Johann Christian Lossius

Johann Christian Lossius (born April 22, 1743 in Liebstedt , Sachsen-Weimar , † January 8, 1813 in Erfurt ) was a German philosopher. In the philosophical discussion of anthropological questions, he made contributions to theories of consciousness, which he related to the neurophysiological research status of his time.

Scientists, artists and laypeople were already interested in the structure and function of the human body in the Renaissance. In the post-Reformation period, many people were only willing to believe what they themselves believed to be credible. People also followed their own interests more publicly. Anatomy and physiology generated public interest across Europe. Philosophers also shared this interest. Lossius was one of them. With this interest, ideals and ideas about man emerged that differed from the ruling ones.

Life

Lossius studied philosophy in Jena. Theological events were also part of the course. Among his fellow students in Jena and later colleagues at the University of Erfurt was Christian Salzmann , who years later founded the Philanthropinum near Gotha. In 1770 Lossius received a chair for philosophy at the University of Erfurt and in 1772 a chair for theology in Erfurt . At the same time, his cousin Kaspar Friedrich Lossius began his studies at the University of Erfurt, who is known as a poet and author of religious-educational writings. He visited u. a. Johann Christian's lectures on metaphysics, natural law and moral philosophy.

During this time, many German universities had the problem of remaining intellectually behind the general historical and scientific changes. Lossius belonged to a group of professors who had been called to Erfurt to modernize the content of the teaching. Besides Lossius, these were also the poet Christoph Martin Wieland , the philosopher, art historian and writer Friedrich Justus Riedel , and the theologian Carl Friedrich Bahrdt . Lossius gave lectures on Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Helvetius and Montaigne at the Catholic University of Erfurt.

In 1775 he published Physical Causes of the True . He discussed and explained possible relationships between brain and thought processes and the resulting consequences for philosophy. Other publications followed such as Hannibal, a physiognomic fragment (1776), which was supplemented by a treatise on Aristotle's physiognomics (1777). This he had sent a two-volume work on neurophysiologically founded logic with the title Teaching of Healthy Reason (1777). In his work Something about the Kantian Philosophy with regard to the Proof of God's Existence (1789), in contrast to Kant, he took the view that simple conclusions should be sufficient for philosophical justifications . He also proposed, instead of the metaphysical approaches of Christian Wolff and Immanuel Kant, to define philosophical terms and ideas through descriptions with regard to neurophysiological changes in organs and in connection with concrete examples. In this sense, his four-volume and knowledgeable work New Philosophical General Real Lexicon appeared in 1808 , the definitions of which contrasted with rationalistic ones.

Main ideas of his philosophy

Philosophy must start from the present

Today Lossius is considered a leading philosopher of the late period of the German Enlightenment . A look into the history of ancient philosophy is not enough to find out what kind of truth people can find, but the present ones should make their own investigation into it, he wrote on the first pages of his work Physical Causes of the True . For all of his philosophical considerations, he assumed that people can only know what their body's own "fiber vibrations" allow them as impressions . The quantity and quality of scientific and especially neurophysiological research results on humans had increased since the Renaissance. This further development was u. a. the reason why the suitability of rationalist concepts and metaphysics for philosophizing were questioned across Europe. Lossius named John Locke , Anthony Ashley Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury , Charles Bonnet , Étienne Bonnot de Condillac , James Beattie , Abraham Tucker (1705–1774; pseudonym: Edward Search), David Hume , George Berkeley , Thomas Reid , Adam Ferguson , Claude Adrien Helvétius , Michel de Montaigne , Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens as co-thinkers, reading through which he sought confirmation or criticism for his conclusions.

“It is more than certain that we recognize through the senses that of things what they are for our organs, and do we need to know a little more? Isn't this enough to meet all of our needs? ... The feeling ... imposes a certain necessity on us that we cannot help but take what we feel as true, and what do we feel? ... not the objects; but the changing state of our organs. ”p. 144.

True is what people believe to be true in relation to physical sensations

Lossius understood thinking essentially as the result of “fiber swinging” of the nerves in the brain. Today one would say that thinking is an emergent phenomenon of neurophysiological processes. When thinking, ideas are handled that result from consciously felt changes in the organs. There is no other way to get thoughts and ideas. “The soul cannot perceive anything except what its body enables it to do,” said Lossius in summary. The metaphysicians' talk about truth therefore really meant nothing. But if one does not want to renounce the term true , one can only understand philosophically what people consider to be true with regard to their body perceptions. He did not question the dualism of body and soul with regard to his Christian theological views. But he shared Blaise Pascal's view that belief should not be mixed with philosophy. He therefore considered metaphysical or transcendental-philosophical concepts of truth to be superfluous for everyday life.

The human physique creates the basis for healthy reason

For human knowledge and action, uncertainty and insecurity follow from these principles. But he saw no danger of ending up philosophically in skepticism . Our neurophysiological organization produces sensations to which we can assume the existence of things with sufficient certainty. What a person thinks to be true is an expression of pleasant sensations that trigger brain processes. But absolute certainty remains in the things themselves. One can observe that people are able to make their own conclusions and decisions on the basis of these sensations without having to follow tricky metaphysical considerations. So everyone can make their contribution to philosophy.

Our actions are also related to our feelings. The judgment 'good' corresponds to pleasant physical sensations that accompany one's own actions or those of others. In everyday life, people started from what they felt was good and right based on examples from others. This applies to people of all cultures and this feeling is the basis of all morals. : “Where has a malicious act ever been praised, or where has a malicious act been considered happy when he has achieved his intentions?” Lossius described the general human ability to be able to make appropriate considerations based on the obvious as common sense . The "common sense" is nothing more than what is a calculation test in arithmetic. Reason handled things that were left to think about with regard to our physical sensations. More detailed explanations can be found in his book Teaching of Healthy Reason .

Philosophize in order to find one's way in life

Concepts and thus our thinking should be able to become clearer and clearer if they are explained using concrete things and the structure and function of our physical organs. Even children could learn this by continuously looking at concrete examples. Education contributes to people developing ideas that can give them orientation in life. Lossius implemented this idea in his real encyclopedia . He processed the knowledge of his time and explained it using concrete examples, such as scientific experiments, or he described different views on philosophically relevant questions. In this way everyone can get an idea for themselves, he said. He commented on this trust in the ability of every person to correctly assess people and circumstances according to his own body sensations with a quote from Locke: It is very unlikely that 'God was so economical with his gifts towards people that he himself contentedly with producing only creatures with two legs, but the care of making sensible creatures out of theirs was left to Aristotle.

Reactions and effects

The great metaphysicians of his day did not care much for the philosophical ideas that Lossius and others were promoting. Hegel and Kant referred to it as “popular philosophy”, which, from their point of view, ignored essential problems of the ruling, idealistic (speculative and critical) philosophy. Kant put neurophysiological views in the light of determinism. This contradicted the aims of the Enlightenment at the time, especially freedom. Physiological knowledge of human beings overlooks human freedom, according to Kant. This freedom can only justify his pragmatic anthropology. Kant considered body-related justifications of morality to be "pathological". "If eudaemonia ... instead of eleutheronomy (the principle of freedom of internal legislation) is established as the principle, the consequence of this is euthanasia (the gentle death) of all morality." u. a. that one should not mix the different perspectives of philosophy and science. They consider neurophysiological claims to be “cheek” and assume “category errors”.

The mathematician and educator Ephraim Salomon Unger continuously attended Lossius' philosophical lectures for three years. In 1820 he and his brother founded a private school that taught scientific content in relation to things with which people are connected. In 1844, this idea of ​​the Realschule was adopted by the city of Erfurt in a public school due to the great demand from the citizens. Other cities in Thuringia also followed Unger's initiative.

Works

• Physical causes of the true. 1775. Completely on Google.
• Hannibal: a physiognomic fragment. 1776.
• Lessons of common sense. 1777.
• About the physiognomics of Aristotle 1777.
• Latest philosophical literature. 1780. Completely on Google.
• Something about Kantian philosophy with regard to the proof of the existence of God. 1789.
• New philosophical general real lexicon. 1803. Completely on Google.
• Gall's skull theory in critical, psychological and moral terms. 1808.

literature

• Heike Baranzke: Would the creature dignity? The idea of ​​dignity on the horizon of bioethics. Würzburg (Königshausen & Neumann) 2002, since v. a. P. 154ff.
• Manfred Beetz, Jörn Garber, Heinz Thoma (eds.): Physis and Norm. New Perspectives on Anthropology in the 18th Century. Göttingen (Wallstein) 2007.
• Hans-Peter Nowitzki: The well-tempered person: Enlightenment anthropologies in conflict. Berlin (Gruyter) 2003.
• Carl von Prantl:  Lossius, Johann Christian . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 19, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1884, p. 218.

Web links

Wikisource: Johann Christian Lossius  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See Michael Ludscheidt:  Lossius, Kaspar Friedrich. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 22, Bautz, Nordhausen 2003, ISBN 3-88309-133-2 , Sp. 794-797.
2. ^ Jan Philipp Reemtsma : Christoph Martin Wieland. In: Dietmar v. d Pfordten (ed.): Great thinkers of Erfurt and the Erfurt University. Göttingen (Wallstein) 2001, p. 235 ff.
3. ↑ Hamberger-Meusel: The learned Germany , vol. 17, p. 514.
4. ↑ Manfred Eichel: Johann Christian Lossius (1743-1813) as a leading philosopher of the late Enlightenment at the University of Erfurt , in: Contributions to the history of the University of Erfurt , 21, 1987/88, pp. 113-124.
5. ↑ Cf. Lossius: Physical causes of truth , pp. 1–7.
6. ↑ Cf. Lossius: Physical causes of truth , p. 16.
7. ↑ Falk Wunderlich (2005): Kant and the theory of consciousness of the 18th century. Berlin (Gruyter), pp. 87-90. Google book.
8. ↑ Cf. Lossius: Physisical Causes of True , p. 238ff.
9. ↑ Cf. Lossius: Physisical Causes of True , p. 270ff.
10. ↑ See Kant's Collected Works. Academy edition Volume VII, Anthropology in a pragmatic way , page 119 (preface).
11. ↑ See Kant's Collected Works. Academy edition Volume VI. The Metaphysics of Morals , page 378.
12. ↑ See Peter Bieri : The craft of freedom: About the discovery of one's own will. Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp) 2006.
13. ↑ Albert Pick:  Unger, Ephraim Salomon . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 39, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1895, pp. 282-285.