Johann Georg Hamann
| Johann Georg Hamann | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
27 August 1730 Königsberg, Kingdom of Prussia |
| Died | 21 June 1788 (aged 57) Münster, Prince-Bishopric of Münster |
| Alma mater |
University of Königsberg (1746–1751/52; no degree) |
| Era | 18th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School |
Counter-Enlightenment Sturm und Drang |
|
Main interests
|
Philosophy of language, epistemology, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, philosophy of history, political philosophy |
|
Notable ideas
|
"Reason is language" ("Vernunft ist Sprache") |
Johann Georg Hamann (German: [ˈhaːman]; 27 August 1730 – 21 June 1788) was a German philosopher, whose work was used by his student J. G. Herder as a main support of the Sturm und Drang movement, and associated by historian of ideas Isaiah Berlin with the Counter-Enlightenment. However, recent scholarship such as that by theologian Oswald Bayer places Hamann into a more nebulous category of theologian and philologist; he views him as less the proto-Romantic that Herder presented, and more a premodern-postmodern thinker who brought the consequences of Lutheran theology to bear upon the burgeoning Enlightenment and especially in reaction to Kant.Goethe and Kierkegaard were among those who considered him to be the finest mind of his time.
Hamann was born on 27 August 1730 in Königsberg. He was destined for the pulpit, but became a clerk in a mercantile house and afterward held many small public offices, devoting his leisure to intense study. His first publication was a study in political economy about a dispute on nobility and trade. He wrote under the nom de plume of “the Magus of the North” (German: Magus im Norden). His translation of David Hume into German is considered by most scholars as the one that Hamann's friend, Immanuel Kant, had read and referred to as inspiration for awakening from "dogmatic slumber". Hamann and Kant held each other in mutual respect, although Hamann once declined an invitation by Kant to co-write a physics textbook for children.
His distrust of autonomous, disembodied reason and the Enlightenment ("I look upon logical proofs the way a well-bred girl looks upon a love letter" was one of his many witticisms) led him to conclude that faith in God was the only solution to the vexing problems of philosophy. His most notable contributions to philosophy were his thoughts on language, which have often been considered as a forerunner to the linguistic turn in postmodern philosophy and also Wittgenstein's philosophy. He famously said that "Reason is language" ("Vernunft ist Sprache").
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