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.

Philosophy - German Idealism (Kant)

German Idealism- Kant

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) - Critique of Pure Reason (1781), sought to explore the nature of the mind; to trace connections between its a priori nature and its a posteriori sense impressions in order to unite or synthesize these two aspects of mental activity.

Hume had negated the laws of causation as unverifiable by means of sense experience, reducing cause-effect relationships to the status of mere habitual assumptions.

Kant sought to explain the possibility of scientific knowledge, or more precisely, that relationship between cause and effect which enables the mind to grasp scientific truths.

Kant divided the process of attaining knowledge (his epistemology) into : (1) transcendental aesthetic   (2) transcendental analytic  (3) transcendental dialectic.

Kant analyzed the nature of the act of knowing, and concluded that both the mind endowed with a priori perceptions and the sensory impressions must unite to yield scientific (valid) knowledge.

Transcendental aesthetic - synthesizes sense experience through concepts of time and space; time and space are a priori, not real objects of the external world but ideal, creations of the mind.

Transcendental analytic - human understanding changes perceptions into conceptions or ideas possessing analytical unity; the mind now applies to experience certain categories of thought (a. quantity  b. quality  c.  relation  d. modality) without which the mind would be unable to think at all.  It enables us to think scientifically.

Hume had proved that cause-effect relations are not objectively real, do not exist in the outer world, they were merely habitual or customary assumptions applied to phenomena.

Kant tried to show that just as time and space were a priori categories of human understanding.

Transcendental dialectic - the human mind seeks complete knowledge, a coherent understanding of the entire universe; as such it tries to go beyond sense experience in order to discern ultimate reality.  Man’s experience provides him with phenomena only, yet his mind informs him that there is an ultimate ontological reality, a “thing-in-itself” which produces each phenomenon.

Kant postulated three kinds of reality (1) phenomena, sensory  (2) understanding  (3) ultimately real world (transcends our ability to sense therefore unknowable).

The ultimately real world becomes a reconstruction of the mind.

Antinomies result from the reason’s attempt to apply the categories of the understanding to the absolute, to the transcendental, whereas the categories are applicable only to empirical experience.

Antinomies - two contradictory inferences, correctly reasoned from principles, both of which are regarded as true.

Kant’s Ideals of reason (1) soul  (2) ultimate reality  (3)  God

- reason transcends the bounds of sensory experience.

Reason should be used as a controlling principle which sets up an ideal of perfect knowledge even though it is unprovable.

- supreme Being is for purely speculative reason a mere ideal, which completes and crowns the whole of human knowledge.

Kant stated that he had “limited all that we can know to mere phenomena” and had therefore “found it necessary to deny knowledge of God, freedom and immortality, in order to find a place for faith”.

Categorical imperative - moral laws which every person is bound to obey.

- we know what is morally right a priori, by intuition.

- right is right and mist be done even under the most extreme conditions.

- if the categorical imperative obligates the will to obey a moral command, it must necessarily follow that the individual has the power to carry out the obligation.

- duty represents the individuals obligation to obey the categorical imperative by choosing the morally right action.

- the categorical imperative is universal - allows no exceptions.

For Kant, self-determination, the autonomy of the rational will, is the indispensable condition of all morality.

Moral consciousness is a function of (1) freedom of the will  (2) immortality of the soul  (3) the existing Supreme Being - known through practical reason; they are necessary assumptions based upon the a priori moral law of the categorical imperative.

Pure practical reason  - the choice of conduct by the free will.

- speculative reason  (ie. science)  subordinate to practical reason (ie. ethics)

- advocated a World State, a federated republic of free states

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) - founder of the school of German Idealism (formulated a philosophy of the absolute), centred on the moral will as the activating principle of the world.

- regarded the fact of consciousness as the key to understanding reality (an object cannot exist unless a percipient experiences it).

Dialectical method - a logical system for comprehending the universe as a rational unit.

- as the basic principle of human knowledge, self-consciousness is the means of searching for the Absolute.

The fundamental “deed-act” is self consciousness, an absolute principle that can neither be proved or predetermined by specific causes.

- it is the sole and fundamental task of philosophy to clarify what is involved in this act of self analysis.

- reason utilises three rational principles - thesis, antithesis and synthesis to interpret the nature and goals of the universe (the dialectical process is endless).

thesis = person and his own consciousness (Ego)

antithesis = the object of his consciousness, sense phenomena (Non-Ego)

synthesis = unification of these two opposite into subject-object.

- Fichte’s dialectical method became the basis for Hegelian philosophy.

- the concept of Ego or self-consciousness

Fichte sought to synthesize Kant’s pure reason with practical reason (theory with practice).

- the entire phenomenal world is simply the stuff of duty structured in sensory form a the non-Ego which seeks to realise itself.

- the essence of things and their supreme principle is freedom

Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854) - nature is the visible form of spirit, and spirit is the invisible form of nature; the Ego and the world are two poles of one and the same reality; regarded phenomena as both ideal and real (transcendental idealism).

Absolute Reality consists of creative energy evolving through stages as mind and as matter and at present at its  highest level, namely self-consciousness.

- nature is but a material manifestation of reason, which in man, becomes conscious of itself.

- it was in the world of aesthetics (eg. art) that Schelling found a synthesis of the world of sense phenomenon with the work of mind, or man’s moral spirit.

- art supplants logic as the mode by which reason develops, art becomes the goal of reason.

God is the supreme creative artist, and the world is his artistic creation and highest expression.

Art is both the means and ends of education; it generates the fruits of science and morality (Schiller).

Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) - rather than Kant’s view that morality was the highest religious activity and Schiller who had accorded it to art, Schleiermacher set forth his own thesis that a mystical awareness of feeling is the highest religious activity.

God is “the identity of thought and Being,” the goal of all learning and knowledge.

- the highest religious activity has nothing to do with knowledge or ethics, rather it consists of communion with God, the feeling of absolute dependence upon God.

Philosophy - Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle (384-322 BC)- disciple of Plato, founder of the Lyceum or Peripatetic School [to walk about], the philosopher.

Theoretical philosophy = mathematics, physics, metaphysics

Practical philosophy = ethics, politics

Poetic philosophy = art, poetry, drama

- logic was a method of finding truths rather than as a compendium of truths

Truth = the agreement of  knowledge with reality

Two principle forms of logical inference: syllogism - reasoning from the universal to the particular  ie. deduction; and induction - reasoning from particulars to a universal

Scientific inference - conclusions based on true principles or premises

Dialectical inference - conclusions drawn from apparent data

Inference: derivation of new knowledge from known information

Sophistical inference - results in false assumptions based on erroneous premises

Two fundamental laws of logic: The principle of contradiction (a proposition cannot be both true and false); The principle of the excluded middle (a proposition must be either true or false).

essence - the ontologically real Being or Plato’s Ideal reality.

metaphysics - branch of philosophy that goes beyond physical events or substances.

study of ontology (the study of Being)

epistemology (the theory of knowledge)

- ultimate reality unfolds itself in the phenomenal world; every thing seeks to realise its essence.

For Plato, the sense world realised itself by imitating the ideal world, whereas for Aristotle, the Platonic Ideals realise themselves through the phenomenal world.

Essence within phenomenon strives to realise itself (entelechy - purpose)

Causes - contribute to the formation of matter in order that it may attain its end.

- the causes [matter or substance; for or essence; motion; end] constitute the principles by which each particular thing is changed from its original potential state of unformed matter to one of full realisation.

- each material object moves toward God in its striving and longing for perfection

Argument for the existence of God: teleological (argument from design: form and pattern); cosmological (argument from first cause).

God =first mover = unmoved mover

- the basis of his ethical philosophy is that everything has a purpose

virtue comprises the use of one’s ability to act purposefully in conformity with one’s intellectual insight.

- the virtuous or right act is a mean between two extremes (moderation).

- every true virtue impels man to live in harmony with reason, to live a rational life.

* if forced to, choose the lesser of two evils (Aristotle)

The purpose of the State is ethical training for the benefit of its citizens.

Forms of government: monarchy, aristocracy, polity, tyranny, oligarchy and democracy

- government form is unimportant provided the public interest is paramount

The form of government adopted by the State should depend upon the social situation prevailing at the time.

Art is imitation, copying the essence rather than the individual object.

Catharsis - purification of the soul

Neo-Platonists and the Patristics were faced with the problem of ethical and religious salvation

Neo-Platonism: matter is the product of spirit; phenomena are essentially spiritual; there is a dualism between spirit and matter that poses a moral problem; the sense  world is evil and alien to God; the soul’s salvation requires that it extricate itself from matter and return to pure spirit from which it originally came.

Ancient philosophy ended with the Neo-Platinists and the Patristics attempt to spiritualise the world.