Download 1 Philosophy of New Times. Rationalism and empiricism

Philosophy of New Times. Rationalism and empiricism
Rationalism is any view emphasizing the role or importance of human reason. Extreme rationalism tries
to base all knowledge on reason alone. Rationalism typically starts from premises that cannot coherently be
denied, then attempts by logical steps to deduce every possible object of knowledge.
Modern rationalism begins with Descartes. Reflection on the nature of perceptual experience, as well as
scientific discoveries in physiology and optics, led Descartes (and also Locke) to the view that we are directly
aware of ideas, rather than objects. This view gave rise to three questions:
1.
Is an idea a true copy of the real thing that it represents? Sensation is not a direct interaction
between bodily objects and our sense, but is a physiological process involving representation (for example, an
image on the retina). Locke thought that a 'secondary quality' such as a sensation of green could in no way
resemble the arrangement of particles in matter that go to produce this sensation, although he thought that
'primary qualities' such as shape, size, number, were really in objects.
2.
How can physical objects such as chairs and tables, or even physiological processes in the brain,
give rise to mental items such as ideas? This is part of what became known as the mind-body problem.
3.
If all the contents of awareness are ideas, how can we know that anything exists apart from ideas?
Descartes tried to address the last problem by reason. He began, echoing Parmenides, with a principle
that he thought could not coherently be denied: I think, therefore I am (often given in his original Latin:
Cogito ergo sum). From this principle, Descartes went on to construct a complete system of knowledge
(which involves proving the existence of God, using, among other means, a version of the ontological
argument). His view that reason alone could yield substantial truths about reality strongly influenced those
philosophers usually considered modern rationalists (such as Baruch Spinoza, Gottfried Leibniz, and Christian
Wolff), while provoking criticism from other philosophers who have retrospectively come to be grouped
together as empiricists.
Empiricism, in contrast to rationalism, downplays or dismisses the ability of reason alone to yield
knowledge of the world, preferring to base any knowledge we have on our senses. This dates back to the
concept of tabula rasa (unscribed tablet) implicit in Aristotle's On the Soul, described more explicitly in
Avicenna's The Book of Healing. John Locke propounded the classic empiricist view in An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding in 1689, developing a form of naturalism and empiricism on roughly scientific (and
Newtonian) principles.
During this era, religious ideas played a mixed role in the struggles that preoccupied secular philosophy.
Bishop Berkeley's famous idealist refutation of key tenets of Isaac Newton is a case of an Enlightenment
philosopher who drew substantially from religious ideas.
British empiricism
Francis Bacon
Bacon did not propose an actual philosophy, but rather a method of developing philosophy. Before
beginning this induction, the inquirer is to free his or her mind from certain false notions or tendencies which
distort the truth. These are called "Idols", and are of four kinds: "Idols of the Tribe", which are common to the
race; "Idols of the Den", which are peculiar to the individual; "Idols of the Marketplace" , coming from the
misuse of language; and "Idols of the Theatre", which result from an abuse of authority. The end of induction
is the discovery of forms, the ways in which natural phenomena occur, the causes from which they proceed.
Derived through use of his methods, Bacon explicates his somewhat fragmentary ethical system in the
seventh and eighth books of his De augmentis scientiarum (1623). He distinguishes between duty to the
community, an ethical matter, and duty to God, a religious matter. Bacon claimed that [1] any moral action is
the action of the human will, which is governed by belief and spurred on by the passions; good habit is what
aids men in directing their will toward the good; [3] no universal rules can be made, as both situations and
men's characters differ.
Bacon contrasted the new approach of the development of science with that of the Middle Ages. He said:
"Men have sought to make a world from their own conception and to draw from their own minds all the
material which they employed, but if, instead of doing so, they had consulted experience and observation, they
would have the facts and not opinions to reason about, and might have ultimately arrived at the knowledge of
the laws which govern the material world."
1
Earlier concepts of the existence of "innate ideas" were the subject of debate between the Continental
rationalists and the British empiricists in the 17th century through the late 18th century. John Locke, George
Berkeley, and David Hume were the primary exponents of empiricism.
Responding to the continental "rationalism" most prominently defended by René Descartes (a type of
philosophical approach which should not be confused with rationalism generally), John Locke (1632-1704),
writing in the late 17th century, in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), proposed a very
influential view wherein the only knowledge humans can have is a posteriori, i.e., based upon experience.
Locke is famously attributed with holding the proposition that the human mind is a tabula rasa, a "blank
tablet," in Locke's words "white paper," on which is written the experiences derived from sense impressions as
a person's life proceeds. There are two sources of our ideas: sensation and reflection. In both cases, a
distinction is made between simple and complex ideas. The former are unanalysable, and are broken down
into primary and secondary qualities. Complex ideas are those which combine simple ones and are divided
into substances, modes and relations. According to Locke, our knowledge of things is a perception of ideas
that are in accordance or discordance with each other, which is very different from the quest for certainty of
Descartes.
A generation later, the Irish Anglican bishop, George Berkeley (1685-1753), determined that Locke's
view immediately opened a door that would lead to eventual atheism. In response to Locke, he put forth in his
Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) a different, very extreme form of empiricism
in which things only exist either as a result of their being perceived, or by virtue of the fact that they are an
entity doing the perceiving. (For Berkeley, God fills in for humans by doing the perceiving whenever humans
are not around to do it). In his text Alciphron, Berkeley maintained that any order humans may see in nature is
the language or handwriting of God. Berkeley's approach to empiricism would later come to be called
subjective idealism.
The Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) added to the empiricist viewpoint an extreme
skepticism that he brought to bear against the accumulated arguments and counterarguments of Descartes,
Locke and Berkeley, among others. Hume argued in keeping with the empiricist view that all knowledge
derives from sense experience. In particular, he divided all of human knowledge into two categories: relations
of ideas and matters of fact. Mathematical and logical propositions (e.g. "that the square of the hypotenuse is
equal to the sum of the squares of the two sides") are examples of the first, while propositions involving some
contingent observation of the world (e.g. "the sun rises in the East") are examples of the second. All of
people's "ideas", in turn, are derived from their "impressions". For Hume, an "impression" corresponds
roughly with what we call a sensation. To remember or to imagine such impressions is to have an "idea".
Ideas are therefore the faint copies of sensations.
Via his skeptical arguments (which became famous for the tenacity of their logic) he maintained that all
knowledge, even the most basic beliefs about the natural world, cannot be conclusively established by reason.
Rather, he maintained, our beliefs are more a result of accumulated habits, developed in response to
accumulated sense experiences. Among his many arguments Hume also added another important slant to the
debate about scientific method — that of the problem of induction. Hume argued that it requires inductive
reasoning to arrive at the premises for the principle of inductive reasoning, and therefore the justification for
inductive reasoning is a circular argument. Among Hume's conclusions regarding the problem of induction is
that there is no certainty that the future will resemble the past. Thus, as a simple instance posed by Hume, we
cannot know with certainty by inductive reasoning that the sun will continue to rise in the East, but instead
come to expect it to do so because it has repeatedly done so in the past.
Hume concluded that such things as belief in an external world and belief in the existence of the self
were not rationally justifiable. According to Hume these beliefs were to be accepted nonetheless because of
their profound basis in instinct and custom. Hume's lasting legacy, however, was the doubt that his skeptical
arguments cast on the legitimacy of inductive reasoning, allowing many skeptics who followed to cast similar
doubt.
Rationalism
René Descartes (1596–1650)
Descartes thought that only knowledge of eternal truths – including the truths of mathematics, and the
epistemological and metaphysical foundations of the sciences – could be attained by reason alone; other
2
knowledge, the knowledge of physics, required experience of the world, aided by the scientific method. He
also argued that although dreams appear as real as sense experience, these dreams cannot provide persons with
knowledge. Also, since conscious sense experience can be the cause of illusions, then sense experience itself
can be doubtable. As a result, Descartes deduced that a rational pursuit of truth should doubt every belief
about reality. He elaborated these beliefs in such works as Discourse on Method, Meditations on First
Philosophy, and Principles of Philosophy. Descartes developed a method to attain truths according to which
nothing which cannot be recognised by the intellect (or reason) can be classified as knowledge. These truths
are gained "without any sensory experience", according to Descartes. Truths that are attained by reason are to
be broken down into elements which intuition can grasp, which, through a purely deductive process, will
result in clear truths about reality.
Descartes therefore argued, as a result of his method, that reason alone determined knowledge, and that
this could be done independently of the senses. For instance, his famous dictum, cogito ergo sum, is a
conclusion reached a priori and not through an inference from experience. This was, for Descartes, an
irrefutable principle upon which to ground all forms of other knowledge. Descartes posited a metaphysical
dualism, distinguishing between the substances of the human body ("res extensa") and the mind or soul ("res
cogitans") . This crucial distinction would be left unresolved and lead to what is known as the mind-body
problem, since the two substances in the Cartesian system are independent of each other and irreducible.
Baruch or Benedict de Spinoza (November 24, 1632 – February 21, 1677) was a Dutch philosopher .
Substance, Attribute and Mode.
"These are the fundamental concepts with which Spinoza sets forth a vision of Being, illuminated by his
awareness of God. They may seem strange at first sight. To the question "What is?" he replies: "Substance, its
attributes and modes".
Spinoza's system imparted order and unity to the tradition of radical thought, offering powerful weapons
for prevailing against "received authority." As a youth he first subscribed to Descartes's dualistic belief that
body and mind are two separate substances, but later changed his view and asserted that they were not
separate, being a single identity. He contended that everything that exists in Nature/Universe is one Reality
(substance) and there is only one set of rules governing the whole of the reality which surrounds us and of
which we are part. Spinoza viewed God and Nature as two names for the same reality, namely the single
substance (meaning "that which stands beneath" rather than "matter") that is the basis of the universe and of
which all lesser "entities" are actually modes or modifications, that all things are determined by Nature to
exist and cause effects, and that the complex chain of cause and effect is only understood in part. That humans
presume themselves to have free will, he argues, is a result of their awareness of appetites while being unable
to understand the reasons why they want and act as they do.
Spinoza was a thoroughgoing determinist who held that absolutely everything that happens occurs
through the operation of necessity. For him, even human behaviour is fully determined, with freedom being
our capacity to know we are determined and to understand why we act as we do. So freedom is not the
possibility to say "no" to what happens to us but the possibility to say "yes" and fully understand why things
should necessarily happen that way.
Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716)
Leibniz was the last of the great Rationalists, who contributed heavily to other fields such as
mathematics. His system however was not developed independently of these advances. Leibniz rejected
Cartesian dualism, and denied the existence of a material world. In Leibniz's view there are infinitely many
simple substances, which he called "monads".
Leibniz developed his theory of monads in response to both Descartes and Spinoza. In rejecting this
response he was forced to arrive at his own solution. Monads are the fundamental unit of reality, according to
Leibniz, constituting both inanimate and animate things. These units of reality represent the universe, though
they are not subject to the laws of causality or space (which he called "well-founded phenomena"). Leibniz
therefore introduced his principle of pre-established harmony, in order to account for apparent causality in the
world.
3
Classical German Philosophie
German idealism (XIX c.)
German idealism was a philosophical movement in Germany in the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries. It developed out of the work of Immanuel Kant in the 1780s and 1790s, and was
closely linked both with romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment. The most wellknown thinkers in the movement were Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Schelling, and
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
Meaning of idealism
The philosophical meaning of idealism here is that the properties we discover in objects depend on the
way that those objects appear to us as perceiving subjects, and not something they possess "in themselves",
apart from our experience of them. The very notion of a "thing in itself" should be understood as an option
of a set of functions for an operating mind, such that we consider something that appears without respect to
the specific manner in which it appears.
Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 – February 12, 1804) was an 18th-century German philosopher from
the Prussian city of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia). He is regarded as one of the most influential
thinkers of modern Europe and of the late Enlightenment.
His most important work is the Critique of Pure Reason, a critical investigation of reason itself. It
encompasses an attack on traditional metaphysics and epistemology, and highlights Kant's own contribution
to these areas. The other main works of his maturity are the Critique of Practical Reason, which concentrates
on ethics, and the Critique of Judgement, which investigates aesthetics and teleology.
Pursuing metaphysics involves asking questions about the ultimate nature of reality. Kant suggested
that metaphysics can be reformed through epistemology. He suggested that by understanding the sources
and limits of human knowledge we can ask fruitful metaphysical questions. He concluded that all objects that
the mind can think about must conform to its manner of thought. However, it follows from this that it is
possible that there are objects of such a nature that the mind cannot think of them, and so the principle of
causality, for instance, cannot be applied outside of experience: hence we cannot know, for example,
whether the world always existed or if it had a cause. And so the grand questions of speculative metaphysics
are off limits, but the sciences are firmly grounded in laws of the mind.
Kant believed himself to be creating a compromise between the empiricists and the rationalists. The
empiricists believed that knowledge is acquired through experience alone, but the rationalists maintained
that such knowledge is open to Cartesian doubt and that reason alone provides us with knowledge. Kant
argues, however, that using reason without applying it to experience will only lead to illusions, while
experience will be purely subjective without first being subsumed under pure reason.
The Critique of Pure Reason (German: Kritik der reinen Vernunft) by Immanuel Kant, first published
in 1781, second edition 1787, is one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. Also referred
to as Kant's "first critique," it was followed by the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of
Judgement.
In Kant's view, a priori intuitions and concepts provide us with some a priori knowledge, which also
provides the framework for our a posteriori knowledge.
Things as they are "in themselves" — the thing in itself or das Ding an sich — are unknowable. For
something to become an object of knowledge, it must be experienced, and experience is structured by our
minds -- both space and time as the forms of our intuition or perception, and the unifying, structuring
activity of our concepts. These aspects of mind turn things-in-themselves into the world of experience. We
are never passive observers or knowers.
Kant's "I" — the "Transcendental Unity of Apperception" — is similarly unknowable. One is aware
that there is an "I," a subject or self that accompanies one's experience and consciousness. Since one
experiences it as it manifests itself in time, which Kant proposes is a subjective form of perception, one can
know it only indirectly: as object, rather than subject.
The Critique of Pure Reason is arranged around several basic distinctions. After the two Prefaces (the
A edition Preface of 1781 and the B edition Preface of 1787) and the Introduction, the book is divided into
the Doctrine of Elements and the Doctrine of Method. The first part sets out the a priori products of the
mind, and the correct and incorrect use of these presentations. Kant further divides the Doctrine of
4
Elements into the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Transcendental Logic, reflecting his basic distinction
between sensibility and the understanding. In the Transcendental Aesthetic he argues that space and time
are pure forms of intuition inherent in our faculty of sense.
The Transcendental Logic is separated into the Transcendental Analytic and then the
Transcendental Dialectic. The Transcendental Analytic sets forth the appropriate uses of a priori
concepts, called the categories, and other principles of the understanding, as conditions of the possibility of a
science of metaphysics. The section titled the Metaphysical Deduction enucleates the origin of the
categories. In the Transcendental Deduction, Kant then shows the application of the categories to
experience. Next, the Analytic of Principles sets out arguments for the relation of the categories to
metaphysical principles. This section begins with the Schematism, which describes how the imagination can
apply pure concepts to the object given in sense perception. Next are arguments relating the a priori
principles with the schematized categories. The end of the Doctrine of Elements, the Transcendental
Dialectic, describes the transcendental illusion behind the misuse of these principles in attempts to apply
them to realms beyond sense experience.
Transcendental Aesthetic
Following Alexander Baumgarten, Kant held that there are two kinds of knowledge: sensible (sensual)
and logical. Sensible knowledge is based on sensation; logical knowledge is based on reason. Kant's division
of Transcendental Aesthetic and Transcendental Logic result from these two kinds of knowledge. The
Transcendental Aesthetic is that part of the Critique of Pure Reason that considers the contribution of
sensation to cognition.
Kant's revolutionary claim is that the form of appearances — which he later identifies as space and
time—is a contribution made by the faculty of sensation to cognition, rather than something that exists
independently of the mind. This is the thrust of Kant's doctrine of the transcendental ideality of space and
time.
Kant's arguments for this conclusion are widely debated among Kant scholars. Some see the argument
as based on Kant's conclusions that our representation of space and time is an a priori intuition. From here
Kant is thought to argue that our representation of space and time as a priori intuitions entails that space and
time are transcendentally ideal. Others see the argument as based upon the question of whether synthetic a
priori judgments are possible. Kant is taken to argue that the only way synthetic a priori judgments, such as
those made in geometry, are possible is if space is transcendentally ideal.
The other part of the Transcendental Aesthetic argues that time is a pure a priori intuition which
renders mathematics possible. Time is not a concept, since otherwise it would merely conform to formal
logical analysis (and therefore, to the principle of non-contradiction). Time and space cannot thus be
regarded as existing in themselves. They are a priori forms of sensible intuition.
Transcendental Logic
In the Transcendental Logic, one finds a section from Kant which frees his doctrine from any vestiges
of subjective idealism which would either doubt or deny the existence of external objects. Kant's distinction
between the appearance and the thing-in-itself is not intended to imply that nothing knowable exists apart
from consciousness, as with subjective idealism.
The Transcendental Logic is that part of the Critique where Kant investigates the understanding and its
role in constituting our knowledge. The understanding is defined as the faculty of the mind which deals with
concepts. The Logic is divided into two parts: the Analytic and the Dialectic. In the Analytic Kant
investigates the contributions of the understanding to knowledge. In the Dialectic Kant investigates the limits
of the understanding.
Kant's investigation resulted in his claim that the real world of experience can only be an appearance or
phenomenon. What things are in themselves, or, other than being appearances, are completely unknowable
by any animal or human mind.
First Division: Transcendental Analytic
The Transcendental Analytic is divided into an Analytic of Concepts and an Analytic of Principles, as
well as a third section concerned with the distinction between phenomena and noumena. The main sections
of the Analytic of Concepts are The Metaphysical Deduction and The Transcendental Deduction of the
5
Categories. The main sections of the Analytic of Principles are the Schematism, Axioms of Intuition,
Anticipations of Perception, Analogies of Experience, Postulates and follow the same recurring tabular form:
Second Division: Transcendental Dialectic
Following the systematic treatment of a priori knowledge given in the transcendental analytic, the
transcendental dialectic seeks to dissect dialectical illusions. Its task is effectively to expose the fraudulence
of non-empirical employment of the understanding. The Transcendental Dialectic shows how pure reason
should not be used.
The Antinomy of Pure Reason
The Ideas of Rational Cosmology are dialectical. They result in four kinds of opposing assertions, each
of which is logically valid. The antinomy, with its resolution, is as follows:
Thesis: The world has, as to time and space, a beginning (limit). Antithesis: The world is, as to time
and space, infinite. Both are false. The world is an object of experience. Neither statement is based on
experience.
Thesis: Everything in the world consists of elements that are simple. Antithesis: There is no simple
thing, but everything is composite. Both are false. Things are objects of experience. Neither statement is
based on experience.
Thesis: There are in the world causes through freedom. Antithesis: There is no freedom, but all is
nature. Both may be true. The thesis may be true of things-in-themselves (other than as they appear). The
antithesis may be true of things as they appear.
Thesis: In the series of the world-causes there is some necessary being. Antithesis: There is nothing
necessary in the world, but in this series all is contingent. Both may be true. The thesis may be true of thingsin-themselves (other than as they appear). The antithesis may be true of things as they appear.
The Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft in the original German) is the
second of Immanuel Kant's three critiques, first published in 1788. It follows on from his Critique of Pure
Reason and deals with his moral philosophy.
The second Critique exercised a decisive influence over the subsequent development of the field of
ethics and moral philosophy, beginning with Fichte's Doctrine of Science and becoming, during the 20th
century, the principal reference point for every moral philosophy of a deontological stamp.
Kant is known for his theory that there is a single moral obligation, which he called the "Categorical
Imperative", and is derived from the concept of duty. Kant defines the demands of the moral law as
"categorical imperatives." Categorical imperatives are principles that are intrinsically valid; they are good in
and of themselves; they must be obeyed in all situations and circumstances if our behavior is to observe the
moral law. It is from the Categorical Imperative that all other moral obligations are generated, and by which
all moral obligations can be tested. Kant also stated that the moral means and ends can be applied to the
categorical imperative, that rational beings can pursue certain "ends" using the appropriate "means." Ends
that are based on physical needs or wants will always give for merely hypothetical imperatives. The
categorical imperative, however, may be based only on something that is an "end in itself". That is, an end
that is a means only to itself and not to some other need, desire, or purpose. He believed that the moral law is
a principle of reason itself, and is not based on contingent facts about the world, such as what would make us
happy, but to act upon the moral law which has no other motive than "worthiness of being happy".
Accordingly, he believed that moral obligation applies to all and only rational agents.
A categorical imperative is an unconditional obligation; that is, it has the force of an obligation
regardless of our will or desires (Contrast this with hypothetical imperative).
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 – November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher,
and with Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, one of the creators of German
idealism.
Hegel influenced writers of widely varying positions, including both his admirers (Bauer, Marx,
Bradley, Sartre, Küng, Kojève), and his detractors (Schelling, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche,
Russell). Hegel developed a comprehensive philosophical framework, or "system", to account in an
integrated and developmental way for the relation of mind and nature, the subject and object of knowledge,
and psychology, the state, history, art, religion, and philosophy. In particular, he developed a concept of
6
mind or spirit that manifested itself in a set of contradictions and oppositions that it ultimately integrated and
united, such as those between nature and freedom, and immanence and transcendence, without eliminating
either pole or reducing it to the other. His influential conceptions are of speculative logic or "dialectic",
"absolute idealism", "Spirit", negativity, sublation (Aufhebung in German), the "Master/Slave" dialectic,
"ethical life", and the importance of history.
Phänomenologie des Geistes (1807) is one of Hegel's most important philosophical works. It is
translated as The Phenomenology of Spirit or The Phenomenology of Mind due to the dual meaning in the
German word Geist. The book's working title, which also appeared in the first edition, was Science of the
Experience of Consciousness. On its initial publication, it was identified as Part One of a projected "System
of Science", of which the Science of Logic was the second part. A smaller work, also titled Phenomenology
of Spirit, appears in Hegel's Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, and recounts in briefer and
somewhat altered form the major themes of the original Phenomenology.
It formed the basis of Hegel's later philosophy. The Phenomenology is where Hegel develops his
concepts of dialectic (including the Master-slave dialectic), absolute idealism, ethical life, and sublation. The
book had a profound effect in Western philosophy (particularly in the development of Marxism), and "has
been praised and blamed for the development of existentialism, communism, fascism, death of God
theology, and historicist nihilism."
Triads
In previous modern accounts of Hegelianism (to undergraduate classes, for example), especially those
formed prior to the Hegel renaissance, Hegel's dialectic was most often characterized as a three-step process,
"thesis, antithesis, synthesis"; namely, that a "thesis" (e.g. the French Revolution) would cause the creation
of its "antithesis" (e.g. the Reign of Terror that followed), and would eventually result in a "synthesis" (e.g.
the Constitutional state of free citizens). However, Hegel used this classification only once, and he attributed
the terminology to Immanuel Kant.. From Hegel's point of view, analysis or comprehension of a thing or
idea reveals that underneath its apparently simple identity or unity is an underlying inner contradiction. This
contradiction leads to the dissolution of the thing or idea in the simple form in which it presented itself and
to a higher-level, more complex thing or idea that more adequately incorporates the contradiction. The
triadic form that appears in many places in Hegel (e.g. being-nothingness-becoming, immediate-mediateconcrete, abstract-negative-concrete) is about this movement from inner contradiction to higher-level
integration or unification.
Lectures on the Philosophy of History, also translated as Lectures on the Philosophy of World History
( German: Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte), is the title of a major work by Georg
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), originally given as lectures at the University of Berlin in 1822, 1828,
and 1830. It presents world history in terms of the Hegelian philosophy in order to show that history follows
the dictates of reason and that the natural progress of history is due to the outworking of absolute spirit. The
text was originally published in 1837 by the editor Eduard Gans, six years after Hegel's death, utilizing
Hegel's own lecture notes as well as those found that were written by his students.
Hegel's lectures on the philosophy of world history are often used to introduce students to Hegel's
philosophy, in part because Hegel's sometimes difficult style is muted in the lectures, and he discourses on
accessible themes such as world events in order to explain his philosophy. Much of the work is spent
defining and characterizing Geist or spirit. The Geist is similar to the culture of people, and is constantly
reworking itself to keep up with the changes of society, while at the same time working to produce those
changes through what Hegel called the "cunning of reason". Another important theme of the text is the focus
on world history, rather than regional or state history.
History
According to Hegel, "World history... represents the development of the spirit's consciousness of its
own freedom and of the consequent realization of that freedom." This realization is seen by studying the
various cultures that have developed over the millennia, and trying to understand the way that freedom has
worked itself out through them. Hegel's account of history begins with ancient cultures as he understood
them. His account of the civilizations relied upon nineteenth century European scholarship, and contains an
unavoidable Eurocentric bias. At the same time, the developmental nature of Hegel's philosophy meant that
rather than simply deprecating ancient civilizations and non-European cultures, he saw them as necessary (if
7
incomplete or underdeveloped) steps in the outworking of absolute spirit. Hegel's lectures on the philosophy
of history contain one of his most well-known and controversial claims about the notion of freedom:
World history is the record of the spirit's efforts to attain knowledge of what it is in itself. The
Orientals do not know that the spirit or man as such are free in themselves. And because they do not know
that, they are not themselves free. They only know that One is free.... The consciousness of freedom first
awoke among the Greeks, and they were accordingly free; but, like the Romans, they only knew that Some,
and not all men as such, are free.... The Germanic nations, with the rise of Christianity, were the first to
realize that All men are by nature free, and that freedom of spirit is his very essence.
In other words, Hegel maintains that the consciousness of freedom in history moves from despotism,
to a sense that freedom is a privilege of a few, to a robust notion that humanity is free in and of itself. Hegel
believes that the spirit of human freedom is best nurtured within a constitutional monarchy in which the
monarch embodies the spirit and desires of the governed, and his reading of history locates the rise of such
forms of government in the Germanic nations of, for example, the United Kingdom and Prussia after the
Protestant Reformation. Hegel's "one, some, and all" proposition follows the basic geographical metaphor
Hegel takes throughout his philosophy of history, namely, "World history travels from east to west; for
Europe is the absolute end of history, just as Asia is its beginning." When referring to the east, Hegel
generally has in mind the historical cultures of Persia, though at times he does reference China and spends a
great deal of space discussing India and Indian religions.
Ludwig Andreas von Feuerbach (July 28, 1804 – September 13, 1872) was a German philosopher
and anthropologist. He was the fourth son of the eminent jurist Paul Johann Anselm Ritter von Feuerbach.
Essence of Christianity
This attack is followed up in his most important work, Das Wesen des Christentums (1841), which was
translated into English (The Essence of Christianity, by George Eliot, 1853, 2nd ed. 1881), French, Spanish
and Russian. Its aim may be described shortly as an effort to humanize theology. He lays it down that man,
so far as he is rational, is to himself his own object of thought.
Religion is consciousness of the infinite. Religion therefore is "nothing else than the consciousness of
the infinity of the consciousness; or, in the consciousness of the infinite, the conscious subject has for his
object the infinity of his own nature."
Feuerbach's theme was a derivation of Hegel's speculative theology in which the Creation remains a
part of the Creator, while the Creator remains greater than the Creation. When the student Feuerbach
presented his own theory to professor Hegel, Hegel refused to reply positively to it.
In part I of his book Feuerbach developed what he calls the "true or anthropological essence of
religion." Treating of God in his various aspects "as a being of the understanding," "as a moral being or law,"
"as love" and so on. Feuerbach talks of how man is equally a conscious being, more so than God because
man has placed upon God the ability of understanding. Man contemplates many things and in doing so he
becomes acquainted with himself. Feuerbach shows that in every aspect God corresponds to some feature or
need of human nature. "If man is to find contentment in God," he claims, "he must find himself in God."
Thus God is nothing else than man: he is, so to speak, the outward projection of man's inward nature.
This projection is dubbed as a chimaera by Feuerbach, that God and the idea of a higher being is dependent
upon the aspect of benevolence. Feuerbach states that, “a God who is not benevolent, not just, not wise, is no
God,” and continues to say that qualities are not suddenly denoted as divine because of their godly
association. The qualities themselves are divine therefore making God divine, indicating that man is capable
of understanding and applying meanings of divinity to religion and not that religion makes a man divine.
The force of this attraction to religion though, giving divinity to a figure like God, is explained by
Feuerbach as God is a being that acts throughout man in all forms. God, “is the principle of [man's]
salvation, of [man's] good dispositions and actions, consequently [man's] own good principle and nature.” It
appeals to man to give qualities to the idol of their religion because without these qualities a figure such as
God would become merely an object, its importance would become obsolete, there would no longer be a
feeling of an existence for God. Therefore, Feuerbach says, when man removes all qualities from God, “God
is no longer anything more to him than a negative being.” Additionally, because man is imaginative, God is
given traits and there holds the appeal. God is a part of man through the invention of a God. Equally though,
man is repulsed by God because, “God alone is the being who acts of himself.”
8
Part 2 comes to a crux though by seemingly retracting previous statements. Feuerbach claims that
Gods only action is, “the moral and eternal salvation of man: thus man has in fact no other aim than
himself,” because man's actions are placed upon God. Feuerbach also contradicts himself by claiming that
man gives up his personality and places it upon God who in turn is a selfish being. This selfishness turns
onto man and projects man to be wicked and corrupt, that they are, “incapable of good,” and it is only God
that is good, “the Good Being.” In this way Feuerbach detracts from many of his earlier assertions while
showing the alienation that takes place in man by worshipping God. Feuerbach affirms that goodness is,
“personified as God,” turning God into an object because if God was anything but an object nothing would
need to be personified on him. The aspect of objects having previously been discussed; in that man
contemplates objects and that objects themselves give conception of what externalizes man. Therefore if
God is good so then should be man because God is merely an externalization of man because God is an
object. However religion would show that man is inherently corrupt. Feuerbach tries to lessen his
inconsistency by asking if it was possible if, “I could perceive the beauty of a fine picture if my mind were
aesthetically an absolute piece of perversion?” Through Feuerbach’s reasoning it would not be possible but it
is possible and he later states that man is capable of finding beauty.
A caustic criticism of Feuerbach was delivered in 1844 by Max Stirner. In his book Der Einzige und
sein Eigentum (The Ego and His Own) he attacked Feuerbach as inconsistent in his atheism. The pertinent
portions of the books, Feuerbach's reply, and Stirner's counter-reply form an instructive polemics. (see
External Links).
9