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Bruno Bauer

Bruno Bauer (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) First published Thu Mar 7, 2002; substantive revision Wed Dec 18, 2013 Bruno Bauer (1809–1882), philosopher, historian, and theologian. His career falls into two main phases, divided by the Revolutions of 1848. In the 1840s, the period known as the Vormärz or the prelude to the German revolutions of March 1848, Bauer was a leader of the Left-Hegelian movement, developing a republican interpretation of Hegel, which combined ethical and aesthetic motifs. His theory of infinite self-consciousness, derived from Hegel's account of subjective spirit, stressed rational autonomy and historical progress. Investigating the textual sources of Christianity, Bauer described religion as a form of alienation, which, because of the deficiencies of earthly life, projected irrational, transcendent powers over the self, while sanctioning particularistic sectarian and material interests. He criticized the Restoration state, its social and juridical base, and its orthodox religious ideology. Analyzing the emergence of modern mass society, he rejected liberalism for its inconsequent opposition to the existing order, and for its equation of freedom with property, but he accused socialism of an inadequate appreciation of individual autonomy. After the defeats of 1848, Bauer repudiated Hegel. He predicted a general crisis of European civilization, caused by the exhaustion of philosophy and the failure of liberal and revolutionary politics. New prospects of liberation would, he believed, issue from the crisis. His late writings examined the emergence of Russia as a world power, opening an era of global imperialism and war. These writings influenced Nietzsche's thinking on cultural renewal. Friedrich Engels and Karl Kautsky claimed Bauer's religious criticism for the socialist movement, while the anti-traditionalist conservatism of his late work influenced the thought of Carl Schmitt in the twentieth century.

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