Liu Senlin: A Critique of Affirmative Philosophy: Feuerbach and Marx
Feuerbach's article "Critique of Positive Philosophy," published in 1838, has received very little attention from the academic community in the past. Yet, it was the first essay by a member of the Young Hegelians [1] to comment on the "positive philosophy" of the late Schelling. Considering that the late Schelling criticized all philosophy from Kant to Hegel as "negative philosophy"—arguing it had not yet transitioned to a "positive philosophy" that emphasizes sensibility, experience, becoming, and reality—and that the Young Hegelians later generally came to agree with this critique, this essay possesses unique value. Furthermore, Feuerbach later used terms like the "candid philosophy of sensibility" and the "new and sole positive philosophy" (Feuerbach, 1975b, S. 302, 240) to describe his own philosophy and characterize the philosophy of the future. This work also exerted a positive and constructive influence on Marx and Engels; notably, in The German Ideology, they spoke very highly of it, claiming it had "unmasked all the mysteries of Bruno Bauer's 'self-consciousness'" (Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 3, p. 92 [2]). Whether in terms of the continuity of intellectual history and its role in precipitating Feuerbach’s own ideological transition, or its influence on the "philosophy of the future" in Germany at that time (particularly Marxist philosophy), this essay is of immense significance.
I. Positive Philosophy: Two Meanings Between "Philosophy" and "Speculation"
At the beginning of his article, Feuerbach discusses positive philosophy in the sense of exploring the latest developments in German philosophy and pondering the future direction of philosophical development, regarding it as the most recent form of philosophy. Given that Marx and Engels initially evaluated the "new and sole positive philosophy" established by Feuerbach positively before later criticizing it—and were clearly influenced by it—the origins, connotations, and defects of this positive philosophy, as well as its negative and positive impacts on Feuerbach, are well worth tracing carefully.
In two distinct senses, this positive philosophy stands "between philosophy and speculation." The first sense treats "philosophy" as negative and "speculation" as positive; the second treats "philosophy" as positive and "speculation" as negative. Accordingly, there are two different "betweens." Regarding the former, Feuerbach inherited Schelling’s explanation of positive philosophy, believing that "speculation" targets the realm of freedom rather than necessity. As Schelling noted, "The expression 'speculation' is reserved for positive philosophy... speculation refers to looking around at various possibilities through which a specific purpose in science can be achieved" (Schelling, p. 12). Just as Engels once used the relationship between elementary and higher mathematics to describe the relationship between metaphysics and dialectics, Schelling used the same analogy for the relationship between philosophy and speculation, stating that "elementary mathematics cannot be called speculative; speculative mathematics is higher mathematics" (ibid.). The realm associated with "can-be," transcendence, and potentiality is the realm of "speculation"—the world opened up by positive philosophy. Conversely, the realm opposed to "speculation" is the world of ideas characterized by strict necessity, which is the domain handled by negative "philosophy." Feuerbach used "positive philosophy, or more accurately, speculation" (Feuerbach, 1975a, S. 180) to express his affirmation of the free world of "speculation." In Schelling’s work, this "speculation" is the antithesis of negative philosophy.
Proposing that philosophy should turn from negative to positive philosophy was a major achievement of late Schellingian philosophy. Schelling once expressed the importance of this distinction by stating, "The difference between Hegel and me is minuscule, except for the distinction between negative and positive philosophy" (Schelling, p. 128). In the late Schelling's view, modern philosophy had always proceeded from "reason" to explain all beings, treating "reason," "thought," and "logic" as the highest essence and origin, without asking why what exists is rational rather than irrational, or why there is being rather than nothing. Thus, he revealed the prerequisite that inevitably faces thought: the "unprethinkability of being" (unvordenkliches Sein). Through this, the positivity [3] of this prerequisite gained affirmation. A new philosophy was born—one that does not critique positivity starting from reason and logic or fit all beings into a predetermined and perfect system of reason and logic, but rather affirms and emphasizes the independent status and value of positive existence, providing an explanation of the world based on sensibility, becoming, and emotion, which is then elevated to reason. This philosophy, known as positive Philosophie, was previously translated into Chinese as "positivist philosophy" (shizheng zhexue), but scholars now prefer "positive philosophy" (kending zhexue) or "posited philosophy" (shiding zhexue); in this article, we adopt the translation "positive philosophy."
It became a universal demand across the natural sciences, social sciences, and even the humanities that one must not merely commit to rational deduction, analysis, and proof, but must further ground oneself in the level of positivity. This could be called a new demand of the zeitgeist (see Liu Shilin, 2024b). Late Schelling did not start from the natural or social sciences but instead presented the priority of positivity exclusively in the realms of religion, myth, and art to construct his positive philosophy. While philosophically novel, its heavy binding to religion and myth clearly hindered its legitimate dissemination and acceptance. Auguste Comte’s contemporary construction of "positivism" (philosophie positive) in France, while philosophically riddled with gaps and unable to withstand scrutiny, exerted a far greater influence. Consequently, when later generations spoke of "positive philosophy," they mostly associated it with Comte. As Xian Gang pointed out: "Schelling's own explanation of that positive 'unprethinkable being'—for instance, the act of God freely creating the world as a 'fact' (Tatsache) in the highest sense—and the 'positive philosophy' he proposed on this basis were not widely accepted outside of a few Christian theologians. Conversely, however, his critique of pure rationalist philosophy or 'negative philosophy' became extremely popular" (Xian Gang, p. 168). Feuerbach’s commentary on Schelling’s positive philosophy also struggled with the realm of religion and myth and the relationship between philosophy and religion.
As can be seen from the article's subtitle—"On the Essence and Significance of Speculative Philosophy and Theology in the Present Age, with Particular Reference to the Philosophy of Religion: A Special Introduction to Philosophy and Speculative Theology"—Feuerbach's focus in this essay remains the relationship between speculative philosophy and theology. This was not only the crux of Feuerbach’s critique of the late Schelling but also a key point in Schelling’s critique of Hegel and in the unfolding of Schelling’s own positive philosophy. Hegel viewed philosophy and religion from a rationalist perspective, holding that the object of both is the so-called "absolute essence" of the world: "This absolute essence is, generally speaking, independently existing reason, the universal concrete substance, the spirit that is objectively aware of its own origin... religion must be confirmed and recognized as rational. For religion is the work of reason’s own revelation, the highest and most rational work of reason" (Hegel, p. 63). That the Absolute constitutes the object of both philosophy and religion was also Schelling's view. However, Schelling’s interpretation of reason was different; reason was intrinsically related not only to necessity but also to possibility. Immediate reality, as "unprethinkable being," precedes reason and constitutes the starting point and focus of positive philosophy. Yet, because positive philosophy is not a replacement for negative philosophy but merely a supplement, refinement, and advancement, negative philosophy still pursues the Absolute and the ultimate origin, still watching and waiting for absolute perfection.
Despite criticizing Hegel for his overly rationalist view of the relationship between philosophy and theology and attempting to give religion and myth a more "positive" explanation, Schelling remained committed throughout to the "eternal alliance between philosophy and religion." This clearly dissatisfied Feuerbach, who sought to transform theology into anthropology. Driven by the emphasis on positive factors found in French materialism, the achievements of the natural sciences, and religious experience, Feuerbach found in late Schelling’s positive philosophy further momentum toward a thought of positivity and reality. Setting aside the limitations of negative philosophy and proceeding directly along the path of affirming the priority and foundational status of positive, sensible existence within the whole of philosophy (and not just "positive philosophy") appealed to Feuerbach. It accelerated his ideological transition, as he was constantly searching for intellectual resources that could reduce theology to anthropology and God to man.
In "Critique of Positive Philosophy," influenced by the late Schelling’s emphasis on principles of positive philosophy such as sensibility and becoming, Feuerbach pays close attention to the contrast between God as sensible and God as rational. He criticizes the position that discusses God based on the universality of reason, emphasizing that "God thinks everything by thinking Himself, but He does not think everything in its decomposed plurality and individuality—otherwise, God's knowledge itself would be sensible, the knowledge of something external to another—but thinks everything in its universal Idea, in which the sensible and the multiple are discarded" (Feuerbach, 1975a, S. 196). Feuerbach reduces God to man by means of reducing the universal and general to difference and multiplicity, in order to clearly expose that "the speculation on the absolute essence is nothing but the speculation on its own subjectivity" (ibid., S. 197).
Benefiting from positive philosophy's focus on the principle of sensibility and positive existence, Feuerbach perceived a possible new philosophical tendency—one different from a "positive philosophy" that remained ultimately subordinate to "negative philosophy." A positive philosophy still subordinate to negative philosophy remains, in the end, traditional speculative philosophy. The new positive philosophy that can break free from the constraints of negative philosophy is the "philosophy" of the future that Feuerbach anticipates. This is the second sense of "philosophy" versus "speculation." Here, "philosophy" refers to the new philosophy with future development prospects, which further critiques and transcends speculative philosophy. The relationship between this new "philosophy" and speculative philosophy creates the second space "between philosophy and speculation" in this text. This space has more developmental potential than the first and is a more hopeful space. Regarding this, Feuerbach emphasizes that "philosophy" reveals the truth and thus calmly discloses things that may be unpleasant to look at or hear but are very real; whereas "speculation" often subjectively imagines beautiful, comforting things that are actually unrealistic illusions—a form of self-deception. Although "speculation" implies a world of freedom and possibility, first, the investigation of this world still fundamentally belongs to the investigation of the world of the necessity of the Idea (i.e., positive philosophy is subordinate to negative philosophy); and second, positive philosophy, following the critique of rationalist philosophy, moves toward an arbitrary freedom based on imagination that deviates from reason, becoming "a philosophy of absolute irony (absoluten Willkür), which defies all laws of thought and recklessly connects the most contradictory things" (ibid., S. 188). Thus, "speculation" approaches "arbitrariness" through "freedom," and the positive philosophy of "speculation" moves toward the world of the "poet" in the Platonic sense. Classifying the speculator and the poet as the same kind is a new insight expressed by Feuerbach in more than one place in this article. Plato once regarded traditional philosophers as calm and sober, while poets were seen as drunken and non-sober. Since traditional philosophers are similar to poets, traditional speculative philosophy is non-sober, losing the qualification and capacity for sobriety that Plato endowed. By re-attributing "sobriety" to the "positive philosophy" that has broken free from speculative philosophy, Feuerbach affirms and anticipates another kind of new positive philosophy distinct from the traditional speculative variety.
II. "The New and Sole Positive Philosophy": Marx's Affirmation
Although Feuerbach argues at the very beginning of the article that...
"Positive philosophy, or more precisely, speculation" (ibid., S.180). Feuerbach classifies positive philosophy as belonging to the realm of speculation, yet positive philosophy has still not broken free from negative philosophy; it continues to pursue the Absolute, God, and "absolute self-grounding." The new philosophy that breaks free from negative philosophy—no longer pursuing the Absolute, God, and "absolute self-grounding"—should be one that emphasizes existence as sensuousness, reality, and emotion. It should reduce the Absolute to the sensuous finite, allowing the absolute and the universal to be immanent within the finite, and letting sensuousness and the finite replace the status of the traditional Absolute. This is roughly what Feuerbach expected as the "new and unique positive philosophy." Schelling’s positive philosophy was merely a further supplement, refinement, and advancement of negative philosophy; in the final analysis, it remained subordinate to negative philosophy. For the late Schelling, the notion that "what was prior in purely rationalist philosophy becomes the posterior in positive philosophy" (Schelling, p. 142) is applicable only to positive philosophy itself and cannot overthrow or replace negative philosophy. That is to say, negative philosophy provides the foundation for positive philosophy and assigns its tasks, but the reverse is not true. Therefore, positive philosophy cannot replace negative philosophy but must take it as its root; "without corresponding progress in negative philosophy, positive philosophy could not be discovered or developed." Consequently, positive philosophy and negative philosophy are not two separate philosophies but rather "two aspects of a unique philosophy, and this unique philosophy exists within two different but necessarily co-belonging philosophical sciences" (ibid., pp. 139, 144). If positive philosophy does not constitute the whole of the late Schelling’s philosophy, and the starting point of positive philosophy is not the starting point of his entire philosophy, then Feuerbach was clearly dissatisfied with this Schellingian positive philosophy. In this essay, he merely stated his position and had not yet specifically expanded upon the construction of an "honest, sensuous philosophy" or a "new and unique positive philosophy." The "philosophy of sensuousness" of the late Schelling appeared evasive and not "honest" because it existed under the shadow of negative philosophy; because it was restrained by and ultimately subordinate to negative philosophy, it was not "unique," and compared to a more advanced philosophy, it would no longer be "new." Only a positive philosophy that breaks free from the constraints of negative philosophy and sets out entirely from sensuousness, nature, and becoming can be truly "newer," "unique," and "honest." Although this meaning was not yet sufficiently explicit in the Critique of Positive Philosophy, the basic stance was already there. At the end of the essay, Feuerbach proposed a new "philosophy" in opposition to "speculation": "Philosophy should become free and independent, but also simple and natural. The simplest intuition [4] and ground are the true intuition and ground... German speculative philosophy should discard the qualifier 'speculative' and in the future directly become and call itself philosophy—a philosophy without any qualification or modification. Speculation is a drunken philosophy. Therefore, philosophy should become sober again. Thus, philosophy is to the spirit what clean spring water is to the body" (Feuerbach, 1975a, S.204-205). Schellingian positive philosophy emphasized freedom and action but was not independent, and certainly not simple enough. A speculative philosophy that lacks simplicity and intuition is drunken; the "philosophy" that "should become sober again" is certainly a new philosophy distinct from speculative philosophy. Clearly, Feuerbach hoped that the "new and unique positive philosophy" would thoroughly break free from the limitations of negative philosophy.
It appears that the reason there are two different senses of "philosophy" and "speculation" is that Feuerbach was dissatisfied with Schelling's positive philosophy assigning a positive meaning to "speculation," and he felt the necessity to further develop and transform it. From this, Feuerbach’s so-called "philosophy" in opposition to speculation is the "honest, sensuous philosophy" or the "new and unique positive philosophy" that results from the further transformation of Schelling’s positive philosophy. This new philosophy ought to more thoroughly implement the principles of sensuousness, becoming, and experience emphasized by positive philosophy, ensuring that positive philosophy is no longer subordinate to negative philosophy—that is, it requires a further transformation and advancement of Schelling’s positive philosophy. It is evident that Feuerbach’s attitude toward Schelling’s positive philosophy consisted of both affirmation and expectation, as well as dissatisfaction and criticism. What he affirmed was the critique of speculative philosophy contained within it, its supplementation of such philosophy, and the gestation of a new philosophy distinct from speculation; what he expected was for this immature new philosophy to continue to be refined and advanced; what he criticized was that this philosophy still bore the heavy colors of traditional speculative philosophy, had not yet truly emerged from it, remained subordinate to it, still clung to a unity of philosophy and religion, and remained confined to the realms of religion and mythology, emphasizing positivity [5] without further expansion.
We know that Marx and Engels later inherited the view in The Holy Family that "speculation is a drunken philosophy; therefore, philosophy should become sober again," emphasizing that "men oppose philosophy to metaphysics, just as Feuerbach, in his first resolute attack on Hegel, opposed sober philosophy to drunken speculation" (Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 2, p. 159). Considering that shortly thereafter in The German Ideology, Marx and Engels greatly praised Feuerbach’s Critique of Positive Philosophy and accused Bruno Bauer of "jumping straight from Feuerbach’s works on Leibniz and Bayle to The Essence of Christianity," intentionally skipping this essay—an "opportune" omission because "Feuerbach, in this essay, at a time when Saint Bruno was still speculating on the Immaculate Conception, had already revealed the whole mystery of 'self-consciousness' in opposition to the positive representatives of 'substance'" (Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 3, p. 92)—it can be said that this evaluation is very high. We thereby conclude that the essay referred to in The Holy Family as "Feuerbach’s first resolute attack on Hegel" is indeed this Critique of Positive Philosophy, rather than the Critique of Hegelian Philosophy published the following year.
The reasons are as follows: First, in the Critique of Positive Philosophy, Feuerbach had already pointed toward the position of constructing a new positive philosophy distinct from the late Schelling’s positive philosophy. Second, the phrase "oppose sober philosophy to drunken speculation" was only ever used by Feuerbach in the Critique of Positive Philosophy; it does not explicitly appear in the Critique of Hegelian Philosophy published the next year. In the Critique of Hegelian Philosophy, there is only one occasion where sobriety and drunkenness are mentioned: Feuerbach notes that someone applied Aristotle’s comment on Anaxagoras to Hegel, saying "he seemed like the only sober man among a crowd of drunkards in the philosophy of nature" (Feuerbach, 1984a, p. 75). This means that Hegelian philosophy possessed a sense of sobriety relative to the theological view of nature (such as that of Böhme); but it would not necessarily possess such a meaning relative to the late Schelling’s positive philosophy. That is to say, the Critique of Hegelian Philosophy emphasizes the sobriety of Hegel’s speculative philosophy clearly not to critique speculative (negative) philosophy, but to commend it. Compared to the intent of critiquing the inadequacy of the late Schelling’s positive philosophy in the Critique of Positive Philosophy, this was clearly a lower-level assessment. After all, Hegel’s sobriety relative to Böhme cannot be rated too highly, as it merely replaced theosophical expression with philosophical expression without fundamental improvement in substance. As Schelling pointed out, the "only difference between the two is that in Böhme, this pantheistic quality was something primordial, truly sustained by a grand intuition, whereas in Hegel, these pantheistic qualities are linked with philosophy" (Schelling, p. 176). In the Critique of Hegelian Philosophy, when discussing the difference between Schelling and Hegel, Feuerbach says that Schelling proposed the unity of the subjective and objective and set it as the pinnacle of philosophy, while "Hegel only formally placed it in its correct position"; in reality, "he treated what was extremely dubious upon closer inspection as true, treating the secondary as primary, while either ignoring the truly primary or discarding it as subordinate; he proved what was individually and relatively rational as being rational in and for itself" (Feuerbach, 1984a, p. 77). This is consistent with Feuerbach’s judgment that "Hegel’s philosophy is the pinnacle of the speculative system of philosophy" (ibid., p. 60), while the late Schelling’s philosophy, though still speculative, reached "its scientific final completion in that system of 'immanence of action' [6] awaiting maturation" (Feuerbach, 1975a, S.180). Hegelian speculative philosophy was more abstract and "speculative" than the late Schelling's philosophy—which reached "scientific final completion" within the scope of speculative philosophy by further integrating more sensuous and positive factors to dilute its speculativeness—and was thus further away from the new philosophy Feuerbach expected. Feuerbach’s intention to use the late Schelling to criticize Hegel is very obvious. In this light, relative to the late Schelling, Hegelian philosophy possessed no sobriety whatsoever. Consequently, the "first" attack mentioned by Marx and Engels as "Feuerbach’s first resolute attack on Hegel" cannot refer to the Critique of Hegelian Philosophy, which praised Hegel as soberer than Böhme, but can only refer to the Critique of Positive Philosophy, which affirmed the late Schelling’s use of positive philosophy to critique Hegel’s negative philosophy while noting that positive philosophy had not yet been fully liberated from negative philosophy—and that only by completing this liberation could sober philosophy be opposed to drunken speculation. The logical thread here is clear: speculative (negative) philosophy was more sober than Böhme’s theology; the late Schelling’s positive philosophy was more sober than Hegel’s speculative philosophy; and the "new and unique positive philosophy" Feuerbach longed for, freed from the constraints of negative philosophy, was even more sober than Schelling’s positive philosophy. Of course, Marx later further revealed that Feuerbach’s "new and unique positive philosophy" was still not sober enough, and Stirner, who followed Feuerbach’s path but elevated sensuous "thisness" [7] to the heavens, was even less sober. While Stirner did not discard the standpoint of the philosophy of subjectivity, a subjectivity lacking the support of universality (i.e., the principle of negative philosophy) suffered from a severe lack of foundation and would inevitably fall into a more troublesome nihilism. The failures of Feuerbach and Stirner remind us that the relationship between positive and negative philosophy—the relationship between reason and existence, and between metaphysics and positivity—this key issue of the Schelling-Hegel debate is extremely important. Neither Feuerbach nor Stirner could handle it properly. Marxist philosophy was born precisely through an innovative treatment of this key problem.
III. The Deficiencies and Flaws of the Two Types of Positive Philosophy
In this essay, Critique of Positive Philosophy, Feuerbach repeatedly criticized the Schellingian positive philosophy as being both incomplete and facing danger. This incompleteness is manifested in the failure to construct a new philosophy starting from the principles and spirit promoted by positive philosophy, instead allowing positive philosophy to remain subordinate to negative philosophy. The main danger it faced was a tendency toward subjective arbitrariness.
First, it sought to reconcile religion and philosophy rather than using philosophy to reveal the secrets of religion. "Since positive philosophy attempts to be both religion and philosophy at once: namely, a 'religious philosophy' (as it calls itself), it is neither of the two, neither religion nor philosophy... But precisely because of this attempt, its situation is like that of the 'bourgeois gentleman' [8] in Molière, presenting us with neither a pure citizen nor a true nobleman, but a comical contradiction" (ibid., S.183-184). Positive philosophy, "lacking distinct characteristics," wanted to be both religion and philosophy; it wanted to achieve both the persona of God and the personality of man; it wanted to be both reason and faith; it wanted to be both the Idea and sensuousness. The result was that it became nothing. Clearly, Feuerbach hoped to radicalize positive philosophy toward the direction of reducing reason to sensuousness and reducing theology to anthropology, further revealing that the thinking of God is "nothing but human thinking objectified," and the persona of God is "merely human personality mystified" (Feuerbach, 1975a, S.195, 198).
Second, positive philosophy did not implement the principle of sensuousness to the end. Feuerbach hoped for a positive philosophy based on the reconstruction of philosophy according to the principles of sensuousness, experience, becoming, the body, and nature, rather than restricting them within the traditional framework of reason. Following this thought, in contrast to logic...
Compared with "existence," he emphasizes the sensory "Dasein" [9], asserting that "the certainty of Dasein does not originate from any demonstration; this is simply because Dasein is not a matter of thought, but a matter of sensation. The same holds true for personality. Personality reveals itself to me solely as an object of individual sensation. Love is the knowledge of personality" (ibid., S.181). Even when discussing the personality of God, Feuerbach emphasizes its affective and sensory nature rather than its rationality and transcendence, stressing that "the determinacy of a real, personal essence is not a determinacy of thought, but an affect [Affektionen] of the immediate individuality liberated from thinking. All speculation regarding a personal essence is neither philosophy nor wisdom, but foolish conceit" (ibid., S.182).
It was precisely through the absorption and transformation of the sensory principles contained in Schelling’s positive philosophy that Feuerbach gradually elevated the status of the sensory principle until he defined it as the "principle" [arche]. He admitted that he initially held a low estimation of the "sensory"; it was only in the year following the publication of this article, in "On Philosophy and Christianity," that he emphasized that religion involves not just feeling, but a "principle" distinct from thought. This principle is "sensuousness" [Sinnlichkeit], and "sensuousness is nothing other than the true, non-imaginary, actually existing unity of the material and the spiritual; therefore, for me, sensuousness is reality" (Feuerbach, 1984b, p. 514). He sought to "replace the philosopher's depersonalized, unfeeling rational essence with the rational, real, and sensory human being" (ibid., p. 515). While "sensuousness" held a higher status in the late philosophy of Schelling than in that of Hegel, it was ultimately not a truly fundamental existence, but merely a supplement that perfected rational existence. Only in the later Feuerbach does sensuousness become a self-evident existence that subsists independently of reason. Sensory objects are non-derivative things that rely upon themselves for existence; they are things that require no proof and admit of no doubt, things that affirm and prove themselves, and things directly linked to feeling, suffering, sensation, and love (cf. Li Yuzhang, p. 3).
Third, positive philosophy also faces the danger of lapsing into subjective arbitrariness.
Deviating from or even breaking away from reason leads positive philosophy toward a world of subjectivity or even fantasy. The principles emphasized by positive philosophy—such as sensuousness, experience, becoming, emotion, and desire—are often associated with subjectivity, carrying the risk of moving toward a subjective, illusory world. Feuerbach was quite concerned about this subjective tendency. To guard against this danger, he placed greater emphasis on sensuousness and nature, hoping to restrain and prevent such subjective arbitrariness through reality. Consequently, in an effort to prevent and correct the tendency (seen in Schopenhauer) to understand the "thing-in-itself" as "will" and then "will" as "arbitrariness" [10] (cf. Shang Jie), Feuerbach desperately interpreted "sensuousness" in the direction of nature, intuition, and contemplation. The result was an over-correction: he moved toward excessive contemplation and intuition, toward an alienation from and negation of the interiority of will and action, and toward the loss of the subjective spirit—something for which he was later severely criticized by Marx.
Feuerbach’s critique of positive philosophy catalyzed further results by influencing Marx. Marx, who had studied this "Critique of Positive Philosophy" and understood its spiritual essence, once wrote in a letter to Feuerbach that "Schelling is your anticipated caricature," believing that "Schelling's sincere youthful thought, which in his case remained only a youthful dream, has in your case become truth, reality, and a manly achievement" [11] (Marx and Engels Collected Works, vol. 27, p. 445). Manfred Frank believes that when Marx wrote to invite Feuerbach to pen an article critiquing Schelling, Feuerbach—who had been acquainted with Schelling’s positive philosophy for some time—found it "difficult and delicate." Feuerbach revised his reply to Marx several times, going through three drafts, which fully "reflected Feuerbach's embarrassment at the time: he had quickly excerpted some fragments from the pirated notes of Schelling’s lectures on the 'Philosophy of Revelation' [12] circulated by Paulus, struggled for weeks with Marx’s request, and finally admitted that Marx had made him 'engage in a fierce inner struggle with himself.' Thus, Marx had clearly touched a wound in Feuerbach’s heart: Feuerbach had always tried to show that he was the first to critique Hegel, and that Schelling’s obvious 'seniority' on this point was merely a product of his vainglorious 'fantasy'... Furthermore, Feuerbach could not actually think of a better name to mark his own position than the one Schelling used to characterize his own philosophical quality: 'positive philosophy'" (Frank, S.29). It was Schelling, the proponent of positive philosophy, who was the first to critique Hegelian philosophy; Feuerbach furthered the critique of Hegel on Schelling’s foundation. Moreover, the direction taken after rejecting Hegelian philosophy was a further transformation based on Schelling, even continuing to use Schelling’s term "positive philosophy," merely using modifiers like "new" and "unique" to further regulate, correct, and elevate it.
Even the concept of "nature" [Natur], which Feuerbach held in high esteem, is intrinsically related to the philosophy of nature that Schelling had long emphasized, manifesting as a process of inheritance and absorption as well as stripping away and transformation. To be sure, the ideological sources of Feuerbach’s promotion of sensuousness and nature are manifold: French materialism, the progress of the natural sciences at the time, and the analysis and emphasis on religious experience are all significant factors. However, the intake of relevant ideas from the late Schelling’s philosophical lectures is a source that was insufficiently emphasized in the past. As Frank points out, "Schelling at least recognized that 'nature' and 'actuality' mean the same thing; fundamentally, it is only through the actuality of nature that a philosophical system can grow into something 'more' than a merely logical (i.e., virtual) reality" (ibid., S.42). Feuerbach affirmed Schelling’s concept of nature "precisely as the concept of nature as subject-cum-object, and thus the restoration of the whole of nature" (Feuerbach, 1984a, p. 74). However, Schelling’s attempt to remain neutral between materialism and idealism, and his desire for his philosophy to encompass nature, man, and God, dissatisfied Feuerbach. He sought to strip God away and attribute everything to nature. In his later words, this meant "reducing everything supernatural to nature, and through nature, reducing everything superhuman to man" (ibid., p. 249). He pinned the resolution of all problems on the calm, objectivity, being-in-itself, miracles, and power of nature. Shifting from an appeal to religious miracles to an appeal to the miracles of nature, he believed that "whoever no longer believes in the miracles of nature no longer believes in the miracles of religion. There are no exceptions. The foundation of all miracles is nature." Consequently, he looked to the natural sciences to solve the secrets of religion, even attributing the pursuit of communism to nature, asserting that "nature is the source of the communist way of thinking that opposes the state and law" (Feuerbach, 2025, pp. 68, 66). Ultimately, he focused the object of philosophical reflection solely on the natural world, asserting that "philosophy is the science of the true, whole realm of reality; and the sum of reality is nature (nature in the universal sense)" (Feuerbach, 1984a, p. 84). Thus, in the internal unity of transcendental philosophy and the philosophy of nature, or negative philosophy and positive philosophy found in Schelling, Feuerbach chose to set aside transcendental philosophy in favor of the philosophy of nature, declaring that "the positive significance of Schelling’s philosophy lies only in his philosophy of nature" (Feuerbach, 1984a, p. 74). By the same token, regarding the relationship between negative and positive philosophy, the positive significance of Schelling’s philosophy lay only in his positive philosophy. This attitude of pinning all hope on nature clearly lost the standpoint of the philosophy of subjectivity, which Marx regarded as a major achievement of German Classical Philosophy. From the standpoint of materialism, this was an advance; but from the standpoint of practical materialism, it was a retreat. In terms of the trajectory of Marx's thought, the validity of judging this as "progress" lasted at most until the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Starting from the Theses on Feuerbach, the loss of the subjective philosophical standpoint was explicitly criticized by Marx.
In Feuerbach’s eyes, Schelling’s positive philosophy was full of defects and dangers that required correction and adjustment; in Marx’s eyes, Feuerbach’s positive philosophy was exactly the same. Through Feuerbach's correction of Schelling and Marx's subsequent correction of Feuerbach, the principles of positive philosophy were handled more rationally.
IV. The Critique of Feuerbach’s Critique of Positive Philosophy and Conclusion
The late Schelling sought to unify negative philosophy and positive philosophy, turning reason into a type of creative freedom rather than a system of conceptual deduction, so as to open up a new realm for future philosophy. Positive philosophy was dedicated to liberating philosophy from the Logocentric system of rationalism—where reason was so powerful and mysterious that it stifled sensory reality—allowing reason to become closer to practical possibility and freedom, and making subjectivity more prominent. "Therefore, only by letting reason become the true principle in a primordial state, and letting reason as possibility itself gain its own legitimacy in the face of the unthinkable immediacy [das Unvordenkliche], can it gain final justification in the face of reality. And reason, having gained this justification, will take 'creation' as its fundamental mode of existence—but this is only possible if it is built upon the identity of the alterity of its own dual existence" (Wang Ding, 2024, p. 18). Furthermore, "Schelling’s revelation of the finitude of reason is actually a practical grounding of reason, seeking an historical-temporal-practical basis for the rational system which, in Hegel, could no longer explain its own justification, by revealing the 'other' of reason" (Wang Ding, 2022, p. 105). Feuerbach failed to grasp this. In criticizing and negating the defects of the late Schelling’s positive philosophy, he returned once again to a traditional monistic standpoint by further emphasizing sensuousness and nature, returning to a natural intuition [Anschauung] opposed to concepts. Although he knew that the positive philosophy which criticized the rationalist standpoint constrained necessity and emphasized possibility—and thus inevitably opened up a larger space for an "interiority of action," affirming that "positive philosophy... in Mr. von Schelling, is that system of the 'interiority of action' that remains to be matured" (Feuerbach, 1975a, S.180), and thus possessed more of a subjective spirit than Hegelian speculative philosophy—he nevertheless weakened or even abandoned the subjective standpoint due to his emphasis on positivity and reality. For Marx, only by internally combining the subjective standpoint with the positive [positivist] standpoint, thereby further unifying theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, could a new practical materialism be formed. While Schelling’s philosophy certainly had various flaws, it did at least fuse the philosophy of subjectivity with positive (empirical) philosophy. Although Stirner was too extreme, he rejected all universal essences while emphasizing the unbridled free creation of "the Unique One" [13]; he too was dedicated to a certain combination of subjectivity and reality, and his general direction was at least correct. By contrast, Feuerbach clung to an overly intuitive and simple materialist standpoint, a typical case of "attending to one thing while losing the other": to emphasize positivity, he discarded subjectivity; to emphasize nature, he discarded the initiative of action; to restore the origin of theory, he discarded the practical spirit. For this, he was criticized by Marx.
Closely related to this, Feuerbach’s positive philosophy was dedicated to reducing spirit to the body, the subjective to the objective, and the subject to the object, yet this only possessed significance for theoretical philosophy. When it was said that he cast positive philosophy "into the most fatal light," declaring that "the original of the idol of positive philosophy is man; personality is essentially connected with flesh and blood," or when he sought "an empirical-philosophical or historical-philosophical analysis and dissection of the riddles of Christianity," "unconditionally renouncing all absolute, immaterial, self-satisfied speculation that draws its material from itself," using the bodily senses to process positive materials and derive thoughts rather than conceiving the object from thought—this is what he meant when he said, "In the realm of pure theoretical philosophy, I... consider only realism and materialism in the above sense to be important" (Feuerbach, 1997, pp. 9, 13, 14). However, in his practical philosophy, he still advocated the ideal principles of idealism, possessing full confidence in the future victory of truth and morality. The opposition between Feuerbach’s theoretical and practical philosophy was actually less conducive to unifying the two than Schelling’s positive philosophy. His positive philosophy was both irrational and ineffective, requiring further critique.
Feuerbach, Marx, and Engels all critiqued Schelling’s positive [philosophy]...
(Positive) philosophy, but Feuerbach’s critique began as a philosophical critique and later shifted toward a political critique of Schelling, whereas Marx and Engels began with political critique and later shifted toward philosophical critique (cf. Liu Shilin, 2023, 2024a). However, Feuerbach's critique of positive philosophy clearly contained both affirmations and negations of Schelling’s positive philosophy itself. Moreover, Feuerbach’s affirmation of Schelling's positive philosophy was for a time explicitly affirmed by Marx and Engels, before subsequently becoming a target of their explicit critique. For Marx and Engels, the critique and advancement of Feuerbach’s positive philosophy primarily involved the following points:
First, on the foundation laid by Feuerbach, they further transformed and transcended speculative philosophy according to new requirements and styles, even going so far as to cease using the term "positive philosophy" altogether, preferring "positive science" to designate their new theory. Second, positivity and sensuousness [14] do not possess inherent legitimacy; rather, they may equally possess limitations or even negative qualities—especially if treated in an extremal manner, as Stirner did. To this end, Marx began emphasizing the necessity of a reflective critique of positivity as early as 1844, and fully developed this in The German Ideology. This critique is of equal importance to the critique of speculative philosophy. Third, the appreciation of sensuousness and "becoming" must be predicated on understanding them as "practice" [15]; not just any form of "sensuousness" or "experience" can naturally attain legitimacy and positivity. For Marx and Engels, who were constructing a "real positive science" (Collected Works of Marx and Engels, Vol. 1, p. 526), this contained a corresponding new philosophy that served as a critical Aufhebung [16] not only of "positive philosophy" but also of "negative philosophy." Fourth, sensuousness and rationality, along with positivity and essentiality, complement each other; the key lies in the mechanism of their combination rather than a mechanism of their separation and mutual exclusion. These were feats Feuerbach was unable to achieve, leaving him far behind.
In this sense, Marx and Engels’ critique of the critique of Feuerbach’s positive philosophy was not completed all at once. It was a long-term process, one that involved transcending not only Feuerbach but also Stirner—for Stirner rejected the universal principles of negative philosophy more radically than Feuerbach and further radicalized the principle of the sensuous "immediate present." Even Stirner’s three key concepts—"Nothing" (Nichts), "The Unique One" (Einzige), and "Ownness" (Eigenheit)—were inverted borrowings of three concepts of the same names found in Schelling’s Philosophy of Revelation (cf. Liu Shilin, 2024c). Stirner’s philosophy is a radicalization of the late Schelling’s positive philosophy that goes further than Feuerbach; it is a "positive philosophy" that thoroughly discards the dimensions of universality and essentiality to hold individuality and uniqueness in the highest esteem. Marx and Engels’ reflective critique of Feuerbach and Stirner was, in a sense, a further extension based on the late Schelling’s critique of Hegel. It was a further meditation on the question—posed by Hegel and Schelling—of what constitutes a rational relationship between negative and positive philosophy, rationality and sensuousness or positivity, the Idea and Nature, and metaphysics and experience. Marx and Engels’ handling of the issues posed by Feuerbach and Stirner was also a further treatment and deepening of the issues contested between Hegel and Schelling.
From this, we can draw the following brief conclusions:
First, Feuerbach’s important essay not only reveals a major reason for his ideological shift but also, commendably, integrates the late Schelling into the framework of the ideological transition from Hegel to Marx. This allows the dispute between Hegel and the late Schelling, along with its key issues, to enter the evolutionary lineage from German Classical Philosophy through the Young Hegelians to Marxist philosophy. It thus further links Hegel and the late Schelling with Marx and Engels, constituting a new thread that enriches and perfects the relationship between Marx and German Classical Philosophy. The status and value of this essay in the history of ideas is made even more certain and precious by Marx and Engels’ affirmation of it in The German Ideology.
Second, because Schellingian positive philosophy had still not broken free from negative philosophy, Feuerbach’s Critique of Positive Philosophy criticized not only Schelling’s positive philosophy but also the negative (speculative) philosophy—including Hegel’s—which encompassed and restricted positive philosophy. Feuerbach’s critique thus signaled an anticipation of a "new, uniquely positive philosophy" that had broken free from negative (speculative) philosophy. This was precisely the "Philosophy of the Future" that Feuerbach later sought to construct. Therefore, in a sense, this essay by Feuerbach should not be seen as criticizing only late Schellingian positive philosophy, but rather as a critique of all traditional philosophy. Its critical focus was not so much "positive philosophy" as it was "negative philosophy"; not so much negation as it was the construction of a "new, uniquely positive philosophy." Here, "critique" does not merely mean negation; it also signifies clarification and affirmation, prefiguring the anticipated new construction.
Third, the Kantian Copernican Revolution and the turn from negative to positive philosophy manifested in the late Schelling–Hegel dispute represent two major philosophical shifts or transformations within German Classical Philosophy. Feuerbach’s essay was concerned with how to view this second philosophical shift and its key issues. At that time, Feuerbach still stood on a simple Enlightenment position that squarely opposed theology to philosophy and reason to revelation. In the words of the essay’s editor, "whenever certain problems exceeded the scope of his understanding, he appealed to a 'sacred naivety,' attempting to explain complex philosophical problems through the method of simplification" (Feuerbach, 1975a, p. 362). Despite various flaws and even extreme biases, Hegel, the late Schelling, and Stirner all maintained a clear position of subjectivity while dealing with positive existence in their own ways; in a sense, this was a certain combination of the subjective and positive positions. While Feuerbach certainly emphasized the positive position more than they did, he discarded the precious position of subjectivity, failing to absorb the achievements of the philosophy of subjectivity. The failures of Feuerbach and Stirner prompted Marx and Engels to more actively absorb the positive achievements of these two philosophical transformations in German Classical Philosophy. Marxist philosophy was born precisely out of the creative transformation and innovative development of the achievements of these two transformations.
Marx and Engels later used the profundity of Hegel to contrast with the shallowness of Feuerbach. This profound "Hegel" was the Hegel who had been criticized by Schelling, and thus contained elements of the late Schelling within him. Throughout their lives, Marx and Engels were committed to breaking through the "form" of Hegelian philosophy to reveal its deep and rich content; this was an inheritance and transcendence of the work of criticizing Hegel initiated by the late Schelling. The Hegel with whom Marx engaged in dialogue throughout his life was the Hegel who had been criticized by the late Schelling and Feuerbach. Marx’s dialogue with Hegel encompasses the dialogues of Schelling and Feuerbach with Hegel; it is a critical extension and elevation of those latter two dialogues, as well as a correction of their failures. Through the critique of Feuerbach, Marx and Engels explored a new way to fuse the principles emphasized by positive philosophy—such as sensuousness, experience, emotion, and desire—with the universal essences and necessary laws emphasized by negative philosophy, thereby founding the new theory of historical materialism.