Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer were all German idealists heavily influenced by the Romantic Movement. German idealists suggested that mind was more important than matter. Many of them believed that only the mind exists and that knowledge isn't always the best way to reach a philosophical conclusion. They were against Hume and his empiricist view as they wanted to recover metaphysics.
Kant 22nd April 1724- 12th February 1804
Kant is thought to be one of the greatest modern philosophers as he has been very influential in many different ways. He was educated in Wolfian Leibniz philosophy but was lead to abandon it by the influences of Rousseau and Hume. His most important book ‘The critique of reason’ (1781) sought to prove that all knowledge comes from experience however isn't inferred inductively (every time I put my hand in fire it burns me, therefore fire burns which is a generalisation based on an individuals instance.) He says that our knowledge is based on logic and ideas that aren’t (and never can be) founded in logic. ‘If it feels right, it probably is right’
Knowledge based in logic can be divided into Synthetic and Analytic propositions. Analytic reasoning is based on contradiction where the predicate is part of the subject, ‘a tall man is a man’ (Russell). Synthetic reasoning is not analytic and is all we know from experience. If I were to say ‘it was cold yesterday’ there is no evidence in the statement to prove me right or wrong it is all based solely on my experience.
Kant, unlike many philosophers (Leibniz) refused to accept that all synthetic propositions are discovered through experience. He says that what we know as an empirical proposition is different from a priori. He says empirical cannot be known except by the help of our sense perception, (facts of history and geography are of this sort.) He stated we only know these things because either we or someone before us has ‘sensed’ them. Kant then says that a priori is something other than experience but is learnt through experience. The example that Russell gives is a child learning maths may be helped by experiencing that 2 marbles + 2 other marbles and observing that there are 4. But once he knows that 2+2=4 he no longer requires the confirmation from the marbles.
However this caused Kant a problem as he couldn’t understand how a synthetic proposition could also be an a priori proposition. After 12 years he explained that the way in which we see the world is due to our brain sorting it into space and time in a way that we will understand it. So a synthetic proposition can also be a priori because we view the world through space and time. This means we can be sure that it follows the normal way of gravity, time and space in our own world.
Kant says that our senses have causes and that things will always be the same the way we experience them. However he also states that they may be completely different in reality. He uses the idea of ‘noumena’ to describe unperceived things in themselves and ‘phenomena’ to describe the mental creations of the mind. It is this part that he said isn’t sensation and therefore is not dependant upon the accident of environment. "Instead of asking how our knowledge conforms to objects, we must first start from the supposition that the objects must conform to our knowledge."
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel 24th August 1770 – 14th November 1831
was a German philosopher, one of the creators of German Idealism. He revolutionised 19th century European philosophy by his historicist and idealist account of reality as a whole and was important to Continental philosophy and Marxism. Hegel and Schopenhauer were pupils of Kant and developed his ideas further. Hegel was a historisist and believed that all history had a purpose ‘everything happens for a reason’ and it was all part of Gods big plan.
He published four books during his lifetime: the Phenomenology of Spirit was his account of the evolution of consciousness from sense-perception to absolute knowledge, published in 1807; the Science of Logic, which was the logical and metaphysical core of his philosophy, published in three volumes, the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, a summary of his entire philosophical system, which was originally published in 1816 and the Elements of the Philosophy of Right, his political philosophy, published in 1822.
Hegel talked about phenomenology existence, the study of things as they are. He decided that we only know reality when we have completely mastered the appearances, since the appearances (phenomena) partially hide and partially reveal reality. There are material phenomena and there are mental phenomena. Phenomena of mind also partially hide and partially reveal the truth. However it was mental phenomena that Hegel decided to focus on.
The Phenomenology of mind is a study of appearances, images and illusions throughout the history of human consciousness. More specifically, Hegel presents the evolution of consciousness. He uses the idea of ‘geist’ a ghost or spirit that describes the persistence of objects as they change. He believes that the universe as a whole must have a ‘geist’ as everything is forever burning and changing even though the universe is still persisting and we are all still living in the same way. The purpose of the ‘geist’ according to Hegel is to know itself and reach absolute consciousness. This vision involves turning around and looking again at all the phenomena of human history witnessing humanity rising towards the same vision, all converging towards one vision, the vision of God, of the Absolute which is the highest possible satisfaction.
The Hegelian dialectic is the framework for guiding our thoughts and actions into conflicts that lead us to a pre-determined solution. It describes how a statement contains its own thesis which is where the framework begins. The opposing view to this is called the anthesis. These both come into conflict and a good answer is formed which is known as the synthesis. This then becomes its own thesis and the process all starts again. This circulation happens until the perfect state is gained such as the Garden of Eden.
Hegel says that if we do not understand how the Hegelian dialectic shapes our perceptions of the world, then we do not know how we are helping to implement the vision. When we remain locked into dialectical thinking, we cannot see out of the box. Hegel suggested that we need to step outside the dialect to release us from the limitations of controlled and guided thoughts. In 1847 the London Communist League Karl Marx used Hegel's theory of the dialectic to back up their economic theory of communism.
Schopenhauer 22 February 1788- 21st September 1860
Schopenhauer was a pessimist, whereas almost all the other philosophers were in some sense optimists. He was a follower of Kant’s idealist school and was influenced by Indian religion and philosophy particularly Hinduism and Buddhism. He began the emphasis on Will believing that everything existing has a will. This was characteristic of the 19th and 20th century philosophy.
Schopenhauer was anti-democratic, and hated the revolution of 1848; he believed in spiritualism and magic; in his study he had a bust of Kant and a bronze of Buddha. In his manner of life he tried to imitate Kant except as regards early rising.
His most influential work, The World as Will and Idea, was published at the end of 1818. He believed it be of great importance, and went so far as to say that some paragraphs in it had been dictated by the Holy Ghost. It claimed that the world is fundamentally what humans recognise in themselves as their will, ‘the Cosmic Will is wicked and the source of all endless suffering.’ As Schopenhauer was a pupil of Kant he agrees with some of his observations. Kant stated that both time and space belong only to phenomena; the thing-in-itself is not in space or time. Schopenhauer preferred, ‘therefore my will, is one and timeless’. He concluded from his analysis of the will that life was a painful process with emotional, physical and sexual desires never being fully satisfied, ‘the good man will practise complete chastity, voluntary poverty, fasting and self- torture.’
Kant tried to find a solution to combine the conflict between science and religion. Before Kant the Empiricists believed that all knowledge is a priori and that everything we learn is through senses. His idea of causality was that everything in the world happens because something before it causes it to happen. This raised ethical/religious dilemmas as the church said people need to choose to do the right thing morally. However if we are influenced by objects around us how can we choose ourselves what we do when everything happens due to something that has already taken place.
Historically, two things are important about Schopenhauer: his pessimism and his doctrine that will is superior to knowledge. The most notable change of philosophy in our age was prepared by Kant and Rousseau but was explained in depth by Schopenhauer. It states that ‘as will has gone up in the scale, knowledge has gone down’ which is important as a stage in historical development.
Other notes
Kant also uses the Copernican Revolution to explain that we as individuals all learn about the world differently. The structure of our mind is different and the way that we see the world is different depending on our thoughts and experiences.
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