Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

Moses Hess { 24 9

tics, it does crucially embody a politics beyond possessive individualism and

self-possession. When discussing the ancient Jewish state and Spinoza, Hess

consistently associates Judaism with the sort of nonpersonalist ethics he sees as

key to achieving human freedom.

Die Europäische Triarchie

Hess’s 1837 debut publication articulated many of the concerns that would con-

tinue to preoccupy him as his political thought evolved in the 1840 s and even

in his proto-Zionist treatise Rome and Jerusalem: his conception of the indi-

vidual and self-consciousness in relation to a Spinozan conception of universal

substance; the nature of human freedom and activity in relation to divine de-

termination; and his interpretation of Judaism in the grand drama of world his-

tory and human liberation. In The Holy History, Hess identified monotheism’s

personalist theology as a problem per se that, in turn, wrought sociopolitical

damage. He would continue to see the ideology of the sovereign individual as

a central impediment to free human activity as he undertook to critique short-

comings of German philosophy and to develop his own counterphilosophy of

the deed in his more widely read next book, Die europäische Triarchie (The

European triarchy; 1841 ) and in subsequent writings, notably the essay “Die

Philosphie der Tat” (The philosophy of the deed; 1843 ).^26

Die europäische Triarchie articulates a tripartite philosophy of history and

socialist critique of egoistic individualism broadly similar to that of The Holy

History, yet it reflects Hess’s extensive reading in French socialism, Hegel, and

Young Hegelian discourse (Cieszkowski’s “Prolegomena to a Historiosophy”

and Feuerbach’s recently published anthropological critique of religion, The Es-

sence of Christianity, are among the work’s important intertexts), and a greater

knowledge, as well, of European politics. Hess’s vision here is once again of a

vaguely conceived socialist cosmopolitan order that will combine the freedom

manifested in the German Reformation and German philosophy with French

political activism. Hess now joins these to the pragmatic prowess of England,

the third member of the “European triarchy.”^27 Hess’s Spinoza-inspired cos-

mopolitanism contrasts markedly with Auerbach’s embrace of the German

Volk. As Hess stresses, “it is here no longer a matter only of German, but of

European, independence.”^28 (Even in his vaguely adumbrated political vision,

however, Hess is careful to stress that the cultural and religious particularity and

diversity of the three integral parts of Western Europe—Germany, France, and

England—have not been and will not be negated by the unity the three countries

constitute.)^29 Hess’s Europäische Triarchie is centrally concerned with critiqu-