Abstract
This contribution explores the alternative that German Idealism provided in reaction to dogmatism and scepticism. Contrary to these schools of thought, German Idealism considers thinking to be a part of the reality it studies, implying that the structure of thinking should be analysed thoroughly alongside the ideas themselves.
The approach is hermeneutic and systematic in order to account for the origin and development of dogmatism and scepticism, as well as the manner in which it manifested in the time leading up to Kant. The hermeneutic approach traces the context and development of thought (effective history: Gadamer 1972:324), whilst the systematic approach excavates the argument for the purpose of interpretation and further development. This serves as a precursor for the development of German Idealism, which takes its critical impulse from older sources against these schools in order to put forward a new system of thought. These sources include on the one hand scientific thought such as that of Copernicus, and on the other hand the consideration of freedom and the importance of interpretation. The Copernican revolution not only put forward new ideas about the nature of the universe, but also created a necessity for thinking about the role that the structure of the mind plays in the construction of ideas. On the other hand, out of the growing determinism arising alongside a scientific explanation of reality grew the need for a broad philosophy of freedom, which German Idealism provided.
Where dogmatism reacts mechanically to a notion or a prominent figure, and scepticism gives authority only to immediate experience, German Idealism explores the way thinking goes about in constructing our experience of reality. The history and critique of dogmatism and scepticism are traced to show how the necessity for thinking about thinking emerged in modernity. Both have old roots and developed in particular ways leading up to the Enlightenment. Dogmatism was especially prevalent leading up to the early modern period, whilst modern scepticism found exponents in both rationalism and empiricism. Both schools remain influential and equally problematic, which highlights the importance of the critique and alternative provided by German Idealism.
The laws of nature are according to the latter not immediately accessible to experience, nor are the laws mere ideas that are postulated; there is an interplay between experience and notions in the mind which brings about our understanding of nature. This understanding proves incomplete to reason that brings about its own reality in the world, namely the reality of freedom. Freedom and thinking are not separable entities, but co-responsible for bringing about a purposive reality. Freedom is a key concept throughout the course of German Idealism, binding causal reality to unconditional reason.
The answer provided to the issue of knowledge by the major figures of the German Idealism, namely Kant and Hegel, with a few figures in between (Fichte, Schelling and Goethe), is explained. Kant separated analytic thought pertaining to knowledge from transcendental ideas about God, the soul and freedom. These notions, he argued, cannot be postulated by knowledge but nevertheless serve as regulative principles for directing our thoughts to ultimate questions. His famous distinction between the phenomenal world (the reality of appearances) and the thing-in-itself grew too distinct for many of his successors. The subsequent movement concentrated on a middle term between the self and the world, which they found in the notion of the absolute. Whereas Fichte positioned the absolute on the side of the self (in the sense of an absolute I as overarching consciousness underlying reality), Schelling thought of the absolute as the unfolding of nature into freedom and reflexivity in the human self, standing closer to an implicit notion of freedom in nature. Hegel finally positions the absolute between the self and the world, as the self-unfolding of reason through history in which thinking beings participate, according to his formulation that the substance is also subject.
Freedom is key to the project of German Idealism, not only as principle of ethics, but also as the purpose of creation, that is fulfilled in the expression of human beings as the principle that underlies nature itself. For Kant the notion of purpose is a priori, meaning not scientifically deductible from nature, but which finds expression in human acts within nature, directing nature towards freedom that is situated in the understanding and reason. For Goethe, there is an interplay between subjective understanding and observation that leads us to understand nature as purposive. Even though, as Kant stated, human beings have a notion of purpose, experience contributes to the refinement of purpose, accounting for an internal and external conception of purpose. Finally, for Hegel freedom is the unfolding of dialectic that finds expression in logic, nature and spirit. Logic is pure thought, connected to our most basic understanding of existence, nature presents itself as the “other” of thinking, and spirit is the return of the other in reflexion. This entire system as developed in Hegel’s Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences remains the most complete system in modern philosophy.
As mentioned, German Idealism considers modern science to be important for understanding reality, which led its proponents to develop a broad notion of science, which formed a key component in their reconstruction of metaphysics. But it was precisely this attempt at perfect synthesis which I argue leaves little room for what is not understood through systematic thinking. Despite attempts to differentiate thinking, the notion of the absolute can lead to one-dimensional thought, which is precisely what synthetic thought aims to overcome. From Erasmus’ idea of folly, the idea of the unknowable that stands in relation to what is known (in other words science) is introduced as an integral part of an ongoing dialectic. The synthetic approach must remain dialectic in a dynamic sense and cannot afford to become too rigged and stale. The synthetic approach remains important for our orientation in a world that presents itself as overwhelming, as is a metaphysics that is able to learn from science as well as to engage with it meaningfully without being prescriptive.
Keywords: absolute; critical philosophy; dialectic; dogmatism; folly; freedom; knowledge; metaphysics; scepticism