BAADER, FRANZ XAVER VON German theologian, born at Munich, on March 27, 1765, studied medicine at Ingolstadt and Vienna, and later became a mining engineer. While in England (1792-96) he was introduced to the mysticism of Boehme and the empiricism of Hume, Hartley and Godwin. On his return to Hamburg he became acquainted with Jacobi and with Schelling. Between Baader and Schelling there was mutual influence until Baader's denunciation of modern philosophy in a letter (c. 182 2) to Alexander I. of Russia entirely alienated Schelling.
Meanwhile Baader continued to apply himself to his profession of engineer, gaining a prize of 12,000 gulden (about £I,000) for his new method of employing Glauber's salts instead of potash in the making of glass. From 1817-20 he held the post of super intendent of the Bavarian mines. He retired in 1820, and in 1822 published his Fermenta Cognitionis, in which he combats modern philosophy and recommends the study of Boehme. In 1826 he was appointed professor of philosophy and speculative theology at the new university of Munich. Some of the lectures were pub lished under the title, Spekulative Dogniatik (1827). In 1838 he ceased to lecture owing to a ministerial order prohibiting lay men from lecturing on philosophy and theology.
The facts that Baader left no systematic works and that he usually expressed himself in obscure aphorisms or mystical sym bols make it difficult to summarize his philosophy. He believes that reason must be supplemented by faith and church tradition and that it must clarify the truths given by authority and revela tion. But in his attempt to correlate the two realms he approaches the mysticism of Eckhart, Paracelsus and Boehme. Human knowledge is never mere scientia, it is invariably con-scientia a knowing with a consciousness of God whose knowledge com penetrates ours. God is not to be conceived as mere abstract Being, but as an everlasting process of activity which is distin guishable under two aspects—the immanent or esoteric, and the emanent or exoteric. As regards ethics, Baader rejects the Kan tian or any autonomic system of morals. Not obedience to a moral law, but realization in ourselves of the divine life is the true ethical end. But because man has alienated himself from God no ethical theory which neglects the facts of sin and redemp tion (and the necessity of prayer and the sacraments) is satis factory. The history of man and of humanity is the history of the redeeming love of God. Man in his social relations is under two great institutions. One is temporal, natural and limited— the state; the other is eternal, cosmopolitan and universal—the church. In the state two things are requisite: first, common sub mission to the ruler, which can be secured or given only when the state is Christian, for God alone is the true ruler of men; and, secondly, inequality of rank, without which there can be no organ ization. A despotism of mere power and liberalism, which natur ally produces socialism, is equally objectionable. The ideal state is a civil community ruled by a universal or Catholic church, the principles of which are equally distinct from mere passive pietism, or faith which will know nothing, and from the Protestant doctrine, which is the very radicalism of reason.
Baader ranks among the greatest speculative theologians of modern catholicism, and his influence has extended itself even beyond the precincts of his own church. Among those whom he influenced were R. Rothe, Julius Muller and Hans L. Markensen. His works were published by a number of his adherents—F. Hoff mann, J. Hamberger, E. v. Schaden, Lutterbeck, von Osten-Sacken and Schluter—Baader's sdmmtliche Werke (16 vols., 1851-6o) . Valuable introductions by the editors are prefixed to the several volumes. See F. Hoffmann, Vorhalle zur spekulativen Lehre Baader's (1836) ; Grand zisge der Societdts-Philosophie Franz Baader's (1837) ; Philosophische Schriften (3 vols., 1868-72) ; Die Weltalter (1868) ; Biographic and Briefwechsel (Leipzig, 1857) ; J. Hamberger, Cardinalpunkte der Baad erschen Philosophic (1855) ; Fundamental-begriffe von F. B.'s Ethik, Politik, u. Religions-Philosophic (1858) ; J. A. B. Lutterbeck, Philo sophische Standpunkte Baaders (1854) ; Baader's Lehre vom Weltge bdude (1866) ; D. Baumgardt F. v. Baader u. die Philosophische Ro mantik (19a 7) ; Erdmann's Versuch einer Gesch. d. neuern Phil.; F. Uberweg, Grund. der Gesch. der Phil. (1923) . J. Claassen, Franz von Baader's Leben and theosophische Werke (Stuttgart, 1886-1887), and Franz von Baader's Gedanken Ober Staat and Gesellschaft (Giitersloh, 189o) ; Otto Pfleiderer, Philosophy of Religion (Eng. trans. 1887) ; Reichel, Die Sozietdtsphilosophie Franz v. Baaders (Tubingen, 19o1) ; Kuno Fischer, Zur hundertjdhrigen Geburtstagfeier Baaders (Erlangen, 1865).