Transcript Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): Enlightenment

GERMAN PHILOSOPHY:
KANT AND HEGEL
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): Enlightenment philosopher
• Christian faith formed an important background to his
philosophy
“I knew there was a book on Kant and
another on Hegel that my father
had written…” (63)
“I wanted to talk to the philosopher who
had
written about Kant and Hegel, and who
had, as I knew, occupied himself with
moral issues.”(139)
WHAT CAN WE KNOW
ABOUT THE WORLD?
• Both rationalists (all knowledge comes from the mind) and
empiricists (all knowledge comes from the senses) were partly
right and partly wrong)
• All our knowledge of the world comes from our sensations, but
our reason determines HOW we perceive the world.
RED SUNGLASSES
Put them on. You will see red.
The glasses determine HOW you see the world.
But the world is not red even though that’s how you see it.
TIME AND SPACE
Influence HOW we, as humans, perceive the world
Modes of human perception, not part of the physical world
Human reason perceives everything that happens as a matter
of cause and effect
Cats will chase a ball….humans look to see where the
ball came from.
BECAUSE I SEE THINGS
THROUGH THE LENS OF TIME
AND SPACE…
I can’t know what the world is like “in itself”; only “for me”
“The thing in itself” (Das Ding an sich) is different from “The
thing for me”
So there are clear limits to what we can know
Faith fills the vacuum between reason and experience;
weighty questions such as “Is there a God?” must be left to
individual faith
We cannot expect to understand what we are. Maybe we can
comprehend a flower or an insect, but we can never
comprehend ourselves. Even less can we expect to
comprehend the universe.
MORAL LAW
However, we all have access to the same universal moral law.
Not situational; tells you how to behave in all situations
Categorical imperative: meaning, applies to all situations and
is imperative, or authoritative
Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in
your own person or in the person of any other, never simply
as a means, but always at the same time as an end.
THIS MEANS THAT…
You must not exploit others; you also must not exploit
yourself.
Kant’s law of morals = human conscience
Only when you do something purely out of duty can it be
called a moral action: you do it because you know it’s right
SUBJECT OR FREE?
As material beings we belong wholly to the natural world and
are subject to causal relations
As rational beings we are, however, able to exercise free will
by conforming to moral law, since that moral law comes from
us…it is innate.
HEGEL
Became a professor in Heidelberg, center of German National
Romanticism, in early 1800s
While Kant said there was an unattainable “truth” that
existed, Hegel said “truth is subjective”
All knowledge is human knowledge
HISTORY
No “eternal truths”
History is the only fixed point
This means: A thought can be correct for now, but won’t be
correct for ever
Things can be right or wrong in relation to historical context
SLAVERY
Would be foolish to advocate it today
Was not considered foolish 2,500 years ago, although voices
existed arguing for its abolition
Ideas, thoughts, cannot be detached from their historical
context
REASON PROGRESSES
Ever-expanding knowledge
Humanity is advancing toward “self-knowledge” and “selfdevelopment”
Moving toward greater rationality and freedom
Progressive
DIALECTIC: 3 STAGES
OF KNOWLEDGE
Thesis vs. antithesis
Synthesis (compromise)
Hegel said history revealed this dialectical pattern.
Whatever is right survives.
OBJECTIVE POWERS
Romantics were individualists
Hegel emphasized the “objective powers,” meaning the
importance of family, civil society , and the state.
One cannot resign from society
WORLD SPIRIT
Human life, thought and culture
Becomes conscious of itself in 3 stages:
• Individual (lowest level)
• Reaches higher consciousness in family, civil society and
state
• Highest form of knowledge is philosophy, because in this the
world spirit reflects on its own impact on history
DEBATE IN THE
LEGAL SEMINAR…
“Was it sufficient that the ordinances under which the camp
guards and enforcers were convicted were already on the
statute books at the time they committed their crimes? Or
was it a question of how the laws were actually interpreted
and enforced at the time they committed their crimes, and
that they were not applied to them? What is law? Is it what is
on the books, or what is actually enacted and obeyed in a
society? Or is law what must be enacted and obeyed,
whether or not it is on the books, if things are to go right?”
(90-91)
MORALITY
Consider how Michael wrestles with morality in Chapter 12.
Also consider his relationship with his father and what that
represents in the novel.
FAIRNESS
Is Hanna given a fair trial? Whose fault is it that she ends up
being blamed for the written report? What do you make of
her question, “What would you have done?” (111, 128)
What is the reader’s reaction to Hanna’s trial and how does
Schlinck accomplish this?
What do you make of her decision not to risk “exposure as
an illiterate” (138)?
How does Schlinck use nature in these chapters and in the
novel?