Humanism Lecture Eight

Humanism Lecture Eight 24/11/05

Georg W.F. Hegel (1770 – 1831)

The reason that Hegel is so important to philosophy is because he turned around very quickly what Kant had said – that all of reality is NOT knowable.

Re: phenomena and noumena

Hegel said: “what is real is rational and what is rational is real” – and from this concluded that everything is knowable.

Most 20th century philosophy is ways of revising or rejecting his absolute idealism – and the philosophy of Karl Marx is a reworking of Hegel.

Both Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) and Friedrich Schelling (1775-1854) were philosophers of the beginning of German Idealism.

Hegel’s first published work was: “Difference between the Philosophical Systems of Fichte and Schelling – Hegel showed a dislike for Fichte and was more sympathetic to Schelling.

Hegel’s first major work was: “The Phenomenology of Mind” and later his “Phenomenology of Spirit” and many, many, other books.

Dealing with the Legacy of Kant

Following closely upon Kant’s Critical Philosophy was German Idealism as created by Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.

Kant’s philosophy – the categories of the mind – time and space, cause and effect, existence and negation, etc – are all concepts that mind has before experience and this is what makes knowledge possible.

The noumenal world – what the world is like when the categories are not imposed upon it.

thing-in-itself

The idealists, especially Fichte, saw the big contradiction in this:

(quote 1)

How is it possible to say that something exists but that we can know nothing about it?

Do we not already know something about it when we say that it exists?



There are things that are:

unknown (but knowable)

unknowable

For Kant the only things that exists are the objects perceived though the categories of the mind – so how can this thing-in-itself be said to ‘exist’?

The idealist put forward the opposite idea to Kant – that whatever exists, must be knowable – thus, Hegel’s saying: “what is real is rational and what is rational is real”

Fichte, and some other Idealists, believed that Kant had made real progress in philosophy – so took his idea of categories of mind – but took out the idea of the thing-in-itself – this became the idea that the entire universe is a product of the mind.

Hegel took up this idea – he thought also that the very Kant’s thing-in-itself was a product of the mind.

Thus, there is nothing unknowable – and reality can be known. Because Hegel (and other Idealists) got rid of this idea of the thing-in-itself.

Because there is nothing unknowable – we can know reality – all reality is a form of mind – but there are many objects not created by us – and if they are not created by us – but are a form of mind – then there must be a universal mind – therefore all objects, and indeed, the whole universe, are the products of an Absolute Mind.

This Absolute Mind possessed the same sort of categories of mind that Kant suggested – the categories of mind of the individual – for Hegel this categories don’t belong to any subject – but are actual realties – independent of any person.

It is not that the categories make objects – but that categories ARE objects.

For example – What is a chair? It is the sum of the categories – categories never appear by singularly – by themselves.

(quote 2)

Knowing and Being are two sides of the same coin

Ultimate reality is be found in the Absolute Idea

Hegel saw that there were objects and subject, a person and the world – but the central idea to his philosophy is that the any object of our consciousness is itself thought – thus he came to the conclusion that Ultimate reality is be found in the Absolute Idea.



(quote 3)

So far – the two major points in Hegel’s philosophy are:

(1) Hegel rejected the idea of an unknowable thing-in-itself

(2) The nature of reality is thought, rationality, and the ultimate reality is the Absolute Idea

Another word for the Absolute – theologians would call this God. But what Hegel meant by it was – not a Being separate from the world – but that appearance is reality.

Hegel didn’t mean, as Spinoza did, that the world is all One substance – Hegel saw the Absolute is a process – a unified complex system.

The Absolute is not separate from the world but is the world when seen in a special way.

Hegel thought that the Absolute could be reached by human reason because the Absolute is disclosed in Nature as well as in the workings of the mind.

What connects these three: Absolute, Nature, and the human mind is Thought.

(quote 4)

A person’s thinking is shaped by Nature – by the way things behave.

Things behave in Nature as they do because it is the Absolute expressing itself through the structure of Nature.

Thus: A person thinks about Nature the Absolute express itself in Nature.

Just as the Absolute and Nature are process – so also is human thought; a dialectic process

Dialectic – discovering and testing truths by discussion and logical argument.

Logic and the Dialectic Process

Hegel laid great stress on logic.

Hegel thought that logic and metaphysics were the same thing – because knowing and being were the same.

Logic – thought Hegel – was the process by which we discover the Absolute.

This form of logic was a dialectical process which was triadic.

(quote 5)

Thesis – Antithesis – Synthesis

This would finally end in the ‘Absolute Idea’.

Thought moves – and contradiction – rather than stopping thought – acts as a moving force in human reason.

Let’s look at how this works – first Hegel’s most basic triad – Being, Nothing, Becoming.

Thought always moves from the general and abstract to the specific and concrete.

The most general concept is Being. How can we go to this concept to another? In other words, how does thought move?

Aristotle: Blue is Blue.

Being is such an all encompassing concept that to give it any content it is no longer the concept of pure being but the concept of something – and because of this we can say that Being is nothing at all – or non-Being.

When ever we try to think of Being with no particular content the mind goes to non-Being or Nothing. This means that in some sense Being and Non-Being are the same!

But to understand Being and Nothing as the same is, said Hegel, one of the hardest things for thought to do.

Hegel’s main point is that Nothing has been deduced (thought) from Being.

At the same time, the idea of Being leads the mind back to Nothing.

(quote 6)

Thesis (Being) – Antithesis (Nothing) – Synthesis (Becoming)

This movement of mind from Being to Nothing produces a third category – Becoming.

The answer to how something can both Be and Not-Be is Becoming.

This is the same form of logic that Hegel uses to arrive at the Absolute Idea.

It is the from of logic that is history which leads to Absolute Geist.