KANT
- never left his home province
- “Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Ethics” (Prologemona)
- anything we can’t experience we can’t know
- limitations on knowledge: what exists, what we can experience
- mistake to confuse representation with the object
- phenomena - world of things as they appear
- noumena - world of things as they are
- can’t imagine an obect not in space or moving not in time
- free acts of will take place in the noumenal world
- must believe in free choice
- nonempiricle world where decisions are made
- only one capable of reason can behave morally or immorally
- “Act only according to maxims which you can will also to be universal laws”
- can’t have knowledge of God
SHOPENHAUER
- linked western with eastern philosophy
- science only applies to empiricle world
- agreed with Kant on many things, corrected others
- for objects to differ they have to be distinct in space or time
- act of will and body movements are the same
- “Motives are causes experienced from within”
- in the noumenal world we are undiffereniated
- Major introduced Shopenhauer to Hinduism and Buddhism
- arrived to same conclusions via diffeent routes
- was first open athiest
- idea of a personal God is anthropomorphism
- thought life was meaningless and tragic
- always unsatisfied
- only way to escape is via art, espeically music
SOME COMPARISONS OF EAST AND WEST
- eastern more philosophical
- upanishads (hinduism) see world of our senses and world behind it
- world is ephemeral and unstable
- person is raindrop in oceas
- Bushisms Four Noble Truths: life is unsatisfactory; sufering caused by endless desire for things; suffering can end if we stop craving; we can end the craving with the Noble Eightfold Path
- Buddha didn’t believe in God
- real reality is behind appearance
- Hindus and Buddhists believe we live a series of lives
- Russian Revolution influenced by Marx
FICHTE
- empirical world is creation of the knowing mind
- empirical observations can be deduced from scientific laws
- universe is logical necessity
- we know we exist via our capacity as moral agents
- moral will is basic constituent of human consistence
- ego creates emprirical world
SCHELLING
- nature is reality and always evolving
- nature is unity, a process
- man does not exist ourside of natur
- most spiritually advanced creations are art
- house philosopher of Romantic Movement
HEGEL
- reality is an ongoing process
- geist is the stuff of existence
- development of geist is self-awareness and self-knowledge; lead to “the Absolute”
- Absolute Idealism
- everything that exists is the outcome of a procss
- change is never arbitrary
- dialectical procss (the dialectic):
1. thesis = initial stage
2. antithesis = reaction
3. synthesis = resolution of conflict between the two
- this is why things change
- inividual has the power to direct change
- only thing that could end this is a conflict-free situation, which would be where every individual functions harmoniously
- he saw himself as the culination of historical process
- thought Prussia was the conflict-fee state
- Right Hegelians agreed and wer the parents of right-wing German Nationalism
- Left Hegelians agree with the idea of conflict-free state but thought Prussia was 180 degrees from it, which lead to Marx
- three ideas:
1. reality is a historical process
2. history has a rational structure
3. man creates rules when building civilization that eventually constrains him, leading to alienation
- Kierkegaard through abstract systems of philosophy shouldn’t exist, as everything is unique
- Hegel = anti-liberal, individualism is shallow
- self-awareness can only be achieved as part of the oganic society
MARX
- fused German philosophy, French political theory and British economics
- Then components from Hegel:
1. reality is ongoing process
2. key to understanding reality is understanding nature of change
3. historical change is not random
4. law of change is the dialectic
5. alienation keeps this in operation
6. process not under human control
7. process will continue until conflicts are resolved
8. when reached, humans will be free
9. will make self-fullfillment possible
10. only work in organic society
- materialist
- humans need subsistence - food, clothing, shelter
- after basic needs are met, people specialize, which makes them dependent on each other
- people are defined by their relationship to means of production
- since means of production change, relationships change, which leads to development of classes and class conflict
- arts serve the ruling class, as does religion
- industrial capitalist society policies the classes
- a class-fee society would be conflict-free
- Marx thought these were scientific laws he’d discovered
- believed socialism to be inevitable
- nowhere did the changes lead to what he thought
- invariably lead to tyranny and poverty
NIETZSCHE
- there is no god and we have no souls
- regected Schoepenhauer’s idea that this world is only part of it
- should live our lives in full
- old morality comes from old religions and societies very different from today
- can’t base our lives on value systems from things in which we don’t believe
- humans emerged from animals by strong defeating the weak but “modern” morals now force us to protect the week
- we’d all be better off if the strongest in all aspects could be allowed to survive
- morals are human creations and we should choose the ones in our best interests
- “will to power”
- creative potential will have free reign
- gifted individuals can live full lives
- life should be worth living for life’s sake
- Mussolini and Hitler took from Nietzsche but Nietzsche was neither a facist nor a Nazi nor an anti-semite
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