Kant and Hegel

Kant (1724-1804) was educated to believe in Leibniz, but rejected Leibniz's teachings in favour of Rousseau and Hume.  Kant considered Hume an enemy, and it was in partly in order to be able to reject Hume's teachings that Kant worked to master his own philosophy.

Rousseau had a much deeper effect on Kant, inflaming Kant's liberal leanings and causing him to embrace the ideas of the Romantics when forming his own philosophy.

Kant's most important work is generally considered to be 'The Critique of Pure Reason', which was first published in 1781.  Of particular importance are Kant's views on space and time.  Kant argues that each object that exists, does so partly due to the external object itself, but partly due to our perceptive apparatus (eyes, ears etc.)  He holds that all of the qualities of an object are subjective.  Kant calls the act of perceiving an object a phenomenon, which he claims can be split into two parts.  First, is the part of the phenomenon that is due to the object itself, which he describes as the sensation.  Secondly, there is the part that is due to our subjective apparatus, which Kant describes as the form of the phenomenon.

Kant states that the form is not part of the sensation, and that as it is with us at all times, it is a priori as it is not dependent upon our personal experiences.  In fact, Kant argues that both time and space are a priori knowledge, which is an interesting viewpoint.

Personally, I am not certain that I was born with a pre-existing knowledge of time, though it must surely be one of the first things of which every sentient creature becomes aware.  If time and space did exist a priori in the human mind, how is it that among the many different disorders with which the human mind can be afflicted, there is no evidence of a condition which leaves the sufferer with a different interpretation of time to the norm?  I find it difficult to believe that this knowledge could be  in a part of the brain so resistant to injury that there is not one recorded case of a person becoming 'chronologically dislocated'.

The absence of any scientific evidence to support this theory, even after many years of detailed medical histories being recorded on the majority of psychiatric and head trauma patients, suggest that Kant is wrong on this point.  In fact the closest point of reference I can find to this idea is Old Mother Dismass in Witches Abroad.  (I apologise to those allergic to Terry Pratchett)

Moving from Kant to Hegel, Georg Hegel (1770-1831) was a critic of Kant, who nevertheless relied on Kant for a starting point in his philosophy.  Hegel believed that there was a 'whole' that was purely spiritual, and that Hegel calls 'the Absolute'.  In Hegel's view, nothing is real except 'the Absolute', and everything else is just a facet of the Absolute.  Given that nothing but the Absolute is real according to Hegel, everything that is can be determined by using Hegel's most famous contribution to modern philosophy, which is the dialectic.  Hegel stated that a dialectic consisted of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

For example, if you state 'the Absolute is a sister.', that becomes a thesis.  However, the fact that there is a sister implies that there is at least one sibling, so the antithesis of this would be to conclude 'The absolute is a sibling.'  As this antithesis contradicts the thesis, it is then necessary to form a synthesis that encompasses both the thesis and antithesis, such as 'The absolute is a sister and a sibling.'

The above is still clearly incomplete, as the existence of a sister and a sibling implies that there must be a Mother (and a Father) as well, so a new thesis must be formed.  In Hegel's view, if you carried this step by step through to its logical conclusion, you would have catalogued everything that exists within the Absolute.

Dialectics may be an OCD list-maker's dream, but is of little practical use as has been proven when used by Marx to formulate his political theories on what the future would look like, as it takes no account of the whims and desires of humanity.

It should also be noted that Hegel was fiercely nationalistic, glorifying Germany to the point of idolisation.  Despite this, Hegel contended that America was where the final embodiment of the 'Absolute Idea' would reveal itself, "perhaps in a contest between North and South America".  Hegel greatly admired conquering heroes, and spoke of the ability of individuals with the ability to shape world history.  Examples given by Hegel included Caesar and Napoleon, suggesting that Hegel valued military prowess over other thinkers.