemplation on human destiny (EA 1748) is the name of the central work of the theologian and Enlightenment philosopher Johann Joachim Spalding . The originally quite short script (only 26 pages in the first edition) quickly became popular. Spalding revised it several times in the following decades, until 1794 it appeared in eleven official editions, several reprints and translations. In between, the title was shortened to “The purpose of man”.

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When drafting his ethics, Spalding stayed away from the usual theological diction and dogmatic argumentation. Instead he, formally standing in the Shaftesbury tradition , talks to himself in order to be clear about “why I am there and what I should reasonably be”. He describes how an individual finally arrives at the insight himself through “sensuality”, “pleasure of the spirit”, “virtue” and “religion” that he is destined for “immortality”.

The title of the book became a catchphrase and resulted in several publications with the same or similar names by Christoph Martin Wieland , Johann Gottfried Gruber , Johann Gottlieb Fichte , Friedrich Feuerbach and others. To this day, the word about the “destiny of man” is an important point of reference in theological anthropology .

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  • The purpose of man. The first edition in 1748 and the last edition in 1794. Edited by Wolfgang Erich Müller. Waltrop: Spenner 1997.
  • Johann Joachim Spalding: Contemplation on the determination of man. Weitbrecht, Greifswald 1748. Third and increased edition. Weitbrecht, Greifswald 1749. ( Digitized copy of the "Third and Increased Edition", Berlin 1749 (via VD 18 ; digitized and full text in the German Text Archive ))

literature

  • Clemens Schwaiger: On the question of the sources of Spalding's “Determination of Man”. An unsolved enigma of educational research. In: Norbert Hinske (ed.): The determination of people. Hamburg 1999 (= Enlightenment , Volume 11, Issue 1), pp. 7-19.