Franz von Baader (27 March 1765 – 23 May 1841), born Benedikt Franz Xaver Baader, was a German Catholic philosopher, theologian, physician, and mining engineer. Resisting the empiricism of his day, he denounced most Western philosophy since Descartes as trending into atheism and has been considered a revival of the Scholastic school.
He was one of the most influential theologians of his age but his influence on subsequent philosophy has been less marked, and tends to be submerged into the esoteric discussions of later thinkers rather than cited explicitly in major publications. A notable exception to this tendency appears in the correspondence and later explication of the origins of mystical Walter Benjamin and Gershom Scholem's mystical project published after Benjamin's death where both Baader and Molitor are cited as catalytic to their exploration of the Kabbalah. An exemplar of the tendency to conceal Baader's influence shows up at an importance juncture in the thought of Martin Heidegger: Both Benjamin and Heidegger begin with similar problems derived from a revisitation of major issues in early scholastic thought in the 1913 seminar of Heinrich Rickert--a terrain towards which Baader points the way, and leaves his mark on the formulations of both Benjamin and Heidegger. Heidegger (characteristically) does not cite Baader's work directly: rather, his terminology and manner of speaking about the problem of evil suggest that he read Baader on this subject, tracing Schelling's formulations on theodicy to their roots in Baader on his way to the primary documents of Duns Scotus.
Today Baader is thought to have re-introduced theological engagement with Meister Eckhart into academia and even Christianity and Theosophy more generally.
Life
Benedikt Franz Xaver Baader was born in Munich, Bavaria, on 27 March 1765. He was the third son of Joseph Franz von Paula Baader (15 September 1733 – 16 February 1794) and Maria Dorothea Rosalia von Schöpf (25 October 1742 – 5 February 1829), who were married on 23 May 1761. In 1775, Franz's father Joseph became the court physician of Maximilian III Joseph, the elector of Bavaria. (The elector died two years later.)
Franz' two older brothers were both distinguished men. Clemens Alois Andreas Baader (8 April 1762 – 23 March 1838) was an author. Joseph Anton Ignaz Baader (30 September 1763 – 20 November 1835) was an engineer.
Franz studied medicine at Ingolstadt and Vienna, and for a short time assisted his father in his medical practice. However, Franz soon discovered that life as a physician did not suit him, and he decided to become a mining engineer instead. He studied under Abraham Gottlob Werner at Freiberg, travelled through several of the mining districts in north Germany, and resided in England from 1792 to 1796.
In England, Franz von Baader became acquainted with the empiricism of David Hume, David Hartley, and William Godwin, which was extremely distasteful to him. But he also came into contact with the mystical speculations of Meister Eckhart, Louis Claude de Saint-Martin, and above all those of Jakob Böhme, which were more to his liking. In 1796, he returned to Germany and, in Hamburg, became acquainted with F. H. Jacobi, with whom he became close friends. He also came into contact with Friedrich Schelling, and the works he published during this period were manifestly influenced by that philosopher, though Baader maintained his independence from Schelling.
Their friendship continued till about the year 1822, when Baader's denunciation of modern philosophy in his letter to Tsar Alexander I entirely alienated Schelling. During this time, Baader continued to apply himself to his profession.
He gained a prize of 12,000 gulden (≈117 kg silver) for his new method of employing sodium sulfate instead of potash in the making of glass. From 1817 to 1820, he held the post of superintendent of mines and was raised to the rank of nobility for his services. He retired in 1820, and thereafter published one of the best of his works, Fermenta Cognitionis in 6 parts from 1822 to 1825. In it, he combats modern philosophy and recommends the study of Böhme.
In 1826, when the new university was opened in Munich, he was appointed professor of philosophy and speculative theology. He published some of his lectures there in 4 parts from 1827 to 1836 under the title .
His 1831 "Forty Sentences from a Religious Erotic" was dedicated to Emilie Linder, a Munich painter.