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ABSTRACT
Paul Scheerbart (1863–1915) is rarely referred to as a philosopher. He is known as the author of Glasarchitektur (1914), and of numerous books, essays, and stories of “fantasy” and anti-militarism. As a follower of Berkeley’s skepticism, he proposed an aesthetic of the fantastic, an art program in contrast to current realism and impressionism. Studying technical and scientific progress, he developed alternative ideas, in a unique blend of fiction and science. His “astro-” or “cosmopsychology” is a variant of ancient panpsychism or, as Jan Assmann calls it, cosmotheism, which was suppressed by the “Mosaic distinction,” the introduction of true and false in things religious. Exponents of this dualism are the supporters of the “Great chain of being” (Lovejoy): Plato, Nicholas of Cusa, and Kant in his refutation of hylozoism. The late Kant, however, comes close to Scheerbart in calling planet Earth an “organic,” though not “living” body. Fechner and, after him, Scheerbart overcome such hesitation. In Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, scrutinized by Bruno Latour, the old intuition of a non-dualistic eco-holism takes on its actual form.
Notes
1 Scheerbart, The Development. All translations are mine.
2 Aristotle, Metaphysics, XII 8, 1074b1 sqq.
3 Plotin, Enneads, IV 4 (28) 32, 1 sqq., I 8 (51), 14 sq.
4 “a primis inchoatisque naturis ad ultimae perfectasque”. Cicero, De natura deorum II, 33. Cf. II, 30 and 32.
5 Lovejoy, The Great Chain, XXII.
6 Laßwitz, Seelen, 50.
7 “Ex se manifestum est infiniti ad finitum proportionem non esse”. Cusanus, De docta ignorantia I 3, n. 9. Similar: Cusanus, De docta ignorantia II 2, n. 102. See http://www.cusanus-portal.de/
8 Cusanus, Sermo I, n. 34; Apologia doctae ignorantiae, n. 27 and 47; De visione Dei 23, n. 101; De pace fidei 1, n. 5.
9 See Hirschberger, Prinzip; regarding also Plotinus, Proclus, Dionysios the Areopagite, Thomas Aquinas.
10 For example, Cusanus, Idiota de mente, n. 106.
11 Assmann, The Price of Monotheism, online Google books.
12 “Un Cosmo-théiste, c’est à dire quelqu’un qui croit que l’univers est Dieu”. Malesherbes, in his edition of Pliny, Naturalis historia. Quoted by Assmann, Moses the Egyptian, 142, 214.
13 Assmann, The Price.
14 Assmann, Moses the Egyptian, 5, 8. Fechner is missing in the English version.
15 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, A 229.
16 Kant, Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft (Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, 1786; AA 4:544).
17 Kant, Über den Gebrauch teleologischer Prinzipien in der Philosophie (On the Use of Teleological Principles in Philosophy, 1788; AA 8:179 and 181).
18 AA 8:179 sq. Kant presents this as a quote, but in fact it is a paraphrase. See Santozki, Bedeutung, 489 sqq.
19 “ein gewagtes Abenteuer der Vernunft” (Critique of the Power of Judgment, § 80, AA 5:419 and note). The expression “Mutterschooß (des Meeres)” occurs Critique of the Power of Judgment, § 82 (AA 5:428).
20 Wahsner, “Das Mechanismus-Organismus-Problem”, 184.
21 Bernhard Fritscher, “An der Grenze”, 255.
22 Scheerbart, letter to Alfred Kubin, 23 September 1906; in Scheerbart, 70 Trillionen, 323. Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus und Kritik seiner Bedeutung in der Gegenwart, 1866, 21873/75, 2 vols., many reprints.
23 Scheerbart, “Das Ende des Individualismus. Eine kosmopsychologische Betrachtung” (1895; GW 10:257).
24 Scheerbart, The Development, ch. 9 (GW 9:360); Scheerbart, 70 Trillionen, 104, 240.
25 Scheerbart, “Die Phantastik in der Malerei” (1891; GW 10:59).
26 Scheerbart, “Das Mirakel”, in Gesammelte Arbeiten, vol. I, 246.
27 Scheerbart, Münchhausen und Clarissa, 460.
28 Scheerbart, “Die Ästhetik der Phantastik” (1894; GW 10:166).
29 Scheerbart, Münchhausen und Clarissa, 404.
30 See Scheerbart, Du hast mich, 23 sqq., and 88–99.
31 Scheerbart, “Das Universum und die menschliche Philosophie” (1911; GW 10:598 sqq.).
32 Kant repeats here Plato’s dismissal of empiricism. Looking at chora, that third genus besides being and becoming, we start dreaming and claim that everything must necessarily be in a place (en tini tópo) and occupy a certain space (chóran); but what is neither on earth nor somewhere in the sky is nothing at all (Timaeus 52b). See Thiel, “Spuren”.
33 Scheerbart, “Kant – Raum – Zeit” (1911; GW 10:621 sqq.).
34 Scheerbart, “Das Ende des Individualismus” (GW 10:255).
35 Scheerbart, letter to Kubin, 23 September 1906. In Scheerbart, 70 Trillionen, 323.
36 Scheerbart, “Die Entstehung unsres Sonnensystems” (1911; GW 10:583).
37 Scheerbart, “Der Halleysche Komet” (1909; GW 7:178).
38 Scheerbart, Münchhausen und Clarissa, 477.
39 Scheerbart, “Der neunte Jupitermond” (1911; GW 10:608, cf. 448 and 450). “Jupiter moon VIII,” found by Philibert Jacques Melotte, is called Pasiphae since 1975.
40 Scheerbart, “Die Nebulartheorie” (1909; GW 10:421 and 425).
41 See my introduction in Scheerbart, Du hast mich, 26 sqq.
42 Scheerbart, “Autobiographical Sketch (6th July 1904)”, in Scheerbart, 70 Trillionen, 511.
43 “Die Pflanze kann es dich lehren: Was sie willenlos ist, sei du es wollend”. Schiller, “Das Höchste” (1795).
44 See Fechner, Nanna, ch. 3.
45 Ingensiep, Geschichte, 370.
46 Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe, 219.
47 Fechner, Zend-Avesta, preface, III sq.
48 Scheerbart, letter to Kubin, 23 September 1906, in Scheerbart, 70 Trillionen, 324.
49 Scheerbart, “Das Ende des Individualismus” (GW 10:256).
50 Fechner, Die Tagesansicht, 29 sq.
51 Karl Popper, who wanted to be a Kantian, certified panpsychism to be “irrefutable” (Popper, Unended Quest, 278, note 299.) But immediately repenting of his imprudence, he endeavoured to refute it. If everything is always already animate, how should a new mental quality arise? Panpsychism allows neither evolution, emergence nor memory (Popper and Eccles, The Self, 53 sqq. and 69).
52 Fechner, Zend-Avesta, 179.
53 Fechner, Zend-Avesta, 283.
54 Paulsen, Introduction to Philosophy, 87–110.
55 Under the pseudonym “Dr. Mises”: Beweis, daß der Mond aus Jodine bestehe (1821), Vergleichende Anatomie der Engel (1825), Das Wünschelmännchen (1882).
56 Fechner, Zend-Avesta, 272.
57 Laßwitz, Seelen, 64.
58 Scheerbart, “Das Ende des Individualismus” (GW 10:255; first phrase in italics in the original).
59 Scheerbart, Ich liebe Dich!, 290, 212, 253.
60 Scheerbart, “Das kosmische Theater” (1912); Scheerbart, Gesammelte Arbeiten, vol. 2, 156.
61 Nietzsche, Thus spoke Zarathustra, II, Of great events.
62 Dürrenmatt, “Der Meteor. Eine Komödie in zwei Akten” (1978; Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, 407). See Thiel, Scheermatt.
63 Scheerbart, Die große Revolution, 39 sq.
64 Scheerbart, “Das Innere der Sterne” (1910; GW 7:257).
65 Hopkins, in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1839, 1840 and 1842; Thomson, “On the Rigidity of Earth”, ibid., 1863.
66 Scheerbart, Die Seeschlange. Ein See-Roman (1901; DH 264).
67 Scheerbart, Das Perpetuum mobile. Die Geschichte einer Erfindung (1910; GW 9:396).
68 Scheerbart, Glasarchitektur, ch. 92; DH 457 and 442.
69 Scheerbart, Ich liebe Dich!, 225.
70 Scheerbart, “Geschwindigkeit ist keine Hexerei. Eine ‘moderne’ Kindergeschichte” (1910; Du hast mich, 189).
71 Scheerbart, Glasarchitektur, ch. 18.
72 Promotional card for Bruno Taut’s Glass House, Werkbund Exhibition, Cologne, 1914. In Scheerbart, 70 Trillionen, 465. See also Scheerbart, Glasarchitektur, ch. 19, 20, 66.
73 Dürrenmatt, Turmbau (1990; Gesammelte Werke, vol. 6, 395 sq.).
74 Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia, XVI, 8.
75 Lovelock, The Ages of Gaia, XIX, Hutton, Theory of the Earth, 2 vols, 10 sq., 1788.
76 Ibid., 9 sq. The phrase is handed down by Korolenko’s cousin Wladimir I. Wernadski (1863–1945).
77 Ibid., 91, 103, 216.
78 Scheerbart, Die große Revolution, 7.
79 Latour, Facing Gaia, see index.
80 Latour, Facing Gaia, see index (s.v. Assmann, esp. 154 sqq., and s.v. counter-religion), 101 (Great Chain), 96, 283 (space ship), 134.
81 Scheerbart, Ich liebe Dich!, 111.
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Detlef Thiel
Detlef Thiel, free philosopher at Wiesbaden, Germany, has held lectureships in philosophy at Trier University, Hochschule Rhein Main Wiesbaden. He is the editor of the Collected Works of Salomo Friedlaender/Mynona (38 vols so far). Thiel has written books on Jacques Derrida (1990), Plato (1993), Maßnahmen des Erscheinens. Friedlaender/Mynona im Gespräch mit Schelling, Husserl, Benjamin und Derrida (2012). He edited Scheerbart: Du hast mich also totgeschossen? Unbekannte Texte und Materialien (2021).