Absolute (philosophy)

The Absolute (from Latin absolutum, " the Remove detached ") is a term that is used in many areas of theology and philosophy and refers to the total of all Enthobensein ( restrictive ) conditions or relationships.

The Absolute in Western tradition

Although in Greek philosophy lacked a precise equivalent for the expression of the Absolute, it was concluded there thanks to its universal relativity of all being on a top, not even back -related condition. The Greek term was kath ' Hauto ( dt per se). For Plato, this was identical with the idea of ​​itself good, for Aristotle, the unmoved mover, for Plotinus the One.

In the Latin Church Fathers, the Absolute ( Latin expression: absolutum ) has already been used to identify God. As Anselm of Canterbury ( Monologion ) it was directly equated with God. However, the Absolute was only when Nicolaus of Cusa consciously addressed and one of the philosophical- metaphysical categories.

In modern philosophy the Absolute was often immanent in the world as the totality of the world thought and then different interpreted: as an idea of the totality of all conditions in Kant, as an absolute I in Fichte, as absolute spirit in Hegel, as an identity of nature and spirit in Schelling or as Will in Schopenhauer.

The absolute nothingness of the Kyoto School

In contrast to the Western tradition of the Absolute in the ontology with the Supreme Being, the Absolute in the philosophy of the Kyoto School as absolute nothingness (绝 対 无, Zettai -mu ) was taken. The formulated by Nishida Kitaro, Tanabe Hajime, Nishitani Keiji and other members of the Kyoto school of thought gave impetus to a sequence in the religious and philosophical approach of the Christian- Buddhist dialogue, on the Buddhist topoi of emptiness or non - substantiality of all being ( Shunyata ) and the non-self ( anatta ) on the one hand and the other hand on Christian mysticism (as in Meister Eckhart ) and fell back the tradition of negative theology.