Philosophy - Analytic

Analytic Philosophy

20th Century school of thought, rejected traditional points; contend that the entire business of philosophy is analysis, philosophy consists of linguistic activity designed to eliminate problems arising from intellectual confusion and this to clarify the knowledge which we already possess; a non-metaphysical school of thought; a reaction against Idealism.

G. E. Moore - method of posing questions or problems to be analyzed, instead of postulating answers and solutions.

Most difficulties in philosophy are caused by “the attempt to answer questions without first discovering what question it is which you desire to answer”

- the task is to analyze and clarify ordinary language.

- the search for truth and discovery was replaced by the search for meaning and clarification and the examination of language.

Bertrand Russell - founded logical atomism, theory that the world consists of a number of simple facts, each independent of all the others yet related externally to the others.

Not facts, but propositions are true or false; proportions are symbols, not facts.

Ludwig Wittgenstein - in his later life he broke away from previous thinking (picture theory: basic analytic philosophy) and expounded a language-games theory.

Tractatus - a proposition is a picture of reality...a picture is a model of reality...a picture is a fact...the world is the totality of facts...the totality of true thoughts is a picture of the world; thus language is a picture of reality.

Later life - emphasised that the way in which a word is used, not its meaning as a name for some object, gives language and statements their validity.

John Wisdom - philosophy is essentially therapeutic activity designed to clarify the uses of language.

- philosophers present us with old facts in anew light, but do not discover new facts.

Oxford Philosophy - incorrect use of ordinary English is responsible for philosophical problems, and these can be solved only by “pointing” out the normal usage of the words employed and the normal grammatical form of the sentence in which they appear.  Ordinary language is correct language.

- concerned with the “elucidation of concepts” and the “logic of expressions”; dualism is the “dogma of the Ghost in the machine.”

Philosophy - Logical Positivism

Logical Positivism

Logical Positivism - Moritz Schlick founder, active between the two world wars, known as Vienna Circle, Scientific Empiricism, majority of members were mathematicians and scientists, “Philosophy is a logical syntax,” “the meaning of a proposition is the method of its verification,” Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico - Philosophicus was a foundation.

Verification principle - to understand a proposition means to know what is the case if it is true; the meaning of a proposition coincides with its truth-conditions

- anyone who wishes to understand a proposition must first know the conditions under which it is true.

- sense observation is necessary for verification

philosophy was redefined as a mental activity which seeks to analyse or clarify the meaning of scientific propositions (it is an active attempt to clarify thought).

- the propositions of logic and mathematics are tautologies, that is, uninformative assertions which state nothing factual about the world (empirically void).

- a metaphysical proposition has no meaning because it is without truth-conditions.

Alfred Ayer - empirical evidence is necessary to determine the meaning of a statement or proposition, consequently the nature of ultimate reality is not a legitimate topic for philosophical consideration.

- it is interesting to note that the verification principle is not itself verifiable

* value judgements are not permissible, therefore we cannot judge one act morally right and another morally wrong.

philosophy = search for meaning,    science = pursuit of verifiable truth

Schlick - knowledge must consist of structural relations which we all have in common as a consequence of our private experiences.

Otto Neurath - sense experience is a biological process, not a mental state.

Correspondence theory of truth - an idea is true if it corresponds with its real object.

Coherence theory of truth-ideas are true if they consist of logical, integrated, consistent, interrelated statements.

Rudolf Carnap - protocol statements (referring to immediate facts of experience).

- philosophy is to be replaced by the logic of science, and the logic of science is nothing more than the syntax of the language of science.

Syntactical statements are those dealing with form or order of the symbols rather than the meaning of the statements.

Alfred Tarski - truth is predicated on sentences as a meta-language (a language which makes symbolic assertions about another language).

Philosophy - Neo Realism and Critical Realism

Neo-Realism and Critical Realism

Benedetto Croce (1866-1952) - reality is thought (a progressive development which is both active and creative: Neo-Hegelian) and philosophy is history (reality is identified with historical processes as it undergoes its evolutionary course creatively and with freedom).

- identified reality with self-creating mind; a self-creative mind alone exists.

- four aspects of reality (art, logic, social activity, evaluation of the past) inasmuch as reality is self-consciousness, philosophical activity itself creates reality.

Neo-realism - objects exist and their existence is not dependent upon any mind which happens to be conscious of them; emphasised Epistemological monism (based on the theory that the knowing process and the thing known are one and the same).

Naive realism - the belief that real things are precisely as they appear to us in consciousness

egocentric predicament - the “difficulty of conceiving objects apart from any consciousness”

- they attempt to separate metaphysics from epistemology by proving that the nature of real things is not found simply in the nature of knowledge.  Thus the emancipation of metaphysics from epistemology is seen as the “most notable” feature of Neo-realism; they have adopted a metaphysical pluralism (the existence of a variety of real objects possessing external relations to one another).

Critical realism as opposed to neo-realism advocated an epistemological dualism (the representative theory that the knower and the thing known are two distinct, separate entities, namely material objects and ideas or mental states).

George Edward Moore (1873-1958) - made a sharp distinction between consciousness and the thing perceived as the object of consciousness; the object known cannot be separated from the knowing process.

Bertrand Russell (1873-1958) - aim of Principia Mathematica was to verify the statements that all pure mathematics utilises concepts definable in logical terms only and that pure mathematics follows from purely logical premises.

- the existence of a real world beyond sense data cannot be proved.

Correspondence theory of truth - a belief is true if it agrees with the fact with which it is supposed to correspond.

Scientism - doctrine that all valid knowledge is attained through use of the scientific method and that whatever cannot be known scientifically cannot be known at all.

- values lie outside the domain of knowledge, they represent merely the venting of emotions.

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947) - reality consists of a multiplicity of objects; the universe is always in process.

concresence - process whereby this world of many things acquires integration or unity

Philosophy - Idealism

Idealism

Idealism - the universe is the embodiment of mind; reality is of the nature of mind; ultimate reality as an entity transcending phenomena.

Metaphysical Idealism - a system which emphasises the analysis of the entire universe as a psychic reality, postulating an ideal element permeating all things, and philosophies depicting ultimate reality as consisting of consciousness, mind or personality.

Epistemological Idealism - system which emphasises the identification of reality with the “mentally knowable” data, the perceptible truths.

Platonic Idealism - ultimate reality consists of ideal constructs which are real.

Personalism - essentially American, originated in the works of George Howison and Borden Parker Baone, “the doctrine that the ultimate reality of the world is a Divine Person who sustains the universe by a continuous act of creative will”

- the conception of human personality as the key to reality, stating that the ontologically real is personality: “life is deeper than logic”

empirical coherence is the criterion of truth.

Epistemological dualists = the knower and his ideas are distinct from the object of his knowledge.

Absolute Idealism - the view of reality as the embodiment of the mind

Thomas Hill Green (1836-1882) - Hegelianized Kantian thought, doctrine of relations (the reality of any object depends exclusively upon its relations to other objects).

self-consciousness - “the quality in a subject of being consciously an object to itself”

Francis Herbert Bradley (1864-1924) - British, fondness for paradox and contradiction, philosophy was a means of obtaining intellectual satisfaction through discovery of ultimate truth.

- the self is the sum of its experiences; “the real, to be real, must be felt”

- defined reality as the Absolute; appearance is fragmentary, relational, changing; reality must be understood by combining appearances with awareness of the whole reality in our experience; the ethical goal is fulfilment of the self.

Josiah Royce (1855-1916) - American, posited a real world “of outer and ideal truth, a world of mind,” the Absolute is an all-embracing and overruling spiritual Being.

- unless there were Absolute Truth, there could be no error.

- the very denial of truth constitutes an admission that truth exists

- since error exists, there must be truth from which it errs; and since there is truth, there must be a mind which possesses conscious knowledge of it  eg. God

- consciousness is knowledge aware of itself; since only ideas are knowable, then that which is absolutely unknowable cannot possibly exist.

supreme good (loyalty) - “the willing and practical and thoroughgoing devotion of a person to a cause”

Philosophy - Pragmatism

Pragmatism

Charles Peirce (1839-1914) - founder of Pragmaticism, an essentially American philosophy

Pragmaticism = “the whole function of thought is to produce habits of action”

- the rational meaning of a word “lies exclusively in its conceivable bearing upon the conduct of life”  ie. speculative thought cannot be divorced from action

- regarded pragmaticism as the logical application of Jesus’ principles “by ye fruits you will be known”

- the function of doubt is to stimulate thought and the purpose of thought is to arrive at belief.

- a belief is “that upon which man is prepared to act”

- Peirce believed in a metaphysics postulating ontologically real objects.

Williams James (1842-1910) - anything that is meaningful or real must have some influence on practice, on our experience, and everything that has a practical effect must be acknowledged to be meaningful and real.

- abstract truths are meaningless unless they make a difference in concrete facts.

- the theoretical has value only when it bears upon the practical

pragmaticism is both Nominalistic in that it stresses the concrete particular over the abstract universal, and anti-intellectual in its stand against rationalism.

- there is no room for metaphysical speculations (ie. God).

Truth must possess consequential characteristics, truths are created in a manner similar to the creation of health and wealth; truth is a system of verification (relative).

- religious belief is good only if it has a direct positive affect upon our life and actions.

- evidence for God’s existence (truth) is to be found in one’s personal inner experiences

John Dewey (1859-1952) - built his system of Instrumentalism on the foundation of Behaviouristic psychology; his views reflected those of organic evolution and a faith in man’s capacity to achieve moral progress and a more nearly ideal social environment primarily through improvements in education.

- the proper ethical goals are the fulfilment of human needs and desires, the continuous growth of human beings in moral sensitivity and human progress in the practical realization of a better social world; absolute goods or evils do not exist.

meliorist- believing that the world can be made better solely through man’s initiative in bringing about desirable consequences.

- theory divorces from concrete action is sterile, empty and vain; moral responsibility is social, “all morality is social”

God = the “active relation between ideal and actual”; the ideal ends  Humanism = an extreme form of Pragmatism based upon the concept of the Greek Sophists that man is the measure of all things.

Philosophy - Dialectical Materialism

Dialectical Materialism- Communism

dialectical materialism: refers particularly the social philosophy known as Communism, synthesis of Here’s dialectic and Feuerbach’s materialistic doctrines.

Ricardo’s labour theory of value became the fundamental thesis of Marx’s Das Kapital.

Karl Marx (1818-1883) - wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party (1848) with Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), participated in the revolution of 1848.

- communism as the ownership of the means of production, abolition of private property, labour theory of value (“surplus value”); inevitability of profiteering and exploitation of labour, scientific socialism, violent revolution, class struggle, dictatorship of the proleteriat, achievement of a classless society, religion as opium of the masses

- Marx applied Hegel’s dialectic to socio-economic history  ie. bourgeoisie  (thesis), proleteriat (antithesis) leading to classless society (synthesis).

- His economic interpretation of history is known as historical materialism, is based upon the doctrine of economic determinism.

- a particular society’s mode of economic production determines the nature of its culture and social structure (Feuerbach had applied this materialistic concept to social problems and cultural evolution).

- owing to the dialectical nature of history [stages: slavery-->feudalism-->capitalism-->socialism-->communism) each historical period carries within itself the “germ of its own destruction”

- the mode of production of material goods determines the political, social, intellectual and religious life and institutions of a given people in each era of history.

“it is not the consciousness of men that determines their being, but, on the contrary their social being that determines their consciousness.

communism - an ideal system to be achieved by shifting control over economic resources from the capitalists to the proleteriat.

- since the labour of many workers is required to support a single capitalist, members of the capitalist class are parasites living at the expense of the exploited workers.

Labour theory of value - price of a product is determined by the amount of labour expended on its production.

capital = accumulated surplus value; surplus value = the difference between the actual cost of manufacture and its selling price (net profit) or the unjust process of profiteering by using money to earn money instead of working for such earnings.

profit = exploitation of labour.

- the capitalist is unnecessary but the worker is indispensible for production.

- the worker sells himself at a subsistence wage instead of the proper reward which should include the surplus value.

- as a result an inherent class war between the proleteriat and the capitalist exists which can only be resolved through the overthrow of the capitalist by violent revolution when “all of the workers of the world unite”

-communist motto “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”

- all events in human consciousness are physical reactions aimed at satisfying the economic and material needs of mankind.

- morality is contingent upon the social class, and the social class along with its moral code is in turn the product of the mode of production.

“human essence has no true reality”   “matter thinks”

- industrial and scientific work constitutes the highest form of activity, the goal of which is the production of material goods for the enhancement of human well-being

- religion is an illusion, with the illusory happiness based on it needing to be condemned.  Religion functions as a bourgeoisie police force, a technique to dissuade the masses from revolting by promising them a better, happier life after death.

Vladmir Ilich Ulyanov (1870-1924) - aka Nikolai Lenin, disciple of Marx, exiled to Siberia, formed Bolshevik party in London, a staunch defender of metaphysical materialism, his was a philosophy of history.

- revolution was the leap from one stage to the next.

Mao Tse-Tung (1893-1976) - placed great emphasis upon  (1) practice (the pragmatic element of communism) and  (2) contradiction (conflict and revolution).

- without conflict, there can be no progress   “All political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”

- the only valid criterion of truth is man’s social practice (condemned philosophers for  speculating, whereas the task of man is to change the world).

- contradictions among communists may be democratically resolved (“unity==>criticism==>unity”)

Philosophy - Classical Positivism

Classical Positivism

Epiphenomenalism- the belief that consciousness and mental phenomena are dependent upon and produced by physical processes, but that the converse is never the case.

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) - French biologist, most influential exponent of the evolutionary school during contemporary times.

Bergson’s vitalism- life is an autonomous function controlled by its own laws instead of the laws of physics and chemistry.

- attempts to arrive at logical explanations of reality are ineffective because reality is always in a state of Becoming and never stationary or at rest.

- man’s intellect can grasp nothing except static truths (mathematics, logic, etc) but his intuition can discern the ever changing life process itself.

- the élan vital (vital impulse) is unpredictable and perfectly free.

Dualism permeates every phase of Bergson’s philosophy: in his metaphysics (mind and matter), in his epistemology (intelligence and instinct), in his ethics (open and closed morality), in religion (static and dynamic).

Static religion - set of myths devised by human intelligence as a means of defense against the depressing experiences of life.

Dynamic religion = prompted by the elan vital, mysticism

Samuel Alexander (1859-1938) - born in Sydney, neo-realist (objects of knowledge and of sense experience are externally real in their own right and are not dependent upon consciousness for their existence), the ontological real is space and time.

Five levels of emergent evolution (1) space time and the categories   (2) primary qualities  (3) secondary qualities  (4) life  (5) mind  (6) deity

- values do not exist independently of the individual; relationship between subject and object.

- truth must be the coherent ordering of reality as the mind understands it, for truth does not exist apart from the mind’s knowing it, nor does the mind create  it.

Auguste Comte (1798-1857) - sort to revamp society for the sake of all classes, societies salvation was to be contingent upon scientific knowledge; theology to be replaced by a “Religion of Humanity”; sought a natural law of the history of society; founder of sociology; God is humanity.

Anthropomorphism - attributing human qualities to natural objects.

- metaphysical causes or substances are not real; only the facts of sense phenomena exist.

- for us to attain immortality it is necessary to survive in the memory of those who follow us.

- a scientific law is a condensed statement about repetitive experienced facts (Ernst Mach).

- since “metaphysical realities” are assumed to go beyond the boundaries of sense experience, they must be considered nonsense, nonexistent.

The Market and the Economy Re-tethered

After a long period of apparent dislocation, I think the market is now re-tethered to the economy. As such it will rise and fall with the credit/economic/business cycle (all of which have reserves to go higher or improve).

Why?
The negatives and the positives seem pretty evenly balanced. Positives: strong momentum from wealth effect, sense of confidence flowing back into the system, no real signs of overleverage in the system, high earnings level, high profit margins, improving economic indicators (housing, unemployment, PMI, fiscal, output), low inflation, low interest rates, strengthening bank capital, strong credit growth, reasonable valuations, cash on sidelines, no real signs of hubris or greed, still a pessimistic undertone, Fed accomodation, low gas prices, China stabilizing, Japan recovering, Europe recovering. Negatives: political stalemate, above trend profit margins, slowing earnings growth, high earnings expectations next year, growing inequality, market up big, taper not far off, an underlying fragility, corporate leverage increasing, artifice masking underlying weakness, potential reversal of labor/capital trade-off, fiscal exit, stagnation.

The strong move in the market over the past year (with little pullback) indicates a market looking to the future positively.

Philosophy - Evolutionary Naturalism

Evolutionary Naturalism

- Philosophical naturalism - based on the theory that all phenomena may adequately be explained by means of physical laws.

Nietzsche applied the concept of evolution to ethical theory, Marx adapted it to his socio-political philosophy, Huxley humanized it.

- evolutionary naturalism attributes a teleology (cosmic purpose) to nature itself.

Jean de Lamarck (1744-1829) - French zoologist, believed that all forms of life undergo structural changes when individual members repeatedly use their organs to cope with the changing environment and that the modified characteristics thus acquired by the individual are passed on to the offspring.

Darwin argued that not use or disuse, but the struggle for survival us the decisive factor.

- there is a process of natural selection whereby those individuals best fitted to overcome obstacles survive so that their superior characteristics are inherited by succeeding generations.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) - Origin of Species (1859), doctrine of natural selection (or survival of the fittest).

Darwin’s theory of evolution explained the design or purpose evident in organic life by reference to the mechanical laws of nature and the process of natural selection; agreed with Hegel as to the necessity for a historical perspective in order to understand the nature of things (man must be understood in the light of his animal ancestry).

- Darwin accepted the theory of Ethical Intuitionism (ethical principles are innate).

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) - developed agnosticism as a central doctrine of evolutionary theory, accepted the reality of the Unknowable; evolution is a process of natural changes governed by law and manifesting a mystic force which he considered beyond man’s comprehension.

- we know that God exists, but we cannot discover specific facts about his powers or characteristics.

- the entire universe develops from relative simplicity to complexity as it seeks to establish equilibrium of all its forces, but once equilibrium is reached they dissipate and return to an unbalanced state.

- Spencer defined life as “the continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations”

- justice, courage and sympathy have persisted as innate moral principles because they protected society and contributed to social survival, and were transmitted to succeeding generations.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) - basic philosophy of value theory - “a revaluation of all values”.  The Judeo-Christian system of moral ideals constitutes an inversion of natural life giving instinctive values, and should be replaced by nature’s values ie. the Master race.

- Nietzsche substituted an ethic of power for Judeo-Christian principles; “ethics of power”: might makes right was a logical consequence of Darwin’s survival of the fittest.

- advocated competitive striving to fulfill egoistic instincts and personal achievement

Two types of morality accompanying two corresponding cultures (1) master morality  eg. the Romans  (2) slave morality  eg. the Jews

- aristocrats have become rulers through the exercise of the natural superior abilities

- on the other hand the slave or subject class have adopted an ethical code emanating from resentment at their inability to combat the aristocratic class  ie. democracy, the principle of equality, religion with its concept of sin and evil, with the object to reduce the aristocrat down to their own level.

- Nietzsche’s “Superman” rejects belief in God (“God is dead”)

Thomas Huxley (1825-1895) - two processes in nature  (1) cosmic process of natural evolution  (2) ethical process of human evolution [ethical superior to the cosmic].

- the moral goal is not “survival of the fittest” but the education of as many as possible so that they will become worthy of survival.

Nietzsche’s individualism is naive in the face of man doing better as a society.  Huxley coined the term agnosticism: a doctrine stating that neither the existence of God nor the character of ultimate reality is knowable (neither affirms or denies).

Philosophy - British Utilitarianism

British Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism - an essentially British philosophy of the 19th C; defined virtue in terms of utility (the enhancement of the happiness of man); “the greatest happiness of the greatest number”  (goal of society).

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) - advocated the intellectual and social independence of individuals, defended civil liberties, declared belief in democratic ideals regarded as a means toward universal happiness, not as an absolute truth; his system was egoistic and individual.

fiction - refers to widely accepted values.

- rejected Kant’s view of duty as the criterion of moral values; rather pleasure was the proper measure of right conduct.

- devised a method of determining which alternative actions would be preferable because of the amount of pleasure to be anticipated (a Hedonic calculus), based on (1) intensity  (2) duration (3) certainty (4) remoteness (5) fecundity (6) purity (7) extent

James Mill’s utilitarianism and “association of ideas” (based on the psychological principle of contiguity) influenced greatly both David Ricardo (1772-1823) and Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)

John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) - delineated the foundations of inductive logic and scientific method; induction is the process by which we conclude that what is true of certain individuals of a class, is true of the whole class.

- the principles of induction are possible only because of the presence of uniformity in nature.

- pleasures differ in kind as well as in amount (Quantitative Hedonism)

Mill advocated laissez-faire individualism, including freedom of competition, freedom to unite, freedom of belief, freedom of taste; he qualified these freedom’s with the proviso that an individual’s freedoms must not injure others or transgress upon their rights.

- he was a theistic finitist: believing in a good God who is involved in a world not of his own making (ie. a God of limited power).

Henry Sidgwick argued that another’s happiness will become as important to us as our own as soon as we accept the Kantian theory that what is right for one is right for all.

- morally right acts are not limited to conduct which gives pleasure, but consist of conduct which produces the best possible consequences (Hastings Rashdall and George Edward Moore).

Philosophy - German Idealism (Hegel)

Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) - developed the most systematic and comprehensive philosophy of modern times; the Hegelian system represents largely a synthesis of other philosophies; “what is real is rational, what is rational is real;” he united thought into one Absolute which is both rational and real.

Beginning with Descartes, all modern metaphysics had moved in a direction to strip substance.  Descartes reduced substance to the status of an insensitive object of the understanding - that which could not be experienced by the senses.  Locke emptied it of all characteristics except the mystic one which he called the unknown.  Berkeley identified it with spiritual phenomena, the stuff of experience.  Hume eliminated substance altogether.

It was Hegel’s task to reverse the trend in philosophy, with respect to substance, by turning from abstraction to its opposite, concretion.

For Hegel, phenomena are the genuine externalization of the Absolute Spirit in objective nature; they are real facts in the objective world, not mere images.

To Hegel, if every possible characteristic is removed from substance, then it is reduced to sheer nullity.

Hegel concluded that the activity of discerning the relationship among concrete realities would uncover genuine rational truth.

Abstract - isolation or severance of parts from the whole repeatedly until no further abstraction is possible.

- isolated facts or moments may be presented in formally correct statements but they can never constitute the truth, because “the truth is the whole.”

- the truth is an integrated unity; truth is not static, but dynamic.

Reality is a Gestalt in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

- the world’s progressive development is directed by the Reason or Logos of the cosmos, that is the spirit of the Absolute (actualizes the progress of nature in its evolutionary unfolding).

- to determine the truth it is necessary to discover the concrete relationship of each entity to the whole; this can be achieved by means of the Hegelian dialectic.

- since Rationalists depended upon the static logic developed by Aristotle, they formed more and more abstractions until they reached the limit of abstractions - nothingness.

“Becoming is the fundamental feature of all existence”

Hegelian dialectic - a dynamic logic which finds truth through a series of triads; thesis, antithesis, synthesis.

- only by pointing out the many relationships of any one object to other objects can we establish the truth about that object.

- because of the principle of negativity (a cosmic law), the opposites (thesis and antithesis), as a result of the opposition, are reconciled (synthesis).

- the dialection process continues, with each new synthesis turning into a new thesis, until one arrives at the Absolute.

The Absolute, or God, is outside of time and therefore comprises the universe in its potential state, awaiting further evolutionary development.

Subjective mind - represents the individual as one who creates abstractions and is independent of society or culture.

Objective mind - reflects the free will as it develops in three areas of experience  (1) legal  (2) moral  (3) social ethics

Absolute mind - expresses itself in (1) art (2) religion  (3) philosophy

- persons have rights over things, but not vice versa.

A person’s rights consist of (1) property rights (2) right of contract (3) right to redress wrongs

- morality is purely subjective, coming into existence only through a moral choice.

- ethical substance must be applied dialectically to (1) family  (2) society  (3)  State

- an individual finds his real nature and Being only in others.

The three aspects of the State are represented in (1) its constitution  (2) international law  (3) world history.

- according to the Hegelian dialectic, progress comes only through conflict, the clash of opposing forces.

- world history constitutes the world’s court of justice

The predominant nation in any epoch of world history represents the dominant phase of the Idea, which courses through history as the World Spirit (Welt Geist).

Hegel’s point of view is highly optimistic because it assumes a world created God, rationally constructed, with a rational goal (Absolute Idea, God) and course of action (historical events) and progressing towards its goal.

Hegelian Right - after his death, conservative element of religious-minded philosophers, stressed the importance of personality as a metaphysical entity.

Hegelian Left - espoused Materialism, radical element [DF Strauss, Feuerbach, Marx].

David Friedrich Strauss (1808-1874) - Life of Jesus (1835) sought to prove that the gospel story is neither liberal history nor intentional fiction, but a myth inspired by the times.

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) - atheist, “man is what he eats,” only objects of sense are real, man’s highest good being sensuous enjoyment, Essence of Christianity (1841), the theogonic wish (principle which brings God into existence), man creates absolute reality out of his subjectivity; theory of the wish - God is the fulfilment of man’s wishes.  Without man, God cannot exist, for man is God.

God is an extension of man’s nature.

Philosophical egoism - theory that only the individual and his senses is absolute.

Realists - objects exist independently of the mind or senses.

The distinguishing feature of Absolute Idealism (Hegel’s system) is that it identifies reality with the Absolute  ie.  the whole of reality, the world.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) - took the opposite view to Hegel; saw reality as a blind irrational will and life as evil (pessimistic); regarded phenomena as mere illusions; an atheist.

- the phenomenal world consists of ideas or representations, while the ontologically real (ultimate reality) is the will; we are but individual manifestations of the will.

- the world which we sense is merely an idea within us.  “The world is my idea.”

“All that exists, exists only for the subject” “there is no object without a subject”

The Kantian “thing-in-itself” is in fact the will according to Schopenhauer.

- he was an idealist in asmuch as he believed that both idea and will are of the nature of the mind.  Reason is subordinate to will.  Will is non-rational urge, drive, instinct.

Schopenheuer’s concept of suffering corresponds to the modern psychologist’s idea of frustration.  His outlook on life was bleakly pessimistic because he insisted that there was no end to striving.

- desires can never be satisfied; the essence of life is misery “human life must be some kind of mistake”

- the active work of the world is not ethically good but evil  ie. brutality of animal kingdom

Suicide is not the answer because the will lives on.

Three means of salvation (1) Aesthetic  (2) Ethical  (3) Religious

Aesthetic - contemplation of Platonic Ideas lifts one above the storms of life (through art).

- the highest ethical achievement of man is not to reject life but to repudiate desire.Nietzsche made the will a positive force of life affirmation while Albert Schweitzer transformed the negative will into an optimistic will reflecting the ideal of reverence for life.- recognized the creative arts as sources of relief and happiness.

Edward von Hartmann (1842-1906) - synthesized Hegelian Optimism and Schopenhauerian Pessimism (the two opposing Idealistic schools of Rationalism and Irrationalism).

- ascribed the essential characteristics of both idea  and will to the World Spirit, the unconscious, as the true reality of the universe.

- the unconscious will is irrational in its creative activity (cosmic stage; right now); consequently civilisation and culture advance as does human misery.

- the philosopher values reason (and therefore opposes the will) and wins control over the will by conscious and rational thinking.

German Positivism - resulted from neo-Kantianism (back to Kant) based on the theory that science alone provides legitimate knowledge (ultimate reality is unknowable).

Marburg school - the only reality which is knowable is that which thought posits; object and subject are both the creations of thought, so that to be and to be thought are identical.

Baden school - types of  universal values (1) logic (ideal of thought)  (2) ethics (ideal of will)  (3) aesthetics (ideal of feeling).

metaphysical skepticism - things-in-themselves cannot be known; knowledge is restricted to sensations.