Heinrich Friedrich von Diez (1751–1817)

Freidenker – Diplomat – Orientkenner

Christoph Rauch, Gideon Stiening, Christoph Rauch, Gideon Stiening

• Verlag: De Gruyter
• Jahr: 2020
• ISBN:
  9783110646177
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Philosophie
• Thema: Moderne Philosophie

Heinrich Friedrich von Diez (1751–1817) war eine der schillerndsten Figuren der deutschsprachigen Spätaufklärung. Als Philosoph und Publizist schon in frühen Jahren ein Freidenker mit großen Ambitionen und ungewöhnlichen Ansichten – so zu Spinoza oder der Emanzipation der Juden – avancierte er ab den 1780er Jahren zum preußischen Geschäftsträger in Konstantinopel. Hier entwickelte er eine rege politische Tätigkeit, begann aber auch mit orientalischen Studien und der Anlage einer umfangreichen Handschriften- und Büchersammlung. Als Berater Goethes bei dessen Arbeiten zum West-Östlichen Divan konnte er noch im Alter seine umfangreichen Kenntnisse einflussreich vermitteln. Der Band versammelt erstmals Studien zu allen Reflexions- und Handlungsfeldern und aus allen Lebensphasen dieses ungewöhnlichen Aufklärers.

1Grundlegungen: Zur Forschung über Heinrich Friedrich von Diez

Lela Gibson

Heinrich Friedrich von Diez: New Perspectives

Two hundred years after his death, Heinrich Friedrich von Diez is remembered for his contributions to the Enlightenment, Prussian diplomacy, and German orientalism. Based largely on the rich treasury of his documents housed at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, scholars have been able to reconstruct much of Diez’s biography.43 However, some questions remain about his later years, in which his conservatism appears to stand in stark contrast to the freethinking days of his youth. This paper examines Diez’s life in three main periods – his youth, time in Istanbul, and later years – with a focus on his later thought to show that the basis of his ideas remained rooted in questions of the law and skepticism, although his perspective changed as he aged. That is, his views throughout his life can be seen as various aspects of a coherent system of philosophical thought rather than a series of radical disjunctures.

1Diez’s Early Years, 1769–1784

On April 22, 1769, an eighteen-year-old boy named Heinrich Diez matriculated into law studies at the Friedrichs-Universität (now Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg) in Halle.44 He left his family in Magdeburg, where his father Christian was a textile merchant. The university in Halle was a major center of the German Enlightenment, and Diez’s studies prepared him for his later involvement in Enlightenment debates, which eventually brought him to the attention of the Prussian king Frederick the Great, who appointed him the chargé dʼaffaires to the Ottoman Empire in 1784. During this time period, Diez became involved with the German Enlightenment, publishing a number of texts, which are now collected in a volume by Manfred Voigts entitled Heinrich Friedrich Diez: Frühe Schriften (1772–1784).45

The focus of many of Diez’s early texts is on moral philosophy. Diez began his publications during his third year of study in Halle. These early writings now show Diez’s interest in moral philosophy, particularly natural law. Trained in the study of law, it appears that Diez often viewed the world through the prism of law. For example, he argued in the 1772 pamphlet Vortheile geheimer Gesellschaften für die Welt that »the essence of all religions consists of the rules of a sound natural law; these were created from the nature of God and the moral nature of Man«.46 This puts Diez’s thought in line with the Enlightenment interest in natural law.

Diez also cultivated relationships with members of what now can be considered the »radical Enlightenment«.47 Shortly after his graduation from Halle 1773, Diez traveled to Halberstadt, where he met with Ludwig Unzer and other Enlightenment thinkers. Diez and Unzer most likely visited Ludwig Gleim (1719–1803) and the circle of young poets around him called the Halberstädter Dichterkreis. Diez reportedly developed a »frequent correspondence« with Gleim; however, the majority of these letters no longer remain.48 Gleim was also in touch with a number of Diez’s other correspondents, including Unzer.49 Around the same time, Diez also developed a friendship with the Enlightenment thinker Christian Konrad Wilhelm von Dohm (1751–1820), who was also a close friend of Gleim.50 As Diez’s involvement with these two major figures of the German Enlightenment grew, so did his interest in the political implications of moral philosophy.

After his publications on moral philosophy, Diez took a five-year break from publishing before becoming directly involved in some of the main political debates of the German Enlightenment. During these years, Diez also worked at the Prussian judiciary in Magdeburg (Provinzial Justizcollegium) and was eventually Chancellery Director (Kanzleidirektor).51 His 1781 work, Apologie zur Duldung und Pressfreiheit, argued that freethinking should be protected by the state through freedom of religion and the press. Jonathan Israel described Diez’s work as »the first major plea for comprehensive freedom of thought and press in central Europe«.52 Diez supported press freedom due to his support of Pyrrhonian skepticism, which held that »there was insufficient and inadequate evidence to determine if any knowledge was possible, and hence one ought to suspend judgment on all questions concerning knowledge«.53 Pyrrhonian skepticism was introduced to the German-speaking world through a German translation of David Hume’s (1711–1776) Treatise of Human Nature, first published in German in 1755, and it became an important philosophical standpoint before Kant’s publication of The Critique of Pure Reason in 1781, one of whose main goal was to directly address Hume’s skepticism.54 Skepticism formed the basis of Diez’s thought not only in his early years but in his later ones as well.

2Diez in Istanbul, 1784–1790

Diez’s participation in Enlightenment debates and this development of a network of connections led to a diplomatic appointment in Istanbul. Dohm, who by this time worked in the Prussian Foreign Ministry, alerted Diez that a position in Istanbul was becoming available and arranged an audience with Frederick the Great for him in 1784, who gave him the job. Diez departed to Istanbul later that year, where he learned Turkish. Diez’s diplomatic activities in Istanbul are documented in an article by D.S. Margoliouth, and many of his diplomatic reports remain in the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz.55

3Diez’s Later Years, 1790–1817

In September 1790, by then almost forty years old, Diez arrived in Berlin from Istanbul. His diplomatic service continued in Berlin for another year as he assisted with the Ottoman embassy of Ahmed Azmi Efendi (d. 1821), who resided in Berlin for thirteen months as the result of the Prussian-Ottoman Alliance Treaty negotiated by Diez, in 1791. Diez arranged diplomatic receptions, accompanied the embassy to visits throughout the city, and hosted the diplomatic entourage for lunch at his private residence.56 Later that year, Diez moved to an estate in Philippsthal, near Potsdam, although he acquired a sinecure at the Kolberg Cathedral (Kolberger Dom) (now Kołobrzeg, Poland), in a small town of 4,000 located on the Baltic Sea, shortly thereafter. He began his translation work there, which he continued after he moved to Berlin in 1807 after the Napoleonic invasion of Kolberg.

In Berlin, Diez purchased a villa outside of the city in a park near the Spree River in the Stralauer Viertel. He was now at the center of political debates about the future. Diez invited many of Berlin’s notable thinkers to daily lunches at his house, which had rooms decorated in various styles, including a Chinese room, a Persian room, and a Turkish room.57 The lunches were held in the Turkish room according to diplomatic standards.58 Guests included philologist Friedrich August Wolf (1759–1824) and Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859).59 During these years, Diez engaged with two main topics of his youth, Pyrrhonian skepticism and natural law, albeit from a different perspective.

First, throughout his life, Diez remained committed to the ideas of Renaissance philosopher Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), who reintroduced Pyrrhonian skepticism, or the notion that any certain knowledge is impossible to achieve, to the West. Pyrrhonian skepticism led Diez to support freedom of speech in his youth and became a foundation of his religious faith in his later years, similar to the Catholic Montaigne’s own fideistic views. Whereas in his youth, skepticism meant trying to reach knowledge through the cultivation of morality, in his later years, skepticism led him to embrace revelation (doubting the other forms of knowledge based in human cognition). He also became interested in Montaigne’s notion of moral development through »self-knowledge« (Selbsterkenntnis). Although he drew diverse conclusions from Montaigne’s philosophy throughout his life, Montaigne’s work remained a constant foundation of Diez’s thought.

Second, Diez’s commitment to moral philosophy also remained steadfast, although the basis changed. In his youth, he argued that the source of morality is natural law (Naturrecht). After his residence in Istanbul, Diez began to see the Bible as the basis of moral law. This would not contradict the position of his youth if he come to view the Bible as a source of natural law. Eventually, he would work on a translation of the Bible into Ottoman Turkish, a project that he did not live to complete.60

Despite Diez’s turn towards the Bible, he remained an anomaly amongst other Christians in Prussia. In his writings, he barely ever mentioned the Church and had an almost singular focus on the Bible itself. He continued to write against the new rationalist theologians (Neologs), who he believed were destroying Christianity. Diez’s emphasis on Montaigne’s skepticism departed from the traditional Lutheran emphasis on faith alone (sole fide) as the basis of justification. However, Diez’s approach to the Bible as a source of revelation and direct religious knowledge (rather than theology, even that of his day) was almost an extreme version of the Lutheran concept of sola scriptura, the belief that »only Sacred Scripture can establish articles of faith; all theology is to be drawn from the written Word of God alone«.61 This describes Diez’s dismissal of rationalism and a lack of mention of the Church, or even orthodox Lutheran theologians such as Johann Gerhard (1582–1637). He viewed the Bible as a source of law, which also contradicted contemporary antinomian tendencies in Lutheranism.

In short, Diez apparently did not support any theologians of his time although he did attend the Prussian Domkirche, which was under the patronage of the Prussian royal court. Furthermore, a major part of the later Protestant »Awakening«, which began towards the end of Diez’s life, is a focus on Jesus as a redeemer. In contrast, Diez does not mention Jesus in his works and instead almost exclusively focuses on the Old Testament. Instead of salvation through faith, which Diez never mentions, his writings are primarily concerned with the cultivation of morality in this world through religious law and self-knowledge. This puts his thought squarely with classical philosophy rather than the Christianity of his era.

Diez’s changing outlook could be explained by the turn towards conservatism in the Prussian court after the death of Frederick the Great in 1786. Frederick’s successor, Frederick William II (r. 1786–1797) instituted reforms to diminish the influence of neologism. For example, the Edict on Religion of 1788 sought to decrease the influence of Christian rationalism by forbidding any preaching or education outside of Lutheran orthodoxy.62 This attack on the Enlightenment and promotion of a restyled orthodox Christianity fit almost precisely with Diez’s views during this period.

Frederick William’s II successors, Frederick William III and Frederick William IV, also instituted policies to reinvigorate the Church from a conservative religious standpoint. In what became known as the Protestant »Awakening« they sought to reform Church structures and revitalize Christianity in Prussia. Under Frederick III, the Calvinist (Reformed) Churches and Lutheran Churches merged into the Prussian Union of Churches in 1817. Diez opposed Frederickʼs III reforms, since he viewed them as part of a ›new‹ system straying away from a foundation in the Bible. Frederick...

Inhaltsverzeichnis

• Cover
• Titelseite
• Impressum
• Inhalt
• Geleitwort
• Zur Einführung: Heinrich Friedrich von Diez (1751–1817)
• 1 Grundlegungen: Zur Forschung über Heinrich Friedrich von Diez
• 2 Der frühe Diez als Radikalaufklärer und Freidenker
• 3 Die besten Jahre: Diez als Diplomat in Istanbul
• 4 Der Orientkenner: Diezʼ späte Jahre
• 5 Der Sammler Diez
• 6 Prominente Wirkung: Diez und Goethe
• 7 Anhang
• Zeittafel
• Siglenverzeichnis
• Bibliographie
• Personenregister
• Autorenverzeichnis