[h=1]Adam Weishaupt[/h] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to:
navigation,
search
[TABLE="class: infobox vcard, width: 22"]
Johann Adam Weishaupt [TR]
[TD="colspan: 2, align: center"]

Adam Weishaupt
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="align: left"]Born[/TH]
[TD]6 February 1748
Ingolstadt,
Bavaria[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="align: left"]Died[/TH]
[TD]18 November 1830 (aged 82)
Gotha,
Saxe-Coburg-Gotha[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="align: left"]Era[/TH]
[TD]
18th-century philosophy[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="align: left"]Region[/TH]
[TD]Western Philosophy[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="align: left"]
School[/TH]
[TD]
Empiricism[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH="align: left"]Main interests[/TH]
[TD]
Epistemology,
Metaphysics,
Ethics[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2, align: center"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2, align: center"]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
Johann Adam Weishaupt (6 February 1748 – 18 November 1830[SUP]
[1][/SUP][SUP]
[2][/SUP][SUP]
[3][/SUP][SUP]
[4][/SUP]) was a
German philosopher and founder of the
Order of Illuminati, a secret society with origins in
Bavaria.
[h=2]Contents[/h]
[h=2]Early life[/h] Adam Weishaupt was born on 6 February 1748 in
Ingolstadt[SUP]
[1][/SUP][SUP]
[5][/SUP] in the
Electorate of Bavaria. Weishaupt's father Johann Georg Weishaupt (1717–1753) died[SUP]
[5][/SUP] when Adam was five years old. After his father's death he came under the tutelage of his
godfather Johann Adam Freiherr von Ickstatt[SUP]
[6][/SUP] who, like his father, was a professor of law at the
University of Ingolstadt.[SUP]
[7][/SUP] Ickstatt was a proponent of the philosophy of
Christian Wolff and of the
Enlightenment,[SUP]
[8][/SUP] and he influenced the young Weishaupt with his
rationalism. Weishaupt began his formal education at age seven[SUP]
[1][/SUP] at a
Jesuit school. He later enrolled at the University of Ingolstadt and graduated in 1768[SUP]
[9][/SUP] at age 20 with a
doctorate of law.[SUP]
[10][/SUP] In 1772[SUP]
[11][/SUP] he became a professor of law. The following year he married Afra Sausenhofer[SUP]
[12][/SUP] of
Eichsttt.
After
Pope Clement XIV’s
suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, Weishaupt became a professor of
canon law,[SUP]
[13][/SUP] a position that was held exclusively by the
Jesuits until that time. In 1775 Weishaupt was introduced[SUP]
[14][/SUP] to the
empirical philosophy of
Johann Georg Heinrich Feder[SUP]
[15][/SUP] of the
University of Gttingen. Both Feder and Weishaupt would later become opponents of
Kantian idealism.[SUP]
[16][/SUP]
[h=2]Founder of the Illuminati[/h] On 1 May 1776 Weishaupt formed the "Order of Perfectibilists". He adopted the name of "Brother
Spartacus" within the order. Although the Order was not
egalitarian or democratic internally, it sought to promote the doctrines of equality and freedom throughout society.[SUP]
[17][/SUP]
The actual character of the society was an elaborate network of spies and counter-spies. Each isolated cell of initiates reported to a superior, whom they did not know, a party structure that was effectively adopted by some later groups.[SUP]
[17][/SUP]
Weishaupt was initiated into the
Masonic Lodge "Theodor zum guten Rath", at Munich in 1777. His project of "illumination, enlightening the understanding by the sun of reason, which will dispel the clouds of superstition and of prejudice" was an unwelcome reform.[SUP]
[17][/SUP] Soon however he had developed
gnostic mysteries of his own, with the goal of "perfecting human nature" through re-education to achieve a communal state with nature, freed of government and organized religion. He began working towards incorporating his system of Illuminism with that of Freemasonry.[SUP]
[17][/SUP]
Weishaupt's radical rationalism and vocabulary was not likely to succeed. Writings that were intercepted in 1784 were interpreted as seditious, and the Society was banned by the government of
Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria, in 1784. Weishaupt lost his position at the University of Ingolstadt and fled Bavaria.[SUP]
[17][/SUP]