Enlightenment as self-interpretation - historical-systematic reconstruction of Johann Joachim Spalings 'Destination of Man' (1748)

• Applicant: Dr. Georg Raatz
• Subject Area: Protestant Theology
• Term: from 2014 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 262075229

The early publication of Spalding (17014-1804) 'Betrachtung über die Bestimmung des Menschen - Consideration to the destination of Man' is both regarded as a programmatic text of the german theology of Enlightenment and was a bestseller. It is also a substantial contribution to the anthropological turn in the middle of the 18th century. Doubtless there is no important person of history of thought in the second half of Enlightenment century, who ignored this book. It starts at the basic question of the human being to its own destination and tries to comprehend morality and religion as a function of the process of self-interpretation. The reception of Spaldings book in the debates of the second half of 18th century (Abbt, Mendelssohn, Kant) is sufficiently worked off. That's why my study is destined to a first extensive reconstruction of its genesis. It describes the developments from Spalding¿s texts of academic qualification, small articles until to the translations of two texts of the english philosopher Shaftesbury. Especially ponderosity lays on analysis in terms of the history of ideas and notions. In regard to the categorical dimension the study focuses the literary-rhetoric figure of soliloquy, the structure of destination-logic, the orientation at the thought of happiness, the epistemic function of the notion 'Empfindung (sensation)' and finally the consequences to a concept of religion.Finally the concept of Spalding would be inscribed in the context of current theological and philosophical debates about a constructional theory of religion and the renaissance of concepts of Destination, happiness, human dignity and the emotional dimension of the structure of religious awareness.The study brings off Spalding¿s Destination-book as an important contribution to the unfinished project of a modern understanding of Christianity and of an enlightened Protestantism.

• DFG Programme: Publication Grants