7 - “The Fire of Criticism”: Revolutionary Dynamics, 1843–1848

Summary

The critical judgement that Bauer effects upon the present entails determining the relation of consciousness to the moments of its historical development. The essential issues are to grasp the historical forms of alienated spirit, and to recognise and distinguish the phases of their overcoming, of which the most significant are the Enlightenment and the post-Hegelian period. While describing a historical sequence, these phases also represent a logical progression, a shift from the infinite to the apodeictic judgement. These questions are addressed in a text that Bauer composed in winter 1842–43, Das entdeckte Christenthum. The censors confiscated this book directly from the publishing house, and only a few copies are known to have circulated. It is among the many merits of Ernst Barnikol's research to have discovered a copy of this text, long believed lost. The opposition of self-consciousness to the constituted forms of religious alienation is Bauer's central theme. Continuing his presentation of religion and philosophy as antinomies, Bauer draws the consequences of his earlier pronouncements on a range of subjects, including the materialist current of the Enlightenment in relation to his own thought.

For Bauer, religious consciousness is the static, internally antagonistic expression of particularity, which freezes the historical movement. It perpetuates the opposition of particular against particular by occluding the true universality of the species. Each religious party claims for itself the status of the universal, of the final and authentic essence of humankind.