Baader, Franz Xaver von

BAADER, bā´der, FRANZ XAVER VON: Roman Catholic philosopher; b. at Munich Mar. 27, 1765; d. there May 23, 1841. He studied and practised medicine, afterward became a mining engineer, and, after a visit to England (1791-96), held official positions in the Bavarian department of mines. In 1826 he became professor of philosophy and speculative theology at Munich. In 1838, having opposed the interference of the Church in civil affairs, he was forbidden to lecture on religion and thenceforth confined himself to psychology and anthropology. He was an original and suggestive thinker, and exercised considerable influence on his own and the succeeding generation, although the aphoristic and paradoxical form in which he presented his thought often makes it difficult to understand him. He sought for a deep and true understanding of Christianity, always with the conviction that ” the legitimate organs had lost the key.” A tendency toward individual judgment caused the Roman Catholics to reject him as one of their philosophers; he considered the papacy an equivocal institution not essential to the Church, and contrasted the Eastern and Western Churches unfavorably to the latter (in Der morgenländische und der abendländische Katholicismus, Stuttgart, 1841). At the same time he was a theosophist rather than a philosopher or theologian, and sought the lost key in the mystical speculations of Eckhart, St. Martin, and Böhme; hence he was equally out of sympathy with the rationalistic tendencies of nineteenth century theology. His system is set forth in his Fermenta cognitionis (parts i-v, Berlin, 1822-24; part vi, Leipsic, 1825) and Vorlesungen über spekulative Dogmatik (part i, Stuttgart, 1828; parts ii-v, Münster, 1830-38). His works, collected and edited by his scholars (Franz Hoffmann, Hamberger, Emil von Schaden, Lutterbeck, von Osten, Schlüter), appeared in 16 vols., Leipsic, 1851-60; vol. xv contains a biography by Hoffmann.

Bibliography: C. P. Fascher, Zur hundertjährigen Geburtsfeier F. von Baadern, Leipsic, 1865; J. Hamberger, Cardinalpunkte der baaderschen Philosophie, Stuttgart, 1855; idem, Fundamentalbegriffe von F. Baaders Ethik, Politik und Religionsphilosophie, ib. 1855; C. A. Thilo, Beleuchtung des Angriffs des F. Baader, in Theologisirende Rechts- und Staatslehre, Leipsic, 1861; G. Goepp, Essai sur F. de Baader, Strasburg, 1862.