Jean Blum characterized Hamann’s thought as follows: “Hamann’s thought is what those who do not normally think would think if they did think.”
That gets it pretty well, as does Berlin’s comment that Hamann “was a major force in transforming the ideas which hitherto had lived in small, self-isolated religious communities, remote from and opposed to the great world, into weapons in the public arena.” (Berlin’s following sentence, “His was the first great shot in the battle of the romantic individualists against rationalism and totalitarianism,” is the kind of half-truth with which his book on Hamann is stuffed.)
In short, Hamann’s achievement was to present an intellectually sophisticated form of pietism. He might also be called the first populist philosopher.
Peter Leithart
Peter J. Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute. He is the author of numerous books on theology, literature, and culture, including Theopolitan, Defending Constantine, and Baptized Body.
More from Philosophy
Continue reading related articles
Substance or Tune?
Jonathan Edwards didn’t think the world is a machine. At the heart of the mechanistic interpretation of Newtonian physics, he discerned, was the notion that “bodies” are (in Robert Jenson’s words) “the sort of thing that either can or cannot act ‘properly by themselves.’” The mechanistic world picture involved an…
Paul's Idol Polemics
Joshua Jipp argues that Paul's Areopagus address contains both critique and propaganda, critique of Athenian superstition, lust for novelty, and idolatry, and propaganda in favor of Christian faith as a more consistent fulfillment of the aspirations of Hellenistic philosophical theology. Much of the critique, Jipp shows, is drawn from Isaiah's…
Of Causes and Effects
This essay was first published in The Theopolitan, a weekly newsletter for Theopolis Partners. To become a Partner, you must donate at least $500 per year or $50 per month. Give here . Craig Carter’s Thesis #2 about Trinitarian classical theism ( Contemplating God with the Great Tradition ) is,…
In Medias Res
Your weekly digest for all things Theopolis.