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HERMANN LOTZE — SCIENCE, BELIEF AND THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY
positivism and social philosophy in France, and naturalism and agnosticism in
England, were the best-known types of philosophical thought’’. The currents of
thought preparing a new era were represented by Lotze and some Neo-Kantians
in Germany, Charles Renouvier (1815-1903) in France and Thomas Hill Green
(1836-1882) and Henry Sidgwick (1838-1900) in England.“
However, materialism was not restricted to the implicit form within science,
but also explicit in the writings of Ludwig Büchner (1824-1899)'’, Hermann
Ulrici (1806-1884),!° Carl Vogt (1817-1895)'”, Jacob Moleschott (1822—1893)'%,
and Heinrich Czolbe (1819-1873).!° Also Feuerbach can be mentioned here,”
whilst in turning down the a priori approach, the materialists adhered to a
psychological interpretation of logic and mathematics, as mental products.
The interest in philosophy of religion is to be connected with rising atheism.
For Merz, the question is no longer science versus specific belief, but belief of
any sort versus unbelief.”
For William James? Lotze and Gustav Fechner (1801-1887) were the sole
original thinkers in opposition to materialism,’ while Fechner was not even
a professional philosopher. Ludwig Biichner™*, who founded the German As¬
sociation of Free Thinkers (Deutschen Freidenkerbund) in 1881, also propagated
Darwin’s theory of evolution in Germany.” He published ‘Darwin’s Theory of
the Transformation of Species and the First Origin ofthe World of Organisms’
(Die Darwinsche Theorie von der Verwandlung der Arten und die erste Entstehung
13 MERZ, History of European Thought, vol. 4, 746.
4° Ibid., 747-748.
BÜCHNER, Ludwig, Kraft und Stoff. Empirisch-naturphilosophischen Studien, Frankfurt-am¬
Main, Meidinger, 1855.
ULRICI, Hermann, Glauben und Wissen, Leipzig, Weigel, 1858.
77 Vogt, Carl, Köhlerglaube und Wissenschaft: Eine Streitschrift gegen Hofrath Rudolph Wagner in
Gottingen, GieBen, Rider, 1855.
18 MOLESCHOTT, Jacob, Lehre der Nahrungsmittel: für das Volk, Erlangen, Enke, 1850.
Czolbe wrote a pamphlet adressed to Lotze: Entstehung des Selbstbewußtseins. Eine Antwort an
Herrn Professor Lotze, Leipzig, Hermann Costenoble, 1856. Lotze criticised Czolbe’s psycho¬
logism. Cf. SLUGA, Gottlob Frege, 19.
20 MERZ, History of European Thought, vol. 4, 693.
2 Ibid., 609.
“In Germany the Hegelian impetus had spent itself, and, apart from historical scholarship,
nothing but the materialistic controversy remained, with such men as Büchner and Ulrici
as its champions. Lotze and Fechner were the sole original thinkers, and Fechner was not a
professional philosopher at all.” MCDERMOTT, John J., The Writings of William James. A Com¬
prehensive Edition, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1977, 8.
Merz states that Lotze took a leading part in the criticism of materialism MERz, History of
European Thought, vol. 4, 693.
4 SATTER, Erich, Wer Wissenschaft und Kunst besitzt..., Neu-Isenburg, Angelika Lenz, 2006, 29.
Büchner however reinterpreted Darwin in a Lamarckian way. Cf. SLuGa, Gottlob Frege, 18.
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