Making Hegel Into a Better Hegelian: August von Cieszkowski

Making Hegel Into a Better Hegelian: August von Cieszkowski LAWRENCE S. STEPELEVICH AMONG STUDENTS OF the so-called "Young Hegelians," it is usual to name David F. Strauss (18o8-1874) as the first to develop Hegelianism after Hegel? He did not, however, see his role as anything more than being a disciple of what he understood to be orthodox Hegelianism. In merely applying what he conscientiously took to be the authentic principles of the master to a hitherto unexamined field, i.e., biblical criticism, Strauss joined himself to the older school of orthodox and conservative Hegelians. These "Epigonen" were not displeased to consider themselves as but the satraps of a vanished philosophical Alexander who had been left with only the uncreative task of dividing and cultivating an already conquered Geisterreich/ In short, Strauss was not the first critic of Hegel, but merely the first Hegelian critic. The honor, if that is the correct term, of being the first Hegelian to criticize Hegel and thereby to create a "neo-Hegelianism" belongs to August von Cieszkowski (x814-1894 ). This paper has two main intentions: first, to determine the nature of Cieszkowski's radical critique of Hegel's philosophy of history, along with the reasons Cieszkowski employed to justify his critique, and second, to submit a possible objection that Hegel might have taken in regard to the corrective surgery that Cieszkowksi performed upon the corpus of his philosophy. There were indeed a number of critical studies directed against Hegel's philosophywell before Strauss's work appeared as well as a number of sympathetic studies (e.g., G6schel's Aphorismenof 18~9),but whereas the former took a stance against Hegel and the latter more or less repeated Hegel, Strauss was the first to attempt to apply Hegelianism,and in this sense he can be properly said to have "developed" it. See Karl Rosenkranz's G.W.F.HegelsLeben(1844; reprinted, Berlin: 1944),42~ff. [263] z64 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 25:2 APRIL 1987 Cieszkowski was the heir of a wealthy and aristocratic Polish family, who would in time receive the title of Count. In 183o, as a consequence of his involvement in the Polish insurrection and the subsequent Russian occupation , he was compelled to leave Warsaw. In the following year, he attended the University of Krakow, where he studied some philosophy, but it seems he was not introduced to Hegelianism until he entered the University of Berlin in 183~.~ There, within the course of five semesters of study, he became acquainted with some of the most devoted and liberal of the Berlin Hegelians such as Eduard Gans, Leopold von Henning, Heinrich G. Hotho, and Johann E. Erdmann. Among these younger academics, many of whom were then but untenured Privatdozenten,was Karl F. Werder, who was probably the main personal link between Cieszkowski and young Karl Marx. 4 But of all of his new acquaintances, none became a closer friend to Cieszkowski than one of his teachers, the lecturer Carl F. Michelet (: 80 a- 1893).5Michelet exercised a powerful and encouraging influence upon his new student and friend, not only planning for the publication of Cieszkowski's projected critique of Hegel's philosophy of history, but finding in that critique an echo of his own views on the matter of the future of philosophy. 6 In Berlin in 1833 to study philosophy meant to study Hegel, for then, as Rudolf Haym recalled, "One was either a Hegelian or a barbarian, idiot, laggard and hateful empiricist. ''7 But within two years of Cieszkowski's arrival , in t835, Strauss' heretical LebenJesuwas published. To the dismay of the Hegelian academics enjoying official sanction, Strauss declared himself to be a true follower of Hegel. Their subsequent failure to produce a definitive Hegelian refutation of Strauss was sufficient justification for an ideological coup d'etatby the many orthodox Lutheran clerics who had gathered about the throne of the aging King Friedrich Wilhelm III. With both conservative See Walter Kiihne's Graf August Cieszkowski: ein Schiiler Hegels und des deutschen Geistes (Leipzig; reprinted: Nendeln, Kraus Reprint, 1968) for a biography of Cieszkowski. 4 See author's "August von Cieszkowski: From Theory to Practice," History and Theory 13...