Kant and Hegel seminar paper

Here's my seminar paper from the recent Kant and Hegel lecture:

Immanuel Kant:

Background information:

·         Born in Konigsberg, East Prussia in 1724

·         Died in 1804

·         He was educated in Leibniz’s philosophy but abandoned it due to two influences Rousseau and Hume. He was interested by Hume’s criticism of Causality but Rousseau’s influence was more profound.

·         Kant was the founder of idealism and had affinities with the romantic movement

·         He was liberal in politics and theology

·         Wrote the critique of knowledge in 1781

·         Kant was against theoretical reason and the ideas of the enlightenment

·         Kant believed in freedom, ‘ There can be nothing more dreadful than the actions of a man should he be subject to the will of another’

·         His early works were concerned more with science than with philosophy.

·         In his most important book ‘the critique of pure reason’, Kant tried to prove synthetic a-priori knowledge, something which empiricists such as John Locke thought they had disproved.

·         Knowledge was divided into two types by Kant; analytic and synthetic knowledge.

·         Analytic knowledge is where the conclusion is in the subject. An example would be ‘a tall man is a man’ it is true by definition and is known as deductive logic (meaning pure reason). It follows the law of contradiction, ‘all tall man is not a man would be self contradictory’

·         Kant says that if all knowledge is analytic then we can’t really know anything, as it is not incredibly useful.

·         Synthetic knowledge is not analytic. We get to the conclusion through on the basis of observation of the real world an example would be that every oak tree is a tree this would be analytic knowledge but it is beautiful is synthetic as it brings our concept of beautiful.

·         A priori means without reference world. A priori knowledge is denied by empiricists. Locke’s theory of  tabula rasa- the idea of the mind as a blank slate which then gains knowledge from experience, is an example of the opposing empiricist idea. Some theorems in Mathematics, Logic are an example of a-priori – Descartes- ‘I think therefore I am’ is a priori.

·         Synthetic a priori-Therefore taking synthetic knowledge a priori is the development of a priori knowledge by adding extra knowledge without reference to the natural world. An example would be the idea that there are other worlds, universes or parallel universes, other than ours. The A-priori idea is that our world exists. The synthetic knowledge is that another world may exist. This conclusion cannot be reached analytically. Maths and geometry are synthetic a-priori.

·         Kant asks the question, ‘how are synthetic judgements a priori possible? The answer to this question makes up ‘The critique of pure reason’

·         According to Kant the outer world causes only the matter of sensation but our own mental apparatus orders this matter in space and time and supplies the concepts by means which we understand experience.

·         Things in themselves which are the causes of our sensations are unknowable, they are not in space or time, and can’t be described by any categories.

·         Space and time are subjective – part of our own apparatus of perception. We can be sure that whatever we experience will exhibit the characteristics dealt with by geometry and the science of time.

·         Kant says that space and time are not concepts, they are forms of intuition.

·         A priori concepts are in twelve categories split into 4 groups:

1.    Of Quantity- containing: Unity, plurality and totality

2.    Of Quantity- containing: reality, negation and limitation

3.    Of relation- containing: substance and accident, cause and effect and reciprocity

4.    Of modality- Possibility, experience, necessity.

·         Kant believes that they are applicable to whatever we experience, but there is no reason to suppose them to be applicable to things in themselves.

·         Kant has a planned inconsistency here, as regards to cause; things in themselves are regarded by Kant as causes of sensations and free volitions  are held by him to be causes of occurrences in space and time. This is an essential part of his system as it shows fallacies that arise from applying space and time to things that are not experienced.

·         Kant believes that this leads us to be troubled by antinomies (an-tin-o-mies) – mutually contradictory propositions which can be proved. Each antinomy has a thesis and antithesis.

·         Kant set to work to demolish all intellectual proofs of the existence of god, saying that he had other reasons for believing in god.

·         Kant believes that there were only three proofs of god’s existence

1.     The ontological proof- Defines god as the most real being.

2.    The cosmological proof- Says that if anything exists then as an absolute necessary being must exist now I know that I exist.

3.    The Physico-theological proof- Maintains that the universe exhibits an order which is evidence of purpose- proves that an architect of it.

·         Kant says that god, freedom and immortality and the three ideas of reason and pure reason lead us to form these ideas but cannot prove their reality.

·         In Kant’s ‘Metaphysics of morals’ written in 1785 Kant said that we should act to treat every man as an end in himself. It would make it impossible to reach a decision if two people’s interests conflicted. Preferences would go to the majority. All men should count equally in determining actions by which many are reflected. This is the ethical basis for democracy.

·         Kant’s theory of space and time within the ‘Critique of pure reason’ says that the immediate objects of perception are due partly to external things and partly to our own perception apparatus.

·         The things that appear to us in perception-Phenomenon consist of: that due to the object: sensation and that due to our subjective apparatus: the form of the phenomenon

·         Kant had four arguments to prove that space and time are a priori.

1.     Space is not an empirical concept- presentation of space must already give the foundation; therefore external experience is only possible through the presentation of space.

2.    Space is a necessary presentation a priori which underlies all external perceptions for we cannot imagine that there should be no space, although we can imagine that there should be nothing in space. This maintains that it is possible to imagine nothing in space but impossible to imagine no space.

3.    Space is not a discursive or general concept of the relations of things in general for there is only one space of which we call ‘space’ are parts. We can only imagine one single space, denial of plurality in space itself.

4.    Space is presented as an infinite magnitude which holds within itself all the parts of space- space is not a concept but a ‘pure intuition’ This proves that space is an intuition not a concept. A given space of infinite magnitude.

Hegel

G.W.F Hegel

Background information:

·         Hegel was born in Stuttgart, Germany in 1770

·         He died in Berlin aged 61 in 1831

·         Hegel often criticised Kant, but Hegel’s system would not have existed without Kant.

·         Many Protestants adopted his doctrines and his philosophy affected political theory.

·         He was an influence for Marx and was interested in mysticism in his youth.

·         Hegel was a loyal servant to the Prussian state, but admired Napoleon in his youth and rejoiced the French victory and Jena.

·         He wrote during the French revolution

·         Hegel retained a belief in the unreality of separateness- he believed that nothing was completely real except the whole which he called ‘the absolute’

·         He believed that the whole was not a simple substance but a complex system of the sort called an organism

·         He said that separate things our world is composed are not an illusion but have a greater or lesser degree of reality which consist in an aspect of the whole.

·         His belief of space and time was lost because they involve separateness. He was also of the view that facts are irrational as only rational when viewed as aspects of the whole.

·         He also assumes that nothing can be really true unless it is about reality as a whole.

·         Hegel’s idea of logic is different from the common meaning of logic; he says that any ordinary predicate qualifying the whole of reality turns out to be self contradictory. The example used is that: ‘nothing can be spherical unless it has a boundary and it can’t have a boundary unless there is something outside of it- so to suppose the universe is a whole to be spherical is self contradictory.

·         The term: ’The absolute idea’ means: we can be driven on by the mere force of logic from any suggested predicate of the absolute to the final conclusion of the dictate

·         Hegel’s dialect method begins with the assumption that the absolute is an absolute pure being, and it is impossible to reach the truth without going through all the steps of the dialect.

·         Self consciousness is the highest form of knowledge according to Hegel and in his system this knowledge is possessed by the absolute, as the absolute is the whole, there is nothing outside for it to know.

·         In a separate person, participation in reality as a whole is real, and is not real in separateness, as we become more rational participation is increased.

·         Hegel’s philosophy of history contains distinctions of facts and ignorance to make it believable

·         He has a simple concept of reason saying that it is the sovereign of the world. It is a substance of infinite power underlying all the natural and spiritual life which it originates. It is the substance of the universe.

·         He says that spirit is a substantial object of philosophy and history and is the opposite of matter; the essence of spirit is freedom whereas the essence of matter is gravity.

·         Hegel’s idea of freedom is that without law there isn’t freedom, he says that with democracy some are free but with a monarchy all are free, his definition of freedom is to obey the law.

·         His idea of freedom is of a free society when there is no crime or dispute. An organic society.

·         He goes to extreme lengths to glorify the state, with emphasis on nations and freedom. He says that throughout history there is one nation that carries the world through that stage and into a new one, and that Germany was that current nation.

·         He also felt that rights were not intrinsic or universal throughout history- rights change throughout ages- political rights are specific to certain types of society and the points of revolution that has been reached.

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·         Hegel feels that all the spiritual reality possessed by a human is possessed through the state.

·         ‘The state is the embodiment of rational freedom realising and recognising itself in an objective form.

·         Hegel speaks as if there is only one state, calling it ‘The state’ as he believes that each state is individual and each person has a relation individual to their own state. Therefore he is against a league of nations where the independence of individual states might be limited.

·         He continues to say that is it the duty of the citizen to uphold the individuality and independence of the state and that it is not just there to uphold the life and property of the citizens.

·         There is a feeling of  justification of war in his work, as he feels that wars and needed from time to time and that everything important takes the form of war, and that it has a positive moral value, as individual states need an enemy and conflicts can only be decided by war. By doing this he advocates freedom, but also crimes.

·         Hegel’s preference of the state comes from the idea that society should be as organic as possible, he says that’ there is more excellence in a whole than in parts.’

·         State should not restrain people from doing what they want it should be a rational organic state. People should be forced to be free.

·         Hegel holds the view that the state is for the citizens whereas empiricists such as Locke had a contrasting view that the citizens exist for the state.