Jakob Frohschammer (6 January 1821 – 14 June 1893) was a German theologian and philosopher.
Biography
Frohschammer was born at
Illkofen, which is now in the municipality of
Barbing
Barbing is a municipality in the district of Regensburg in Bavaria in Germany. It lies on the Danube
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running ...
, near
Regensburg
Regensburg or is a city in eastern Bavaria, at the confluence of the Danube, Naab and Regen rivers. It is capital of the Upper Palatinate subregion of the state in the south of Germany. With more than 150,000 inhabitants, Regensburg is the f ...
. Destined by his parents for the
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
priesthood, he studied
theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
at
Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...
, but felt an ever-growing attraction to
philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
. Nevertheless, after much hesitation, he took what he himself calls the most mistaken step of his life, and in 1847 entered the priesthood. His keenly logical intellect, and his impatience of authority where it clashed with his own convictions, quite unfitted him for that unquestioning obedience which the Church demanded. It was only after open defiance of
Valentin Riedel, the
bishop of Regensburg
The Bishops of Regensburg (Ratisbon) are bishops of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany. , that he obtained permission to continue his studies at Munich.
He died at
Bad Kreuth in the
Bavaria
Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...
n Highlands on 14 June 1893.
Academic career
Beginnings
He at first devoted himself more especially to the study of the history of dogma, and in 1850 published his ''Beitraege zur Kirchengeschichte'', which was placed on the Index Expurgatorius. But he felt that his real vocation was philosophy, and after holding for a short time an extraordinary professorship of theology, he became professor of philosophy in 1855. This appointment he owed chiefly to his work, ''Ueber den Ursprung der menschlichen Seelen'' (1854), in which he maintained that the human soul was not implanted by a special creative act in each case, but was the result of a secondary creative act on the part of the parents: that soul as well as body, therefore, was subject to the laws of
heredity
Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic inform ...
. This was supplemented in 1855 by the controversial ''Menschenseele und Physiologie'' ("Physiology and the Soul of Man").
Undeterred by the offence which these work gave to his ecclesiastical superiors, he published in 1858 the ''Einleitung in die Philosophie und Grundriss der Metaphysik'' in which he assailed the doctrine of
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wi ...
that philosophy was the handmaid of theology. In 1861 appeared ''Ueber die Aufgabe der Naturphilosophie und ihr Verhaltnis zu Naturwissenschaft'', which was, he declared, directed against the purely mechanical conception of the universe, and affirmed the necessity of a creative power. In the same year he published ''Ueber die Freiheit der Wissenschaft'', in which he maintained the independence of science, whose goal was truth, against authority and reproached the excessive respect for the latter in the Roman Church with the insignificant part played by the German Catholic in literature and philosophy.
Denunciation and excommunication
He was denounced by the
pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
himself in an apostolic brief of 11 December 1862 and students of theology were forbidden to attend his lectures.
Public opinion
Public opinion is the collective opinion on a specific topic or voting intention relevant to a society. It is the people's views on matters affecting them.
Etymology
The term "public opinion" was derived from the French ', which was first use ...
was now keenly excited; he received an ovation from the Munich students, and the king, to whom he owed his appointment, supported him warmly. A conference of Catholic savants, held in 1863 under the presidency of
Döllinger Dollinger and Döllinger are surnames of German origin. They may refer to:
* Günther Dollinger (born 1960), German physicist and professor
* Ignaz Döllinger (1770–1841), German physician and university professor
* Ignaz von Döllinger (1799–1 ...
, decided that authority must be supreme in the Church. When, however, Döllinger and his school in their turn started the Old Catholic movement, Frohschammer refused to associate himself with their cause, holding that they did not go far enough, and that their declaration of 1863 had cut the ground from under their feet.
Meanwhile, he had, in 1862, founded the Athenum as the organ of
Liberal
Liberal or liberalism may refer to:
Politics
* a supporter of liberalism
** Liberalism by country
* an adherent of a Liberal Party
* Liberalism (international relations)
* Sexually liberal feminism
* Social liberalism
Arts, entertainment and m ...
Catholicism. For this he wrote the first adequate account in German of the
Darwinian
Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations tha ...
theory of
natural selection
Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Charle ...
, which drew a warm letter of appreciation from Darwin himself.
Excommunicated
Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...
in 1871, he replied with three articles, which were reproduced in thousands as pamphlets in the chief
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
an languages: ''Der Fels Petri in Rom'' (1873), ''Der Primat Petri und des Papstes'' (1875), and ''Das Christenthum Christi und das Christenthum des Papstes'' (1876).
Other writings
In ''Das neue Wissen und der neue Glaube'' (1873) he showed himself as vigorous and opponent of the
materialism
Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materiali ...
of
David Strauss
David Friedrich Strauss (german: link=no, Strauß ; 27 January 1808 – 8 February 1874) was a German liberal Protestant theologian and writer, who influenced Christian Europe with his portrayal of the "historical Jesus", whose divine nature h ...
as of the doctrine of
papal infallibility
Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope when he speaks ''ex cathedra'' is preserved from the possibility of error on doctrine "initially given to the aposto ...
. His later years were occupied with a series of philosophical works, of which the most important were: ''Die Phantasie als Grundprincip des Welt processes'' (1877), ''Ueber die Genesis der Menschheit und deren geistige Entwicklung in Religion, Sittlichkeit und Sprache'' (1883), and ''Ueber die Organisation und Cultur der menschlichen Gesellschaft'' (1885). His system is based on the unifying principle of imagination (Phantasie), which he extends to the objective creative force of Nature, as well as to the subjective mental phenomena to which the term is usually confined.
In addition to other treatises on theological subjects, Frohschammer was also the author of ''Monaden und Weltphantasie'' and ''Ueber die Bedeutung der Einbildungskraft in der Philosophie Kants und Spinozas'' (1879); ''Ueber die Principien der Aristotelischen Philosophie und die Bedeutung der Phantasie in der selben'' (1881); ''Die Philosophie als Idealwissenschaft und System'' (1884); ''Die Philosophie des Thomas von Aquino kritisch gewürdigt'' (1889); ''Ueber das Mysterium Magnum des Daseins'' (1891); ''System der Philosophie im Umriss, pt. i.'' (1892). His autobiography was published in A. Hinrichsen's ''Deutsche Denker'' (1888).
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Frohschammer
19th-century German philosophers
People excommunicated by the Catholic Church
People from Regensburg (district)
Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich
Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich alumni
1821 births
1893 deaths
German male writers