Robert Spaemann
Robert Spaemann
"If there is no truth, there is only power."
Robert Spaemann (1927–2018) stands as one of the most significant German philosophers of the post-war era. In a philosophical landscape often dominated by structuralism, utilitarianism, and the deconstruction of the subject, Spaemann remained a steadfast defender of the "human person."
His work is a rescue mission for immediate reality. He argued that the modern attempt to view the world from a "view from nowhere" (pure objectivism) eventually destroys the subject itself. If we reduce the world to atoms and neurons, we lose the very person doing the observing. Spaemann’s philosophy reminds us that we are not merely biological instances of a species, but unique "someones" who stand in a relationship to the Absolute.
Robert Spaemann was born in Berlin in 1927.1 His early life was shaped by the twin pressures of the Nazi regime and a profound family tragedy. His mother died when he was a child; subsequently, his father, Heinrich Spaemann—an art historian—was ordained a Catholic priest in 1942. This radical trajectory deeply influenced Robert’s understanding of vocation and the interplay between the aesthetic and the sacred.
A Timeline of Resistance:
1945: Drafted into the Wehrmacht, Spaemann deserted shortly before the war ended. This early experience of refusing a "tyrannical duty" informed his later, lifelong insistence on the sovereignty of the individual conscience.
1962: He completed his Habilitation under Joachim Ritter. Spaemann became a key member of the "Ritter School" (alongside Odo Marquard and Hermann Lübbe), a group known for rehabilitating practical philosophy and history against the abstraction of modern theory.2
1969–1992: He held professorships at the Universities of Stuttgart, Heidelberg, and finally Munich (LMU), where he succeeded to the chair previously held by Romano Guardini.
2006: He participated in the famous Regensburg disputation with his close friend Pope Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger).
Spaemann died in 2018 at the age of 91, having lived through the rise and fall of totalitarianisms, consistently arguing that truth is not a matter of consensus, but of recognition.3
The Ontology of the Person vs. Functionalism
This is Spaemann’s most vital contribution to contemporary ethics. He vehemently opposed the "functionalist" definition of personhood (popularized by thinkers like Peter Singer), which argues that one is only a person if one possesses certain traits (consciousness, rationality, the ability to feel pain).
The Spaemann Counter-Argument: If personhood is based on traits, it can be lost (in a coma, in dementia, in infancy). For Spaemann, personhood is not a property but a standing. You do not "have" a person; you are a person. Being human is sufficient ground for being a person. This is the Nomen Dignitatis—person is a name of dignity, not a description of capability.
Teleology and the "Grammar of Life"
Spaemann argued that we cannot understand living things if we banish teleology (purpose/ends) from our science. He famously noted that one can describe a Bach fugue entirely in terms of physics (acoustics, vibrations), and everything said will be true—but one will have missed the music. Modern reductionism misses the music of human existence. To treat a living being as a mere mechanism is to fail to understand what it is.
The "Futurum Exactum" (The Rumor of God)
In a brilliant linguistic argument, Spaemann suggested that the Future Perfect Tense (will have been) implies the existence of God.
The Argument: Even if the world ends and no human observer remains, it will still be true that "we lived." The past remains real. But if there is no consciousness to hold that truth, the past vanishes into nothingness. Since the past cannot vanish (it truly happened), there must be an Absolute Consciousness (God) that safeguards the reality of the past.
Spaemann was not an ivory-tower academic; he applied his metaphysics to the messy realities of politics and technology.
The Brain Death Debate
Spaemann broke with the medical and even Catholic consensus by arguing that brain death is not death.4 He viewed the brain-death criterion as a pragmatic redefinition designed to facilitate organ harvesting. He argued that as long as the body maintains homeostasis (even with support), the dying process is not complete. To cut open a breathing body to take organs is, in his view, a violation of the dying person’s final dignity.
Ecological Conservatism
Long before it was popular, Spaemann criticized the "technological imperative." He opposed nuclear energy not for liberal political reasons, but for conservative ones. He argued that creating radioactive waste that lasts for thousands of years—longer than any civilization can promise to guard it—is an act of hubris. It is an "unavailability of the future," a tyranny of the present generation over those yet to be born.
Critique of Utopias
Having seen the results of German Utopianism in the 1930s, Spaemann was a staunch anti-utopian.5 He argued that politics is the art of the relative, not the absolute. The State is legitimate only when it recognizes rights it did not create (such as the family or religious conscience). When the State tries to "create" meaning or total happiness, it becomes a totalitarian idol.
Reflexion und Spontaneität (Reflection and Spontaneity): A study on Rousseau, exploring the paradox that the more we reflect on our own spontaneity, the less spontaneous we become. Essential for understanding modern alienation.
Glück und Wohlwollen (Happiness and Benevolence): Spaemann argues that we cannot be happy if we aim at happiness. Happiness is a side-effect of benevolence (willing the good of the other). It bridges the gap between Greek Eudaimonia and Christian Charity.
Personen (Persons): His magnum opus. It details the distinction between "Someone" and "Something," arguing that we learn to be self-aware only because we are first addressed by others as persons.
"Tolerance does not mean that all convictions are of equal value; it means that we respect the person who holds the conviction."
"Modernism does not believe what it believes."
"You can describe the evolutionary process, if you so decide, in purely naturalistic terms. But the text that then appears when you see a person, when you see a beautiful act or a beautiful picture, can only be read if you use a completely different code."
"We do not ‘have’ a nature; we ‘are’ nature. And we are the only part of nature that can turn against itself."
The "Singer" Problem: Peter Singer argues that a healthy chimpanzee has more "personhood" (and rights) than a human infant with severe brain damage. How does Spaemann’s concept of "standing" refute this? Is potentiality enough to grant rights?
The AI Challenge: Spaemann distinguishes between "someone" and "something."6 If an AI can perfectly mimic the behavior of a "someone" (passing the Turing Test), does it acquire the dignity of a person? Why or why not?
The Future Perfect: Discuss Spaemann’s argument that "truth requires a mind." If all conscious life in the universe were extinguished, would it still be "true" that the French Revolution happened? What are the implications of your answer?
Ecological Ethics: Spaemann argues we should protect nature not because nature has "rights" (like a person), but because nature is our "home." How does this "anthropocentric ecology" differ from modern "Deep Ecology"?
Rationality and Faith in God (PDF) – Communio
Education as an Introduction to Reality – Humanum Review
The Unconditional Dignity of the Person – First Things Obituary & Summary