Карл фон Гартман: Философия Бессознательного и критика его идей

German philosopher (1842–1906)

Karl Robert Eduard von Hartmann (23 February 1842 – 5 June 1906) was a German philosopher, independent scholar and author of Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869). His notable ideas include the theory of the Unconscious and a pessimistic interpretation of the "best of all possible worlds" concept in metaphysics.

His reputation as a philosopher was established by his first book, Philosophy of the Unconscious (1869; 10th ed. 1890). This success was largely due to the originality of its title, the diversity of its contents (Von Hartmann professing to obtain his speculative results by the methods of inductive science, and making plentiful use of concrete illustrations), its fashionable pessimism and the vigour and lucidity of its style. The conception of the Unconscious, by which Von Hartmann describes his ultimate metaphysical principle is, fundamentally, not as paradoxical as it sounds, being merely a new and mysterious designation for the Absolute of German metaphysicians.

Rudolf Steiner, referring to Von Hartmann's Critical Establishment of Transcendental Realism (Kritische Grundlegung des transzendentalen Realismus, 2nd Edition Berlin, 1875) gave his opinion, in the preface to his own book Truth and Knowledge (1892), that Von Hartmann's world view was "the most significant philosophical work of our time", even though Steiner considered himself to be considerably misunderstood by Hartmann and was critical of some of Hartmann's postulates. Carl Jung wrote in his autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections (1963), that he had read Von Hartmann "assiduously". Philipp Mainländer dedicated an essay to the philosophy of Von Hartmann. He did not consider him to be a genuine philosopher, because he did not start his philosophy with an epistemological research, despite the warnings of Kant and Schopenhauer. The criticism has been described as an attack abounding in clean hits but marred by bitter sarcasm, such as "is the coitus a sacrifice the individual makes? You must be – I repeat it – a very strangely organized being", and for denying Schopenhauer's deduction that the will is the thing in itself: "you also have the sad honor, to stand at the same level as those who have misunderstood Copernicus and still confidently believe that the sun turns around the earth." Friedrich Nietzsche offers a scathing criticism of Von Hartmann, calling his philosophy "unconscious irony" and "roguery", in the second of his Untimely Meditations, On the Use and Abuse of History for Life. In Beyond Good and Evil he hurled the epithets "amalgamist" and "hotch potch philosopher" at him. British film maker and author Edouard d'Araille provides a modern day appraisal of the philosophy of Von Hartmann in his introductory essay to the 2001 Edition (3 Volumes) of The Philosophy of the Unconscious. He evaluates Von Hartmann as the vital link between the vitalism of Arthur Schopenhauer and the psychology of the Unconscious of Sigmund Freud.

Von Hartmann's numerous works extend to more than 12,000 pages. They may be classified into: