German Idealism;
KANT – Ethics
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Mataphysics of morals – it contains a
‘categorical imperative ’
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He despises utilitarianism or any doctrine where
morality has been given a purpose outside itself.
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All moral concepts have their seat and origin
wholly ‘a priori’ in reason.
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The essence of morality is derived from the concept of law; for everything in
nature acts according to laws – only rational being has the power of acting
according to the idea of law – ie will.
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The idea of an objective principle in so far as
it compelling to the will, its called the command is called an imperative.
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There are two imperatives – hypothetical and
categorical;
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Hypothetical;
‘you must do so and so if you wish to achieve such – and – such an end’
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Categorical;
a certain kind of action is objectively necessary, without regard to any end.
This is synthetic and a priori.
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Character is deducted by law; the categorical
imperative is a single one – ‘act only accordingly to maxim by which you can at
the same time will that it shall become a general law.’
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OR ‘act as if the maxim of your action were to
become through your will a general natural law.’
KANT – Theory of Space and Time (noumenal and phenomenal)
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The immediate objects of perception are due
partly to external things and partly to our own perceptive appearance.
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Kant doesn’t question that our sensations have
cause, which he calls ‘thing in themselves’ or the noumenal.
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What appears to us as in perception, which he
calls the phenomenon, consists of two parts; that due to the object (sensation)
and the due to our subjective apparatus which is manifold to be ordered in
certain relations – the form of the phenomenon.
o
The
certain relation is not itself ‘sensation’ and therefore not dependent upon the
accident of environment; it is always the same since we carry it with us and it
is a priori in the sense that it is not dependent on experience.
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A pure form of sensibility is called a ‘pure
intuition’ and there are two forms -
space and time – one for outer sensations the other inner.
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To prove space and time are a priori Kant
classes two arguments; one metaphysical the second epistemological
(transcendental).
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The transcendental argument* concerning space is
derived from geometry. Kant thinks geometry is not derived from experience, BUT
the only way in which intuition can anticipate what will be found in the object
is if it contains only the form of sensibility, antedating subjectivity all the
actual impressions.
o
The object
of sense must obey geometry, because it is concerned with our ways of
perceiving and therefore cannot perceive otherwise.
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TIME is essentially the same argument, though
arithmetic replaces geometry with the contention that counting takes time.
KANT
– The Transcendental deduction*
- The transcendental deduction does not avoid the fact or objectivity of time and cause, but
does, in its consideration of a possible logic of the a priori, attempt
to make the case for the fact of subjectivity.
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Kant states, "although all our knowledge begins with
experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience" According
to Kant, a priori knowledge is transcendental ( beyond ordinary or common experience, but not beyond human knowledge), or based on the form
of all possible experience, while a posteriori knowledge is empirical,
based on the content of experience.
- Unlike the empiricists, Kant thinks that a priori
knowledge is independent of the content of experience; unlike the
rationalists, Kant thinks that a priori knowledge, in its pure form,
that is without any empirical content, is knowledge limited to
the deduction of the conditions of possible experience.
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These a priori, or transcendental conditions, are
seated in one's cognitive faculties, and are not provided by experience in
general or any experience in particular.
- He claimed that a human subject would not have the
kind of experience that it has were these a priori forms not in some way
constitutive of him as a human subject. For instance, he would not experience
the world as an orderly, rule-governed place unless time and cause were
operative in his cognitive faculties.
HEGEL – the dialectic
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Returned belief in the unreality of
separateness; the world is not a collection of hard units – whether atoms or
souls – each completely self-subsistent.
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The apparent self-subsistence of infinite things to him were an illusion;
he held that nothing is ultimately and completely real except the whole.
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The WHOLE is not a simple substance but a complex
system of the sort that we should call and organism.
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The separate things the world is composed of are
not simply and illusion; each has greater or lesser degree of reality and its
reality consists in an aspect of a whole which is what is seen to be when
viewed truly.
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This is naturally a disbelief of time and space
as such, because these involve separateness and multiplicity.
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Hegel asserts the real is rational and rational
is real. Though he does not mean the empirical use of the real; the observed.
He means after the apparent character has been transformed by viewing them as
an aspect of a whole – then they are rational.
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He believed that the only thing that does not change is that things change. He came up with the idea that
all things have a “geist” or ghost form - though things change/decay, it is
still that thing because of its geist.
THE WHOLE – ‘the absolute’
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He emphasises logic – the nature of reality can
be deducted from sole consideration that it cannot be self-contradictory.
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The dialectic.
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Logic is metaphysics – any ordinary predicate
(conclusion) taken from the whole of realty, turns out to be contradictory.
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The dialectic – thesis, anti-thesis and
synthesis.
o
Any suggested predicate of the absolute to the
conclusion of the dialectic is driven by the force of logic.
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There is an underlying assumption that nothing
can be true unless it is about reality as a whole.
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Relatives aren’t considered to be real – an
uncle is not the absolute, it relies on other factors??
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There
must be a basis of traditional logic in the underlying assumption, which
assumes every proposition has a subject and predicate.
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Everything except the whole has relations to
outside things and what in fact only the whole is real.
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Knowledge as a whole has the triadic movement of
the dialectic – it begins with sense perception where there is only awareness
of the object.
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Then sceptical criticism of the senses, it
becomes purely subjective and last it reaches the stage of self-knowledge where
subject and object are no longer distinct
Self consciousness;
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Is the highest form of knowledge possessed by
the absolute, and the absolute is the while and nothing else exists outside
itself for it to know.
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Reason ‘is the conscious certainty of being all
reality.’
o
Doesn’t mean a separate person is all of
reality.
o
What is real in him is his participation in
reality as a whole.
o
As we become more rational, this participation
is increased.
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The absolute idea, which the ‘logic ends is like
Aristotles god – the absolute cannot think of anything but itself since there
is nothi8ng else except the way s of apprehending reality.
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SCHOPENHAUER –
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He dislikes Christianity
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He began emphasis on will- for him will, though
metaphysically fundamental, is evil – an opposition only possible for a
pessimist.
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He acknowledges three sources of philosophy;
Kant, Plato and Vpanishads.
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His out has a temperamental affinity with the Hellenistic
age, valuing peace more than victory, quientism more than reform, which he
regards inevitability futile.
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Anti democratic and hate the1848 revolution.
The world as will and idea; 1818
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His system is an adaptation of Kant, but
emphasises different aspects of the critique from others such as Hegel.
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They removed the thing in itself, whereas Schop
retained it and identified with it.
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What appears to perception as my body is reality
my will.
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Kant maintained that the study of law could take
us behind phenomenon and give us knowledge which sense perception cannot give
ad is concerned with will.
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The body is the appearance of which will is the
reality, because the phenomenon corresponds to volition as a bodily movement.
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The will behind phenomena cannot consist of a
number of different volitions.
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Time and space only belong to phenomena; the
thing in itself is not in space or time – this idea is shared with Kant.
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My will CANNOT be dated or composed of separate
acts of will because it is space and time which are the source of plurality – my
will, therefore, is one and timeless.
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Will when relate to the will of the universe;
‘my separateness is an illusion resulting in my subjective apparatus if spatial-temporal
perception.'
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There is one vast will appearing in the whole
course of nature, animate and inanimate alike.
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The cosmic will is wicked; or at least a source of endless suffering.
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Suffering is essential to all life an increase
by knowledge.
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Will has no fixed end, which is achieved, would
bring contentment.
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No such thing as happiness – an unfulfilled wish
causes pain.
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Instinct leads us to procreate, but we associate
with the sexual act.
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He believes in the idea of Nirvana.
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The cause of suffering is the will; the less we
exercise will the less we shall suffer.
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Here knowledge is useful – but has to be of a
certain kind.
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Distinction of one man and another is part of
the phenomenal world and disappears when the world is truly seen.
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