German idealism

As German idealism, the period of German philosophy from Kant to Hegel is called and the late works of Schelling. As time frame data mostly the appearance of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason ) (1781 ) and the death of Hegel (1831 ) apply. The German idealism is seen by many as the golden age of German philosophy and is compared in terms of its philosophical-historical importance with classical Greek philosophy. Alternative to the term " German idealism " therefore this period is often referred to as " Classical German Philosophy ".

The German idealism was at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century in Germany the dominant philosophical movement that had set itself the task in a different philosophical divisions ( epistemology, logic, natural philosophy, ethics, political science and metaphysics ) comprehensive design activities ( "System") to recognize the whole of the world to " scientific" means exhaustive and represent.

In dealing with the issues raised by him problems arose between the appearance of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason ) ( 1781) and the death of Hegel ( 1831), a plethora of alternate system designs. While the philosophical system designs of Fichte, Hegel and Schelling are considered central. The German idealism was with the seal ( Classical and Romantic ) and the science of his time in a variety of interaction and has subsequently had a major influence on Karl Marx.

• 2.1 Reason and the Absolute 2.1.1 Kant
• 2.1.2 spruce
• 2.1.3 Schelling
• 2.1.4 Hegel

Introduction

Term

The term German idealism was not used by its representatives. He was first introduced in the 1840s by his materialist opponents; in a neutral meaning, the term appeared only on from the 1860s.

The term is controversial to this day, as he turns the idea of ​​a unity or a succession - succeeding within this movement of thought in the foreground and thereby brings the conflicts between their representatives in the background. In addition, the choice of words " German idealism " is somewhat misleading, because he was not a purely German phenomenon, but interacted with the philosophies of other national cultures in different ways.

At issue is the position of Kant and Schelling within this period. The classical view of Richard Kroner understands the thinker Kant and Hegel as early as the end and climax of this movement. For Nicolai Hartmann, however, the German idealism is a " post-Kantian " movement, which consists in a contrast to Kant and his criticist approach. Walter Schulz finally considered not Hegel, but Schelling perfecter of German Idealism.

Sometimes the expressed variants of idealism in a critical and a speculative idealism can be distinguished. For the former variant, the philosophies of Kant, Fichte and the early early Schelling are counted for the latter, the philosophies of Fichte and Schelling's late and the whole philosophy of Hegel.

Features

The main characteristics of German idealism are the theses of the existence of mental entities ( beings ), a thinking of the ideas of subjects not independently existing external world and the belief in the justifiability of human action from principles of reason. The characteristic of this philosophy text form is the large, systematically structured teaching representation that the content developed deductively according to a uniform principle. These representations are characterized by a high density and accuracy. They are not only among the most substantial and influential writings of the history of philosophy, but also to reach the hardest. Many of them have not been fully worked up until today.

Kant's philosophy as a starting point

Kant's philosophy is the starting point for the philosophy of German Idealism. Basically, it is recognized that the following principle of the Kantian philosophy is superior to the principles of all pre-Kantian philosophy: all the knowledge in the way of transcendental reflection is rooted in the unity of the ego-consciousness ( transcendental apperception ). Kant, however, open issues regarding the relationship between intuition and thinking, theoretical and practical reason, subject and object had left that sought to overcome the German idealism.

Kant stated in the Critique of Pure Reason, intuition and thinking as the two tribes of knowledge. The question of their common root was left open by him. The theoretical reason remained limited to the range of possible experience, and mere appearance. Metaphysics as a science was therefore not possible. The theoretical reason could be doing any standards and does not justify the unconditional obligation of the moral ought. The moral law was anchored alone in practical reason. Their " postulates " ( freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul, the existence of God ) were indeed thought of Kant as a condition of moral action, but could not extend the theoretical knowledge. So fell apart both areas, although they are involved in one and the same reason itself - should act - in their theoretical and practical function. The central legacy of Kant was the unresolved relationship of subject and object. Kant's " Copernican " insight was that it is not our knowledge the objects are defined by the objects, but, conversely, for the knowledge. At the same time he held firmly that human knowledge is not productive, but a receptive capacity is - affected by an unknowable " thing in itself ".

Issues

The reason and the Absolute

One of the main problems of German Idealism include questions about the nature and the efficiency of human reason and its relation to the absolute. In this field is particularly evident the turn of a critical strike to a speculative idealism.

The German idealism distinguishes the two cognitive faculties of reason and intellect. During the " sense" a discursive and related to the sensory phenomena assets is understood, the " reason" considered as the faculty of knowledge, which refers to the totality of the thinkable and knowable, which is often equated with the concept of " absolute". The task of philosophy is thereby often understood as self-knowledge of reason and those identified with the Absolute itself.

Kant

The principle of unity of all experiences

The basic concern of Kant was the justification of synthetic judgments a priori. For him, these originate in mathematics from the pure intuition of space and time, which itself has its origins not in experience, but this only made possible. Experience is based on a synthetic unity of appearances. It is produced through the categories and is ultimately founded in self-awareness that Kant "I think " or called " transcendental apperception ".

Reason and ideas

Kant determines in its CPR reason as "an arm of the principles " while viewing the mind as a "wealth of rules " (B 356). The mind has to make the task of a " unity of phenomena " (B 359) and is thus the condition of possibility of experience in general. Task of Reason, it is against the creation of a "unity of mind rules." It is thus not related to objects of experience, and therefore not to be synthetic a priori judgments in location. The last unit principles provide the unconditioned or the " transcendental ideas " is:

• Soul: " the absolute ( unconditioned ) unity of the thinking subject "
• World: " the absolute unity of the series of conditions of appearance "
• God: " the absolute unity of the condition of all objects of thought in general " (B 391 )

The transcendental ideas, which Kant Although the attribute "absolute" attributes, but speaks of them not as " the Absolute ", do not constitutive, but only a regulative importance for him. You should align the diverse intellectual operations on three last parent unit points. They should be regarded as a " scheme, which directly no object, is not even added hypothetical but which only serves to other objects by means of, the relationship with this idea, according to their systematic unity, and therefore indirectly to imagine " (B 698 ). In this sense, they are indispensable for the greatest expansion of empirical knowledge and are therefore still in the service of the mind. The "object" to which they refer, however, is not a " subject par excellence ", but an "object in the idea " (B 698 ). They are established beyond all possible experience, and therefore no positive or negative ontological statements about them are possible in principle.

A crucial function take the transcendental ideas of Kant, however, and for the practical reason. Thus, the existence of God, ultimately, the necessary condition required by the human will " proportion " of morality and happiness is, and must therefore be postulated.

Spruce

For spruce up in the early versions of his theory of science that I something absolute represents the member for whom he form of idealism is therefore often referred to as "subjective idealism ".

Fichte describes the ego as a " criminal act ". He understands by " the Urtätigkeit of knowledge in the self-reference of self- knowledge", ie that " the ego is both (active) acts as Investigative and ( passive) product of the action." The I is for him the first principle, which is due to reason itself, because it can not be abstracted from it, without presupposing it at the same time. To it is possible to reach, if so long provisions shall be separated from all the random contents of consciousness, "to that which is absolutely not think away for and what nothing else can secrete pure remains " (WL 92).

The three principles

Spruce attempts to derive from this inescapable principle three first principles. As a first, absolutely unconditional principle Spruce takes the self-identity of the ego: "I am absolutely, because I am." Spruce comes to this principle in the consideration of the logical axiom " ". This can ultimately be understood only by the knowledge of the self to its own identity. The ego is constituted by the so-called " criminal act ". It is absolute in the sense that it is its own cause: " The ego is originally simply his own Being " (WL 98).

Fichte's second principle also starts from a logical axiom. This set is based on the insight that the self is always opposes a non-ego.

The third principle is to make a mediation between the first two sets. Therefore, this processing is required, according to Fichte, as well as the set of the opposition is set by the ego, so that I and not-I are set equally in the ego. This contradiction can only be solved by that ego and non -ego restricted to one another, which is possible only by adopting an each divisible ego and non -ego: " I put in I the divisible I theilbares a non-ego contrary " (WL 110 ), but both of which are only " Accidenzen " of the absolute ego.

Schelling

Schelling is the "subjective" idealism of Fichte, of the ego in the center of his - of Schelling called - had pushed " reflection system," an "objective" idealism contrary. The starting point is his natural philosophy, in which he wants to have in nature " objectively " reasonable structures. Spruce nature had merely considered as a sum of sensations that are always related to the ego. Schelling wants to save I and nature, subject and object as two parallel poles. Nature is not the sum of things or objects, but the principle of objectivity in our imagining and thinking for Schelling. Based on Baruch de Spinoza, he distinguishes between " natura naturata " and " natura naturans " - nature as a product and as productivity. In his System of Transcendental Idealism, he developed the theory of the complementarity of nature and spirit. He explains natural and transcendental philosophy to two equivalent and equal to the original basic sciences of philosophy.

Schelling tried to combine the two aspects of his approach to an "absolute identity system ". The difference between subject and object 'm an "absolute identity ", a "total indifference of subjective and objective " (SW IV 114) requires as a condition. This is given for him in the " absolute reason ".

The absolute reason for Schelling is neither subject nor object; He describes it as " identity of identity ". It is set by him not only in an epistemological sense as absolute, but also regarded as " the Absolute " in an ontological sense: " Everything that is, is the absolute identity itself " (SW IV 119).

In contrast to the reflective mind the absolute reason is the "absolute cognition ". It allows the intellectual intuition, the general in the particular and the infinite in the finite " united to the living unit to see " (SW IV 361f. ).

Hegel

Hegel recognizes Schelling to basic insight that the Absolute can not be mere subjectivity. But he criticized his understanding of the Absolute as mere identity: from such a concept of the Absolute can follow nothing concrete: it was the " night " in which " all cows are black ," the " naivety of emptiness of knowledge " (PG 22). If the Absolute is nothing but pure identity before any difference, then no difference resulting from such absolute identity: she is the "Night ", in which nothing is distinguishable.

Hegel instead defines the Absolute as " identity of identity and non-identity " (difference of Fichte's and Schelling's System 96). This means that the Absolute must be understood as identity, which includes the non- identity of the other within itself and is out of itself in order to " convey " in others and by repealing the others to fuller reality of their own to.

For Hegel, the Absolute can not be known by intellectual intuition, as was assumed in Fichte and Schelling. He also rejects any immediacy mystical or religious nature. The other hand, Hegel sets the "effort of the term" (PG 56). This leads to an apprehension of reality in a system in which, ultimately, only to be found " truth " (PG 14); because "the truth is the whole " (PG 24).

In order to obtain an academic position, from which a knowledge of the absolute is possible, a way has to be gone for Hegel only. This is the position itself, not externally but goes into this one as an essential moment. Not the isolated result of the mediation process is "the real whole, but it along with its becoming " (PG 13).

The path to the " absolute knowledge " is for Hegel it identical to the comprehension of the Absolute. By recognizing it, this recognizes himself Hegel therefore understands the Absolute as a "subject", not as a rigid substance such as Spinoza, against which it is directed there. It is marked "alive" and essentially determined by the moments of the development and transmission:

" The living substance is also the being that. Truth in the subject or what is the same is, which in truth really is, only insofar as it is the movement of Sichselbstsetzens in the negotiation of Sichanderswerdens with themselves"

Reception

The idealism has been subjected to sharp criticism in the time of its creation by Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi. A materialist critique of the efforts of the " idealism " and its alleged restrictions on " the realm of thought " formulated by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology, but were related primarily to the Hegel second-generation students, the so-called Young Hegelians.

The immense challenge of the Hegelian system in all subsequent thinkers consists in completing claim the same. What Hegel announces when his company in the preface to his Phenomenology of Spirit, is nothing less than the systematic completion of all philosophy:

"The true shape in which truth exists which may be the same but the scientific system. Them to collaborate, that philosophy of science should come closer - the objectives to be able to put their name to the love of knowledge and to be real knowledge - what I set before me. "

With this accomplishment, however, the philosophy is precarious as a whole. The monstrous act of violence Hegel to cancel the entire philosophical tradition in his system and that they take place is no longer leaves a lot of room for other things. Nevertheless, also the system of Hegel has its vacancy that exists mainly in the question of the status of the finite. At each stage of the dialectical movement certificate MISTY is not left behind as the untrue and the concept Proper. This, on the unverrechenbaren proper law of this ever very own quotas - that is merely accidental - to persevere and towards the Absolute to take the place of the finite subject, is for many followers of Hegel ( Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Marx), the path for the revision of Hegelian company.