The Philosophical Personae of Joseph Weber (1753–1831): Catholic Philosopher-Priest at the University of Dillingen

Some of Stephen Gaukroger’s most enduring contributions to the history of philosophy and the history and philosophy of science arose at the convergence of two lines of inquiry: into the grounding of sciences in ensembles of calculi, apparatuses, and epistemic programs (“problematics”); and into the embedding of these ensembles in the configuration and cultivation of a scientific or intellectual “persona”. In discussing the shifting intellectual personae inhabited by the Catholic philosopher-priest Joseph Weber, I make use of both of Stephen’s lines of inquiry. Entering his vocation in the immediate aftermath of the dissolution of the Jesuit order in 1773, Weber’s philosophical persona changed from teacher of corporate Thomist scholasticism to practitioner of individual philosophical introspection. After initially modelling this latter practice on Kantian transcendental self-reflection, under religious and academic pressure, Weber jumped to the model of the “Absolute I” provided by Schelling’s absolute idealism. This in turn led Weber to improvise two associated post-Kantian philosophical personae. As Schellingian metaphysician, Weber embarked on a risky attempt to ground Catholic theology in his own “absolute intuition”. And as teacher of a Catholic “physics”, he claimed to demonstrate the presence of spirit in nature by performing hermeneutic electrical “experiments”, inspired by Schelling’s Naturphilosophie.