Abstract
In this chapter, we follow Feuerbach’s teaching on the elements of water (and air) and his original philosophy of sensibility. We interpret the role of water and air within Feuerbach’s “pneumatic water therapy” (pneumatische Wasserheilkunde). We interpret the role of the water in its capability to serve as a mediator between the newly invented ritual space of the human body itself. Just as in Christianity water plays a mediating role between our bodies and the Holy Spirit, in a philosophically ritualised sense it is precisely water that has a strong mediating role between the body/Nature and thought/sensibility (Sinnlichkeit). Feuerbach’s philosophy is interpreted as a key mediating stage between the classical German Idalism and new trends in philosophy (materialism, elements, breath, sensibility, corporeality).
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Notes
- 1.
Irigaray wrote three books devoted to the elements. The Marine Lover: on Nietzsche is devoted to Water, Elemental Passions is devoted to Earth, and Forgetting of Air in Martin Heidegger is devoted to Air. She had planned on writing a book devoted to Marx (devoted to Fire), but she has not written it as yet.
- 2.
- 3.
See my entry “Food in ancient Indian philosophy” (Škof 2014).
- 4.
§28; see also §32 concerning the introduction of sensibility as reality.
- 5.
- 6.
Cit. after Habermas (1995, 159), translation altered.
- 7.
Here, Düsing is referring to the viewpoint and to the refinement of this orientation (see Fichte 1970, 386).
- 8.
Hans Joas (1980, 53ff) pointed this out in his book about the evolution of Mead's thought, entitled Praktische Intersubjektivität.
- 9.
Concerning Schopenhauer’s Materialism, see Drei Studien über Materialismus (Schmidt 1977; especially p. 51ff).
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Škof, L. (2015). Feuerbach’s “Pneumatische Wasserheilkunde”. In: Breath of Proximity: Intersubjectivity, Ethics and Peace. Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures, vol 10. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9738-2_5
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