Overview
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is often considered the greatest of modern philosophers. Agree with him or disagree with him, you can hardly do philosophy and ignore him anymore than you can ignore Plato or Descartes. Kant was able to bring rationalism and empiricism together in a new form called Idealism. Unlike Descartes and Plato, Kant is nearly unreadable.
Will Durant writes: “Kant is the last person in the world whom we should read on Kant. Our philosopher is like and unlike Jehovah; he speaks through clouds, but without the illumination of the lightning-flash. He disdains examples and the concrete; they would have made his book too long, he argued. (So abbreviated, it contains some 800 pages). Only professional philosophers were expected to read him; and these would not need illustrations. Yet when he gave the manuscript The Critique of Pure Reason to his friend Herz, a man much versed in speculation, Herz returned it half read, saying he feared insanity if he went on with it” (Durant 1943, 192-193).
When people think philosophy is too difficult to read, it is actually because of people like Kant. On a side note, much philosophy is very readable! Reading philosophy is also like exercising - the more you do it the easier it gets.
Kant spent the whole of his life living the quiet life of a professor in the city of Konigsberg, Prussia (today, Russia). He rarely left the city, and although he loved geography and loved to lecture on far away places, he was never known to have traveled. His mother was a Pietist and he was so swamped in religion as a child that he never went to church as an adult. Kant did hold to many Pietist values, and his ethics are an effort to ground these values in rationalism rather than revelation.
Kant took fifteen years to write his masterpiece, which is what we will look at first.
The Critique of Pure Reason
When Kant was about fifty, he received a copy of Hume’s book, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, and he said it awoke him from his dogmatic slumber. He realized that philosophy would end with Hume’s skepticism if someone did not find a way around it. The key was for Kant to prove that we have a priori knowledge, that is, knowledge without observation. Kant took fifteen years to write his masterpiece.
Kant taught that we have knowledge that our brain contributes to our experiences; otherwise we would not be able to organize that experience into meaningful wholes. For example, if we only perceive sense data, then how can we tell how high a mountain is or how long it will take to get from point A to point B?
In other words, how do we perceive space and time, unless they are already part of the organizing principles of the mind? We cannot see space, just things that are in space. We cannot see time, but simply movement through space. How can we make any adequate sense of our sensory perceptions unless our minds impose an understanding of time and space on the data received?
A sentence formed from an observation might be that "the dog is on the floor." But that sentence “presupposes the truth of the sentence “Objects exist is space and time” (Palmer 2006, 193). Kant pointed out that we can never observe space or time directly, and yet the presupposition is an ingredient of knowledge that cannot be denied.
"This analysis led Kant to conclude that space and time were not features of external reality; rather, they were features of the structure of the mind. The human mind analyzes the data it receives in terms of space and time. Space and time are irremovable goggles through which we perceive the world. They are not like the pieces on a chess board (things in the world), rather they are like the rules according to which we play chess and in whose absence chess would not exist” (Palmer 2006, 194-195).
The simplest example is our eyes. We use our eyes to see, and yet we can never see our eyes! We can see reflections of our eyes in a mirror and pictures of our eyes in photographs, but we can never see them directly. For Kant, the structure of our mind is like that. We use our mind, but we can’t observe it directly.
The real question here is, how much does consciousness influence the reality that we take to be outside of ourselves? Modern physics deepens this question because it tells us that an earlier science that tried to be as objective as possible is no longer truly possible. Why? Because physicists now think that the very process of observing certain things changes them.
We are not born with certain ideas, our mind comes with certain rules that cause it to analyze data in a certain way. It is almost like talking about humans in modern computer language, that is, we all come with certain hardware that allows us to process information and reach conclusions. Now it is true that we all have different experiences, and many of us may even have very different software programs, but the hardware is the same.
Deep Structures and Surface Structures
It is interesting to discover that in modern anthropology, some similar conclusions have been reached in talk about deep structures and surface structures. For example, most humans have two legs and two arms. That is deep structure. How we dress differs from time to time and culture to culture. That is surface structure. Long before this knowledge was available, Kant figured we were hardwired to perceive the world in certain ways.
Kant said Newton was right, we could know certain things, and this is because of the structure of the mind. He also agreed with Hume that we could only know the world through the mind. We can never know the world as it is in itself. That is, the true objective world “out there” cannot be known because we bring organizing structures to that world before we can observe it.
In other words, there is no such thing as pure observation. So science and common sense are valid, but only of the world as it appears, what Kant called the phenomenal world. But what the world is in itself, what Kant called the noumenal world, cannot be known.
For Kant, this meant that traditional metaphysics, which concerns itself with ultimate reality, could not be understood by reason. This explained why there had been no agreement, even though the brightest minds had worked on metaphysical ideas for centuries. The mind could not see past appearances to what is real in itself.
For Kant, this did not mean that there was not a real, true, and objective world, but simply that it could not be known by reason. This was the gist of his most famous book, The Critique of Pure Reason. Metaphysics has never fully recovered from this critique.
Freedom
Was there a way to reconcile the laws of nature with ideas about human freedom? Kant wanted philosophy to help people. And yet, how can we bear to live if we think everything is predetermined and our choices mean nothing? How do we face each day if we think the universe is meaningless and we have no purpose? What do we do with those human impulses and feelings that Rousseau talked so much about? Kant had read Rousseau very carefully and was in sympathy with many of his ideas. If pure reason could not find the answers, then practicalreason could.
Kant “claimed the following: There is no logical necessity to conceive of the world in terms of God, immortality, justice, and freedom (in the way there is a logical necessity of conceiving the world in terms of time, space, and causality); nevertheless, without such inspirational concepts, many humans would lose their enthusiasm for life. If one could not believe, for example, that the human soul is free and that ultimately justice will triumph, then one might well lose the motivation required for the engagement in the day-to-day world" (Palmer 2006, 199).
"Therefore, according to Kant, one has the right to believe(but not to claim to know) that God, soul, immortality, justice, and freedom exist, not as metaphysical necessities, but as practical (i.e., moral) necessities. We have the right to treat these topics as a priori truths if doing so will make us better, more successful human beings” (Palmer 2006, 200). This is a very pragmatic approach to spirituality. We will see it come to the forefront again in the American philosopher William James.
Many people found Kant’s solution brilliant. They were finally able to let go of trying to make sense of so much metaphysical “mumble jumble,” while at the same time leaving room for God in a way that made sense for most folks. After all, most people do not believe in God because they have studied the proofs for God’s existence and have become convinced rationally. Rather they feel an inner necessity to have faith and Kant leaves room for that.
There were those who felt that belief in God was unacceptable. Others, such as agnostics, were able to take strength and solace from Kant’s critique, and claim that there was no way to know the truth and so why worry about it? There has always been a third group of people for whom Kant’s solution is still the acceptable conclusion: pure reason will never lead to God, but practical reason will.
Ethics
Kant showed his debt to the European Enlightenment by trying to ground morals in reason rather than in divine revelation. To talk about ethics and morals at all is to talk about and presuppose human freedom, isn't that so? For if we are not free, then we are not responsible for what we do.
We don’t usually think of animals as moral agents. That is, if an animal kills another animal, we don’t think of it as bad, but simply as something that animals do. If you get in the way of a lion it will kill you, and none of us thinks of it as a “bad” or “sinful” lion. The same goes for acts of nature, but if a person kills another person, then we think that person should have known better and he or she is held responsible. What do we actually mean by that?
For Kant, freedom had to be presupposed, which means that it had a priori status as something known not from empirical evidence and observation, but from the nature of mind itself. As a result, it could be grounded in rational thought.
“Being a rule-guided activity, reasoning itself is based on a respect for rules and laws. From such respect, Kant deduced a moral command, which he called the categorical imperative: ‘So act that the maxim of your action could be willed as a universal law.’ All moral acts can be derived from principles that may be universalized without contradiction. Kant thought that, as creatures of reason, we are duty-bound to obey such principles” (Palmer 2006, 200-201). This is fairly simple to try out.
For example, just think of something such as murder. If you wanted to kill someone, then as a Kantian, you would have to make a law that says that everyone must kill someone. If you made that a law, then everyone would be killed and there would be no one left to obey the law, making the law invalid. The same goes with regard to lying or stealing. Those are simple examples, but it works too with more difficult ethical dilemmas.
It does not, as a result, leave much wiggle room. That is, as a rules-based morality, it does not allow individual judgment to intrude. So it tends to be a bit black and white. Something is either wrong or right and not sometimes-right and sometimes-wrong. Kant had other ways of wording this as well, such as: “So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as a means only.”
Kant’s ethics are fairly noble, but they can leave one feeling a bit concerned that there does not seem to be much caring involved. Morals are duties that we are bound to perform. For example, many marriages are preserved by a fidelity to vows once taken. Most of us want someone to stay with, us not because they have to, but because they want to. Kant’s ethics do not address this level of intention and desire in morality.
Kant's ethics have also been challenged from the position of those who think that a bad means that leads to a good end is sometimes acceptable. For example, the categorical imperative would not want you to lie, because if everyone lied, then we could never know whom to trust. What if you were lying to protect someone’s life? Is the lie still wrong? Technically yes, and that is a problem for many ethicists, who want to allow room for judgment between competing goods.
It was George Hegel, to whom we will now turn, who tried to show how Kant’s philosophy could be moved forward.
George Hegel (1770-1831)
Hegel was born in 1770. His father was a civil servant. Unlike Voltaire and Rousseau, and much like Kant, Hegel led a quiet and uneventful outer life as a studious professor. Like Kant, he traveled vast distances in his studies and books. Some people think he is even more difficult to understand than Kant! He once complained, “only one man understands me, and even he does not” (Durant, p. 223). He was a very studious youth and fell in love with Greek literature and culture.
In Hegel’s early life he was somewhat politically rebellious, defending the French Revolution. He was also swept up in the German Romantic Movement for some time. He was a tutor, gymnasium administrator, and lecturer before he became a full professor of philosophy at the University of Berlin in 1818 until his death in 1831. He was all the rage for quite some time, and he was to Philosophy what Goethe was to literature and Beethoven was to music. Most of his many books (as with Aristotle) are lecture notes, which make his dense writing even more difficult to follow.
Hegel became the classic absent-minded professor. He once walked into a lecture with only one shoe on because he had left his other shoe in the mud where it had come off. He died during a cholera epidemic after only a day’s illness. In the space of five years, Germany lost Goethe, Beethoven, and Hegel. Will Durant writes: “It was the end of an epoch, the last fine effort of Germany’s greatest age” (Durant 1943, 226). People who love great speculative philosophical systems tend to love Hegel. Others, such as the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, who we will we study later, despised Hegel because great systems tend to leave out details, and details can be very important.
George Hegel
Hegel’s Dialectic
Just as some scientists continue to look for a grand unified theory that can explain our cosmos, so George Hegel was looking for a grand unified theory of philosophy. “Drawing on classical Greek philosophy, Christian mysticism, and German Romanticism to construct his all-encompassing system, Hegel set forth a conception of reality that sought to relate and unify man and nature, spirit and matter, human and divine, time and eternity” (Tarnas 1991, 379). To understand why Hegel thought this was possible, you have to understand what he called the dialectic.
For Hegel, the dialectic meant that everything in existence gave birth to its own opposite. The relationship between these two sides would eventually create enough tension that they would be integrated at a higher level into a new synthesis. This can be understood in a simple example of looking at how letters come together in words, then in sentences and then in paragraphs.
Random letters might not make any sense, but eventually we can place them in a certain order so they make sense as words. Words placed randomly might not make any sense, but eventually they too can be put in a certain order and come together as sentences. For Hegel, looking at history politically and philosophically, he saw this type of development and believed that certain ages gave rise to new syntheses.
If you look at what we have already studied in this class, you can see why Hegel thought this way. Movements give rise to their own opposites and then the collision of the two can lead to a new birth of something else. So recently we can see that the age of Enlightenment gave birth to reason and rationality. This movement then gave birth to its opposite in Romanticism and Idealism.
The clash of these two will give birth to what? The idea is that the “something new” doesn’t completely cancel out the opposing pair, but integrates them at a higher level where both can exist in a new way. Sentences don’t cancel out the validity of letters and words, but allows letters and words to be used in a more useful fashion.
What is Hegel doing with this idea of the dialectic? He is trying to “comprehend [how] all dimensions of existence [are] dialectically integrated into one unitary whole” (Tarnas 1991, 379). In his view, the contradictions and paradoxes in life are actually the seeds and fertilizers of new understandings and new ways of living life.
A man and a woman each contribute something to a new life that is born, and while the new life incorporates mother and father, it is at the same time something new and unique. In time it too will find its opposite and the “contradiction” of the two will again give birth to a new synthesis. “Whereas for most of the history of Western philosophy from Aristotle onward, the defining essence of opposites was that they were logically contradictory and mutually exclusive, for Hegel all opposites are logically necessary and mutually implicated elements in a larger truth. Truth is thus radically paradoxical” (Tarnas 1991, 379).
I tend to appreciate views of the world that welcome a “both/and” approach rather than an “either/or” view of reality. Modern physics again lets us have a new appreciation for these ideas. Light can be seen as a wave or a particle. These are mutually exclusive and yet true nonetheless! The only way to really begin to grasp such paradoxes is to enlarge our vision and understanding of reality.
History and the Evolution of Consciousness
The “Idealism” that comes out in Hegel’s philosophy is that the human mind is capable of comprehending this paradox because the human mind is not limited the way Kant thought. Rather, the human mind, human intelligence, participated in a universal intelligence that Hegel called Geist, translated usually as “Mind” or “Spirit”.
Once again we are back with Plato. We can understand the universe because the universe is intelligent and we are intelligent. Our intelligence and the intelligence of the universe is related in a higher synthesis to a greater intelligence called Geist.
Hegel agreed that what Kant called “pure reason” could not in fact comprehend the nature of things. Kant had proved that. So Hegel simply proposed that just as Kant recognized different types of intelligence such as pure reason and practical reason, so there was a further development of reason that would come at a higher synthesis when feeling came together with the mind.
This higher intelligence had a lot to do with intuition and imagination. Sometimes we know things in a way that is not logical. While it is true that we can be deceived by our hunches and intuition, it is also true that they sometimes seem rather brilliant.
Logic is a very linear way of thinking. 1+1+1 = 3. There are nonlinear ways to think that tend to be more familiar to artists than mathematicians. For example, why is it that some scientific problems just linger and linger and then all of a sudden, in a “breakthrough,” the problem comes clear, sometimes even in a dream? This is hinting at, if not evidence for, another type of intelligence.
This also explains a tradition in Zen Buddhism that sets the meditator to focus on a koan, which is an unsolvable mental puzzle. And yet it must be solved! So the practitioner must sit with this puzzle until his rational process breaks open from reasoning into insight. Suddenly, he or she sees the solution and can move on in his or her practice.
It was with this understanding of dialectic that Hegel tried to understand Kant. Kant was simply the anti-thesis of the Romantics thesis. The clash would give birth to a new synthesis (Hegel’s of course!). In fact, the whole history of thought can be understood in this way.
“What at any moment was seen as fixed and certain was constantly overcome by the evolving mind, thereby opening up new possibilities and greater freedom. Every stage of philosophy from the ancient Pre-Socratic onward, every form of thought in human history, was both an incomplete perspective and yet a necessary step in this great intellectual evolution. Every era’s world view was both a valid truth unto itself and also an important stage in the larger process of absolute truth’s unfolding” (Tarnas, p. 380).
Think about the unfolding of language, or even math. First you learn basic addition and subtraction, and then it gets more complex through algebra, trigonometry, and calculus and even beyond that math continues to evolve.
Hegel’s philosophy starts with a key mystical insight that is found in all of the world’s mysticisms and is therefore part of the Perennial Philosophy. It states that the Absolute (usually called God) throws himself out into creation as involution, and then returns to himself as evolution. In other words, creation is the extension of consciousness into material reality, which is unconscious.
Evolution
Slowly over time, material reality (chemistry and physics) gives birth to living reality (biology), and eventually, biology develops into psychology (consciousness). In this way, God comes to know himself and the infinite gets to experience being finite. You can find this thought in Kabbalah and you can find it Plotinus, you can find it in Daoism as well as in Hinduism. It is truly a worldwide insight that goes past individual religious differences, but it had never been expressed before as a “secular” philosophy.
This way of looking at philosophy as a growth and development is very optimistic. People who see the world in darker shades have a hard time wondering if humans have made any progress at all. Hegel saw this dialectic influencing all fields of thought. “Hence theology for Hegel was replaced by the comprehension of history: God is not beyond the creation, but is the creative process itself. The universal essence, which constitutes and permeates all things, finally comes to consciousness of itself in man" (Tarnas 1991, 381).
"At the climax of his long evolution, man achieves possession of absolute truth and recognizes his unity with the divine spirit that has realized itself within him” (Tarnas 1991, 381). This philosophy had a profound influence because it allowed people to see that the battle of ideas was not as much a true battle as it was stages of growth and development. Nobody had to be wrong.
All philosophies had their place in time, and it was only the rigidity in holding onto them in a dogmatic fashion that caused the problems. A philosophy or religion gets stale, and someone comes along and shakes things up. This person is often persecuted, even killed. Later, they are made a saint and then their thoughts become the new orthodoxy, which then persecutes those who challenge its way of thought.
For Hegel, this is merely the thesis and the anti-thesis, and they are not to be resisted, but rather welcomed, as their interaction will give birth to a new synthesis. Finally, we see that Hegel’s philosophy is teleological, that is the end is in the beginning. We are moving toward an end that was set in motion as a goal by a force that gave rise to space and time in the first place.
Please Study the Following Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSQgCy_iIcc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR3igiwaeyc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3u4EFTwprM
Submit Module 7 Assignment and Peer Exchanges Here
Academic Requirements
This course requires active engagement in a variety of ways, including dialoguing with your peers, reading, watching documentaries, writing essays and completing the final assessment.
Module Reflections
• Please include at least ten bullet point notes on "takeaways," from different sections of my essay and any videos you are required to watch. These are quotes and thoughts that intrigue you. Place these notes at the top of your assignment along with a header (see example).
• Then pick two of the most interesting to you and write a reflection no less than a good paragraph (200 words) on each of the two takeaways you found most meaningful (400 total words).
Think for Yourself
Please avoid summarizing in your reflection because that is not the point of this philosophical invitation to think deeply about things for your self. This is a philosophical exercise or practice. I will be looking for your thoughts about the module rather than reiterating what the module already presented.
Your reflections need to demonstrate that you studied the whole module, both my essays and the videos. The easiest way to do this is to take some bullet point notes as you go through the module. As you do so, you will find some general themes you can think about and include in your reflection.
You are not required to use the following prompts, but they may help you think about what you are studying:
• What did you learn that was significant for you?
• Can you explain its significance?
• Can you explore any revelations or insights that your studies opened for you?
• What happened because of these insights to your thinking and learning?
• Did you have an emotional response, negative or positive? Do you know why?
• Have you had any experiences you are willing to share with our class that help you relate to and understand any of the material in this module?
• Did this assignment contain any “awakening” ideas, those that inspire you rather than depress you?
• Did you find any of the ideas surprising? Why?
• Can you give an example or two in your reflection that demonstrates you were engaging with, and thinking about, our curriculum in a serious way?
• Did you find yourself thinking about class content when you did not have to, such as finding yourself discussing ideas with friends or family?
• Have your studies contributed to any increase in self-knowledge (how you understand the world and your place in it) or a deeper understanding of one’s current world view?
Two Peer Exchanges
This is also the practice of philosophy, which requires dialogue with others. Philosophy is really just a long conversation through the past 3000 years or so. This assignment helps you enter this conversation. Hopefully, such dialogue, brings new perspectives. The ability to be able to see different views on a subject is one sign of a growing philosophical consciousness.
• You respond to a peer’s reflection and 2) you reply to a peer who responded to your reflection.
• Both peer exchanges must be more than 100 words each to be eligible to receive credit.
• From the due date of your reflection, you have two days (sometimes more — see schedule) to complete your peer exchanges.
• If your reflection does not receive a response that you can reply to within 36 hours, you no longer need to wait. Instead, you write a second response to a different classmate.
• If there are reflections that have not yet been commented on, please prioritize those.
Minimum Guidelines
• Please make ten bullet point notes on "takeaways," from different sections of my essay and any videos you are required to watch. These are quotes and thoughts that intrigue you.
• Each reflection must be at least 200 words (400 words total).
• Summaries do not receive credit because they do not require serious thought — simply the ability to record information.
• Your assignments are not eligible for A’s if they require proofreading.
• Peer exchanges must be at least 100 words to receive credit (200 words total).
• Assignments that are partial (not meeting minimum requirements) do not receive partial credit.
EXAMPLE
[Your Name]
HUM 31
Dr. Glorian
[The Date]
1 Philosophy is not to attain information, but to use it in a transformative way
2 If we do not question everything, then what is the point of any of it?
3 Philosophy is less about searching for answers and more about being aware that answers may lie out there
4 Know yourself before you try to know anything else. Common phrase I have heard: “you must love yourself before you may start to feel love for others”
5 Humans are quick to jump to conclusions about why something has happened, placing blame when there is no fault at all
6 Philosophy can be important in forming one’s own beliefs, rather than adhering to the stories told by those before them
7 We also try to assess meaning where there may be none. A common mistake by all humans, especially in dreams.
8 If religion/science/ANYTHING has something to say then I am interested!
9 When it comes to the impossible question, we either assign no value to its answer or we accept an answer already provided.
10 Philosophers are similar to scientists in that they are also trying to figure out the vast complexities of the world and universe as we know it.
Addressing Bullet Point 7:
This specific bullet point stuck out to me because I often find myself falling victim to it without knowing that I’m doing so. Many times I will wake up from a dream, riding horseback underwater with a long-lost friend from middle school and think “Does this mean we will reunite soon?” Even though, clearly there is no rhyme or reason behind the dream. This is a fault that many humans fall victim to. The main outlet is for humans to look for answers in foundational stories already conceived, such as with religion. If something has happened out of the blue, one might think “Well that was God’s doing!” When in reality, it could have been that the tree fell over because its roots had been rotting for years prior. Now, I’m not saying that these events could not be influenced by said deities; however, there is more often than not a chance that something happened without a reason behind it, and we are the ones who are assigning reason to it. I am eager to keep reading on this topic and to explore just why humans have such a tendency to act this way, and to see whether or not having the “awareness” mentioned earlier in the module would help with such notions.
Addressing Bullet Point 8:
I really enjoy the concept of this bullet point and topic within the module, which essentially says that you can find knowledge and experience in essentially anything. This is called Integral Philosophy. Even if you are not necessarily a religious person, there is wisdom in studying and applying practices of that religion. If you deny scientific claims of global warming or vaccines (which come on, it's 2024), then you would still be able to find knowledge about the topic and various ways of applying it. Whenever I hear about philosophical claims, I always hear it followed up by counterarguments or reasons why it doesn’t apply to certain scenarios. However, integral philosophy is one that I think everyone should learn and accept. Which, in it of itself, is the core foundation of philosophy as it stands. There is so much wisdom at our fingertips, and we as a human race are quick to shut down information that we think doesn’t apply to ourselves or our interests. Although these pieces of wisdom, which do not concur with our prior beliefs, are arguably the most important in transforming our minds to a greater purpose. To seek truth wherever it may be, is a path in which we all should lead ourselves because at the end of the day, none of us truly know where that may lead us.