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.

Rousseau - Romanticism

Rousseau (1712-1778) was born in Geneva, but came to France in 1743, when after a quarrel with his employer (the French Ambassador to Venice) over unpaid wages, he travelled to Paris to obtain justice for himself.

His first literary work was not published until 1950, it was an essay on the question:  'Have The Arts and Sciences conferred benefits on mankind?'.  Rousseau argued that they had not, and did so with such success that he was awarded the prize.

Rousseau's argument was that science, letters and the arts were the enemy of morals, and that by creating desires in people, they led away from a peoples 'natural' state of being.  Believing that science and virtue were incompatible, Rousseau argued that the 'noble savage' was the closest to a human ideal, and that everything that made up civilisation was to be despised and deplored, as it led to great evil.

Rousseau followed up his first essay with a second entitled 'Discourse on Inequality' which was published in 1754.  In this he stated 'man is naturally good, and only by institutions is he made bad'.  Rousseau sent the essay to his contemporary Voltaire, who responded 'I have received your new book against the human race, and thank you for it.  Never was such a cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid.  One longs, in reading your book, to walk on all fours.'

Rousseau's belief in natural instinct over rational thought is still very much with us today and used frequently in advertising and by politicians, when making an appeal to the emotion, rather than logic.  Just as one example, watch this advertisement for a mobile phone, in which some overly photogenic young people frolic in a variety of settings, while the voice-over extols the virtues of impatience.  Do we believe that it was impatience that led to the development of that mobile phone?  Or is it possible that hundreds of years of scientific advance have contributed towards this particular device?

Rousseau's most important work was his 'Social Contract', published in 1762.  In which he speaks of 'general will' in relation to democracy.  Rousseau also speaks of 'The Sovereign', in this work, but does not mean an individual, such as a king or leader.  Instead he means that the people of a state, will form the sovereign and determine the general will.

Rousseau's democracy is a 'true' democracy, where all the people of the state come together to form the sovereign and determine what the 'general will' might be.  In Rousseau's world, this could lead to somebody who held a viewpoint that ran contrary to the general will, being 'forced to be free'.  E.g. being forced to act contrary to their own will and inclination.

Rousseau's argument for this system, was that if each individual is forced to vote alone, acting only for their own self-interest, then the result of such a vote, would be the best possible outcome for the state as a whole, as the majority of people would have their interests looked after.

The obvious downside of such an approach, would be that anybody who's viewpoint differed from the general will, would be forced to follow the general will, or presumably leave the state.  I do not believe that Rousseau himself offered any alternative to following the general will.