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The Human Vocation in
German Philosophy
i
Bloomsbury Studies in Modern German Philosophy
Series Editors:
Courtney D. Fugate, Florida State University, USA
Anne Pollok, Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz, Germany
Editorial Board:
Desmond Hogan (Princeton University, USA)
Ursula Goldenbaum (Emory University, USA)
Robert Clewis (Gwynedd Mercy University, USA)
Paul Guyer (Brown University, USA)
Brandon Look (University of Kentucky, USA)
Eric Watkins (University of California, San Diego, USA)
Corey W. Dyck (University of Western Ontario, Canada)
Stefanie Buchenau (University of Paris, France)
Paola Rumore (University of Turin, Italy)
Heiner Klemme (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany)
Central and previously overlooked ideas and thinkers from the German
Enlightenment Era are showcased in this series. Expanding research into areas
that have been neglected particularly in English-language scholarship, it covers
the work of lesser-known authors, previously untranslated texts, and issues that
have suffered an undeserved life on the margins of current philosophical-
historical discussion about eighteenth-century German thought.
By opening itself to a broad range of subjects and placing the role of women
during this period center stage, the series not only advances our understanding
of the German Enlightenment and its connection with the pan-European
debates, but also contributes to debates about the reception of Newtonian science
and the impact of Leibnizian, Kantian, and Wolffian philosophies.
Featuring edited collections and single-authored works, and overseen by an

esteemed Editorial Board, the goal is to enrich current debates in the history of
philosophy and to correct common misconceptions.
Titles in the series include:

Tetens’s Writings on Method, Language, and Anthropology, Edited by Courtney
D. Fugate, Curtis Sommerlatte, and Scott Stapleford
Kant’s Rational Religion and the Radical Enlightenment, By Anna Tomaszewska
ii
The Human Vocation in
German Philosophy
Critical Essays and 18th Century Sources
Translations by Anne Pollok and Courtney D. Fugate
iii
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in Great Britain 2023
Copyright © Anne Pollok, Courtney D. Fugate, and Contributors 2023

English language translations © Anne Pollok and Courtney D. Fugate 2023
Anne Pollok and Courtney D. Fugate have asserted their right under the Copyright,
Designs, and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Editors of this work.
For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xiii constitute an extension of this

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iv
Figure 1.1. Johann Joachim Spalding (1796) by Anton Graff (1736–1813).
Photo courtesy of Cabinet of Prints and Drawings of the State Museums in
Berlin – Prussian Cultural Heritage. Photographer: Volker-H. Cutter.
v
Anne Pollok
To my family
Courtney D. Fugate
To my mother and father, you were my sunshine
vi
Contents
Notes on Contributors ix
Note on the Translations and Acknowledgments xii
List of Abbreviations xiv
Table of Contents for the Academy Edition of Kant’s Writings (AA) xv
Introduction: Defining the Dynamics of Being: How the

Bestimmungsfrage Became a Driving Force in German Enlightenment
and Beyond Anne Pollok 1
Part One Translations 19
1 Johann Joachim Spalding: Contemplation on the Vocation of the

Human Being (1748) translated by Courtney Fugate 21
2 Thomas Abbt and Moses Mendelssohn: Doubt and Oracle on the

Human Vocation, plus Excerpts from Their Correspondence
(1756–1766) translated by Anne Pollok 59
Part Two Essays 105
3 The Place of The Human Being in the World: Johann Joachim

Spalding, Religion, and Philosophy as a Way of Life
Laura Anna Macor 107
4 Between Spalding and Fichte: The Vocation of the Human

Being in Mendelssohn and Kant Günter Zöller 125
5 Reinhard Brandt: Excerpt from the Human Vocation in Kant

translated by Courtney Fugate and Anne Pollok 141
6 Kant on the Human Vocation Allen Wood 163
7 Understanding the Vocation of the Human Being Through the

Kantian Sublime Giulia Milli 185
vii
viii Contents
8 “It Will be Well”: Isaak Iselin on the Self-realization of Humanity in

History Ansgar Lyssy 203
9 Whose Vocation? Which Human?: A.W. Rehberg

on the Human Vocation and Political Theory Michael Gregory 233
10 Religious Anthropology and Pluralism: Herder on the Bildung

of Humanity Niels Wildschut 257
11 The Doctrine of Palingenesis in Fichte’s Vocation of the

Human Being David W. Wood 281
12 The Vocation of Philosophy: Hegel on “Speculative” Science and

the Human Good Brady Bowman 295
Bibliography 317
Index 335
Notes on Contributors
Brady Bowman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Pennsylvania State

University. His research interests focus on early modern rationalism and classical
German philosophy, with an equal emphasis on themes in practical and
theoretical philosophy. He is the author of Hegel and the Metaphysics of Absolute
Negativity (2013) as well as numerous articles on Hegel, Kant, Jacobi, Schelling,
and other figures of the period.
Reinhard Brandt is Professor Emeritus at Philipps-Universität Marburg, where

he has lived and taught since 1972. From 1987 to 2002, Brandt served as the
director of the Marburger research group for the continuation of the Academy
Edition of Immanuel Kant’s Works, for which he meticulously edited important
volumes such as Lectures on Anthropology and on Physical Geography. Brandt’s
works center on issues in aesthetics, philosophy of law, and philosophy of
animals, in particular during the Enlightenment and Antiquity. He is a member
of various academies in Germany, and has also published many articles in Italian,
and for the general public in the FAZ and other venues.
Courtney D. Fugate is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Florida State

University, USA. He is the author of The Teleology of Reason: A Study of the
Structure of Kant’s Critical Philosophy (2013), editor of the Cambridge Critical
Guide to Kant’s Lectures on Metaphysics (2019), and Kant and Baumgarten on
Metaphysics (2018). His two most recent books are Baumgarten’s “Elements of
First Practical Philosophy”: With Kant’s “Reflections on Moral Philosophy” (with
John Hymers, 2020) and The Philosophical Writings of Johann Nicolaus Tetens.
Volume 1: Tetens’s Writings on Method, Language, and Anthropology (with Curtis
Sommerlatte and Scott Stapleford, 2022).
Michael Gregory is a Doctoral Candidate at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. He

is writing a dissertation on Kant’s Naturrecht Feyerabend and its relation to
Kant’s natural law republicanism. In addition, he writes on figures surrounding
the development of Kant’s political philosophy, including Gottfried Achenwall
(see his recent “Kant’s Naturrecht Feyerabend, Achenwall and the Role of the
State,” 2021) and August Rehberg (“Kant and Rehberg on Political Theory and
ix
x Notes on Contributors
Practice,” forthcoming). Mike also works on twentieth-century Kantians, such as

Ernst Cassirer (“History, Freedom and Normativity in Cassirer,” 2021).
Ansgar Lyssy is currently researcher at the University of Heidelberg, working on

a project on causality in Hegel, funded by a grant from the Thyssen Foundation.
In 2020, he finished his Habilitationsschrift at LMU Munich, a yet unpublished
monograph titled Humankind and Humanity in Kant. This research was funded
by a grant from the German Research Foundation. Notable publications include
Kausalität und Teleologie bei G. W. Leibniz, Stuttgart: Franz-Steiner (Studia
Leibnitiana, Special Issue No. 48, 2016); three anthologies on Kant and the
philosophy of the eighteenth century, and several papers on Leibniz, Kant, Hegel,
and other related thinkers.
Laura Anna Macor is Associate Professor of History of Philosophy at the

University of Verona. She was previously a Humboldt Fellow at the KU Eichstätt-
Ingolstadt, a Marie-Curie Fellow at the University of Oxford, and Assistant
Professor at the University of Florence. She is interested in German philosophy,
with a special focus on the Enlightenment and early Idealism, which she deals
with from an interdisciplinary perspective, open particularly to literature,
theology, and the history of language. Her publications include Die Bestimmung
des Menschen (1748–1800), Eine Begriffsgeschichte (2013), and the co-edited
volume Hegel y Hölderlin, una amistad estelar (2021).
Giulia Milli is a PhD student at the University of Genova, within the

Northwestern Italian Philosophy Consortium (FINO). She graduated from the
University of Pavia with a bachelors thesis on the relationship between
disinterestedness and interest in Kantian aesthetic judgment, and with a masters
thesis on the Kantian sublime; she carried out part of the research for the masters
thesis at Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, as a visiting student. Her
PhD project concerns the issue of feeling in Kant through an aesthetic-
anthropological lens; the project aims to show the connection between feeling
and the Bestimmung des Menschen in Kantian thought. She published a previous
article on the Kantian sublime: Una lettura antropologica del sublime kantiano
(2020).
Anne Pollok is Research Assistant at Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz.

After her appointment as Lecturer for the Thinking Matters Program (former
Introduction to the Humanities) at Stanford University, she earned tenure and
promotion in 2019 at the University of South Carolina. She is the author of
Facetten des Menschen. Zur Anthropologie Moses Mendelssohns (2010), as well as
Notes on Contributors xi
numerous articles on the human vocation in the eighteenth century, mainly

focusing on Schiller, Mendelssohn, and Kant. She also works on Ernst Cassirer’s
philosophy and culture and the self-formation of woman intellectuals in the
eighteenth/nineteenth century (latest publication: “A Wunderblume and Her
Friends: How Bettina Brentano-von Arnim Develops Individuality Through
Dialogue,” 2021).
Niels Wildschut was a doctoral fellow in the research project “The Emergence of
Relativism” at the University of Vienna, and received his PhD in the history of
philosophy in 2020. He published “Proteus and the Pyrrhonists. Historical
Change and the Universal in Herder’s Early Works” (2018) and “Analogy, Empathy,
Incommensurability: Herder’s Conception of Historical Understanding” (2020),
and is the co-editor of The Emergence of Relativism. German Thought from the
Enlightenment to National Socialism (2019). He currently works as a political risk
analyst and leads public policy research projects.
Allen Wood is the Ruth Norman Halls Professor of Philosophy at Indiana

University, Bloomington. His interests are in the history of modern philosophy,
especially Kant and German idealism, and in ethics and social philosophy. Wood
has held regular professorships at Cornell University, Yale University, and
Stanford University, as well as various visiting appointments at Oxford, the
University of Michigan, and the University of California/San Diego, and
affiliations with Freie Universität Berlin and the Rheinische-Friedrich-Wilhelms-
Universität Bonn. Among his most important publications are his (together with
Paul Guyer) for the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant, as well as
Kant and Religion (2020), Fichte’s Ethical Thought (2016), The Free Development
of Each (2014), and Kantian Ethics (2008), among many others, which are
translated into many languages.
Günter Zöller is Professor of Philosophy (Emeritus) at the University of Munich.

He studied at the University of Bonn, the École normale supérieure, Paris, and
Brown University. He has been a Visiting Professor at Princeton University,
Seoul National University, Emory University, McGill University, The Chinese
University of Hong Kong, the University of Bologna, and Huanzhong University
of Science and Technology. Recent book publications include: Res Publica: Plato’s
“Republic” in Classical German Philosophy (2015); The Cambridge Companion to
Fichte, coedited with David James (2016), Philosophy of the 19th Century: From
Kant to Nietzsche (2018), and Hegel’s Philosophy: An Introduction (2020).
Note on the Translations and
Acknowledgments
This volume contains the first contemporary translation of Spalding’s Betrachtung

über die Bestimmung des Menschen in its first version from 1748, as well as an
extended translation of Abbt’s and Mendelssohn’s epistolary discussion around
the Doubts and the Oracle, which preceded Mendelssohn’s famous Phädon (first
1767); the letters are rendered in English here for the first time.1
A. Spalding’s Vocation
The translation of Spalding’s work is accompanied by an exact facing-page

edition of the original first edition, which has been compared throughout with
modern editions of the same text. The decision to retain original spelling and
punctuation was based upon two considerations. Firstly, there currently exists
no modern edition of this kind, and hence anyone desiring to check more recent
editions against the original would have to read the text in Fraktur. Secondly,
current spelling and editorial practice sometimes hide distinctions or ambiguities
inherent in eighteenth-century German (for example, between the adjective
“wohl” and the adverb “wol,” as Timmermann has pointed out). The page
numbers in the margins of the German text are those of the first edition.
B. Mendelssohn and Abbt
The translation of the discussion between Mendelssohn and Abbt is based on the
Jubiläumsausgabe edition of Mendelssohn’s writings (JA 5/1:617–37: Doubts and
Oracle, the letters from JA 11 and 12/1). Both Mendelssohn and Abbt had a real
knack for words and tones, and hence the translator sought to preserve them as
1
Anne Pollok’s translation of Abbt’s Doubts and Mendelssohn’s Oracle can also be found here:
“Thomas Abbt and Moses Mendelssohn: Doubts and Oracle regarding the vocation of man,” in: The
Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 39.1 (2018), 229–61. The present translation is a hopefully
improved version of this previous attempt; the letters that precede the published Doubts and Oracle
offer a better impression of the complexity of the respective positions.
xii
Note on the Translations and Acknowledgments xiii
much as possible. Abbt in particular seemed to have aimed at an apt imitation of

Spalding’s writing style. Some of his direct quotes from the original are rather
vague—for clarity, the missing nouns or parts of sentences that were left out in
the respective “quote” are provided in brackets.
Some metaphors and a number of sentence structures employed are awkward
or rather colloquial, but were deliberately kept as they are indeed awkward in the
original; in particular, the letters were not quite written for a general public and
should not be artificially brushed up as if they were. This translation is not meant
to correct Abbt’s and Mendelssohn’s German but rather to give the reader an
authentic impression of their language and style. Note that Abbt in particular (or
maybe the typesetter—the undervalued source of creative punctuation in the
eighteenth century) used commas, semicolons, hyphens, and colons every once
in a while (and too often without good reason) as periods—a confusing feature
that is here cautiously aligned with modern usage. Terms that allow for multiple
translations and might offer various connotations in the sentences wherein they
function (or which I indeed translated in different ways, such as “Weltgebäude”
or “Bestimmung”) are referenced in the German original in the footnotes.
Whenever Abbt or Mendelssohn quote (very liberally) from Spalding’s work (in
the 7th edition) I referenced the respective passages in the 1748 edition in its
English version in this volume. Obviously, incomplete sentences were completed;
the added portions are in brackets as well. All footnotes are from the translator.
C. Reinhard Brandt’s Work
For the translation of Reinhard Brandt’s text we relied on the Meiner edition
from 2007. Most footnotes contain Brandt’s own commentaries; further
references by the editors are given in brackets. We surely hope that this translation
will help to make more readers aware of Brandt’s work; he was Anne Pollok’s first
(delightfully ironical) academic teacher of philosophy, and will never be
forgotten in this capacity.
D. Acknowledgments
We sincerely thank all contributors to this volume for their work and their
intellectual curiosity. It has been so very good to work with you! Our thanks also
to the editorial team at Bloomsbury, in particular Colleen Coalter, who has been
with us every step of the way.
Abbreviations
Unless indicated below, all editions are cited by (Abbreviation vol.:page).
AA Kant, Immanuel (1900–), Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften.

Akademieausgabe, Königliche Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften
(ed.), Berlin: de Gruyter. Unless otherwise noted, translations are from
the Cambridge Kant Edition. When applicable cited vol.: page.line(s).
A/B Kant, Immanuel, Critik der reinen Vernunft (1st edition 1781/2nd
edition 1787).
AVW Abbt, Thomas (1780–1), Vermischte Werke, Friedrich Nicolai (ed.),

Berlin und Stettin; reprint 1978, Hildesheim: Olms Verlag.
FGA Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (1962–2012), Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen

Akademie der Wissenschaften, Reinhard Lauth et al. (eds.), Stuttgart-
Bad Cannstatt: frommann-holzboog. Cited section, vol.: page.
FHA Herder, Johann Gottfried (1985–2000), Werke in zehn Bänden, 10 vols.,

Günter Arnold et.al. (ed.), Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag.
GW Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1968–), Gesammelte Werke,

Hamburg: Meiner Verlag.
JA Mendelssohn, Moses (1929–1932, 1971–), Gesammelte Schriften.

Jubiläumsausgabe, Ismar Elbogen, Julius Guttmann, Eugen Mittwoch,
Alexander Altmann, Eva J. Engel (eds.), Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt:
frommann-holzboog.
SpKA Johann Joachim Spalding (2001–2013), Kritische Ausgabe, Albrecht

Beutel (ed.), Division I: Schriften, vols. 1–6/2; Division II: Predigten,
vols. 1–6, Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Cited division, vol.: page.
StA Hölderlin, Friedrich (1943–85), Sämtliche Werke. Stuttgarter Hölderlin-

Ausgabe, Friedrich Beissner, Adolf Beck (eds.), Stuttgart: Cotta.
TWA Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1969–71), Werke in zwanzig Bänden:

Theorie-Werkausgabe, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag.
xiv
Table of Contents for the Academy Edition of
Kant’s Writings (AA)
Volume Contents
1 Pre-Critical Writings
2 Pre-Critical Writings
3 Critique of Pure Reason (1787)
4 Critique of Pure Reason (1781) (pp. 1–252), Prolegomena to Any
Future Metaphysics (pp. 253–384), Groundwork of the Metaphysics
of Morals (pp. 385–464), Metaphysical Foundations of Natural
Science (pp. 465–566)
5 Critique of Practical Reason (pp. 1–164), Critique of the Power of
Judgment (pp. 165–486)
6 Religion within the Boundaries of Reason Alone (pp. 1–202),
The Metaphysics of Morals (p. 203–494)
7 Conflict of the Faculties (pp. 1–116), Anthropology from a Pragmatic
Point of View (pp. 117–334)
8 Shorter Writings after 1781
9 Logic (pp. 1–150), Physical Geography (pp. 151–436), Pedagogy
(pp. 437–500)
10–12 Correspondence
14–20 Literary Remains, including Reflections
21–2 Opus Postumum
23 Preparatory Studies and Notes
xv
xvi
Introduction: Defining the Dynamics of Being:
How the Bestimmungsfrage Became a Driving
Force in the German Enlightenment and Beyond
Anne Pollok
“Quid sumus et quidnam victuri gignimur”?1
A man, seen from behind, more or less featureless, stands at the misty shore of a
body of water, looking out. In the background: a bridge, obscured in fog (or is it
smog?). On the one hand, Guang Niu’s photograph that we chose as the cover for
this volume shows the perpetual human hope for a genuine connection with one
another, the building of bridges that should help us avoid loneliness; on the other
hand, this very bridge, being shrouded in mist, also reminds us of the havoc we
wreck on this earth, rendering those attempts at reaching others even more
fragile.
To be sure, some of these associations would be foreign to the philosophers
translated and discussed in this volume. However, what we still share with their
attempts to define the human vocation is a common human condition and,
further, a common human need for the means to cope with said condition. We,
Courtney Fugate and Anne Pollok, as editors of this volume, hope to keep an
important discussion going,2 a discussion focused on the issue of who we are
1
“Who are we? Born for which kind of life”? This line from Persius’ Satires (Satire 3, line 67) served
as a motto for Spalding’s Bestimmung des Menschen, is mentioned by Abbt in his Doubts concerning
the Human Vocation, and was subsequently taken up by countless others, more prominently among
those being Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Antiquissimi de prima malorum humanorum
origine philosophematis (his dissertation from 1792, see HKA I/1, 61, see Brandt 2007, p. 10 and
Macor 2015, pp. 137–8).
2
Important previous research was done by Hinske 1999 for Kant’s conception of the human vocation;
both Pollok 2010 and Macor 2013 revisited the discussion between Abbt and Mendelssohn and
stressed its importance; Macor in particular also deepened our understanding of Spalding’s
contribution, as well as Albrecht Beutel’s excellent critical edition of Spalding’s works, Georg Raatz
(2014), Aufklärung als Selbstdeutung: eine genetisch-systematische Rekonstruktion von Johann
Joachim Spaldings Bestimmung des Menschen, Tübingen: Mohr, and Grazyna Jurewicz (2018),
1
2 The Human Vocation in German Philosophy
and what we should be, a discussion that, in part, was launched in the second
half of the eighteenth century among a few thinkers in Germany.
In contrast to the discussion of the Bestimmung des Menschen in those
eighteenth-century German-speaking lands, referencing this topic in the
anglophone world immediately presents us with two deep-seated problems of
translation, which are indicative of the conceptual depth of this issue, namely,
how to translate “Bestimmung” and how to translate “des Menschen.” And, since
this series is devoted to translating important discussions in German-speaking
lands of the modern era, we will start with this problem.
I
“Man” or “Human Being”?
Let us, for simplicity’s sake, tackle the second question first, as it is reflective of
more contemporary concerns. Usually, “Mensch” has been translated with “man,”
blissfully oblivious to all things gender. Today, we can and should translate
“Mensch,” not with just one part of it, “man” as in the German Mann (male), but as
recte “human being,” as inelegant as it may sound in certain phrases. However, for
capturing the spirit of the Enlightenment discussion, neither “human being,” nor
even “humanity”—which is perhaps even more saturated with contemporary
associations—are adequate. It is true that a discussion concerning the latter began
in the Enlightenment, with Jean Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, Immanuel Kant,
and, most prominently, Johann Gottfried Herder, who authored Ideen zur
Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit (1784–91) and Briefe zur Beförderung
der Humanität (1793–97), among other titles containing a reference to “Menschheit”
(for further information on this, see the chapters in this volume by A. Wood, Lyssy,
and Wildschut). “Humanity,” however, is too wide and at the same time too closely
associated with normative elements to serve as the perfect translation of “des
Menschen” in this context. When we look at the phrase “Bestimmung des Menschen,”
Moses Mendelssohn über die Bestimmung des Menschen: eine deutsch-jüdische Begriffsgeschichte,
Hannover: Wehrhahn. Jannidis 2002 explored the eighteenth-century usage of the phrase
“Bestimmung des Menschen,” whereas Di Giovanni 2005 highlighted the role of it in the conception
of freedom (from or through religion) in the Enlightenment. Whereas Fichte’s considerations of the
human vocation are well reflected both in the anglophone and German discussion, and Herder’s
philosophy also gains more and more attention, some additional work on less noted figures such as
Thomas Abbt, Isaak Iselin, and August Wilhelm Rehberg still needs to be done. May this volume be
just the beginning.
Introduction 3
the mention of “Mensch” combines both descriptive and normative elements.

Hence, we chose the much neater human vocation (and not humane vocation,
which would rather capture the humanistic aspect of Humanität), and occasionally
vocation of the human being.3
Turning back to the first question, concerning the translation (and scope) of
the term “Bestimmung,” in what follows, I will try to portray the richness of the
German term, as well as its career as a characteristic aspect of German philosophy
of the second half of the eighteenth century.4 As we shall see, it refers to the
definition of the human being, its nature, but also encapsulates the issue of the
human vocation, or a task or calling that a human being, or even all of humanity
has to follow or realize. “Bestimmung” has thus both a descriptive and a visionary
dimension; it captures the essential trajectory of the individual as well as the
“human race” as a whole.
II
Bestimmung as Definition: Human Nature
On the one hand, “Bestimmung” refers to definition. In order to know what a

certain thing is, we need to define its constitutive elements. Accordingly, in order
to define the human being, we need to figure out what sets us apart from
inorganic stuff, plants, and animals—a task as old as philosophy. This is the
question regarding so-called “human nature.” Definitions of what it is to be
human range from as broad as “being part of the living world,” i.e., being organic,
to more specific suggestions, such as being a “rational animal,” a “symbolic
animal,” a “homo faber,” or even a “homo ludens.” Apart from serving to delineate
what the most essential features of human beings are, these attempts to define
humanity also reveal of the prominent philosophical discussions of their
respective times. For present purposes, it is indicative that the discussion of the
definition of the human being in eighteenth-century Germany includes issues of
rationality, morality, and faith (or its striking absence).
3
A corresponding volume on the Vocation of Woman is planned. There were countless such
pamphlets and books from the second half of the eighteenth century onwards, some of them going
through two or more editions. Among those works are essays that justify the status quo, but also
more progressive attempts, such as Amalia Holst’s Über die Bestimmung des Weibes zur höheren
Geistesbildung (1802, recently translated by Andrew Holst for Oxford University Press) or Theodor
Gottlieb von Hippel’s Über die bürgerliche Verbesserung der Weiber (1792).
4
Very interesting with regard to the phrase is Jannidis 2002 (see also D’Alessandro 1999, pp. 21–2).
Further remarks on this issue are found in Hinske 1999, Pollok 2010, ch. I, 1, and in particular in
Macor 2013.
The attempt at a definition thus quickly moves to a determination of our

specific abilities, all of which share the feature of not being part of what we bring
into the world, ready-made, but rather what we have to develop and bring to
perfection through our own efforts. Thus, the question concerning the definition
of human “nature” is quickly transformed into the question concerning the human
task of being, and human perfectibility. As Johann Joachim Spalding writes in his
Meditation on the Vocation of the Human Being from 1748, the very book that
launches the debate on this issue: “It is, for once at least, worth the effort to get to
know why I am here and what, rationally, I ought to be” (SpKA I 1:5, see here
p. 21). Nearly all thinkers assumed that human beings came into this world with
defects, but that they ought to develop their abilities and hence become more
perfect. For this reason, A. Wood stresses in his essay the option to translate
“Bestimmung” with “Entschlossenheit”: a resolution or steadfast purpose (see here
A. Wood, p. 164).
III
Bestimmung as “Vocation” or “Determination”
The human being’s Bestimmung is not captured by naming a set of qualities, but
by delineating the dynamic features of its perfectibility in relation to human
rational, moral, and religious capacities. By the determination of these capacities,
philosophical reflection considers the human call (vocation) to perfection, to the
continual development of human capacities in light of a certain goal, but also in
relation to their practical application in a profession (Beruf, see here Zöller 125–
6). For most of the eighteenth century, this goal is situated beyond the material
world and oriented by a respective faith; most texts discussed in this volume are
situated within a Judeo-Christian, protestant framework. However, perfectibility
in this time-period must also be understood within the framework of Leibnizian
rationalism and metaphysics: development towards perfection here means
attaining a progressively clearer, more distinct, and ultimately exhaustive
determination of a certain set of qualities, which also brings with it a higher
degree of “reality” itself. We can even say, in a sense, that perfection is the decisive
term for German philosophy of the eighteenth century, in particular for the so-
called “Leibnizian-Wolffian” version of rationalism. With “perfection,” Leibniz
himself marks the multitude and diversity of the affirmative features in a thing,
the expressions of its potency and the harmonious interplay of its different
aspects in a single unity, bound together by a maximum of universally valid laws.
Introduction 5
Christian Wolff defines it accordingly: “perfectio est consensus in varietate, seu

plurimum a se invicem differentium in uno” (“Perfection is the consensus in one
of a variety or of many things that are internally differentiated,” see Philosophia
prima, sive ontologia (1730, § 503). For human beings, perfection is a goal,
something to be attained. We find this stress on the dynamic element of
perfection, for instance, in Christan Garve’s Overview of the Most Prominent
Principles of Moral Theory (Übersicht der vornehmsten Principien der Sittenlehre,
1798),5 where he reformulates Wolff ’s definition of perfection as “the conformity
of the manifold present in a thing into one” (“die Uebereinstimmung des in einem
Dinge vorhandenen Mannigfaltigen zu Einem,” Garve 1986, pp. 178–9). In a
footnote he further remarks:
I use the expression which is common among Wolffians even though it remains
a bit obscure. It should indicate the conformity of parts to reach a shared final
aim, or to support the activity of a certain main part, or to produce a certain
form, or all of the above at the same time. Perhaps the indeterminacy of the
expression is the best indicator for the worth of the definition.
Garve 1986, p. 179, emphasis added
Moses Mendelssohn likewise stresses this richness in significance in his

Letters on Sentiments (1755; see remark l, in later editions remark r). Whereas
Leibniz sometimes defines the perfection of the soul by the level of clarity and
distinctness in its perceptions, Wolff stresses the “shared striving to sustain” a
level of perfection (Theologia naturalis, vol. 2, § 15). Mendelssohn aims to
combine these two views in order to conceptualize simple, but at the same time
dynamically complex beings; a move that we can already identify in Leibniz’s
notion of the monad and its striving towards ever clearer and more distinct
perceptions. This also connects the notion of perfection to that of happiness, as
it is the state of eudaimonia that is reached as more and more perceptions
become clear and distinct.6
In the Second Discourse and the Emile, Rousseau introduced the notion of
perfectibilité to the German discussion. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, Mendelssohn,
Samuel Heinrich Reimarus, and Johannes Nikolaus Tetens, among others,
adopted it from this more pedagogical line of thought (and not so much from
5
Garve also stresses that perfection only pertains to humans and animals, which “as living and
rational creatures are conscious of themselves” (Garve 1986, p. 178). We need to pay closer attention
to the principles that keep things together (not to a static order of things in one moment in time),
and thus be aware of the dynamics, rather than the “facts.”
6
See Monadology, §§ 10–19.
Leibniz, as Hornig 1980, p. 224 points out).7 But needless to say, it was a
Leibnizian understanding of Rousseau that these thinkers advanced. According
to this view, human beings come into this world with a set of capacities that need
to be developed and thus brought to fruition. The goal was not only perfection,
but also agency, self-efficacy, and maturity, all of which point to the normative
dimension of the term (see Pollok 2010, pp. 64–6).
The problem was just that this normative dimension needed, but lacked, an
accepted foundation. This dynamic notion of perfection, borrowed from Leibniz
and enriched by ideas coming from Rousseau, was being employed at a time in
which Leibnizian and Wolffian metaphysics was quickly losing its foothold; and
this is partly why nearly all the authors discussed in this volume seek to establish
a new framework for what is essentially the same concept. But instead of a
consensus, the period witnessed a fierce debate and a competition of differing
visions, such that it comes almost as an afterthought when Georg Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel complains much later: “Indeed perfectibility is somewhat
indeterminate [etwas Bestimmungsloses] like changeability as such; it is without
aim or goal, without measure for change: the better, the more perfect, at which it
aims, is something rather indeterminate” (TWA 7:447).
In discussions concerning the human vocation, the two poles that frame this
dynamic definition, namely human nature and the human vocation itself (one
indicating the starting point, the other the goal of human development), stand in
powerful tension with one another. What is particularly troublesome is the
inclusion of human beings in nature, i.e. all what exists on this earth, and at the
same time the exceptional position of humanity as the one entity that supersedes
“mere nature.” How and in what ways could and should the trajectory of human
nature be deflected or overruled in view of its divine or supersensible vocation?
This question transcends human experience; the principles by which our
perfection could be understood go beyond what a Psychologia empirica can offer.
The dilemma seems clear: either we allow metaphysics to limit the lessons of
experience, or we side with experience but are then forced to give up on attaining
certainty of our final vocation. But feisty as philosophers are, they sought to have
it both ways.
7
Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1766,3 17724), Die vornehmsten Wahrheiten der natürlichen Religion.
For him, perfection is not a property or attribute, not even as potential, but as an effective power of
the soul (see Hornig 1980, p. 226). Johann Nikolaus Tetens in his Philosophical Essays on Human
Nature and its Development (Philosophische Versuche über die menschliche Natur und ihre
Entwicklung, 1777) characterizes human perfectibility as a “power over oneself,” a form of
autonomous agency that is the marker of the human soul (Hornig 1980, p. 227).
Introduction 7
Thinkers such as Herder already assume that human beings are not a “vessel
for an absolute, independent, unchanging happiness, as the philosopher defines
it,” but that our image of it “changes with every situation and location”
(Himmelsstriche, FHA 4:38). Ultimately, the answer to the question regarding
the final aim of humanity rests on the respective theory of the human constitution.
Human beings as sensible beings seek their ultimate happiness in pleasure; as
rational beings, they seek it in the cognition of the true and good, or in ultimate
virtue. But however the ultimate goal is formulated, it has repercussions on the
formulation of the meaning of human existence on earth or within a limited
domain of possible experience. What we can make of ourselves within our
lifespan might not be enough to fulfill what we conceive of as our actual vocation
as the bearer of divine perfection. This inevitably leads to the need for a theodicy,
since it is patent that not all human beings are going to reach their final aim of
happiness (in whichever form) in this life, and that many will not even reach a
moderately happy existence in accordance with their virtue or worthiness.
Formulating a final aim towards which we direct our actions is of little use if it
does not in fact help us reach said aim. Also, once individual happiness is at
stake, no guarantee of the merely general happiness of mankind will suffice;
a human being’s capacity for perfection, so wonderfully entailed in our
perfectibility, calls for its fulfillment, not for its deferral onto others, or onto such
an abstract notion as “humanity.” If we cannot become deserving of happiness
(and actually become happy at some point), then we might very well lose the
incentive to strive for that aim. For this very reason, most attempts at explaining
the human vocation examined in this volume contain their own version of, and
argument for, personal immortality.
IV
The Human Being and Humanity as a Whole
As dissatisfying as any referral to the concept of “humanity as such” may be, the
concept of determination, or vocation even, brings with it this further dimension
of “human nature:” the common or shared dimension of Menschheit, that is,
humanity, as a collective term that is at once descriptive and open-ended, but
also normative as a constitutive way of being. Not all of the philosophers
discussed here assume personal immortality, and for them, the idea of a
continuation of the human task within humanity as a whole is of central
importance.
Can the individual fulfill its vocation or is this possible only for humanity as
a whole? Is significant progress towards perfection in any way possible for me or
just for me as part of humanity? According to Leibniz’s grand theory presented
in his Monadology, or Rousseau’s Discourses, an individual is rarely understood
through and by itself alone, but rather almost always with reference to others.
Human beings are deficient in that they do not come into this world already
formed, and in that they might very well end up in less than perfect condition.
We lack certain instincts and we are dependent upon an appropriate
environment—an environment that must contain other human beings who care
for us, provide for us, and speak to us. Human beings are in need of society, and
hence their own personal happiness is intimately entangled with the happiness
of others. In the same way, one’s possible personal perfection is not limited to
oneself, but lies, at least in part, in what one transfers to the next generation. But
does this dependence also indicate that mankind is going through a similar
course of perfectibility—that the human vocation is also the goal for all mankind,
understood as a collective reality? This brings with it the questions of our
development in history, whether it does or should have a direction and, if so,
what that direction might be.
Human perfectibility, paired with human freedom, also indicates the
possibility of human corruptibility, as Rousseau diagnosed it in the First
Discourse. This complicates the issue further, since now human development, no
matter whether it be on the individual or the collective level, does not necessitate
an upward direction towards perfection. It could very well also lead to corruption
and decline. Whenever human beings develop together, they are bound to make
mistakes—which might amount not to progress, but to a regress into a deeper
state of chaos and corruption. Is it only the individual immortal soul that could
ever reach the goal of perfection? The essays on Kant and Mendelssohn in this
volume (A. Wood, Milli, Wildschut, Zöller, and Brandt) will examine how these
authors addressed such issues.
V
Initiating the Debate: Spalding
Despite all the theoretical and fundamental conceptualization that preceded, it

was undoubtedly Johann Joachim Spalding who gave the discussion its name.
The distinctive combination of descriptive and normative elements in his
account from 1748 had a profoundly stirring effect on philosophers of the
Introduction 9
middle- and late-eighteenth century, making the Bestimmung des Menschen a

“basic idea” of the Enlightenment.8 Spalding’s work of the same title went
through several editions,9 expanding in length with each of them while being
widely discussed and copied throughout the period. As one scholar has noted,
this work indeed reflects the self-image of the German Enlightenment
(D’Alessandro 1999, p. 22). As yet another describes the book:
The formula of the human vocation in the title is at the very latest in 1800 so
conventionalized that we can describe the reader’s expectations thus:
prototypically, this title indicates a text for an educated audience of independent
thinkers. The work calls upon one specific field, and that is the determination
[Festlegung] of the goal in life of one human being in accordance with our
knowledge of human nature as such. Deduced from this are reflections about
morality, pedagogy, and religion. The meaning thus determined is cloaked in an
aura of special relevance and importance. Five aspects are associated with this
title: human nature; progress of culture; humans and society; immortality; and
humanity’s ultimate goals: happiness, virtue, humaneness, or formation of
individuality.
Jannidis 2002, p. 87
Spalding’s pious “essay” (Aufsatz), as he himself calls it,10 is a reflection on the

mode and end of our being. In a monologue—later dubbed an “act of existential
reassurance [existentielle Selbstverständigung]”11—the text’s narrator recasts the
way towards certainty of himself and his true essence (SpKA I, 1:193). Even
though Spalding later felt compelled to link his argumentation more explicitly to
his Christian faith,12 large portions of his general argument rest on empirical
evidence and introspection, with the idea being that anyone can become certain
of their vocation by this same method.
8
Macor 2015, p. 128, with further references, prominent among those of course Hinske 1999, p. 3 and
Beutel, Albrecht 2014, p. 75.
9
Beutel in SpKA I, 1:xxv–vii, and Macor 2015, pp. 128–9 count eleven legal editions, and twenty-nine
(!) editions and translations in total during Spalding’s lifetime. A very important string of editions
for Spalding’s reception in Germany is the reprint of the fourth edition from 1752 in Friedrich
Christian Oetinger’s The Truth of Sensus Communis in the first edition from 1754 and the second
from 1781 (see Macor 2015, p. 135): this paved the way for Hegel’s and Hölderin’s reading of Spalding.
10
See Johann Joachim Spalding (1804), Lebensbeschreibung, ed. Georg Ludwig Spalding, 21, Halle:
Waisenhaus.
11
Beutel in SpKA I, 1:xxxi.
12
Johann Melchior Goeze persuaded Spalding to declare, in an appendix to the third edition of his
work, that his philosophy was not opposed to Christian revelation but rather complemented it (see
Johann Joachim Spalding (1749), Betrachtung über die Bestimmung des Menschen, pp. 26–32, Berlin:
Johann Jacob Weitbrecht). His main argument: if religion had not been revealed to the world, we
would not know anything about nature either.
The narrator ponders the reason for his existence and to what end he should
live. The quasi-Platonic13 “ladder of pleasures” that he encounters ascends from
sensual pleasure to the “pleasure of the spirit” (SpKA I, 1:65, here 29), all the way
up to the active practice of virtue (79, here 31). Only in the latter activity does the
narrator, however, become aware of the connection among all beings and his
particular perfection within the common good (87, here 39). This allows him to
overcome the limitations of individuality and it reveals his connection to the
divine and true religion (135, here 43), which ultimately guarantees the
individual’s eternal ascent to ultimate perfection (167, here 51).
For this purpose, Spalding brings the main strands of the then-prominent,
so-called Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophy in Germany together with the ideas of
Francis Hutcheson and Shaftesbury.14 After all, it is not so much a strict exercise
in ratiocination favored by the rationalists, but an exploration of the human
moral (and religious) sense as discussed by Hutcheson and Shaftesbury that
leads the “I” towards answers. Shaftesbury in particular wanted to move away
from any form of Schulphilosophie towards a philosophy concerned for the place
of human beings within nature—not fighting against, but embracing their being
and allowing them to put into words and theories what they already felt within
themselves. Only a philosophy that is genuinely concerned for its addressees, i.e.,
human beings, can actually tell them anything about their end; and this is exactly
what Spalding set out to do.
In a similar vein, Spalding attempts to showcase the two pillars of divine
consolation for us, as we become aware that our earthly happiness and our ability
to fulfill our higher vocation is in danger of being cut short at any moment.
a) Per his argument, the perpetual capacity for perfection is not a human weakness,
but represents our particular promise. The necessity of our improvement indicates
the possibility of its fulfillment—granted that there is a just and good God. In
Spalding’s argumentation this necessity provides the ground for rational faith.
This he combines with the assumption of the unity of the soul; it is not only the
center of all reasoning, feeling, and willing, but it is as a unifying force also outside
of time, not subject to it. Death, in this reading, stops being an absolute limit and
becomes rather a change on the phenomenal level.
13
See, for instance, Symposium 210A–211D.
14
Although Hinske 1994, pp. 138–9, Altmann 1982, pp. 99–100, and Riedel 1985, p. 167 stress the
Leibnizean influence, Tonelli 1974 and Schollmeier 1967, pp. 16–18, as well as Adler 1994a, pp. 126
and 128–9, Sauder 1981, p. 153, and Heinz 1992, p. 264, Schwaiger 1999, pp. 8–10 pay heed to the
influence by Shaftesbury. Spalding was well-read in British philosophy, in particular Shaftesbury,
whom he also translated (Beutel in SpKA I, 1:xxviii).
Introduction 11
Of course, this move aggravated his critics. Not without reason, Johann
Melchior Goeze points out a major flaw in Spalding’s argument: he infers the
real, even the necessary from the possible, when he reasons that our need for
immortality is its proof (Goeze 1748, p. 9, cit. in Beutel in SpKA I, 1:xxxix, versus
the closing remarks in Spalding 1748, p. 25, here 57). This latter aspect is brought
one step further with the argument for justice:
b) With reference to a distributive right in the afterlife, the danger of worldly

misgivings and misfortunes are sought to be neutralized. If we cannot fulfill our
vocation in this life, it is no matter, as we will have time to do so after death. If we
suffered evil—or even: committed it—there is no need to despair: it will be set
right again in an afterlife, as God is good and would not permit wrongdoings to
persist. Very clearly Spalding is here a representative of a theory of compensation
in which any bad deed on this earth is thought to be balanced out by a retributive
force in the afterlife (see, for instance, SpKA I, 1, 21, here 49). The argumentation
brings the theory of redistribution and the theory of perfectibility together: if we
can cognize both God and the good life, so Spalding, then we should also be
justified in thinking that a reasonable order of the world is real—and even that
any seeming disruption of this order is ultimately going to reinforce said order
through a proper punishment and redistribution in the afterlife. In this view,
misfortune cannot be but a test.
Not only Abbt, who planned a review of the seventh edition from 1763, was
irked by the heavy undertones of the human need for vengeance in this
justification. Also, it seems to weaken the moral worth of a good deed if it was
done for an expected reward, and not for its own sake.
Spalding’s argumentation is not, however, a reflection of Leibnizian rational
religion (even though he characterizes God’s actions as “according to the strictest
rules and following the most noble purposes”, SpKA I, 1, 22, here 51). For him,
not any rational conception of God, but revelation is the highest expression and
ultimate aim of his little reflection. The ultimate hope rests in divine revelation,
as he already stresses in the first addition (Anhang), published as a reply to Goeze
in the third edition from 1749,15 as well as in the third section on “religion:” our
soul shall concentrate on revelation, as any other path leads into darkness.
Even if Spalding in the first edition considers the possibility that the proofs
won’t hold (SpKA I, 1, 24–5, here 57), he quickly asserts that “it is way too
15
See Beutel in SpKA I, 1:xlvi, Spalding 1749, Anhang 1, p. 202.
important to me that these ideas should be true.” Interestingly, this is no longer

contained in the seventh edition from 1763—the edition that sparked the
discussion between Abbt and Mendelssohn (see Spalding 7/1763, 55). But even
then Spalding references the “all sweetening idea” (ibid., 56) of divine revelation,
which reconciles us with the idea of death.
Maybe the editor of the critical edition, Albrecht Beutel, goes a bit too far
when he calls this a “regulative idea . . . of transcendental relevance” (see Beutel
in SpKA I, 1:xxxiv and xlii, see also Pollok 2010, ch. I.1, p. 77). Ultimately, Spalding
did not require a firm theological or philosophical proof, but rather wanted to
draw out what a soul already obscurely felt. The main weight of his argument in
the Vocation rests on the human ability to find the ultimate proof within oneself.
This is much closer to the common sense philosophy Spalding was so invested in
translating than in any proto-Kantian undertaking.
This only changes in the last version of this book from 1794, which manifests
the influence of Kant’s critical philosophy on Spalding’s notion of the human
vocation in theoretical as well as practical regard (see Macor 2013, §39, pp. 304–
10). Reason, as Spalding states now in an addition to the section “Pleasures of
Spirit” (Vergnügen des Geistes), is only limited by itself; it cannot offer us perfect
insight, but enables a true expansion of our soul. In the section on “virtue,”
Spalding remains faithful to his earlier adoption of Shaftesbury’s moral sense
philosophy, but gives it a decidedly Kantian flavor: our insight into our duty is
immediate through practical reason; the moral law is sharply distinguished from
rules of prudence. Spalding still keeps morality and feeling close together, as the
“I” can become conscious of its moral superiority and bask in the positive
emotion coming from this insight—but at the same time he stresses that this
feeling must not be the ground for morality as such.
Spalding’s work proved to be immensely influential—not only by providing a
memorable phrase (see Jannidis 2002), but also by provoking considerations of
human Bildung, human historicity, and the earthly but also metaphysical telos of
humanity in general. For many of these debates, though, it is not adequate to
consider Spalding as the sole influence, but rather as having captured the “tenor of
the time.” We also need to take a further contribution to the discussion into
consideration—Thomas Abbt’s and Moses Mendelssohn’s debate concerning the
human vocation and its influence on Mendelssohn’s Phädon, which in turn
influenced Kant’s reflections on one of the ideas of pure reason, namely,
immortality.
Introduction 13
VI
The Existential Potential of the Debate
This little debate16 is a true gem among the late Enlightenment discussion of the
human vocation (and, concomitantly, an updated version of Leibniz’s theodicy).
In a letter to Mendelssohn on February 20, 1764, Abbt laments the bad state of
his contemporaries’ philosophies of mankind, especially in light of Spalding’s
work (see JA 12/1:36, here p. 64). The ensuing discussion between Abbt and
Mendelssohn culminated in the published exchange in the Doubts and Oracle
Concerning the Human Vocation (see here ch. 2, pp. 68–90). These two essays
were originally published anonymously in 1764 under the pretense of being two
parts of a book published in Schinznach, 1763.17 They also re-appeared under
the names of both Abbt and Mendelssohn in an edition of the Phädon published
in Amsterdam in 1767,18 and later in the third volume of Abbt’s Vermischte
Werke.19 In his Doubts, Abbt spells out his disagreement with Spalding most
succinctly, concentrating on the latter’s consolatory argument for further
perfection beyond the death of the individual (see JA 5/1:625–6, 628, here
pp. 77–9). What, Abbt asks, allows us to view ourselves as the ultimate aim of
perfection, as self-sufficient units of worth—especially, if it could just as well be
the case that we are either part of a haphazard conglomeration of accidents or
part of an overall plan that includes us as mere means and not ends (JA 5/1:626–
7, here 78)? In the letters to Mendelssohn that follow the public debate, we can
see Abbt’s unwavering focus upon the individual as an end in herself. He never
tires of asking Spalding (and Mendelssohn) to what end each one of us, rather
than “man in general,” is destined. Mendelssohn’s first answer in the Oracle—
which was essentially, “just look more closely, and you will see”! (JA 5/1:630, here
83)—did nothing to alleviate Abbt’s concerns. For Mendelssohn, the fundamental
openness of the individual’s progression towards perfection itself is the answer,
rather than something to be questioned. In his letters (and his Phädon), he thus
attempts to use Abbt’s questions to formulate an ultimate limit case for philosophy
according to which the question regarding someone’s individual destiny is no
16
See Pollok 2010, pp. 70–2 where I discuss the literature around 1765; ultimately, we can see that
Mendelssohn’s and Abbt’s discussion gave the publications with the same title an undeniable push.
17
The two essays were published consecutively in Briefe, die neueste Litteratur betreffend, ed. Friedrich
Nicolai, Moses Mendelssohn, and Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (Berlin: Nicolai, 1764), 5–60.
18
The full title is: Phädon, or On the Immortality of the Soul, In Addition with the Doubts and the Oracle
Concerning the Human Vocation, Amsterdam 1767.
19
See Thomas Abbt, Freundschaftliche Correspondenz, in AVW 3:174–200, and 208–22.
longer philosophical. Observations of the sort: “we do not quite know how such
and such works” do not lead to conclusions such as: “we cannot know how it
works” (see JA 12/1:92, here 102). Ultimately, all Mendelssohn asks for is an
assurance that the world is ordered rationally according to the principle of
sufficient reason; in contrast, Abbt desires an answer that goes well beyond any
human capacity of comprehension.
It is indeed a shame that Abbt did not live to reply to Mendelssohn’s further
attempts at an answer to the question of the vocation of man in his Phädon,
which Mendelssohn devoted to his then-deceased friend (JA 3/1:7), whose
premature death in 1766 at the age of twenty-seven was one of the great losses
for eighteenth-century philosophy. It would have been thrilling to read Abbt’s
reviews of both the Phädon and Mendelssohn’s later Remarks on Abbt’s Amicable
Correspondence (1782), where Mendelssohn, again, favors an optimistic self-
limitation in fundamental questions20—reviews that would have quite possibly
been furious. In the latter text, Mendelssohn wrote:
But what if one wants to know in sufficient detail in which particular form we
will continue, in what region, with what kind of ethereal body, and with what
kind of senses and extremities [Gliedmaßen] we will live and thrive [leben und
weben]? At this stage, humble reason steps back, a finger on her mouth [mit dem
Finger auf dem Munde]. . . . Not even revelation can give us further instruction in
this regard, since then she would have to speak a language we cannot understand,
and presuppose basic ideas [Grundideen] that we do not have.21
Mendelssohn’s writings are expressions of this limitation of the scope of reason.

But he did not advocate keeping quiet and guarding reason’s borders. Instead, he
aimed to explicate the knowledge that we can grasp to build a more certain
foundation for our dealings with the world. The wonderful assurance of the
soul’s personal immortality that Mendelssohn sought to prove in his Phädon was
highly praised, but also heavily criticized, most prominently in the second
edition of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Instead of this being a metaphysical
truth, it is reduced to an (though practically necessary) idea of reason.22
But what the discussion between Spalding and his readers, as well as between
Abbt and Mendelssohn, also shows is the importance and concomitant fragility
of philosophical communication. Overall, works concerning the human vocation
20
For a reflection on the continuation of the discussion of the question concerning the vocation of
man in Johann Gottfried Herder, see Pollok 2010, chapter V.2, Pollok 2018, Beiser 2011a, and here
Wildschut.
21
JA 6/1:42–3.
22
See on this Guyer 2020, in particular chapter I 4. and 5.
Introduction 15
were generally seen as Popularphilosophie, targeting a wider audience and

hence not engaging in all-too-intricate philosophical arguments. Those were
reserved for other books, and hence also for a much more limited audience. This
might be part of the reason as to why Mendelssohn’s concept of the human
vocation remained more widely available than Kant’s demanding alternative,
and also why On the Human Vocation became one of Fichte’s most successful
works (see here D. Wood).
VII
The Aftermath
We could say that in the wake of Kant’s critical project, as well as of the counter-
Enlightenment that would give birth to Romanticism and Idealism, the
philosophical debate concerning the Bestimmung des Menschen as conceived by
Spalding and other figures of the period came to an end. As Jannidis notes, this
is not necessarily the end of the popular debate: many of the relevant works see
a second or third edition, retaining the interest of a wider audience. Particularly
popular are those that offer advice for the education of girls, offering a firm
definition and determination of their abilities and options; although, overall,
these attempts seem mostly aimed at keeping a status quo.23
But, even in “philosophy proper,” the task to spell out the meaning and
direction of human life was not abolished. Philosophers such as Herder (see here
Wildschut), Schiller (see Pollok 2019 and 2020), Kant (see here A. Wood, Zöller,
and Milli), Fichte (see here D. Wood), and Hegel (see here Bowman) continue
the discussion concerning the human vocation under fundamentally new
conceptions of its framework and in contradistinction to Spalding’s metaphysical
and practical consolations. Schiller aims highest, as he formulates our vocation
as becoming similar, or equivalent even, to God: “God-likeness [Gottgleichheit] is
the vocation of man” (Schiller, Nationalausgabe vol. 20, p. 10). Kant is more
modest: Ultimately, it is the final aim of all of humanity to aspire to divine
perfection—a task to which we ought to devote all human reasoning and acting.
23
See Angelika Feurer (1789), Die Bestimmung des Weibes zur Hausfrau, Mutter und Gattin,
Braunschweig: Campe, Wilhelmine Halberstadt (1808, 1825, 1827), Briefe über Moralität, Würde und
Bestimmung des Weibes. Jungen Frauenzimmern geweiht, Kassel, Hamburg, Christian von Bomhard
(1815), Symposion von der Würde der weiblichen Natur und Bestimmung. Deutschen Frauen und
Jungfrauen gewidmet, Bamberg, Johann Chr. Sommer (1794, 1807), Über innere und äußere
Bestimmung des Jünglings, nebst einer Abhandlung über die Bestimmung des Mädchens, Halberstadt.
In their discussion of Enlightenment in 1784, Mendelssohn and Kant

distinguish between the roles of human beings as human beings and as citizens;24
a distinction Fichte then takes up in his Vocation of the Scholar (Macor 2015,
p. 133, see here D. Wood), and which we can trace well into the discussion of
human rights in contrast to national rights. Hegel’s concept of “spirit,” on the
other hand, can be understood as taking seriously the idea of the human being
as a unique and non-reducible realization of “something authentically divine”
(see here Bowman), while arguing against the worth of Popularphilosophie,
which Hegel saw represented in Spalding (and, see above, in other such
Bestimmungsliteratur).
An important development within the discussion is thus the move away from
metaphysical or religious questions toward issues in morality (and also history
and politics, see here Gregory), whether it pertains to the will of the individual
or the will of humanity. The question concerning the human vocation thus
pertains not to the individual alone, reasoning by themselves about their
individual vocation, but also to the human being as part of “the general
connection among rational beings” (see Macor 2013, § 40, p. 312, and here A.
Wood, Wildschut, D. Wood, Bowman). The religious vocation might have still
reigned in Fichte’s “Atheismusstreit” (Macor 2013, §41), as Spalding was
mentioned by Fichte’s assailants as among the “good” philosophers in contrast to
the “bad,” i.e., atheist ones following Kantian rigorism, such as Fichte. It is quite
telling that Fichte’s subsequent Appeal to the Public (1798) instrumentalizes the
very same Spalding, too, suggesting that it was his book that put “a first seed of
higher speculation into the youthful soul, and whose works so fittingly
characterize the striving for the transcendent, the everlasting” (FGA I.5,
pp. 446–7). This also characterizes his own, Fichte’s, work. Despite some skeptical
reactions by those who sensed that Fichte rather wanted to downplay the
differences between his thoughts and Spalding’s (see Macor 2013, §41, 319), he
insisted on the similarities, naming his own reflection on the issue after its
famous predecessor. The philosophy of objective divine perfection becomes the
philosophy of the subjective, but universal will in its Wechselwirkung with others.
The quest for the human vocation also lingers in the development of the
German Bildungsroman, as well as in German Romanticism, such as Hölderlin’s
Fragments and the Hyperion, or Hegel’s The Positivity of Christian Religion (see
Macor 2015, p. 127, and here Bowman). Friedrich Hölderlin’s Hyperion seems to
echo Abbt’s existential concerns when the protagonist wonders about our human
24
See Pollok 2010, ch. IV.3, Pollok 2020a, Macor 2015, p. 131.
Introduction 17
vocation, as we stem from nothing, go nowhere, and can believe in nothing. And
still, in our decisive departure from merely biological life, human beings aim for
the stars, even in light of the possibility of eternal emptiness (see Hyperion, 11th
letter, StA 3:45). At times, it is the desire to be one with nature (“To be one with
all, that is the life of the god, that is heaven for the human being,” 2nd letter, StA
3:9), which is not just a Spinozistic dream but also represents the ultimate fantasy
of the rationalists: the fundamental unity in a life above and beyond this earth.
And, similar to Spalding’s argumentation, it is the sheer overabundance of power
and force (Kraft) that points us beyond what is possible on earth (8th letter, 3:41).
It is noteworthy, though, that Hyperion references these existential questions
as “destructive” (StA 3:45). Kant already captured the problematic nature of our
quest to understand the human vocation quite well in his Critique of Pure Reason:
that our reason is damned to pose questions that it cannot answer. In the end, the
fundamental questions (“Who are we”? “To what end are we here”?) had to be
reformulated, so that they would not force us against the boundaries of our own
thinking (and even our feeling).
Hegel’s discussion of the term, as well as Fichte’s ultimate reference to it surely
go beyond the limits of this introduction; but this is no matter, as they are
discussed in Bowman and D. Wood in this volume; whereas Macor’s contribution
ultimately traces Spalding’s influence up to Foucault. All contributions make
abundantly clear how fruitful Spalding’s notion of the human vocation is for
understanding and discussing the major philosophical tenets in eighteenth
century Germany. We hope that this volume will deepen these discussions.
18
Part One
Translations
19
Betrachtung über die Bestimmung des Menschen
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20
1
Johann Joachim Spalding: Contemplation on

the Vocation of the Human Being (1748)
Translated by Courtney D. Fugate
——— quod — ad nos

Pertinent et nescire malum est agitamus—
Hor.1
Quid sumus? et quidnam victuri gignimur?—

Persivs.2
I see that I can spend the brief time I have to live in this world
acting according to entirely distinct maxims, whose worth and
consequences, due to this same distinctness, can in no way be
identical. Now, since I undeniably find within myself a capacity to
choose and to prefer one thing over another in my decisions, I
must also not proceed blindly in this, but rather seek to make out
beforehand, to the best of my abilities, the path that is most certain,
respectable, and advantageous for me. Many experiences have
already taught me regarding things of lesser importance that the
agonizing sense of regret that attends certain actions brought to
pass is not within my control; so much the more would I therefore
have to reproach myself later, if I did not now most earnestly reflect
on the source of my real worth and on the whole state of my life. It
is certainly, for once at least, worth the effort to get to know why I
am here and what, rationally, I ought to be.
The examples provided by human beings around me
1
Horace, Satires II.6.72–73: “We discuss things which matter . . . to us and which it is harmful to
ignore” (Horace 1999, p. 296).
2
Persius, Satires III.67: “What are we? And what sort of life are we born to live?”
21
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Johann Joachim Spalding 23
are no valid guarantee in an endeavor such as this. And even if

they could be such, these people depart so infinitely far from one
another in their conduct that selecting a guide from among them
would involve me in much greater confusions and difficulties
than would setting out to discover the correct path all by myself.
Indeed, if I should follow one group, then I am certain in every
case of being either jeered at or condemned by the others. And I
know of nothing that could more strongly counter such
annoyances than the certainty that would arise from such an
investigation. And I hope that this will, in any case, render me
indifferent to criticisms from both parties.
I readily comprehend that it is impossible for the common
strivings for wealth and honor to agree with the true ends of the
human being if they are not regarded merely as means to actual
aims and goods. There is so much that is empty and false, so
much that rests on mere fantasy in these forms of happiness, that
I cannot fail to find myself in a thousand miseries even when I
have achieved all my goals in respect to them. However, if my
nature were not capable of any actual sensations of pleasure and
pain, and if also my fantasies and representations stood constantly
under my control, then I would not have any qualms about
placing my happiness in fantasies and representations and
consequently about giving myself over to an unwavering desire
for them. Yet I am too clearly aware that the opposite of this is
true. As long, therefore, as something is present in nature that is
still more essential, something that can yet stimulate my
inclinations, I cannot excuse myself should I further entangle
myself in such dreams.
More essential than such things is undoubtedly the gratification
of the senses. I confess that this exerts a powerful attraction
upon me. Should I not indeed be eager to seek it and to enjoy it?—
The drive toward gratification, which lies so deeply within my
soul, appears to justify this when I entirely abandon myself to that
kind of desire. What more would I have than gratification,
especially when, to all appearances, I am made for it?—And what
do I miss out on in gratification, when I deny myself nothing? This
principle, so it appears, is also powerfully supported by experience.
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When I merely imagine the sweet intoxication into which a

constant variation of sensible pleasure can lead me throughout
the short duration of this life, then it seems to me that there
remains nothing further to wish for. Why should I ever begin to
quarrel with a desire that arises from within me, when it promises
in advance an infallible delight as reward for its fulfillment? Why
should I, through fear of the future, bring near what are distant,
uncertain, and perhaps even imaginary consequences, only to
poison the time that I can meanwhile use to raise new inclinations
and to satisfy these in a new way? What is lacking in human
beings that are drunk with sensual pleasure? What would I lack
if I were to imitate such people? What would I lack if I were to
continually occupy my soul with granting it what it requires, and
if I were to always link one gratification to another so that no gap
between them may torment my soul with disgust, or unsettle it
with second thoughts? Nature and society are inexhaustible
sources of such pleasure, which will not leave my senses idle if
only I wish to dedicate myself to them.
These persuasions are strong; but I think that their strength

has something savage and intoxicating about it, which does not
yet allow my soul to be sufficiently quiet; for this reason, I must
once again calmly investigate the matter.
What I perceive in some examples of those who pro-
ceed according to the previous maxims is already apt to awaken
in me a mistrust in this apparent coherence of my judgments. I
have seen their pleasure; I have seen their desires satisfied, as it
were, at desire’s very birth; I have seen with what swiftness they
rush from one delight to another, with what vigilance they grasp
on all sides for whatever gratification should sweep past, with
what triumphant violence they hold within bounds the depressed
and brooding part of their soul. It was a sea of sensual pleasure
in which they swam. But this condition exists no longer, and the
change is sorrowful. One sighs in the poverty, which, alongside
expensive and artificial gratification, also at the same time
deprives him of the cheaper and more natural; another languishes
in illnesses and pains, which allow him to sense nothing pleas-
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ant. Both are genuine consequences of the zeal with which they
have exercised the great maxim of denying themselves nothing.
The memory of the sensual pleasures they have enjoyed, and of
the efforts with which they have sought them, fall infinitely short
of providing those people with a preponderant state of tranquility.
Instead, such things become to them so many furies, which
internally tear them apart.
This frightens me.—Would I really want to be in their position?
Would I even really want to put myself in the likely danger that I
could at some point be in their position? Should I then really exist
in the world in order to do everything that flatters the sensations
of my senses?—It is annoying that in regard to the most desirable
matter in the world, namely gratification, bad effects are possible;
but I simply cannot change that. Hence, in regard to this rule I
must only be concerned about the limitations. I must enjoy the
gratification of the senses in such a way that I remain safe from its
bad fruits. It is in this that consists the great science upon which
the subtlest minds have worked for so long; their single, chief
science of life. Obviously, that art is of no small value, which teaches
me to extract what is sweet from sensual pleasures, without being
pierced by their barbs; and even if this must happen by means of a
moderation and abstinence that costs me, yet that price is not too
high by which I, at the same time, purchase freedom from disgust
as well as subsequent pain. Perhaps I enjoy less pleasure, but it is
more sensible and enduring. Here no nagging concerns creep into
the heart, which is open only to gratification. In this series of
delights there is surely room for thought and circumspection, but
not for distress and reproaches and frightful imaginings. I do not
suppress my reason; I employ it according to its end and, since I
live for sensing, allow it to serve sensations. Then my life, like a
gentle stream, flows onwards untroubled, amid nothing but
flowers.—And hence a well-regulated hedonist would be what
nature would have the human being to be.—
According to this, my new system, I now enjoy for a

time the delights of this life with all circumspection and cau-
tion.—And nevertheless, there are certain moments when I
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Loys, Jamet, 120
Lucian, πὲρι διψάδων, 78
Luther, M., Faithfull admonition of a true pastor. C. Freeman, 121;
Sermon on John xxii., A Scoloker, 106
Lyndewode, W., Constitutiones provinciales, Oxford, 14, 17, 19, 21
Lyons, printing, 96
Lystrius, Gerard, Oratio, 4, 5
MacCarthy, Count J., 17

Madan, F., 6, 8, 12, 17, 27, 67
Magdalen College. See Oxford
Magdalene College. See Cambridge
Manchester, Rylands Library. See John Rylands
Manfield, Dr, 74, 88
Manual, York, J. Gachet, 58, 59
Marcourt, A., A declaration of the Mass, J. Oswen, 110
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Maunsell’s Catalogue, 102, 113
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Of the true authority of the churchs, J. Oswen, 109
Meltynbe, John, 63
Merton College. See Oxford
Message from King Edward VI., J. Oswen, 113
Messingham, T., 63
Michael de Hungaria, Tredecim sermones, 10
Middleton, Conyers, 6, 72
Minns, E. H., 91
Mirk, J., Liber festivalis, 20
Missal, Hereford, 65;
York, 46, 49, 51, 59, 60, 61
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Moore, Bp., John, 59
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Morin, M., 59
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Mychell, J., 117-119
Myllar, Andrew, 46
Mylner, U., 50, 51, 55-58
New book containing an exhortation to the sick, J. Oswen, 110

New College. See Oxford
Newell, Thomas, 63
Newes from Rome, J. Mychell, 118
Nicholson, Segar, 95, 96
Niclas. See Speryng
Norres, Dr, 74
Norwich, printing, 2, 125
Norwich Cathedral Library, 37
Nova Festa, York, U. Mylner, 55, 56.
O. R., binder, 105

Ochino, B., Sermons, A Scoloker, 106
Oecolampadius, Epistle, J. Oswen, 109
Oliver, Reginald, 105, 106
Olivier, Pierre, 59, 60, 65
Opus insolubilum, J. Scolar, 69;
P. Treveris, 28, 29
Opusculum grammaticale, G. van Ghemen, 57
Ordinary of all faithful Christians, A Scoloker, 106
Ortus Vocabulorum, J. Gachet, 65, 66
Osborne, Thomas, 4
Oswen, John, 109-116
Overton, John, 107, 108
Oxford, Earl of. See Harley
Oxford Libraries:
All Soul’s College, 12, 81
Bodleian, 8, 10, 14, 15, 21, 23, 36, 43, 45, 46, 55, 60, 61, 65,
69, 76, 78, 81, 82, 94, 99, 110, 114, 119
Brasenose College, 11, 33, 114
Corpus Christi College, 27, 28
Exeter College, 99
Magdalen College, 12, 25, 31
Merton College, 12, 17
New College, 17, 26
Oriel College, 10
Queen’s College, 60, 96
Wadham College, 37
Pace, Richard, 82
Paffroet, R., 5, 14
Panormitanus, Decretals, 96
Papyrius Geminus, Hermathena, 74, 82, 86
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale. See Bibliothèque
Paris, printing, 58, 60, 61, 95
Parker, M., 71, 72
Pastor, Jacob, 86
Pate, Richard, 25
Paulinus, Epistolæ, Paris, 84
Pelgrim, Joyce, 26
Pepwell, H., 103
Peregrinus de Lugo, Principia, R. Pynson, 25
Phalaris Epistolæ, Oxford, 14, 18, 23
Pica. See Directorium
Pietersen, H., 88
Plateanus, Th. See Straten, D. van der
Plinius, Epistolæ, 4, 5
Pole, R., Articles to be enquired at Visitation, J. Mychell, 119
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Privileges, 68
Processional, York, J. Gachet, 59, 60
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Proctor, R. G. C., 20, 26
Prognostication for 1536, Dutch, H. Pietersen, 88
Psalter, J. Mychell, 117, 118;
J. Oswen, 113
Pulleyn, R., 47-50
Pynson, R., 13, 25, 44, 51, 76, 77
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Quentell, H., 15
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Ramsay, J., Plaister for a galled horse, J. Oswen, 110
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Rawlinson, T., 55, 57, 120
Raynalde, T., 110
Regimen Sanitatis, J. Dorne, 27
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Remigius, Dominus que pars, J. Dorne, 27
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Richard, Jean, 65
Richmond, Countess of, 65, 66, 90
Ridley, Dr, 88
Rinck, P., 86
Ripon Cathedral Library, 59
Rolle of Hampole. See Hampole, R.
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Rouen, printing, 45, 51, 59, 60, 65, 66, 120
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Royal College of Physicians’ Library, 80
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Ruremond, Hans van, 87
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St Alban’s Press, 9, 22, 34-42, 72, 100-104

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Sirectus, A., Formalitates, W. de Worde, 26, 68
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Southwark, printing, 28
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Spencer, G. J. Earl, 5, 10
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Spire, John of. See John
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Spiritual matrimony between Christ and the soul, J. Mychell, 118
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Accidence, H. Goes, 53;
J. Mychell, 118;
R. Pynson, 25;
Vocabula, M. Coffin, 120
Stationer to the King, 23
Stationers, University, Cambridge, 89, 90;
Oxford, 22
Statutes of 7 Edward VI., J. Oswen, 114, 115
Statutes of the Stannary, 99
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Testament, New, Latin, 86, 87;
English, J. Oswen, 112, 113
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Van Ruremond. See Ruremond
Vaughan, R., 45, 66
Vellum, books printed on, 11, 12, 17, 38, 44, 59, 81, 83
Venerie de Twety, 40
Venice, printing, 18, 43, 77
Veron, J., 113, 114;
Godly sayings of the old fathers, J. Oswen, 113
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W. G., binder, 64
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See also Warwyke
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York, Stationers’ Company, 63
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Zwingli, U. Certain precepts, A Scoloker, 106, 107;
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Full Ebook of The Human Vocation in German Philosophy Critical Essays and 18Th Century Sources 1St Edition Anne Pollok Online PDF All Chapter

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The Human Vocation in German

Philosophy: Critical Essays and 18th

German Philosophy in the Twentieth Century 1st Edition

German Philosophy in the Twentieth Century Weber to

German Philosophy in the Twentieth Century Lukács to

Chinese and Buddhist Philosophy in Early Twentieth

Nature and Naturalism in Classical German Philosophy

Public Reason In Political Philosophy: Classic Sources

Daily Life in 18th Century England 2nd Edition Kirstin

Friedrich Meinecke and German Politics in the Twentieth

Featuring edited collections and single-authored works, and overseen by an

Titles in the series include:

Translations by Anne Pollok and Courtney D. Fugate

BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC, and the Diana logo are trademarks of

First published in Great Britain 2023

Copyright © Anne Pollok, Courtney D. Fugate, and Contributors 2023

For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. xiii constitute an extension of this

Cover design by Louise Dugdale

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

ISBN: HB: 978-1-3501-6607-3

Series: Bloomsbury Studies in Modern German Philosophy

Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

Introduction: Deﬁning the Dynamics of Being: How the

Part One Translations 19

1 Johann Joachim Spalding: Contemplation on the Vocation of the

2 Thomas Abbt and Moses Mendelssohn: Doubt and Oracle on the

Part Two Essays 105

3 The Place of The Human Being in the World: Johann Joachim

4 Between Spalding and Fichte: The Vocation of the Human

5 Reinhard Brandt: Excerpt from the Human Vocation in Kant

6 Kant on the Human Vocation Allen Wood 163

7 Understanding the Vocation of the Human Being Through the

8 “It Will be Well”: Isaak Iselin on the Self-realization of Humanity in

9 Whose Vocation? Which Human?: A.W. Rehberg

10 Religious Anthropology and Pluralism: Herder on the Bildung

11 The Doctrine of Palingenesis in Fichte’s Vocation of the

12 The Vocation of Philosophy: Hegel on “Speculative” Science and

Brady Bowman is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Pennsylvania State

Reinhard Brandt is Professor Emeritus at Philipps-Universität Marburg, where

Courtney D. Fugate is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Florida State

Michael Gregory is a Doctoral Candidate at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. He

Practice,” forthcoming). Mike also works on twentieth-century Kantians, such as

Ansgar Lyssy is currently researcher at the University of Heidelberg, working on

Laura Anna Macor is Associate Professor of History of Philosophy at the

Giulia Milli is a PhD student at the University of Genova, within the

Anne Pollok is Research Assistant at Johannes Gutenberg Universität Mainz.

numerous articles on the human vocation in the eighteenth century, mainly

Allen Wood is the Ruth Norman Halls Professor of Philosophy at Indiana

Günter Zöller is Professor of Philosophy (Emeritus) at the University of Munich.

This volume contains the ﬁrst contemporary translation of Spalding’s Betrachtung

The translation of Spalding’s work is accompanied by an exact facing-page

B. Mendelssohn and Abbt

much as possible. Abbt in particular seemed to have aimed at an apt imitation of

C. Reinhard Brandt’s Work

Unless indicated below, all editions are cited by (Abbreviation vol.:page).

AA Kant, Immanuel (1900–), Kant’s Gesammelte Schriften.

AVW Abbt, Thomas (1780–1), Vermischte Werke, Friedrich Nicolai (ed.),

FGA Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (1962–2012), Gesamtausgabe der Bayerischen

FHA Herder, Johann Gottfried (1985–2000), Werke in zehn Bänden, 10 vols.,

GW Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1968–), Gesammelte Werke,

JA Mendelssohn, Moses (1929–1932, 1971–), Gesammelte Schriften.

SpKA Johann Joachim Spalding (2001–2013), Kritische Ausgabe, Albrecht

StA Hölderlin, Friedrich (1943–85), Sämtliche Werke. Stuttgarter Hölderlin-