Seminar Paper: Kant and Hegel

Kant:

Immanuel Kant lived from 1724 to 1804 in East Prussia living through both the Seven Years war and the French Revolution. Rousseau and Hume were his main influences and whilst he regarded Hume as an adversary he was far more taken with both the beauty and meaning of Rousseau’s work.

Kant produced works on both philosophy and science with great interest in physical geography which can be seen in his treatise and essay on wind. However his most important scientific writings would be his ‘General Natural History and Theory of the Heavens published in 1755. Its relative importance is due to the fact it anticipated Lapace’s nebular hypothesis. This hypothesis put forward ideas for how a solar system is formed. However unlike Lapace, Kant did not put forward serious scientific arguments in its favour.

Kant wrote works pertaining to various subjects it seems whenever they were the most prominent in his mind. He wrote a treatise on wind after an earthquake in Lisbon. He produced a manuscript on mystics and metaphysics when he was troubled by sceptics and like all other writers of the day produced treatise on the beautiful and sublime.

In 1781 he published a book called ‘The Critique of Pure Reason’ with the purpose to prove that whilst all knowledge is derived from experience, some knowledge is in fact a priori. He argues that such a priori knowledge is not only logical in nature but also does not belong in logic and cannot be derived from it.

He thus divides this knowledge into analytic and synthetic propositions and outlines the distinction between a priori and empirical propositions.

An analytic proposition is where the predicate is self evident and which cannot be contradicted, for example; ‘the red ball is a ball.’ Synthetic propositions are based on experience which is not our own but has been recorded or observed to be true such as history and the laws of science which are empirical propositions. Meanwhile a priori propositions are those which are initially based on experience and having been observed to be true become analytic propositions such as mathematics.

According to Kant the outer world only causes experience of sensation but our own frame of mind orders this in space and time whilst supplying the concepts we need to understand experience. Space and time itself are forms of intuition and subject a person’s perspective of the world. However the specific causes of experiences are unknowable because they are not in space and time and do not fall into Kant’s 12 categories.

A priori concepts are split into twelve categories and further divided into subsets of three and these are:

Quantity, plurality and totality
Quality, reality and negation
Relation, substance-and-accident, cause and effect and reprocity
Modality: possibility, existence and necessity

These concepts like space and time are also subjective and whilst applicable to experiences are not applicable to the things themselves which cause experience.

Logical fallacies arise when one attempts to apply space and time and/or the 12 categories of a priori concepts to things that are not experienced. These are called Antinomies which are contradicting propositions which can both be found to be true. Each antinomy is made up of a contradicting but unfalsifiable thesis and antithesis.

The four antinomies Kant details are as follows:

The first argues the world has both a beginning and no beginning and is both limited and infinite in regard to space.

The second proves every composite substance is and isn’t made up of simple parts.

The third maintains causality is only according to the laws of nature but also causality is of both the laws of nature and freedom.

The fourth both proves and disproves there is not an absolutely necessary Being.

In another section of ‘The Critique of Pure Reason’ Kant takes to the task of dismantling three intellectual proofs for the existence of God, though as he points out he himself has other reasons for his belief in God.

The proofs he destroys are the ontological, cosmological and the physico-theological proof.

The ontological proof is an a priori argument that asserts that because God is considered a perfect being and because existence is perfection God must exist. Kant argues existence is not a predicate and something he can imagine can have all the same predicates of the same thing which exists. He uses this same argument to disprove the cosmological proof.

The physico-theological proof basically states the universe shows purpose which is evidence of design and where there is design there is surely a creator. Kant asserts that this only proves there is a designer, not a creator and not a God.

He goes on to state God, freedom and immortality are all ideas of reason but whilst reason leads us to form these ideas it cannot prove them to be true.

Hegel:

Hegel lived from 1770 to 1831 and his philosophy arose from what Kant had created before him.

Hegel asserted that the real is rational and the rational is real. However he does not speak of what is ‘real’ in the empirical sense. In fact he asserts nothing is completely real except the whole. The whole is akin to an organism in its complexity and what Hegel called ‘the Absolute.’ The separate things that make up the world have differing degrees of reality which is an aspect of the whole and can only be viewed properly when viewed as a whole. Therefore rationality and truth of what is real can only be obtained by viewing them as aspects of the whole.

As with his definition of what is real and rational, Hegel’s focus on logic also differs mostly from the traditionalist definition of what logic is. His idea that an ordinary predicate if taken and examined as part of the whole is self contradictory and so the whole must be examined as a whole if one is to remain rational by Hegel’s definition.

Hegel also focuses on the dialectic which is also of logic and is comprised of a thesis, antithesis and synthesis. The thesis and antithesis serve to contradict one another as seen in Kant’s antinomies but the synthesis takes the fundamentals of both the thesis and antithesis to produce the absolute which is referred to as ‘Absolute Idea.’ 

Traditional logic comes into play in Hegel’s underlying theme that truth is dependent on reality as a whole. The assumption that every proposition has a subject and a predicate means every fact relates to one thing. This however means relations are false as they consist of two things. However because the whole has no relations to anything outside of itself, any truths relating to relations inside the whole between separate things must instead relate to the whole. I.e. The whole is real and the truth but two separate things related are not. 

To understand the whole, Hegel stated it was necessary to understand the process of ideas behind it. I.e. that each new but flawed synthesis of a flawed thesis and antithesis allows our perception of reality to develop by unending correction and improvement which seems to imply that reality is only what we are able to make of it. That our continual views change the shape of our reality the question arises whether this change is ‘real’ in accordance with Hegel’s philosophy in relation to the whole. It appears that by continuing to shape what is real we will eventually be able to see the whole. That having spent our time correcting the finite we are than able to see the infinite as each perfected piece of finite reality falls into place in the whole.

Hegel states truth and fallacies are not actually obvious opposites because in his view nothing is completely false and we can’t know anything to be absolutely true. This applies to even the most basic and most self evident of facts. For example if someone were to ask; ‘what is this fruit?’ and you were to reply ‘an apple.’ You would be correct factually but not philosophically and thus there are only partial truths because only the whole is an absolute truth.

Hegel states that ultimate reality is timeless and time itself is an illusion caused by the fact we cannot see the whole. He asserts that the time process of the dialectic is from the less to the more perfect in both an ethical and logical sense in context with world history at his point in time. However he makes no distinction between the ethical and logical as logical perfection consists of the whole, unified, interdependent and working towards a single goal.

In terms of the dialectic, of nations and governments Hegel made several polarising statements. He stated that there is no freedom without law but also states wherever there is law there is freedom which essentially implies one is free if they have the freedom to obey whatever laws are imposed upon them. Such views on freedom can also be seen in his praise of Rousseau for distinguishing between the General Will and the will of all, whereby the monarchy is the embodiment of the General Will.

From his work ‘The Philosophy of History’ it could be argued Hegel had a distinct fascination with war which created a bias in his political writings, he glorifies Germany, viewing them alone as the key nation of his time to lead the world through the next stage in the dialectic. He then touts individuals who were just as important for the dialectic transitions of their time and those individuals he speaks of are all military commanders including Napoleon and Caesar. 

Further to these assertions he argues against the idea of a world government to prevent conflict as in his view war is a good thing in moderation. He argues that it preserves the morale of the people, that it is simply a natural part of the state of nature whereby states and nations need not abide by morals and politics as neither are applicable but instead the interest of each State is the highest law.

Overall the problem of examining history in relation to Hegel’s philosophy is that it is a pointless endeavour. Each part of history is but a part of the whole and one must examine the whole to gain the truth. Any other course of action such as to examine pieces of history will not only be irrational but any conclusion drawn will not be real or true because only the whole is truth.