Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

258 } Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany

The autonomous person [Der Selbständige] knows that, as an individual, he

is serving part of a higher life, a greater whole, and precisely because he con-

sciously and voluntarily submits to the higher will, makes it his own, he only

needs to obey himself. In contrast the person who imagines himself free qua

individual, who is, however, no less serving part of a higher unity yet acknowl-

edges no higher will that determines his arbitrariness, must for precisely that

reason obey a different master, an external God. Rationalism has long striven

against the assumption of an eternal, necessary law of life and defended bad

freedom [die schlechte Freiheit], arbitrariness.... It was indeed its [rational-

ism’s] calling to negate the mere belief in a Providence in order to prepare

a clear insight into the divine governance of the world. If it, however, even

now continues to raise its thin voice and cry out about fatalism, undermining

of morals, destruction of all freedom and energy of human action, then one

can dispatch it quickly and with ease. The will by the power of which the

truly free person acts is not the pygmy will of an isolated individual, who can

neither inhibit nor further the course of world history; rather, it is the will

of God. The energy, vigor, and joy in action of one who recognizes God’s

will, far from being inhibited by this recognition, raises himself to the level of

creative genius.^60

Hess contends that the freedom that individuals perceive as threatened is mere

caprice, Willkür. True freedom cannot be contained within subjectivity, and

subjectivity thus becomes a serious impediment to achieving freedom. More-

over, Hess deems fears about the loss of human freedom and agency as symp-

tomatic of the very dualistic paradigm that, in Hess’s view, Spinoza overcomes.

To Hess, the necessity that governs the world is not a limitation imposed by

an external Providence (given Spinozan immanence, there is no such external

position for the divine to inhabit). On the contrary, the recognition of necessity

amounts to a joyful discovery of powers in which one certainly participates but

cannot claim to possess; it is an act of intellectual love. Indeed, one can tap into

real power and agency only if one relinquishes and ceases jealously to guard a

paltry, minuscule reserve of power as one’s own.^61

“Philosophie der Tat”

Hess’s critique of individualism is at the heart of his more theoretical socialist

writings throughout the 1840 s. Arguably the most influential of these is “Phi-

losophie der Tat” (Philosophy of action; 1843 ), in which Hess further elaborates

the call to move philosophy from abstraction to action that he, following Ciesz-