The Paradigm of Change- Seminar Paper

The Paradigm of Change: Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer

Kant

·         A Paradigm is a way of connected thinking across all fields of thinking. After the enlightenment and Romanticism there was a Paradigm shift.

·         Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer were three German philosophers who were idealist and were also mainly against Hume and his empiricist approach. Empiricism was previously influenced by the Romantic Movement which occurred after the French Revolution.

·          During the 18^th century Britain was mostly occupied with empiricists such as Locke, Berkeley and as I previously mentioned, Hume.

·         Their philosophy led to subjectivism (subjectivism was fundamental of all measure and law). This was not a new tendency since it existed previously at the time of St. Augustine.

·         Leibniz believed that everything in his experience would be unchanged if the rest of the world was annihilated.

·         German idealism incorporated the idea that the mind was believed to be more important than matter and so many of these idealists believed that only the mind exists and that knowledge isn’t always the best way to reach a philosophical conclusion. This is due to their rejection of empiricism and also Utilitarian ethics.

·         Rousseau influenced Kant more than Hume since he often read Rousseau’s work.

·         Kant was brought up as Pietist (Stress on the emotional and personal aspects of religion) and so he was liberal in Politics and theology and also sympathised with the French Revolution until the ‘Reign of Terror’. He was also a believer in democracy.

·         Kant’s principle was that every man is to be regarded as an end in himself. This was a form of the doctrine of the Rights of Man. Kant’s love of freedom is shown in his saying: ‘’There can be nothing more dreadful than the actions of a man should be subject to the will of another.’

·         Kant was more concerned with science in his earlier work, than with philosophy. For example he wrote a treatise on wind and he wrote ‘General Natural History’ and ‘Theory of the Heavens’ (1755).

·         Kant’s most important book ‘The Critique of Pure Reason’ was written 26 years later in 1781. It was written to prove that although none of our knowledge can transcend experience, it is in part a priori and not concluded inductively from experience. The part of our knowledge which is a priori embraces not only logic but much that cannot be included or deduced from logic.

·         Kant separates two distinctions:

1.      Between analytic  and Synthetic Propositions

2.      ‘A Priori’ and ‘Empirical’ propositions.

·         Analytic reasoning is based on contradiction. For example, ‘a tall man is a man’ you know that this is true because to say that ‘a tall man isn’t a man’ is contradictory.

·         Anything learnt through experience is always a synthetic proposition, not analytic. For instance ‘yesterday was cold’ there is no evidence contained within the statement to prove someone to be right or wrong.

·         Unlike Leibniz, Kant refused to accept that all synthetic propositions were discovered through experience. Instead he made the distinction between the knowledge that we know empirically from what we know ‘a Priori’.

·         An empirical proposition is knowledge derived from our senses either on our own or that of someone else whose testimony we believe.

·         A Priori proposition is to have a basis other than experience. A general proposition is that 2+2=4 this proposition has a certainty which induction can never pass on to General Law. Therefore all propositions of mathematics are a Priori. Once we’ve understood this general principle, there is no need to keep using evidence to reinforce the idea, it’s just always true.

·         Kant therefore accepted that it is synthetic and still a Priori. This raised the problem: ‘how are synthetic judgements a Priori?’ Kant spent 12 years answering this question. The outer world is a matter of sensation, the world we see is what we perceive because of our brain sorting the world into space and time in a way in which we can understand. 

·         Things in themselves which are caused by our sensations are unknowable; they’re not in terms of space, time or substances. Nor can they be described by any general concepts which Kant calls categories.

·         Space and time are a subjective part of perception. Therefore, a synthetic proposition can be a Priori because we perceive the world through time and space and can therefore be sure that everything we see has to remain close to the parameters (limits) set by time.

·         Space and time are not concepts, they are forms of intuition.

·         Within ‘The Critique of Pure Reason’ Kant also included a section where he chose to demolish all the purely intellectual proofs of God’s existence. He had other reasons for believing in God.

·         The only 3 proofs for God’s existence are:

1.      Ontological proof

2.      Cosmological proof

3.      Physicotheological proof

·          Ontological proof defines God as the most real being. For example, the subject of all predicates (the answer of new knowledge/ a technical word for logic) that belong to being absolutely. Existence is such a predicate that he must exist. Kant however, objects that existence isn’t a predicate.

·         Cosmological proof states that if anything exists then a necessary, Supreme Being must also exist in order for everything else within the universe, and the universe as a whole to exist. Eg this Being is God.

·         Physicotheological proof is similar to the design argument but in a metaphysical sense. The universe exhibits an order which displays evidence of purpose. Kant argues that it only points out an architect, not a creator.

·         ‘’The only theology of reason which is possible is that which is based upon moral laws or seeks guidance from them’’

·         The three ideas of reason were:

1.      God

2.      Freedom

3.      Immorality

·         Kant had no input on doctrines which gives to morality a purpose outside itself such as Utilitarianism.

Hegel (1770-1831)

·         The peak of movement in German philosophy was carried out by Hegel but undoubtedly stemmed from the work of Kant. Hegel often criticized Kant but was a major influence on himself and also on Germany.

·         In the 19^th century, two major countries: America and Britain were Hegelians.

·         Marx was a disciple of Hegel.

·         In later life Hegel was a patriotic Prussian, a loyal servant to his state. In his youth he despised Prussia but admired Napoleon.

·         Hegel retained a belief in the unreality of separateness.  The world in his view wasn’t a collection of hard units whether they are atoms or souls. This idea was unlike Spinoza. The world is one large organism and the separate things that make up the world are only real in the sense that they make up the world, when they are all put together.

·         A disbelief in the reality of time and space.

·         ‘Whatever is, is right’

·         The absolute is the whole (when referring to the world)

·         Two things distinguish Hegel from others of a similar metaphysical outlook:

1.      Emphasis on logic

2.      The triadic movement called the Dialectic.

·         Logic, according to Hegel is the same as metaphysics. His system is based on these two forms of logic which are essential to prove the nature of reality. He began by stating that the absolute is ‘Pure Being’ because it doesn’t have any properties other than simply existing to contain all that is within (the thesis).

·         The absolute cannot exist without properties otherwise the absolute is nothing. This is antithesis.

·         His nature of reality is an ever changing cycle of errors being corrected which he believes will eventually lead to some kind of perfection. This meant that Hegel believed the world was changing constantly even though we can’t see it changing. This is the same logic that can be applied to atoms since we know they are constantly moving even though we can’t see them moving. Change is the only constant, yet despite this change everything remains its being. This being is its ‘Geist’ (soul /appearance). The universe as a whole must have a Geist as it is changing constantly and therefore must be some sort of surrounding thing.

·         The purpose of the Geist is for an object or thing to understand themselves. He stated that ‘the fall’ (when Eve ate the forbidden fruit) caused alienation so the Geist no longer knew itself and is now constantly changing in order to return itself to the Perfect State.

·         The nature of the Geist is to know itself.

Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

·         Born in Danzig, Germany, Schopenhauer was a pessimist. This was a peculiar characteristic to possess for a philosopher. He was also not fully academic unlike Kant and Hegel but was interested in art and ethics.

·         Schopenhauer preferred Hinduism and Buddhism to Christianity.

·         He placed great emphasis on will because will is metaphysically fundamental but ethically evil. Therefore pessimistic.

·         The three sources of his philosophy were:

1.      Kant

2.      Plato

3.      Upanishads

·         Schopenhauer valued peace more than victory and rather hated German morals so in his youth moved to Paris for 2 years.

·         Later he became a clerk in Hamburg in order to please his father but he hated it since he desired a literacy, academic life.

·         His father later died of suspected suicide and Schopenhauer disliked his mother. It is suspected that his low opinion of women was a contributing factor to his dislike for her.

·         During his time in Hamburg, Schopenhauer became influenced by the romantics especially Tieck, Novalis and Hoffmann.

·         In 1809 whilst attending the University of Gottingen he discovered Kant’s philosophy.

·         He hated the revolution of 1848 and instead supported spiritualism and magic (Kant a Buddhism).

·         ‘The World as Will and Idea’ was published in 1818 and Schopenhauer believed this book to be of great importance and even claimed that some paragraphs were dictated to him by the Holy Ghost.

·         It wasn’t until in later years that the book got the recognition which Schopenhauer felt it deserved.

·         His system is an adaptation of Kant’s system but emphasises different aspects of the ‘Critique’ and made knowledge metaphysically fundamental.

·         He also agrees with Kant that time and space belongs only to phenomena; the thing in itself is not in space or time.

·          ‘The principle of Individuation’

·         Cosmic will is wicked since it is a source of endless suffering. Suffering is essential to life however, and is increased with every increase of knowledge. There is no fixed end. The less we exercise will, the less we suffer.