Anima Mundi: The Rise of the World Soul Theory in Modern German Philosophy

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 Presentation of the Texts Relevant for the Concept of an anima mundi . The Immediate Natural Theological Setting of the Problem

Chapter 3 The Distinctive Philosophical Content of the Concept of an “ anima mundi ” in Leibniz and His Followers. Arguments of This School Against the General Theory of anima mundi . A Broader Natural Philosophical and Metaphysical Discussion of Their Answer Positions

Chapter 4 Preliminary Historical and Conceptual Presentation of “ L’Histoire Naturelle ” in Selected Major Works of some Leading Naturalists. The Relation of Natural Science to Theology or Spirituality in their Works

Chapter 5 General Philosophical Analysis of Physico-Theology

Chapter 6 Böhme’s Speculative Theology ( De signatura rerum , 1622). Ötinger’s Cabbalistic Theory of the World as a Glorious Divine Epiphany or Sh e khinā ; and his Problematic Rejection of the Concept of Weltseele ( Offentliches Denckmahl der Lehrtafel einer … Prinzessin Antonia , 1763)

Chapter 7 The Philosophical Incompatibility of Spinoza’s System with the World Soul Theory. Bayle’s Identification of Spinozism with the World Soul Theory, and Wachter’s Denial of the Same. Lessing’s Statement Concerning the World Soul, and His Alleged Spinozism in Jacobi’s Ueber die Lehre des Spinoza ( 1 1785), Mendelssohn’s Morgenstunden (1785), and Herder’s Gott. Einige Gespräche (1787). Herder’s Rejection of the Identification of God with the Weltseele

Chapter 8 The World Soul in Giordano Bruno’s De la causa, principio et uno (1584) and De l’infinito, universo e mondi (1584). The Revival of Bruno’s Philosophy in Late Eighteenth to Early Nineteenth-Century German Thought

Chapter 9 The World Soul in Baader’s and Schelling’s Conceptions