1. For analyses of philosophical developments in Germany during this period, see Gedö 1995 and Löwith 1964.

2. After his brother Anselm’s unexpected death Ludwig assumed the responsibility of editing for publication his father’s Nachlass and selected correspondence. These were published in 1852 under the title, Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbachs Leben und Wirken, which reappears as Vol. 12 of the critical edition of Feuerbach’s works edited by Schuffenhauer. The preceding quotation is from a brief lexicon article authored by Ludwig that summarizes the accomplishments of the distinguished jurist and his sons, and can be found on pp. 324–332 in v. 10 of the same critical edition. For a good recent biography of Feuerbach, see Winiger 2004.

3. Schott, 1973, analyzes Feuerbach’s early intellectual development up to the time of this transfer.

4. One of the best discussions of the issues involved in the disintegration of the Hegelian school in to Right, Left, and Center camps is to be found in Toews 1980: 201–369.

5. Cf. Heinrich Heine, Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophie in Deutschland (1835), in Die romantische Schule und andere Schriften über Deutschland, Werke, v. 3, ed. Rolf Toman (Cologne: Könemann, 1995), 242.

6. For analyses of Feuerbach’s early pantheistic idealism, see Wartofsky 1977: 28–48, Cornehl 1969, and Gooch 2013, from the latter of which some of the paragraphs in this section have been adapted.

7. A translation of the letter is included in Hegel 1984, 547-550.

8. For discussions of Feuerbach’s approach to the history of philosophy, see Wartofsky 1977: 49–134, and the essays collected in Jaeschke & Tomasoni 1998.

9. In the second edition of The Essence of Christianity (1843) Feuerbach renamed the two parts of his book “The True or Anthropological Essence of Religion” and “The False or Theological Essence of Religion”, respectively. Eliot’s translation is based on this edition.

10. Here Feuerbach follows Hegel. Cf. Hegel [EPS]: 56–63 (Enc. § 24).

11. Feuerbach makes this point most explicitly in an unpublished draft of the foreword to The Essence of Christianity, which is quoted at length in Ascheri 1969. See esp. p. 20.

12. Cf. Feuerbach’s preface to the second edition (1843) of The Essence of Christianity, where he specifically mentions Jacobi and Schleiermacher, and remarks that

whoever is unfamiliar with the historical presuppositions and stages of mediation of my book lacks the [necessary] points of access to my arguments and thoughts. (WC 24/xliii)

13. This break is discussed by Ascheri in Ascheri 1969. See also the editorial introduction to Feuerbach 1996.