The "Nocturnal Side of Science" in David Friedrich Strauss's 'Life of Jesus Critically Examined' Open Access
Fabisiak, Thomas Stanley (2014)
Published
Abstract
This dissertation analyzes David Friedrich Strauss's 1835-36 Life of Jesus Critically Examined in light of his lesser-known studies from the same period on "the science of the nocturnal side of nature," romantic medical research on paranormal phenomena such as animal magnetism, clairvoyance, and demon possession. The Life is known for the consequential role that it played in modern humanistic study and the criticism of religion. It defined an ethos of historical and theological Wissenschaft, science, as "free from presuppositions" and shaped critical adaptations of Hegel's philosophy in the early 1840's. Scholars often describe Strauss's contribution to modern science in terms of a shift from romantic and idealist models of science to positivism. I argue in opposition that his most radical interventions in the study of religion and history emerged where he engaged with esoteric religious beliefs, romantic medicine, and speculative cosmology. His work illustrates as such the complex, uncertain route of modern disenchantment. The writings on the nocturnal side of natural science serve to bring these aspects of the Life of Jesus into relief. I focus in particular on his responses to the romantic poet and physician Justinus Kerner's case studies on ghost-seeing, "demonomania," and Frederike Hauffe, the "Seeress of Prevorst."
Table of Contents
Abstract
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Disenchantment and Exorcism in Early Nineteenth-Century Germany 1
David Friedrich Strauss and the Life of Jesus Critically Examined 8
The Life and the Scientific Study of the New Testament 12
The Ghosts and Demons of the Life of Jesus 15
The "Nocturnal Side" of the Scientific Criticism of Religion and History 23
Chapter 1: D. F. Strauss on the Science of the Nocturnal Side of Nature 26
The Nocturnal Side of Natural Science in early Nineteenth-Century German Philosophy and Medicine 30
Strauss's Bildung in Württemberg 43
From an Equivocal Affinity to an "Inverted Image" of the Nocturnal Side of Nature 51
Frederike Hauffe and the Embodied Limits of Spirit 59
Magdalena Grombach, Anna U, and the Psychophysical Condition of Demonomania 64
Elisabeth Esslinger and the Cultural Conditions of Paranormal Experience 71
Conclusion 79
Chapter 2: The Nocturnal Side of Strauss's Historical Critique of Miracle Stories 81
Strauss on Historical Critical Wissenschaft in the Life 83
Romantic Cosmology and the Modern Critique of Miracle 88
The Nocturnal side of Nature and Strauss's Concessions to Rationalism and Supernaturalism 100
The Nocturnal Side of Natural Science and the Limits of the Gospel Stories in the Life 107
Bodies, Souls, and the Global Limits of Spirit in Strauss's Cosmology 121
Conclusion 123
Chapter 3: D.F. Strauss on Myth and the Nocturnal Side of Nature 125
German Romanticism and the Scientific Study of Biblical Myths 127
First Critical Aspect of Strauss's Adaptation of Romantic Myth Theory: The Critique of Miracles 138
Second Critical Aspect of Strauss's Adaptation of Romantic Myth Theory: Ancient and Modern Bildung 143
Strauss's Hegelian Exposition of his Method: an Immanent, Historical Critique of Consciousness 155
Conclusion 171
Chapter 4: The Nocturnal Side of Christian and Modern Origins 174
Strauss on Jesus' Messianic Self-Consciousness 176
Fanaticism, Religion, and the Origins of Christianity 182
Strauss's Critique of Modern Reason, Part 1: The Limits of the Modern Spirit 199
Strauss's Critique of Modern Reason, Part 2: The Condition of Modernity 206
Conclusion 218
Conclusion: D.F. Strauss's Visions of Modernity and Historical Science 220
The Results: The Nocturnal Side of Strauss's Vision of Historical and Theological Science 222
D.F. Strauss as a Historian and Student of the Nocturnal Side of Natural Science 226
Strauss's 1864 New Life of Jesus and 1872 Old Faith and the New, and the Genealogy of Historical-Critical Science 234
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