feuerbach's religious consciousness in the space of hyperreality

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Cover Page Copenhagen University Philosophy Department Date: _____January 2, 2014___________________ Name: ____Kristijonas Voveris_____________________________ Student ID: _____gpv895______________________ Phone: ________50205898___________________ Email: [email protected]_____________________________ Teacher’s name: _____Martin PasgaardWesterman________________________ BALevel __ Master _x_ Module: __________2__________________________ Course: _________4761__ E13________________________ Examination form (See Curriculum) _______B______________________________________ Number of Standard pages: ___18_____ Number of Keystrokes: ____45,009_______ http://philosophy.ku.dk/curriculum/

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Page 1: Feuerbach's Religious Consciousness in the Space of Hyperreality

             Cover  Page                                      Copenhagen  University                              Philosophy  Department    Date:      _____January  2,  2014___________________    Name:  ____Kristijonas  Voveris_____________________________    Student  ID:  _____gpv895______________________    Phone:  ________50205898___________________    E-­‐mail:  [email protected]_____________________________    Teacher’s  name:  _____Martin  Pasgaard-­‐Westerman________________________    BA-­‐Level                              __  Master                                        _x_    Module:  __________2__________________________    Course:  _________4761__-­‐  E13________________________    Examination  form  (See  Curriculum)  _______B______________________________________    Number  of  Standard  pages:  ___18_____    Number  of  Keystrokes:  ____45,009_______    http://philosophy.ku.dk/curriculum/            

Page 2: Feuerbach's Religious Consciousness in the Space of Hyperreality

Feuerbach’s  Projected  Consciousness  as  a  Form  of  Simulation  

 

 

Feuerbach’s  contribution  to  philosophy  is  remembered  as  a  pivotal  point  for  the  

development  of  materialism  as  well  as  providing  a  basis  for  atheism.  The  analysis  of  

religious  consciousness  was  a  central  vehicle  for  Feuerbach’s  approach  to  

philosophy:  his  criticism  of  the  history  of  philosophy,  as  well  as  serving  as  a  point  of  

departure  with  respect  to  Hegel.  While  his  impact  within  Western  and  Continental  

philosophy  may  have  been  absorbed  mostly  through  subsequent  criticisms  by  Marx  

&  Engels  and  Stirner,  the  originality  of  his  philosophy  has  been  only  scarcely  

investigated.    As  a  result,  the  basic  aspects  of  his  theory  of  projection  are  fairly  well  

known,  yet  more  specific  implications  of  his  theory  that  establishes  human  nature  as  

projected  upon  objects  of  material  reality  has  room  for  further  analysis.    

 

Feuerbach  was  a  student  of  Hegel’s,  and  the  development  of  his  philosophical  work  

is  reads  as  a  critical  response  to  the  dominant  figure  in  German  idealism.  It  would  be  

impractical,  therefore,  to  attempt  an  analysis  of  Feuerbach’s  work  without  

addressing  his  relation  to  Hegel  and  the  development  of  spirit,  which  I  will  begin  

this  paper  with,  in  order  to  clarify  the  method  through  which  Feuerbach  developed  

his  philosophy.  Next  I  intend  to  evaluate  the  criticisms  of  his  work  by  Marx  and  

Stirner,  as  these  effectively  constrained  further  study  of  his  work,  and  point  towards  

crucial  areas  of  his  work.  I  find  that  a  common  theme  of  these  two  significant  

criticisms  addresses  the  abstract  content  of  Feuerbach’s  projected  conception  of  

human  nature,  and  I  hope  to  find  a  way  to  reconcile  these  by  taking  an  aesthetic  

approach,  inspired  by  Baudrillard’s  claim  that  all  we  ever  have  is  representations  

“each  competing  for  the  chance  to  stand  in  for  a  Real  that  was  never  present  to  

begin  with.”1  Placing  Feuerbach’s  analysis  of  consciousness  amidst  a  world  where  

symbols  are  exchanged  not  for  meaning,  but  for  other  symbols,  in  which  both  

religion  and  the  concepts  of  human  nature  –  or  the  ‘species  consciousness’  which  he                                                                                                                  1  Baudrillard,  Jean.  Simulations.  New  York  City,  N.Y.,  U.S.A:  Semiotext(e),  Inc,  1983.  22  2  Feuerbach,  Ludwig,  and  Evans  Marian.  The  Essence  of  Chrstianity.  Cambridge:  Cambridge  

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analogously  referred  to  –  can  exist  as  simulations,  would  allow  the  individual  

experiences  of  these  historically  universalizing  forces  to  remain  authentic.  

 

Feuerbach’s  work  has  been  mainly  disseminated  into  the  history  of  philosophy  

through  the  criticisms  by  Marx  and  Stirner.  His  reception  through  these  criticisms  

simultaneously  established  Feuerbach  as  a  significant  figure  in  the  development  of  

continental  philosophy,  while  limiting  his  scope  to  that  of  a  merely  instrumental  

figure  in  the  development  of  humanistic  materialism.  Consequentially,  the  study  of  

Feuerbach’s  work  by  English  scholarship  remains  severely  constricted  by  the  lack  of  

reviewed  translations  of  much  of  his  work  beyond  the  Essence  of  Christianity.  It  is  a  

curious  fact  that  the  latter,  his  unarguably  seminal  work,  only  availed  itself  to  

Anglophone  study  after  being  translated  by  Mary  Anne  Evans,  better  known  to  

readers  by  her  literary  pseudonym  George  Elliott,  in  1854.  The  introduction  of  

Feuerbach’s  work  by  a  literary  figure  rather  than  an  established  academic  may  have  

made  it  unattractive  to  study  in  the  academic  circles,  and  the  dominating  Utilitarian  

and  British  Idealist  revival  schools  of  thought  were  scarcely  interested  in  the  work.  

Despite  the  lack  of  penetration  into  Anglo-­‐Saxon  academia,  what  is  perhaps  the  root  

of  the  largest  shortcoming  in  the  study  of  his  work  is  the  common  way  in  which  

Feuerbach’s  work  is  taught  –  as  a  transitional  figure  into  the  works  of  Marx,  Stirner  

and  other,  more  influential  thinkers.  With  so  much  analysis  of  Feuerbach  presented  

in  relation  to  his  influence  in  shaping  Marx’s  theories,  for  instance,  few  studies  of  

Feuerbach’s  work  for  their  own  sake,  many  areas  of  his  thought  remain  for  the  most  

part,  unanalyzed.  For  instance,  questions  about  the  method  through  which  

Feurbach’s  process  of  the  projection  of  human  nature  functions  are  seemingly  

poorly  analyzed,  and  are  only  sporadically  addressed.  I  hope  to  address  this  by  

introducing  the  analysis  of  Feuerbach’s  projection  theory  as  simulacra.  

 

Inverting  the  Hegelian  Dialectic  

 

Throughout  the  bulk  of  philosophical  tradition  leading  up  to  the  19th  century,  

religion  historically  assumed  a  vertebral  role,  being  involved  in  all  central  aspects,  

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from  the  basis  of  metaphysics  and  epistemology  to  logic,  ethics,  value  theory,  the  

philosophy  of  language,  science  and  so  on.  The  inseparability  of  religion  from  

philosophy  is  punctuated  by  the  fact  that  the  distinct  sub-­‐discipline  of  “the  

philosophy  of  religion”  was  not  explicitly  referred  to  as  such  until  the  17th  century.  

Throughout  much  rationalist  thought,  treatment  of  questions  about  the  possibility  

and  nature  of  God,  his  relation  to  man,  and  God  as  a  basis  for  ethics  is  deeply  

imbedded  in  the  content  of  works  such  as  Descartes’  Meditations.  Hegel’s  work  

allowed  this  course  of  the  history  of  philosophy  to  begin  to  change  by  discussing  

religion  as  a  stage  of  his  diachronic  analysis  of  the  development  of  human  spirit  in  

the  Phenomenology.  The  place  of  religion  with  respect  to  spirit  gradually  progresses  

via  the  dialectical  process,  beginning  from  a  way  of  addressing  the  concern  with  the  

fundamental  and  mainly  ontological  questions  that  drive  philosophy,  eventually  

attaining  a  separation  of  the  self  from  the  divine  through  a  developed  notion  of  self-­‐

consciousness.  In  the  Hegelian  process  of  development  of  Spirit,  religious  

consciousness  is  the  last  stage  before  the  developed  philosophical  consciousness  

surpasses  it  for  the  triumphantly  named  state  of  Absolute  Knowledge.  Despite  the  

omniscience-­‐implying  title,  Hegel  makes  it  clear  that  this  self-­‐realization  of  Spirit  is  

less  of  a  God  like  achievement  of  ultimate  truth  than  a  completely  reflexive  state  of  

self-­‐consciousness,  in  which  spirit  becomes  conscious  not  only  of  itself  but  also  the  

process  through  which  it  attains  this  consciousness.  However  this  overcoming  of  

religion  follows  Hegel’s  dialectical  process  insofar  as  a  synthesis  is  required  to  

produce  the  final  stage,  and  the  philosophical  consciousness  is  manifested  in  fact,  as  

a  form  of  unity  between  religion  and  philosophy.    

 

This  process  of  the  development  of  spirit  begins  with  the  nature  religion  that  is  

manifested  through  natural  phenomena  and  objects  before  progressing  through  the  

thoroughfare  of  representation  into  “art  religion”.  In  this  state,  spirit  understands  

itself  through  religious  consciousness,  but  only  by  means  of  representation,  which  

remains  problematic  for  Hegel.  Since  Hegel’s  project  in  the  Phenomenology  is  to  find  

a  means  of  unifying  philosophy  and  ‘lived’  life,  he  sees  the  represented  self-­‐

consciousness  as  one  that  is  both  made  possible  and  restricted  by  the  

Page 5: Feuerbach's Religious Consciousness in the Space of Hyperreality

representation.  Feuerbach’s  development  of  self-­‐consciousness  follows  that  of  Hegel  

in  the  sense  that  the  religious  consciousness  precedes  philosophical  self-­‐

consciousness  as  the  first,  indirect  self-­‐consciousness  of  man:  “man  first  of  all  sees  

his  nature  as  if  out  of  himself,  before  he  finds  it  in  himself.”2  With  a  focus  on  the  

representational  aspects,  Feuerbach’s  religion  as  objectified  consciousness  can  be  

seen  as  an  extension  and  investigation  of  Hegel’s  “art  religion”  of  representation,  

placing  its  content  into  more  explicitly  materialistic  terms,  and  allowing  religion  to  

be  justifiably  studied  as  an  anthropological  phenomena.  

 

In  his  earlier  writings,  namely  Towards  a  Critique  of  Hegelian  Philosophy,  Feuerbach  

stated  his  methodological  framework  by  declaring  himself  as  a  radical  empiricist,  

and  thus  characterizing  knowledge  as  being  the  immediate  sensuous  intuition  of  

particulars.  From  this  basis  his  critique  of  Hegelian  philosophy  unravels  into  what  

Gregor  describes  as  the  inversion  of  the  Hegelian  dialectic,  and  the  drive  towards  

materialism  that  it  implies  becomes  the  crucial  foundation  for  Marx's  material  

determinism.  3  In  opposition  to  idealism,  Feuerbach  formulates  this  inversion  

accordingly:  “We  must  always  render  the  predicate  the  subject  and  as  subject  the  

object  and  principle  –  thereby  inverting  speculative  philosophy  to  reveal  the  pure,  

unvarnished  truth.”4  The  direct  contention  towards  Hegelianism  here  is  that  Hegel  

took  abstract  predicates  and  reified  them  as  concrete  subjects.  With  respect  to  

religion,  this  is  done  by  taking  the  predicates  of  man,  stripping  them  of  

determinateness  or  categorical  qualification,  and  projecting  them  behind  the  world  

to  become  God.5  Feuerbach’s  central  paradigmatic  shift  is  in  seeing  religion  as  “a  

relation  of  man  to  himself,  or  more  correctly  to  his  own  nature  (i.e.  his  subjective  

                                                                                                               2  Feuerbach,  Ludwig,  and  Evans  Marian.  The  Essence  of  Chrstianity.  Cambridge:  Cambridge  University  Press,  2012;  12  3  Gregor,  James.  "Marx,  Feuerbach  and  the  Reform  of  the  Hegelian  Dialectic."  Science  &  Society.  29.1  (1965):  66-­‐80.  4  Feuerbach  quoted  in  4  Gregor,  James.  "Marx,  Feuerbach  and  the  Reform  of  the  Hegelian  Dialectic."  Science  &  Society.  29.1  (1965)  5  ibid  69  

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nature);  but  a  relation  to  it  viewed  as  a  nature  apart  from  his  own.”6  In  this  sense,  

the  divine  being  becomes  thoroughly  anthropomorphized  into  an  objectification  of  

the  human  being,  and  all  the  attributes  of  the  divine  being  are,  as  a  result  predicated  

from  the  attributes  of  the  human  being.  Through  this  move,  the  characterizations  of  

God  become  accessible  through  a  very  direct  method  of  explication.  The  

sympathetic  character  of  divine  nature  in  relation  to  the  telos  of  man  is  no  longer  a  

mystery,  and  man  is  no  longer  striving  to  attain  the  divine  value,  he  is  instead  

creating  the  values  of  the  divine  in  order  to  attain  consciousness  of  himself.  This  

consciousness,  however,  is  indirect,  and  has  an  inherent  element  of  alienation  in  its  

form.  

 

 Feuerbach’s  radical  move  is  to  see  the  dialectic  as  “a  dialectic  of  consciousness  

rooted  in  the  very  condition  of  material  human  existence”7,  which  consists  of  human  

needs,  interests  and  wants  which  are  inherent  in  the  interdependence  of  human  

beings  with  other  human  beings  and  nature.  Since  the  mechanisms  of  this  dialectic  

are  all  dependent  on  sensible  experience,  the  human  sensibility,  Sinnlichkeit,  is  then  

“an  expression  of  the  material  conditions  of  human  experience.”8  However,  

Feuerbach’s  notion  of  materialism  is  not  so  radical  as  to  require  a  reductionism  to  

the  basic  atomic  level;  reductionism  is  not  part  of  his  agenda  with  respect  to  religion  

or  consciousness.    What  he  is  actively  opposed  to  is  his  perceived  tendency  of  

speculative  philosophy  towards  transforming  the  real,  sensuously  grounded  

attributes  of  mankind  into  transcendent  subjects  which  are  self-­‐subsistent  as  a  

result  of  their  abstracted  conception,  yet  ultimately  vacuous  in  content.9  Both  

theology  and  philosophy  are  potential  victims  of  this  alienating  drive,  and  the  

solution  is  a  deceptively  straightforward  one:  the  requirement  that  the  predicates  

                                                                                                               6  Feuerbach,  Ludwig,  and  Evans  Marian.  The  Essence  of  Chrstianity.  Cambridge:  Cambridge  University  Press,  2012;  14  7  Wartofsky,  Marx  W.  Feuerbach.  Cambridge  England  New  York:  Cambridge  University  Press,  1982.  20  8  ibid  9  Gregor,  James.  "Marx,  Feuerbach  and  the  Reform  of  the  Hegelian  Dialectic."  Science  &  Society.  29.1  (1965):  70  

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that  have  been  exalted  to  self-­‐subsistence  be  ascribed  to  real  subjects.  “Philosophy,”  

he  proposes,  “does  not  rest  on  an  Understanding  per  se,  on  an  absolute,  nameless  

understanding,  belonging  one  knows  not  to  whom,  but  on  the  understanding  of  

man”,  with  the  abstractions  of  Idealism  as  his  target.  “This  philosophy  has  for  its  

principle,  not  the  Absolute  Identity  of  Schelling,  not  the  Absolute  Mind  of  Hegel,  in  

short,  no  abstract,  merely  conceptual  Being,  but  a  real  being,  the  true  Ens  

realissimum  –  man.”10  

 

Once  God  is  established  as  an  entirely  human  concept,  religion  can  be  studied  not  

through  mere  rationalization  but  must  be  traced  through  its  ‘real’  materializations  

throughout  human  history.  The  role  of  religious  representations  -­‐  whether  it  is  in  

oral  tradition,  image,  writing,  or  any  other  tangible  form  –  becomes  more  relevant  to  

gaining  knowledge  about  religion  than  any  attempt  to  access  the  idea  of  divinity  

through  a  purely  rational  process.  Unlike  a  rationalist  conception  of  God  such  as  that  

of  Descartes  –  which  can  be  known  and  accessed  through  deductive  argument  alone  

–  or  the  idealist  project,  which  holds  the  idea  of  God  attainable  by  means  of  a  

constructive  and  synthetic  process  of  self-­‐consciousness,  the  content  of  a  study  of  

God  under  Feuerbach  would  be  the  representations  created  through  religion.  As  a  

result,  the  study  of  religion  becomes  accessible  empirically,  with  anthropological  

analysis  of  its  representations  assuming  the  focal  point.    This  “reduction”  of  religion  

to  anthropology  is  in  fact  a  part  of  Feuerbach’s  larger  task  of  characterizing  

philosophy  as  “nothing  but  the  process  of  human  self-­‐understanding,  as  the  attempt  

at  human  self-­‐knowledge”11.  By  bringing  the  nature  of  philosophy  back  to  a  human  

life  activity,  Feuerbach  hopes  to  demystify  it,  and  recognize  it  for  its  positive,  

anthropological  content.  

 

Feuerbach’s  Anthropological  Project  

                                                                                                               10  Feuerbach,  Ludwig,  and  Evans  Marian.  The  Essence  of  Chrstianity.  Cambridge:  Cambridge  University  Press,  2012;  14  11  Wartofsky,  Marx  W.  Feuerbach.  Cambridge  England  New  York:  Cambridge  University  Press,  1982.  3  

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The  revival  of  interest  in  Feuerbach  (Kamenka,  Wartofsky,  Morris)  seems  to  

capitalize  mostly  on  his  anthropological  approach  towards  philosophy.  The  

anthropological  element  in  his  philosophy  begins  with  a  recognition  of  the  human,  

as  a  natural  subject,  as  both  the  content  and  form  of  philosophy.  Feuerbach  perhaps  

goes  to  an  extreme  with  the  implications  of  this  notion  of  a  natural  philosophy  by  

considering  his  own  work  as  being  a  form  of  natural  science,  more  so  than  

philosophy,  as  he  claimed  to  rely  exclusively  on  sensory  observable  data.12  While  

this  may  be  an  exaggerated  claim,  it  underlines  his  predisposition  as  an  empiricist  

when  it  comes  to  the  origin  of  knowledge.  However,  Feuerbach’s  empirical  

inclination  does  not  in  effect  mean  that  his  goals  were  to  construct  a  system  that  

was  devoid  of  abstraction.  Instead,  in  a  letter  a  peer,  he  declared  that  the  aim  of  his  

method  was  “to  achieve  a  continuous  unification  of  the  noble  with  the  apparently  

common,  of  the  distant  with  the  near-­‐at-­‐hand,  of  the  abstract  with  the  concrete,  of  

the  speculative  with  the  empirical.”13  The  speculative  philosophy  of  Hegel  was  

therefore  missing  an  empirical  element  for  him,  just  as  pure  empiricism  lacks  an  

element  of  speculation.  The  ability  to  see  the  connection  between  the  two  as  real,  

and  not  just  conceptual,  is  inherent  in  the  conception  of  philosophy  as  an  entirely  

human  activity.  The  starting  point  for  Feuerbach’s  philosophy  is  thus  a  very  simple  

statement:  “I  am  a  real,  a  sensuous,  a  material  being;  yes  the  body  in  its  totality  is  

my  Ego,  my  being  itself.”14  The  concern  in  his  work  is  predicated  to  be  first  and  

foremost  the  common  experience  of  mankind;  an  experience  born  of  practical  

activity  that  is  accessible  to  any  human.  

 

Recent  scholarship  has  extended  the  anthropological  analysis  of  philosophy  towards  

Hegel’s  work  as  well.  Lewis  makes  this  move  in  his  exegesis  of  Freedom  and  

Tradition  in  Hegel,  placing  the  development  of  subjective  spirit  in  analogy  with  the  

structure  of  human  development.  With  respect  to  religion,  this  results  in  seeing                                                                                                                  12Kamenka,  Eugene.  The  philosophy  of  Ludwig  Feuerbach.  London:  Routledge  &  K.  Paul,  1970.  94  13  Feuerbach,  quoted  in  Hook,  Sidney.  From  Hegel  to  Marx  :  studies  in  the  intellectual  development  of  Karl  Marx.  New  York:  Columbia  University  Press,  224  14  Feuerbach,  Ludwig,  and  Zawar  Hanfi.  The  fiery  brook  :  selected  writings.  London  New  York:  Verso,  2012.  

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Hegel’s  treatment  of  religion  as  an  attempt  to  reconcile  freedom  and  tradition.  As  a  

part  of  this,  reason  is  understood  as  being  generated  by  traditions  rather  than  being  

an  alternative  to  them,  making  a  study  of  the  human  condition  –  and  thus  a  

anthropologically  grounded  study  –  a  requirement  of  any  philosophy  that  hopes  to  

explain  the  role  of  religion.  Both  reason  and  religious  consciousness  are  examined  in  

the  structurally  same  developmental  fashion  in  Hegel’s  work,  with  a  requirement  of  

this  being  the  identity  of  the  content  of  philosophy  and  religion  –  an  axiom  which  

Feuerbach  later  adopted.  This  anthropological  grounding  is  essential  to  Hegel  due  to  

his  project  of  reconciling  philosophy  with  lived  life,  which  requires  a  basis  upon  

which  philosophy  can  be  applied  into  ethical  and  political  practice.  However,  where  

Hegel  culminates  with  respect  to  religion  is  in  a  requirement  that  religion  must  be  

implicitly  rational  in  order  to  have  this  basis  for  application.  To  him,  this  was  best  

embodied  in  German  Lutheranism,  which  was  the  dominating  religious  paradigm.15  

However,  while  in  structure  Hegel’s  Phenomenology  introduces  an  anthropological  

move  throughout  the  development  of  self-­‐consciousness  and  religion,  in  content  

there  is  a  severe  lack  of  the  real  material  applicability  of  an  approach  that  is  

genuinely  based  on  self-­‐consciousness  as  an  activity  of  human  life.  Where  Hegel  

showed  signs  of  progress  towards  an  anthropologically  grounded  philosophy,  

Feuerbach  saw  the  lack  of  real  material  applications  and  developed  The  Essence  of  

Christianity  as  an  answer  to  these  perceived  shortcomings  in  Hegel’s  thought.    

 

Religion  as  it  appears  

With  religion  established  as  an  entirely  human  activity,  the  basic  and  foremost  

biological  needs  of  the  human  –  food,  water,  air,  sex  –  and  the  more  complex  ones  

arising  from  sustained  fulfilment  of  the  latter  –  love,  social  existence,  creative  

activity,  law  and  hope  –  become  the  content  that  is  represented  in  religion.  The  

Christian  symbols  of  bread  and  wine  –  the  body  and  blood  –  are  in  fact  effigial  forms  

of  the  basic  needs  of  the  human.  This  subsumption  of  the  symbolic  under  human  

nature  serves  as  a  distinct  negation  of  the  traditional  unbridgeable  divide  between                                                                                                                  15  Lewis,  Thomas  A.  Freedom  and  tradition  in  Hegel  :  reconsidering  anthropology,  ethics,  and  religion.  Notre  Dame,  Ind:  University  of  Notre  Dame  Press,  2005.    

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the  divine  and  the  profane  corporeal.  The  symbols  of  the  divine  no  longer  belong  to  

the  divine  realm  but  exist  primarily  as  human  created  entities  with  the  function  of  

signifying  the  extension  human  needs.    

 

The  content  of  religion  and  philosophy  is  the  same  for  Feuerbach,  both  being  the  

human  struggle  towards  self-­‐consciousness,  however  in  religion  the  mode  of  

cognition  is  representational.  As  religion  is  objectified  in  symbolic  objects,  the  

images  of  religion  become  necessary  representations,  as  he  proposes,  “belief  

requires  an  image,  or  it  becomes  a  belief  in  nothing.”16  On  this  basis  I  would  like  to  

move  the  discussion  towards  an  aesthetically  grounded  approach.    

 

I  would  like  to  propose  that  Baudrillard’s  conceptual  work  on  hyper-­‐reality  can  

significantly  expand  the  exegesis  of  Feuerbach’s  objectification  of  human  nature  in  

religion,  particularly  by  giving  the  representations  in  religion  a  conceptually  

essential  role  in  supporting  the  entire  structure  of  religion.  His  work  in  Simulations  

and  Simulacra  explicitly  discusses  religion,  reconstructing  it  under  the  radical  

framework  of  hyper-­‐reality  through  simulacra:  “before  the  simulated  transparency  

of  all  things,  before  the  simulacrum  of  the  materialist  or  idealist  realization  of  the  

world  in  hyperreality  (God  is  not  dead,  he  has  become  hyper-­‐real),  there  is  no  

longer  a  theoretical  or  critical  God  to  recognize  his  own.”17  To  render  this  point  

more  accessible  I  will  first  try  to  explain  his  concept  of  hyperreality,  a  term  which  

Baudrillard  coined  himself.  In  its  most  basic  sense,  it  is  “the  generation  by  models  of  

a  real  without  origin  or  reality.”18  This  is  carried  out  by  means  of  simulacra,  which  

can  function  by  means  of  either  real  material  objects,  or  conceptual  entities,  

however  as  such,  their  essence  is  not  limited  to  their  use  value  or  objective  

condition,  but  instead  contributes  to  the  existence  of  a  simulation  through  means  of  

the  symbolic  order  of  things.  

                                                                                                               16  Wartofsky,  Marx  W.  Feuerbach.  Cambridge  England  New  York:  Cambridge  University  Press,  1982.  231  17  Baudrillard  Simulations  104  18  ibid  1  

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 Religion,  from  a  demystified,  materialistic  point  of  view  satisfies  the  requirements  

of  existence  in  the  sphere  of  hyper-­‐reality,  as  the  origin  of  God  and  the  entire  

structure  of  religion  is  misplaced  within  the  divine  subject  that  is  held  to  be  

ontologically  independent  from  man.  Feuerbach’s  argument  that  the  origin  of  God  is  

in  an  objectified  human  nature  allows  religion  to  be  exposed  as  precisely  this  kind  of  

simulation.  Hyperreality  then  works  similarly  to  this  objectification  in  the  sense  that  

God,  once  unconsciously  objectified  into  an  independent  subject,  becomes  part  of  

the  real  frame  of  existence  of  man,  to  whom  the  divine  provides  an  extension  of  the  

constrained  and  limited  aspects  of  real  man,  the  unmet  needs  of  love  and  feeling.  

But  to  function,  hyperreality  needs  simulacra,  which  are  in  this  case  objects  that  

allow  the  divinity  to  be  simulated  as  existing  independently  from  man;  and  I  would  

like  to  follow  and  expand  Baudrillard’s  argument  that  the  simulacra  of  religion  

consist  of  images.    

 

Perhaps  the  most  direct  image  of  religion  is  the  icon.    Baudrillard  presents  this  idea  

by  musing  in  character:  “I  forbade  that  there  be  any  simulacra  in  the  temples  

because  the  divinity  that  animates  nature  can  never  be  represented.”19  Indeed  it  can,  

he  sharply  retorts,  and  continues  to  argue  this  on  the  basis  of  the  power  of  icons  

that  have  been  historically  used  to  animate  divinity.  While  orthodox  theology  would  

consider  icons  and  religious  images  as  lower-­‐rank  representations  of  Platonically  

ideal  divine  images,  Baudrillard  ascribes  the  value  of  the  icons  through  their  

negation  –  the  iconoclasts.  “One  can  see  that  the  iconoclasts,  whom  one  accuses  of  

disdaining  and  negating  images,  were  those  who  accorded  them  their  true  value,  in  

contrast  to  the  iconolaters  who  only  saw  reflections  in  them  and  were  content  to  

venerate  a  filigree  God.”20  By  negating  the  images  of  religion,  the  iconoclasts  

ascribed  to  them  the  value  that  those  who  revered  them  assumed  for  granted  and  

were  unable  to  discern.  The  very  real  danger  that  iconoclasm  posed  to  Christianity,  

and  the  reaction  to  it  from  the  church  authorities,  especially  those  of  the  Catholic                                                                                                                  19  ibid  5  (in  quotations  in  text)  20  ibid  5  

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church,  were  historically  of  great  significance.  The  power  of  the  image  as  simulacra  

to  the  simulation  of  religion  resonates  with  a  particular  argument  with  respect  to  

the  role  of  the  image,  that  Feuerbach  derives  from  his  central  argument  of  the  

objectified  nature  of  religion.  Namely  he  proposes  that  the  value  of  religious  art,  

music  and  especially  architecture,  is  not  in  dedication  to  the  divine,  but  in  reverence  

to  the  abilities  of  man  to  create  such  an  object.  The  magnificence  and  constructed  

reverence  that  these  objects  attain,  whether  it  is  the  Sistine  Chapel,  St.  Peter’s  

Basilica,  ancient  structures  like  the  Pyramids,  or  even  the  Megachurches  of  

evangelized  America  today,  ultimately  point  back  towards  their  makers  and  those  

who  make  them  possible  through  economic  and  political  means.    

 

Having  begun  to  establish  the  simulating  role  of  religious  art,  I  believe  it  would  be  

illuminating  to  return  to  Hegel’s  concept  of  “art  religion”,  through  a  critical  analysis  

of  the  function  of  religious  representations  as  simulacra.  For  Hegel,  the  

representation  of  gods  through  the  arts  develops  in  a  similarly  diachronic  way,  with  

the  artist  creating  a  statue  or  visual  likeness  of  god  bearing  the  role  of  the  

intermediary  between  God  and  man.  The  limitation  of  this  basic  form  of  

representation  is  the  artist’s  inability  to  remove  themselves  from  the  artwork,  a  

qualification  that  would  require  a  productive  analog  of  the  Kantian  disinterested  

aesthetic  appreciation  that  is  self-­‐contradictory.  The  muteness  of  the  gods  in  

visually  represented  form  is  then  addressed  by  making  them  speak  through  hymns,  

which  Hegel  ascribes  as  a  higher  element  of  representation.  “This  higher  element  is  

Language  –  an  outer  reality  that  is  immediately  self-­‐conscious  existence…  The  god  

therefore  who  has  language  for  the  element  of  his  shape  is  the  work  of  art  that  is  in  

its  own  self  inspired,  that  possesses  immediately  in  its  outer  existence  the  pure  

activity,  which  when  it  existed  as  a  thing,  was  in  contrast  to  it.”21  The  linguistic  

aspect  of  the  hymn  expands  its  ability  to  represent  divinity,  however  the  

representation  of  god  is  present  in  an  impermanent  way,  as  opposed  to  the  

permanent  nature  of  the  statue,  and  therefore  a  move  towards  a  form  of  religious                                                                                                                  21  Hegel,  George  Wilhelm  Friedrich.  Phenomenology  of  Spirit.  Trans.  Terry  Pinkard.  Unpublished  (Draft).  Cambridge  University  Press,  2013.  eBook.  632-­‐633  

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life  through  cult  which  unifies  both  the  verbal  and  the  visually  represented  media.  

As  part  of  the  process  of  cult,  the  construction  of  holy  buildings  is  an  action  that  

transcends  the  particularity  of  the  individual  artist,  as  it  “begins  with  the  pure  

sacrificial  dedication  of  a  possession,  which  the  owner,  without  any  apparent  

advantage  to  himself,  pours  out  or  lets  rise  up  in  smoke.”22  In  this  action  the  owner  

of  the  object  of  this  dedication  renounces  his  right  of  possession,  in  a  move  towards  

attaining  universality,  yet  the  result  misses  this  goal  altogether.  Instead  the  objects  

once  again  attain  reverence  but  instead  of  being  directed  at  the  individual  artist  or  

architect,  the  result  becomes  a  display  of  economic  conditions  and  political  power  

for  the  greater  order,  the  society  or  nation  that  these  objects  belong  to.  However  

their  value  as  religious  objects  remains  upheld  by  virtue  of  a  simulated  aspect;  the  

symbolism  and  iconic  value  of  any  religious  structure  still  presents  the  foreground  

and  points  upwards  towards  the  divine.    

 

In  the  cult  stage  of  religious  development,  consciousness  exists  in  a  positive,  joyous  

relation  to  the  divine,  a  feeling  manifested  in  religious  feasting.  “In  this  enjoyment,  

then,  is  revealed  what  that  divine  risen  Light  really  is;  enjoyment  in  the  mystery  of  

its  being.”23  The  final  manifestation  of  this  phase  for  Hegel’s  religious  consciousness  

is  in  exalting  the  warrior-­‐athlete,  as  a  type  of  living  statue,  an  embodiment  of  the  

ethical  spirit,  in  what  to  Hegel  is  known  as  “the  living  work  of  art”.24  25  This  

particular  instance  involves  not  a  mediation  between  the  divine  and  man,  but  a  

direct  reverence  of  the  object  of  veneration,  as  a  form  of  human  perfection.  The  

living  work  of  art  is  in  Feuerbach’s  terms  an  objectification  of  the  attributes  of  the  

human  species  in  a  particular  individual.  Yet  this  too  meets  its  limitations  as  the  

finite  nature  of  corporeal  individuality  restrains  the  possibility  of  representation,  

and  Hegel’s  process  turns  towards  literary  forms.    

                                                                                                               22  ibid  634  23  Hegel,  George  Wilhelm  Friedrich.  Phenomenology  of  Spirit.  Trans.  Terry  Pinkard.  Unpublished  (Draft).  Cambridge  University  Press,  2013.  eBook.  637  24  ibid  25  Stern,  Robert.  Routledge  philosophy  guidebook  to  Hegel  and  the  Phenomenology  of  spirit.  London  New  York:  Routledge,  2002.  188  

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Greek  drama  was  postulated  by  Hegel  as  a  form  of  culmination  for  religion  in  the  

form  of  art,  preceding  the  moment  of  Spirit’s  transcendence  of  art  religion  by  means  

of  the  incarnation  of  God.26  Until  then,  art  played  the  largest  role  in  simulating  

religion  and  representing  the  relation  of  God  to  man.  This  relation  is  very  strikingly  

illustrated  by  the  various  forms  of  Greek  theatre.  The  epic,  to  begin,  could  be  

considered  the  most  humanly  universal  form  of  any  of  the  Greek  drama,  occurring  

as  in  the  pre-­‐historic  frame  of  oral  traditions  within  most  cultures,  and  as  such  

existing  with  a  degree  of  universality  among  mankind.  In  the  epic,  the  gods  are  

guides  and  masters  of  the  determinate  actions  and  destinies  of  the  heroes.  The  

particular,  individual  self  is  placed  against  the  universal  and  positive  nature  of  the  

divine,  and  as  such  the  self  only  attains  self-­‐consciousness  in  relation  to  the  divine,  

as  in  Feuerbach’s  alienated  nature  of  religion.    

 

The  relation  of  God  and  man  shifts  pivotally  in  the  tragedy,  in  which  individuals  are  

visibly  more  in  control  of  their  destinies  in  relation  to  the  Gods.  The  human  beings  

of  the  tragedies  are  depicted  as  having  attained  a  self-­‐consciousness  that  is  

independent  of  the  divine,  and  act  with  the  knowledge  of  their  own  rights  and  

powers.  The  heroes  and  heroines  of  tragedies  speak  for  themselves,  but  the  divine  is  

still  present  as  a  form  of  demarcation  of  the  limits  of  human  individuality.  This  is  

carried  out  by  means  of  the  Chorus,  which  –  in  a  manner  mirrored  later  by  Nietzsche  

in  his  Birth  of  Tragedy  –  Hegel  capitalized  upon  as  conveying  the  sense  of  

powerlessness  of  the  human  in  relation  to  the  gods.  With  a  Dionysian  intoxication  as  

its  mode  of  operation,  the  chorus  functions  by  assigning  to  fate  the  role  of  the  divine,  

which  cannot  be  mediated  by  reason,  and  instead  exhibits  its  catharsis  upon  the  

human  by  means  of  the  lyrical.    This  powerlessness  “clings  to  the  consciousness  of  

an  alien  fate  and  produces  the  empty  desire  for  ease  and  comfort,  and  feeble  talk  of  

                                                                                                               26  Stern,  Robert.  Routledge  philosophy  guidebook  to  Hegel  and  the  Phenomenology  of  spirit.  London  New  York:  Routledge,  2002.  189  

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appeasement.”27  In  the  form  of  tragedy,  while  the  subjective  individual  characters  

approach  an  independent  self-­‐consciousness,  the  divine  through  the  form  of  the  

lyrical  remains  the  limiting  and  alienating  factor  in  of  man’s  relation  to  religion.  

 

The  power  of  Greek  tragedy  which  persists  to  this  day  is  its  capacity  to  engage  

individuals  into  a  dialogue  with  their  own  understanding  and,  feeling.  This  capacity  

exists  through  much  of  religious  art,  and  for  this  reason  the  unmasking  of  the  

illusion  of  God  through  Feuerbach’s  theory  of  projection  does  not  discredit  the  value  

of  these  works  of  art  entirely.  Instead  the  aspects  of  the  artwork  which  remain  

validly  emotionally  and  intellectually  engaging  –  even  to  the  atheistic  modern  

observer  –  remain  by  virtue  of  the  theory  of  projection,  since  their  source  is  

ultimately  the  real  emotional  and  intellectual  engagement  of  the  artist,  of  real  and  

empathetically  functional  themes.  The  interpretation  of  religious  representation  as  

simulacra  has  a  strong  advantage  over  a  straightforward  interpretation  of  these  

works  as  representations,  since  they  are  religious  works  only  insofar  as  they  pertain  

to  the  simulation  of  religion,  while  the  aesthetic  qualities  that  pertain  to  them  exist    

regardless  of  the  religious  content.  For  instance,  Breughel’s  painting  The  Road  to  

Calvary,  upon  a  close  inspection  of  its  details  reveals  itself  as  a  markedly  devotional  

picture,  with  Christ  carrying  a  crucifix  depicted  at  the  center,  Mary  and  John  and  the  

Mourners  of  Christ  in  the  foreground,  and  the  hill  of  Calvary  in  the  distant  right  

corner.  The  same  painting,  however,  contains  a  much  broader  range  of  subjects  than  

just  the  story  of  crucifixion  alone:  there  is  a  commotion  of  grief,  torture,  and  above  

all  a  callousness  of  a  certain  superstitious  drive.  The  multiplicity  of  interpretations  

and  experiences  originating  in  one  piece  of  artwork  are  indicative  that  the  religious  

content  for  which  the  artwork  serves  as  simulacra  is  only  one  of  these  possibilities,  

and  the  requirement  for  experiencing  this  religious  content  ultimately  depends  to  

the  projection  of  self  through  religious  consciousness  into  the  artwork.    

 

                                                                                                                 27  Hegel,  George  Wilhelm  Friedrich.  Phenomenology  of  Spirit.  Trans.  Terry  Pinkard.  Unpublished  (Draft).  Cambridge  University  Press,  2013.  eBook.  651    

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Returning  to  Marx’s  Criticism  

Self-­‐consciousness,  for  Feuerbach,  is  not  a  dialogue  of  self-­‐consciousness  of  the  self  

with  the  other  within  itself  –  via  the  Hegelian  process  of  alienation  and  its  

overcoming  –  but  a  dialogue  of  the  self  with  a  distinctly  sensible  “other”,  which  is  

materially  real.  The  object  becomes  the  other  for  us  through  the  awareness  of  the  

self’s  dependency  on  it,  through  the  very  real  and  material  human  needs,  whether  

they  are  of  biological  or  sentimental  nature.  This  is  the  essential  philosophical  

content  of  the  Essence  of  Christianity,  but  it  is  attained  through  a  criticism  of  religion,  

and  partially  because  of  this  approach,  the  object  of  the  other  ultimately  remains  

within  the  category  of  belief.  This  inability  to  establish  the  sensible  object  outside  of  

the  category  of  belief  is,  for  Marx  and  Engels’  criticism,  Feuerbach’s  greatest  

shortcoming,  as  the  understanding  of  the  sensuous  world  remains  limited  “on  the  

one  hand  to  mere  contemplation  of  it,  and  on  the  other  hand  to  mere  sensation”.28  

The  abstracted  sense  in  which  Feuerbach  sees  the  real,  materialistically  grounded  

man  whose  consciousness  he  is  describing  is  the  main  issue  at  hand  for  Engels,  who  

directs  the  attention  at  several  maxims  Feuerbach  puts  forward,  such  as  “Man  

thinks  differently  in  a  palace  and  in  a  hut.”29  In  this  short  maxim,  one  could  discern  

an  precursory  attitude  to  the  radically  materialistic  philosophy  of  Marx  and  Engels,  

in  which  the  objects  through  which  consciousness  is  made  possible  are  not  merely  

the  mirrors  of  man’s  consciousness,  but  exist  reactively  as  part  of  man’s  

consciousness,  which  shapes  and  is  shaped  by  his  external  reality.  “Feuerbach  wants  

sensuous  objects,  really  differentiated  from  thought-­‐objects,  but  he  does  not  

conceive  human  activity  itself  as  activity  through  objects.”30    

 

The  accusation  of  an  inability  from  Feuerbach  to  see  human  activity  as  a  materially  

grounded  phenomena  stems  from  what  Marx  considers  “the  chief  defect  of  all  

hitherto  existing  materialism”,  namely  that  all  materialists  who  had  recognized  the  

                                                                                                               28  Marx-­‐Engels  Gesamtausgabe,  Abteilung  I,  Bd.  5,  p.  32-­‐34  29  Feuerbach  quoted  in  Marx,  Karl,  Friedrich  Engels.  Basic  writings  on  politics  and  philosophy.    Trans.  Lewis  Feuer.  New  York:  Anchor  Books,  1989.  Print.  30  Engels,  Ludwig  Feuerbach  (New  York,  1934)  p.  73  

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existence  of  a  reality  independent  of  men  were  unable  to  see  that  this  reality,  as  it  

appears  to  us  through  real  historical  conditions,  is  a  product  of  human  activity  itself.  

Marx  would  probably  (ant  quite  justifiably)  argue  that  even  Descartes’  wax  could  be  

better  explained  by  tracing  its  route  in  reverse  through  the  chain  of  consumer,  

distributor,  manufacturer,  and  innovator  of  productive  methods,  than  a  meditation  

on  the  its  inalienable  substance.  The  radical  materialism  of  Marx  is  correct  in  that  

Feuerbach  fails  to  embrace  the  broader  implications  of  the  projected  object  of  self-­‐

consciousness  he  discovers  in  religion,  and  in  doing  so  extend  into  a  materially-­‐

transformative  reformation  of  man’s  relation  to  himself  and  others,  however,  

insofar  as  this  paper  is  concerned  with  the  philosophy  of  religion,  Feuerbach  is  

successful  in  laying  the  foundation  for  materialism  by  reconstructing  one  of  its  main  

limitations  –  the  religious  arguments  for  divinity  and  soul  –  as  a  projection  of  human  

nature  existing  objectively  in  material  terms.  If  this  action  were  to  be  taken  one  step  

further  into  post-­‐modernity  by  considering  religion  as  a  simulation,  with  an  

existence  that  has  objectivity  and  independence  of  the  subjective  individual  moment  

by  means  of  its  simulacra,  Marxist  criticism  of  the  religious  content  in  Feuerbach  

would  be  poorly  founded.      

 

Stirner’s  criticism  and  the  distinction  of  essence  and  accident  

While  Marx’s  criticism  predominantly  targeted  the  abstracted  notion  of  thought-­‐

objects  obtained  through  human  projection,  Stirner's  opposition  is  directed  towards  

Feuerbach's  insistence  that  the  human  species  and  not  the  individual  human  being  

himself  constitutes  human  nature.  The  existential  freedom,  through  an  

'untranscendable  particularity',  which  Stirner  refers  to  as  Uniqueness,  is  strictly  at  

odds  with  this  foundation  of  human  nature  as  being  in  the  species  consciousness.  

Feuerbach's  concept  of  normative  ethics  hinges  on  this  'species  consciousness',  

which  Stirner  attacks  as  a  form  of  naturalistic  fallacy.  In  Stirner’s  view,  this  is  a  

mistaken  dissolution  of  the  individual  into  the  universal.  Through  his  criticism  he  

assumes  this  motion  that  individual  feeling  –  pain,  pleasure  or  emotion  –  can  be  

substituted  or  subsumed  by  universal  feeling.  The  problem  consists  in  seeing  these  

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experiences  of  the  ‘species  consciousness’  that  affect  the  individual  through  

sympathy  or  jealousy  as  essesntially  universal.    

 

In  his  response  to  Stirner's  treatment  of  the  universality  of  human  essence  in  The  

Essence  of  Christianity  in  Relation  to  The  Ego  and  Its  Own,  Feuerbach  first  retorts  by  

making  his  approach  less  intellectual  and  focusing  on  Love  as  the  principle  that  

defines  the  common  shared  human  essence31.  Love  between  the  self  and  the  other,  

first  between  the  man  and  the  woman,  and  later  towards  children,  and  

progressively  further  towards  universality  in  relation  to  the  community  through  

tradition.  However,  while  the  defense  through  basic  human  relations  fits  

accordingly  with  Feuerbach’s  project  of  constructing  philosophy  that  addresses  

common  human  experience,  a  transcendental  concept  of  species  consciousness  

strikes  as  justifiably  contradictory.  However,  his  insistence  on  this  concept  of  the  

species  as  naturally  transcendent  is  upheld  by  virtue  of  the  ability  of  individuals  to  

ascribe  to  themselves  the  values  of  a  broader  group  of  individuals  –  whether  it  is  a  

community  or  a  species  in  general  –  through  a  recognition  of  the  projection  of  the  

self  into  other  individuals.  “It  is  the  idea  of  the  species,”  Feuerbach  postulates  “  that  

brings  deliverance;  for  the  idea  of  the  species  allows  me  to  delight  in  possibilities  

which  are  “mine”  although  I  may  never  realize  them.”32  Here  too  the  framework  of  

hyperreality  can  assist  an  analysis  of  Feuerbach’s  philosophy,  by  helping  resolve  the  

contradiction  between  the  transcendentality  of  the  species  and  the  self-­‐declared  

materialistic  and  empirical  method  of  Feuerbach’s  philosophy.  If  we  allow  the  

‘species  concept’  to  be  a  simulated  entity,  constructed  by  means  of  a  unity  of  

attributes  of  the  human  individuals  in  particular,  the  universality  of  the  species  can  

exist  as  a  concept  within  hyperreality,  allowing  the  individuals  to  attain  the  type  of  

‘deliverance’  from  the  constrictions  of  the  particular,  limited  subjective  experience  

that  Feuerbach  proposes  the  species  can  provide.  

 

                                                                                                               31  Gordon,  Frederick  M.  "Stirner's  Critics."  Philosophical  Forum.  8.2-­‐3-­‐4  (1976):  343-­‐386.  Print.  32  Feuerbach,  Ludwig.  The  Essence  of  Chrstianity.  Trans.  Marian  Evans,  Cambridge:  Cambridge  University  Press,  2012.  eBook.  318  

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Conclusion  

In  my  focus  on  the  representational  aspects  of  religion  and  human  nature,  viewing  

religion  as  a  form  of  simulation  –  a  view  which  Feuerbach  himself  has  been  

influential  in  making  possible  –  permits  an  analysis  of  religion  by  means  of  its  

representations.  In  doing  so,  this  paper  remains  committed  to  the  empirical  aspect  

of  Feuerbach’s  work,  allowing  religion  and  human  nature  to  be  studied  by  means  of  

objectively  accessible  representations,  while  providing  a  defense  from  Marx’s,  

Enegels’  and  Stirner’s  objections  of  transcendentality  and  abstraction  which  would  

otherwise  be  prone  to  contradicting  Feuerbach’s  thesis  of  reconstructing  philosophy  

in  material  terms.  By  identifying  the  source  of  religion  in  human  nature  and  

establishing  it  as  a  concept  within  the  space  of  the  hyperreal,  religion  can  be  

interpreted  in  entirely  humanistic  terms,  while  existing  as  a  simulated  space  into  

which  the  constrained  aspects  of  human  material  existence  can  be  extended.  The  

benefits  of  this,  as  opposed  to  a  rigid  adoption  of  atheism,  is  in  the  preservation  of  

the  positive  content  of  religion  that  consists  of  projecting  human  needs  and  feelings  

into  a  form  of  universality,  albeit  a  simulated  one.      The  ‘species  consciousness’  

which  is  the  focal  point  of  Stirner’s  criticism  exists  in  Feuerbach’s  philosophy  as  a  

philosophical  answer  to  religion,  once  its  illusory  nature  has  been  demystified,  and  

remains  pregnant  with  possibility  as  a  foundation  for  self-­‐conscious  and  reflexive  

humanism.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Bibliography      Page  counts  of  materials  included  in  the  curriculum  are  weighted  for  2400  char.  per  page  standard  and  marked  in  bold.    Baudrillard,  Jean.  Impossible  exchange.  London  New  York:  VERSO,  2001.  Print.  (151/144  p.)    Baudrillard,  Jean.  Simulations.  New  York  City,  N.Y.,  U.S.A:  Semiotext(e),  Inc,  1983.  Print.  (159/73  p.)    Feuerbach,  Ludwig.  The  Essence  of  Chrstianity.  Trans.  Marian  Evans,  Cambridge:  Cambridge  University  Press,  2012.  eBook.  (340/293  p.)    Gordon, Frederick M. "Stirner's Critics." Philosophical Forum. 8.2-3-4 (1976): 343-386. Print. Gregor,  James.  "Marx,  Feuerbach  and  the  Reform  of  the  Hegelian  Dialectic."  Science  &  Society.  29.1  (1965):  66-­‐80.  Web.  6  Dec.  2013.  <http://www.jstor.org/stable/40401095>.  (14  /11  p.)    Hegel, George Wilhelm Friedrich. Phenomenology of Spirit. Trans. Terry Pinkard. Unpublished (Draft). Cambridge University Press, 2013. eBook.  Lewis,  Thomas  A.  Freedom  and  tradition  in  Hegel  :  reconsidering  anthropology,  ethics,  and  religion.  Notre  Dame,  Ind:  University  of  Notre  Dame  Press,  2005.  Print.  (272/344  p.)    Morris,  Brian.  Anthropological  studies  of  religion  :  an  introductory  text.  Cambridge  Cambridgeshire  New  York:  Cambridge  University  Press,  1987.  Print.    Marx,  Karl,  Friedrich  Engels.  Basic  writings  on  politics  and  philosophy.    Trans.  Lewis  Feuer.  New  York:  Anchor  Books,  1989.  Print.  (497/492  p.)    Slingerland,  Edward.  "Who's  Afraid  of  Reductionism?The  Study  of  Religion  in  the  Age  of  Cognitive  Science."  Journal  of  the  American  Academy  of  Religion.  76.2  (2008):  375-­‐411.  Web.  6  Dec.  2013.  <http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org/content/76/2/375>.  (36/42  p.)  

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Stern, Robert. Routledge philosophy guidebook to Hegel and the Phenomenology of spirit. London New York: Routledge, 2002. White, Brandon J. "HUMANKIND AND GOD: RELIGION AND EXPERIENCE IN FEUERBACH." Glossolalia. 3.2 (2011): n. page. Web. 30 Dec. 2013. <http://glossolalia.sites.yale.edu/node/67/attachment>.      Wartofsky,  Marx  W.  Feuerbach.  Cambridge  England  New  York:  Cambridge  University  Press,  1982.  Print.  (482/642  p.)