Johann Georg Hamann (; ; 27 August 1730 – 21 June 1788) was a German

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

philosopher from

Königsberg Königsberg (; ; ; ; ; ; , ) is the historic Germany, German and Prussian name of the city now called Kaliningrad, Russia. The city was founded in 1255 on the site of the small Old Prussians, Old Prussian settlement ''Twangste'' by the Teuton ...

known as "the Wizard of the North" who was one of the leading figures of post-Kantian philosophy. His work was used by his student J. G. Herder as the main support of the ''

Sturm und Drang (, ; usually translated as "storm and stress") was a proto-Romanticism, Romantic movement in German literature and Music of Germany, music that occurred between the late 1760s and early 1780s. Within the movement, individual subjectivity an ...

'' movement, and is associated with the Counter-Enlightenment and

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century. The purpose of the movement was to advocate for the importance of subjec ...

. He introduced Kant, also from Königsberg, to the works of both Hume – waking him from his "dogmatic slumber" – and Rousseau. Hamann was influenced by Hume, but he used his views to argue for rather than against Christianity.

Goethe Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German polymath who is widely regarded as the most influential writer in the German language. His work has had a wide-ranging influence on Western literature, literary, Polit ...

and Kierkegaard were among those who considered him to be the finest mind of his time. He was also a key influence on

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...

and Jacobi. Long before the

linguistic turn The linguistic turn was a major development in Western philosophy during the early 20th century, the most important characteristic of which is the focusing of philosophy primarily on the relations between language, language users, and the world. ...

, Hamann believed

epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...

should be replaced by the

philosophy of language Philosophy of language refers to the philosophical study of the nature of language. It investigates the relationship between language, language users, and the world. Investigations may include inquiry into the nature of Meaning (philosophy), me ...

Early life

Hamann was born on 27 August 1730 in Königsberg (now

Kaliningrad Kaliningrad,. known as Königsberg; ; . until 1946, is the largest city and administrative centre of Kaliningrad Oblast, an Enclave and exclave, exclave of Russia between Lithuania and Poland ( west of the bulk of Russia), located on the Prego ...

, Russia). Initially he studied theology at the

University of Königsberg The University of Königsberg () was the university of Königsberg in Duchy of Prussia, which was a fief of Poland. It was founded in 1544 as the world's second Protestant Reformation, Protestant academy (after the University of Marburg) by Duke A ...

, but became a clerk in a mercantile house and afterward held many small public offices, devoting his leisure to reading philosophy. His first publication was a study in political economy about a dispute on nobility and trade. He wrote under the

pen name A pen name or nom-de-plume is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen name may be used to make the author's na ...

of "the Magus of the North" (). Hamann was a believer in the Enlightenment until a mystical experience in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

in 1758. There, he underwent a profound Christian conversion, reorienting his whole life and philosophy around the prophetic illuminating power of the Bible. This shift influenced all his subsequent work, shaping his views of nature, reason, and human identity. His translation of

David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist who was best known for his highly influential system of empiricism, philosophical scepticism and metaphysical naturalism. Beg ...

into German is considered by most scholars to be the one that Hamann's friend Immanuel Kant, also from

, credited with awakening him from his "dogmatic slumber". Hamann and Kant held each other in mutual respect, although Hamann once declined an invitation by Kant to co-write a

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

textbook for children. Hamann also introduced Kant to the work of Rousseau.

Music

Hamann was a lutenist, having studied this instrument with Timofiy Bilohradsky (a student of Sylvius Leopold Weiss), a Ukrainian virtuoso then living in Königsberg.

Philosophical views

His distrust of autonomous, disembodied

reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing valid conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, scien ...

and the Enlightenment ("I look upon logical proofs the way a well-bred girl looks upon a love letter" was one of his many witticisms) led him to conclude that faith in

God In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...

was the only solution to the vexing problems of

philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

. One of Kant's biographers compared him with Hamann: In Hamann's own terms Kant was a "

Platonist Platonism is the philosophy of Plato and philosophical systems closely derived from it, though contemporary Platonists do not necessarily accept all doctrines of Plato. Platonism has had a profound effect on Western thought. At the most fundam ...

" about reason, believing it disembodied, and Hamann an " Aristotelian" who believed it was embodied. Hamann was greatly influenced by Hume. This is most evident in Hamann's conviction that faith and belief, rather than knowledge, determine human actions. Also, Hamann asserted that the efficacy of a concept arises from the habits it reflects rather than any inherent quality it possesses.

Works

Hamann's writings consist of small essays. They display two striking tendencies. The first is their brevity, in comparison with works by his contemporaries. The second is their breadth of allusion and delight in extended analogies. His work was also significantly reactive; rather than advance a "position" of his own, his principal mode of thinking was to respond to others' work. For example, his work ''Golgotha and Scheblimini! By a Preacher in the Wilderness'' (1784) was directed against

Moses Mendelssohn Moses Mendelssohn (6 September 1729 – 4 January 1786) was a German-Jewish philosopher and theologian. His writings and ideas on Jews and the Jewish religion and identity were a central element in the development of the ''Haskalah'', or 'J ...

's ''Jerusalem, or on Religious Might and Judaism'' (1782). Hamann famously used the image of

Socrates Socrates (; ; – 399 BC) was a Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher from Classical Athens, Athens who is credited as the founder of Western philosophy and as among the first moral philosophers of the Ethics, ethical tradition ...

, who often proclaimed to know nothing, in his ''Socratic Memorabilia'', an essay in which Hamann critiques the Enlightenment's dependence on reason. In ''Aesthetica in nuce'', Hamann counters the Enlightenment by emphasizing the importance of aesthetic experience and the role of genius in intuiting nature.

Editions

Fragments of his writings were published by Cramer, under the title of ''Sibyllinische Blätter des Magus aus Norden'' (1819), and a complete edition by Roth (7 vols., 1821–25, with a volume of additions and explanations by Wiener, 1843). ''Hamann's des Magus in Norden Leben und Schriften'', edited by Gildemeister, was published in 5 vols., 1857–68, and a new edition of his ''Schriften und Briefen'', edited by Petri, in 4 vols., 1872–74.

God

Hamann argued that the communicatio idiomatum, namely, the communication of divine messages through material embodiments, applies not just to Christ, but should be generalised to cover all human action: "This communicatio of divine and human idiomatum is a fundamental law and the master-key of all our knowledge and of the whole visible economy." Hamann believed all of creation were signs from God for us to interpret.

Reason is language

His most notable contributions to philosophy were his thoughts on language, which have often been considered as a forerunner to the linguistic turn in analytic philosophy such as

Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...

's. He famously said that "Reason is language" ("Vernunft ist Sprache").Johann Georg Hamann, ''Brief an Herder'', v. 8. August 1784, in: Johann Georg Hamann, ''Briefwechsel'', 7 vols., Arthur Henkel (ed.), Wiesbaden: Insel Verlag, 1955–75, vol. 5, p. 177. Hamann thought the bridge between Kant's noumenal and phenomenal realms was language, with its noumenal meaning and phenomenal letters.

Legacy

Hamann was one of the precipitating forces for the Counter-Enlightenment. He was, moreover, a mentor to

Herder A herder is a pastoralism, pastoral worker responsible for the care and management of a herd or flock of domestic animals, usually on extensive management, open pasture. It is particularly associated with nomadic pastoralism, nomadic or transhuma ...

and an admired influence on

, Jacobi,

, Kierkegaard, Lessing, and

Mendelssohn Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 18094 November 1847), widely known as Felix Mendelssohn, was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonie ...

Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...

theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar devoted a chapter to Hamann in his volume, ''Studies in Theological Styles: Lay Styles'' (Volume III in the English language translation of ''The Glory of the Lord'' series). Most recently, Hamann's influence can be found in the work of the theologians Oswald Bayer (

), John Milbank (

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

), and

David Bentley Hart David Bentley Hart (born February 20, 1965) is an American philosopher, theologian, essayist, cultural commentator, fiction author, and religious studies scholar. Reviewers have commented on Hart's baroque prose and provocative rhetoric in over on ...

(

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...

). Finally, in Charles Taylor's important summative work, ''The Language Animal: The Full Shape of the Human Linguistic Capacity'' (Taylor, 2016), Hamann is given credit, along with

Wilhelm von Humboldt Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (22 June 1767 – 8 April 1835) was a German philosopher, linguist, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1949, the university was named aft ...

and Herder, for inspiring Taylor's "HHH" approach to the philosophy of language, emphasizing the creative power and cultural specificity of language. However, recent scholarship, such as that by Bayer, contradicts the usual interpretation by people such as historian of ideas

Isaiah Berlin Sir Isaiah Berlin (6 June 1909 – 5 November 1997) was a Russian-British social and political theorist, philosopher, and historian of ideas. Although he became increasingly averse to writing for publication, his improvised lectures and talks ...

, and describes Hamann as a "radical Enlightener" who vigorously opposed dogmatic rationalism in matters of philosophy and faith. Bayer views him as less the proto-Romantic that Herder presented, and more a premodern-postmodern thinker who brought the consequences of Lutheran theology to bear upon the burgeoning Enlightenment and especially in reaction to Kant.Bayer, Oswald. A Contemporary in Dissent: Johann Georg Hamann as a Radical Enlightener. Roy A. Harrisville & Mark C. Mattes, trans. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.

References

Sources

* Isaiah Berlin; Henry Hardy (ed.) ''The Magus of the North: J. G. Hamann and the Origins of Modern Irrationalism'', London, John Murray, 1993, * Isaiah Berlin; Henry Hardy (ed.) '' Three Critics of the Enlightenment: Vico, Hamann, Herder'', London and Princeton, 2000, * Dickson, Gwen Griffith, ''Johann Georg Hamann's Relational Metacriticism'' (contains English translations of ''Socratic Memorabilia'', ''Aesthetica in Nuce'', a selection of essays on language, ''Essay of a Sibyl on Marriage'' and ''Metacritique of the Purism of Reason''),

Walter de Gruyter Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. History The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...

, 1995. * Forster, Michael N., ''After Herder: Philosophy of Language in the German Tradition'', Oxford University Press, 2010, ch. 8–9. *

"The Laughter of the Philosophers"
''First Things''. January 2005. * Kenneth Haynes (ed.), ''Hamann: Writings on Philosophy and Language'' (Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy), Cambridge University Press, 2007, * James C. O'Flaherty, ''Unity and Language: A Study in the Philosophy of Hamann'', University of North Carolina, 1952; * James C. O'Flaherty, ''Hamann's Socratic Memorabilia: A Translation and Commentary'', Johns Hopkins Press, 1967; Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 67-12424; * James C. O'Flaherty, ''Johann Georg Hamann'', Twayne Publishers, 1979, ; * James C. O'Flaherty, ''The Quarrel of Reason with Itself: Essays on Hamann, Michaelis, Lessing, Nietzsche'', Camden House, 1988,

External links

* * * *
''Memoirs of Eminent Teachers and Educators: With Contributions to the History of Education in Germany''
(1878) Brown & Goss p. 533ff Retrieved May 23, 2012
Notes on international conference on Hamann in March 2009
Retrieved May 18, 2012
Hamann Briefe
Letters
Hamann, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein on the Language of Philosophers
- open access post-print version of chapter from ''Hamann and the Tradition'' (Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 2012), p. 104-121. * * of works by and on Hamann, on Éditions Ionas website. * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hamann, Johann Georg 1730 births 1788 deaths 18th-century German Protestant theologians German male non-fiction writers Counter-Enlightenment German lutenists German Lutheran theologians 18th-century German philosophers Hermeneutists Writers from Königsberg German philosophers of language Sturm und Drang