Background
Bruggen, Carry van was born on January 1, 1881 in Smilde, The Netherlands.
Bruggen, Carry van was born on January 1, 1881 in Smilde, The Netherlands.
Teacher and journalist.
Main publications:
(1916) Vaderlandsliefde, menschenliefde en opvoeding [Patriotism, Humanitarianism and Education], Baarn: Hollandia.
(1919) Prometheus, bijdrage tot het hegrip der ontwikkeUng van het individualisme [Prometheus, Contribution to the Concept of the Development of Individualism], Rotterdam: Brusse.
(1924) De grondgedachten van 'Prometheus' [The Basic Thoughts of Prometheus], Amsterdam: Querido.
(1925) Hedendaags fetischisme [Contemporary Fetishism], Amsterdam: Querido.
Van Bruggen was born in an Orthodox-Jewish family, but struggled a long time to free herself from that background. Her novels illustrate this development. Her main philosophical work centres around an analysis of individualism and of its political consequences.
For her Prometheus was the symbol of consequent individualism. The Absolute distinguishes itself and creates in this way the different beings. Lust for life is lust for distinction.
Lust for unity as its counterpart is lust for death. Man striving towards synthesis strives towards annihilation. Thinking as an instrument for searching unity is therefore self-abolishing.
In practice men distinguish themselves from others by means of language and of nation. Nationalism is an instrument of individual survival and has to be overcome. Van Bruggen opposes strongly the Hegelian idea of the state and of man as citizen.
In philosophy it is possible for man to lose his individual distinctiveness and to merge into the Absolute. In her philosophy of language Van Bruggen analyses and unmasks many political concepts and expressions and shows how man adheres to fixed meanings and is in need of a kind of fetishism.