|
Absolute idealism is an ontologically monistic philosophy attributed to G.W.F. Hegel. It is Hegel's account of how being is ultimately comprehensible as an all-inclusive whole. Hegel asserted that in order for the thinking subject (human reason or consciousness) be able to know its object (the world) at all, there must be in some sense an identity of thought and being. Otherwise, the subject would never have access to the object and we would have no certainty about any of our knowledge of the world. To account for the differences between thought and being, however, as well as the richness and diversity of each, the unity of thought and being cannot be expressed as the abstract identity "A=A". Absolute idealism is the attempt to demonstrate this unity using a new "speculative" philosophical method, which requires new concepts and rules of logic. According to Hegel, the absolute ground of being is essentially a dynamic, historical process of necessity that unfolds by itself in the form of increasingly complex forms of being and of consciousness, ultimately giving rise to all the diversity in the world and in the concepts with which we think and make sense of the world. Image File history File links Please see the file description page for further information. ...
Neo-Hegelianism is a school (or schools) of thought associated and inspired by the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, a German idealist philosopher active around the year 1800. ...
In philosophy, ontology (from the Greek , genitive : of being (part. ...
Monism is the metaphysical position that all is of one essential essence, substance or energy. ...
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 - November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ...
In ontology, a being is anything that can be said to be, either transcendantly or immanently. ...
The self is a key construct in several schools of psychology. ...
In philosophy, an object is a thing, an entity, or a being. ...
In philosophy, identity is whatever makes an entity definable and recognizable, in terms of possessing a set of qualities or characteristics that distinguish it from entities of a different type. ...
A concept is an abstract idea or a mental symbol, typically associated with a corresponding representation in language or symbology, that denotes all of the objects in a given category or class of entities, interactions, phenomena, or relationships between them. ...
Teachings
If we try to conceive and explain the Absolute using ordinary language and traditional Aristotelian logic, we will always fall short. We can try to describe it using abstract ideas, but any concept will inadequately describe what that Absolute is and will give rise to a consideration of its opposite. For instance if we hold that the absolute is in fact infinity, then that would mean that the finite would not be part of it, but finity is just as much a part of that underlying absolute as infinity is. In absolute idealism, the absolute is asserted to be the unity and ground of both concepts, in that every concept has a necessary relation to its opposite. Hegel contends that this relation to the opposite is present in every way we relate to an object, from an 'immediate' relation to what presents itself in front of my eyes this very moment, to considering the idea of God, or art for example. The Absolute is the totality of things, all that is, whether it has been discovered or not. ...
This article or section is not written in the formal tone expected of an encyclopedia article. ...
For Hegel, the interaction of opposites generates in dialectical fashion all concepts we use in order to understand the world. Moreover, this development occurs not only in the individual mind, but also through history. In the Phenomenology of Spirit, for example, Hegel presents a history of human consciousness as a journey through stages of explanations of the world. Each successive explanation created problems and oppositions within itself, leading to tensions which could only be overcome by adopting a view that could accommodate these oppositions in a higher unity. At the base of spirit lies a rational development. This means that the absolute itself is exactly that rational development. The assertion that "All reality is spirit" means that all of reality rationally orders itself and while doing so creates the oppositions we find in it. Even nature is not different from the spirit since it itself is ordered by the determinations given to us by spirit. Nature, as that which is not spirit is so determined by spirit, therefore it follows that nature is not absolutely other, but understood as other and therefore not essentially alien. In classical philosophy, dialectic (Greek: διαλεκτική) is an exchange of propositions (theses) and counter-propositions (antitheses) resulting in a synthesis of the opposing assertions, or at least a qualitative transformation in the direction of the dialogue. ...
Look up assertion in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...
Galunggung in 1982, showing a combination of natural events. ...
The aim of Hegel was to show that we do not relate to the world as if it is other from us, but that we continue to find ourselves back into that world. With the realisation that both my mind and the world are ordered according to the same rational principles, our access to the world has been made secure, a security which was lost after Kant proclaimed the 'Ding an sich' to be ultimately inaccessible.
The Absolute Idealist position should be distinguished from Berkeleyan Idealism (Berkeley), Transcendental Idealism (Kant), subjective idealism (Fichte), and Objective Idealism (Schelling). George Berkeley (IPA: ) (12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley, was an influential Irish philosopher whose primary philosophical achievement is the advancement of a theory dubbed immaterialism by Berkeley himself (also later called subjective idealism). This theory, summed up in his dictum, Esse est percipi (To...
Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. ...
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 – February 12, 1804) was a Prussian philosopher, generally regarded as one of Europes most influential thinkers and the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment. ...
Subjective idealism is a theory in the philosophy of perception. ...
Johann Gottlieb Fichte Johann Gottlieb Fichte (May 19, 1762 - January 27, 1814) has significance in the history of Western philosophy as one of the progenitors of German idealism and as a follower of Kant. ...
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (January 27, 1775 - August 20, 1854) was a German philosopher. ...
German Idealism -
German Idealism was a philosophical movement in Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. ...
References
British idealism British idealism does not refer to all idealist philosophers who happened to be British (e.g. Berkeley), but rather to a philosophical movement that was influential in Britain from the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth century. The leading figures in the movement were T.H. Green (1836-1882), F.H. Bradley (1846-1924), and Bernard Bosanquet (1848-1923). They were succeeded by the second generation of J. M. E. McTaggart, H. H. Joachim, J. H. Muirhead, and G. R. G. Mure. The doctrines of British idealism so provoked the young Cambridge philosophers G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell that they gave birth to analytic philosophy. Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...
(19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar (often from (1900 to 1999 in common usage). ...
&t:For the actor Thomas Hill see Thomas Hill. ...
Francis Herbert Bradley (30 January 1846 - 18 September 1924) was a British philosopher. ...
Bernard Bosanquet (July 14, 1848, Alnwick, Northumberland, England – February 8, 1923, London) was one of the chief philosophers in England who helped revive the idealism of G.W.F. Hegel. ...
John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart (1866-1925) was the leading Hegel scholar in England at the beginning of the 20th Century, and friend and teacher of Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore. ...
Harold Henry Joachim (1868-1938) was a British idealist philosopher. ...
John Henry Muirhead (April 28, 1855 - May 24, 1940) was a British philosopher best known for having initiated the Muirhead Library of Philosophy in 1890. ...
George Edward Moore George Edward Moore, also known as G.E. Moore, (November 4, 1873 - October 24, 1958) was a distinguished and hugely influential English philosopher who was educated and taught at the University of Cambridge. ...
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell OM FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician and advocate for social reform. ...
Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to prominence during the 20th Century. ...
Though much more variegated than some commentaries would seem to suggest, British idealism was generally marked by several broad tendencies: a belief in an Absolute (a single all-encompassing reality that in some sense formed a coherent and all-inclusive system); the assignment of a high place to reason as both the faculty by which the Absolute's structure is grasped and as that structure itself; and a fundamental unwillingness to accept a dichotomy between thought and object, reality consisting of thought-and-object together in a strongly coherent unity. The Absolute is the totality of things, all that is, whether it has been discovered or not. ...
It has been suggested that reasoning be merged into this article or section. ...
British idealism largely developed from the German Idealist movement -- particularly such philosophers as Immanuel Kant and G.W.F. Hegel, who were characterised by Green, among others, as the salvation of British philosophy after the alleged demise of empiricism. The movement was certainly a reaction against the thinking of John Locke, David Hume, John Stuart Mill, Henry Sidgwick, and other empiricists and utilitarians. Some of those involved would have denied any specific influence, particularly in respect of Hegel. Nevertheless, James Hutchison Stirling's book The Secret of Hegel is believed to have won significant converts in Britain. German Idealism was a philosophical movement in Germany in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. ...
Immanuel Kant (22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804), was a German philosopher from Königsberg in East Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). ...
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 - November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ...
In philosophy generally, empiricism is a theory of knowledge emphasizing the role of experience in the formation of ideas, while discounting the notion of innate ideas. ...
This article is about John Locke, the English philosopher. ...
David Hume (April 26, 1711 – August 25, 1776)[1] was a Scottish philosopher, economist, and historian. ...
John Stuart Mill (20th May 1806 – 8th May 1873), a British philosopher and political economist, was an influential liberal thinker of the 19th century. ...
Henry Sidgwick Henry Sidgwick (May 31, 1838–August 28, 1900) was an English philosopher. ...
Utilitarianism (1861), see Utilitarianism (book). ...
James Hutchison Stirling (1820 - 1909), philosopher, born in Glasgow, and educated there and at Edinburgh, where he studied medicine, which he practised until the death of his father in 1851, after which he devoted himself to philosophy. ...
The Secret of Hegel: Being the Hegelian System in Origin Principle, Form and Matter (Reprints in Philosophy) by James Hutchison Stirling 2nd Revision edition (June 1901) ISBN 0697000583 An important work which influenced many British philosophers and helped to create the movement known as British idealism. ...
British idealism was influenced by Hegel at least in broad outline, and undeniably adopted some of Hegel's terminology and doctrines. Examples include not only the aforementioned Absolute, but also a doctrine of internal relations, a coherence theory of truth, and a concept of a concrete universal. Some commentators have also pointed to a sort of dialectical structure in e.g. some of the writings of Bradley. But none of the British idealists adopted Hegel's philosophy wholesale, and his most significant writings on logic seem to have found no purchase whatsoever in their thought (nor in British thought generally). This is the philosophical doctrine that all relations are internal to their bearers, in the sense that they are essential to them and the bearers would not be what they are without them. ...
Coherentism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ...
Universals (used as a noun) are either properties, relations, or types, but not classes. ...
Logic, from Classical Greek λόγος logos (the word), is the study of the principles and criteria of valid inference and demonstration. ...
On its political side, the British idealists were largely concerned to refute what they regarded as a brittle and "atomistic" form of individualism, as espoused by e.g. Herbert Spencer. In their view, humans are fundamentally social beings in a manner and to a degree not adequately recognized by Spencer and his followers. The British Idealists did not, however, reify the State in the manner that Hegel apparently did; Green in particular spoke of the individual as the sole locus of value and contended that the State's existence was justified only insofar as it contributed to the realization of value in the lives of individual persons. Individualism is a term used to describe a moral, political, or social outlook that stresses human independence and the importance of individual self-reliance and liberty. ...
Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English philosopher and prominent classic-liberal political theorist. ...
The hold of British idealism in the UK weakened when Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore, who were educated in the British idealist tradition, turned against it. Moore in particular delivered what quickly came to be accepted as conclusive arguments against Idealism. At that point British philosophy in general revolted once more against metaphysics in general. The later work of R.G. Collingwood was a relatively isolated exception. Among present-day UK philosophers the best-known exponent of absolute idealism is probably Timothy L.S. Sprigge. Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell OM FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician and advocate for social reform. ...
George Edward Moore George Edward Moore, also known as G.E. Moore, (November 4, 1873 - October 24, 1958) was a distinguished and hugely influential English philosopher who was educated and taught at the University of Cambridge. ...
Plato and Aristotle (right), by Raphael (Stanza della Segnatura, Rome). ...
Robin George Collingwood (February 22, 1889 - January 9, 1943), British philosopher and historian. ...
Timothy L.S. Sprigge (1932- ) is a British idealist philosopher who has spent most of his career at the University of Edinburgh. ...
British idealism's influence in the United States was somewhat limited. The early thought of Josiah Royce had something of a neo-Hegelian cast, as did that of a handful of his less famous contemporaries. The American rationalist Brand Blanshard was so strongly influenced by Bradley, Bosanquet, and Green (and other British philosophers) that he could almost be classified as a British philosopher himself. Even this limited influence, though, did not last out the twentieth century. Josiah Royce (November 20, 1855, Grass Valley, California. ...
Percy Brand Blanshard (August 27, 1892, Fredericksburg, Ohio – 1987) was an American philosopher known primarily for his defense of reason. ...
(19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s The 20th century lasted from 1901 to 2000 in the Gregorian calendar (often from (1900 to 1999 in common usage). ...
References - William Ritchie Sorley, A History of British Philosophy to 1900, is an idiosyncratic account of the British tradition centred in British Idealism, first published 1920 as A History of English Philosophy
William Ritchie Sorley (4 November 1855- 28 July 1935) was a British philosopher. ...
Criticisms Exponents of analytic philosophy, which has been the dominant form of Anglo-American philosophy for most of the last century, have criticised Hegel's work as hopelessly obscure. Existentialists also criticise Hegel for ultimately choosing an essentialistic whole over the particularity of existence. Epistemologically, one of the main problems plaguing Hegel's system is how these thought determinations have bearing on reality as such. A perennial problem of his metaphysics seems to be the question of how spirit externalises itself and how the concepts it generates can say anything true about nature. At the same time, they will have to, because otherwise Hegel's system concepts would say nothing about something that is not itself a concept and the system would come down to being only an intricate game involving vacuous concepts. Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to prominence during the 20th Century. ...
Existentialism is a philosophical movement in which individual human beings are understood as having full responsibility for creating the meanings of their own lives. ...
Schopenhauer Schopenhauer noted that Hegel created his absolute idealism after Kant had discredited all proofs of God's existence. The Absolute is a non-personal substitute for the concept of God. It is the one subject that perceives the universe as one object. Individuals share in parts of this perception. Since the universe exists as an idea in the mind of the Absolute, it copies Spinoza's panentheism in which everything is in God or Nature. Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer (February 22, 1788 – September 21, 1860) was a German philosopher born in Gdańsk (Danzig), Poland. ...
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 - November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ...
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 – February 12, 1804) was a Prussian philosopher, generally regarded as one of Europes most influential thinkers and the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment. ...
This article discusses the term God in the context of monotheism and henotheism. ...
Universe is a word derived from the Old French univers, which in turn comes from the Latin roots unus (one) and versus (a form of vertere, to turn). Based on observations of the observable universe, physicists attempt to describe the whole of space-time, including all matter and energy and...
In psychology and the cognitive sciences, perception is the process of acquiring, interpreting, selecting, and organizing sensory information. ...
Universe is a word derived from the Old French univers, which in turn comes from the Latin roots unus (one) and versus (a form of vertere, to turn). Based on observations of the observable universe, physicists attempt to describe the whole of space-time, including all matter and energy and...
An idea (Greek: ιδÎα) is a specific thought which arises in the mind. ...
For other uses, see Mind (disambiguation). ...
Baruch Spinoza Benedictus de Spinoza (November 24, 1632 - February 21, 1677), named Baruch Spinoza by his synagogue elders and known as Bento de Spinoza or Bento dEspiñoza in the community in which he grew up. ...
Panentheism (from Greek: πάν (‘pan’ ) = all, en = in, and theos = God; all-in-God) is the theological position that God is immanent within the Universe, but also transcends it. ...
Galunggung in 1982, showing a combination of natural events. ...
Moore and Russell Famously, G.E. Moore’s rebellion against absolutism found expression in his defense of common sense against the radically counter-intuitive conclusions of absolutism (e.g. time is unreal, change is unreal, separateness is unreal, imperfection is unreal, etc.). G.E. Moore also pioneered the use of logical analysis against the absolutists, which Bertrand Russell promulgated and began the entire tradition of analytic philosophy with its use against the philosophies of his direct predecessors. In recounting his own mental development Russell reports, "For some years after throwing over [absolutism] I had an optimistic riot of opposite beliefs. I thought that whatever Hegel had denied must be true." (Russell in Barrett and Adkins 1962, p.477) Also: G.E. Moore took the lead in the rebellion, and I followed, with a sense of emancipation. [Absolutism] argued that everything common sense believes in is mere appearance. We reverted to the opposite extreme, and thought that everything is real that common sense, uninfluenced by philosophy or theology, supposes real. – Bertrand Russell; as quoted in Klemke 2000, p.28 Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell OM FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician and advocate for social reform. ...
Pragmatism Particularly the works of William James and F.C.S. Schiller, both founding members of pragmatism, made lifelong assaults on Absolute Idealism. James was particularly concerned with the monism that Absolute Idealism engenders, and the consequences this has for the problem of evil, free will, and moral action. Schiller rather attacked Absolute Idealism for being too disconnected with our practical lives, and that its proponents failed to realize thought are merely tools for action rather than for making discoveries about an abstract world that fails to have any impact on us. For other people named William James see William James (disambiguation) William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher. ...
German pragmatist very like William James. ...
Relation to religion Some form of idealism related to absolute idealism has been a consistent favorite standpoint for earlier religious thinkers and philosophers. It is present in the thinking of many important Christian theologians such as Meister Eckhart. It is also the basis of Advaita Hinduism and several forms of Buddhism, including Zen, Madhyamika, Yogacara, and some interpretations of Pure Land. Classifying these directions under the common denominator 'absolute idealism', though, would be incorrect, because it would blur distinctions which are necessary for comprehending these traditions in their own right. Christians believe that Jesus is the mediator of the New Covenant (see Hebrews 8:6). ...
Theology is literally rational discourse concerning God (Greek θεος, theos, God, + λογος, logos, rational discourse). By extension, it also refers to the study of other religious topics. ...
The Meister Eckhart portal of the Erfurt Church. ...
Advaita Vedanta is probably the best known of all Vedanta schools of Hinduism, the others being Dvaita and Vishishtadvaita. ...
Buddhism is a dharmic, non-theistic religion, which is also a philosophy and a system of psychology. ...
Zen is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that places great importance on moment-by-moment awareness and seeing deeply into the nature of things by direct experience. ...
Madhyamaka is a Buddhist philosophical tradition that asserts that all phenomena are empty of self-nature or essence (Sanskrit: Svabhāva), that they have no intrinsic, independent reality apart from the causes and conditions from which they arise. ...
YogÄcÄra (Sanskrit: yoga practice), also spelled yogÄchÄra, is an influential school of philosophy and psychology that developed in Indian Mahayana Buddhism starting sometime in the fourth to fifth centuries C.E., also commonly known as Consciousness-only (Sanskrit: CittamÄtra). ...
The Buddha Amitabha, 13th century, Kamakura, Japan. ...
Relation to science Absolute idealism or Hegelianism has influenced the Humanities to a great extent. In German they are called "Geisteswissenschaften" and in Dutch "Geesteswetenschappen", a direct influence of the Hegelian notion of spirit (Geist). In sociology for instance the position of important sociologist Ralph Dahrendorf is inspired by Hegel.
Lately American historian Francis Fukuyama was inspired by an alleged thesis of Hegel, namely the End of History, to write an immensely popular book. That Hegel proclaimed the end of history though is a myth popularised by the French Hegel interpreter Aleksandr Kojeve.
In many philosophic circles it is accepted that the philosophy of nature Hegel proposes is outdated, though it was state of the art when he proposed it. A full one third of Hegel's library consisted of hand books on natural science. Currently contributors like Houlgate argue that Hegel's philosophy of nature warrants closer attention and has been unjustifiably relegated to the dust bin of philosophy.
Influence Absolute idealism has greatly altered the philosophical landscape. Paradoxically, (though, from a Hegelian point of view, maybe not paradoxically at all) this influence is mostly felt in the strong opposition it engendered. Both logical positivism and analytic philosophy grew out of a rebellion against Hegelianism prevalent in England during the 19th century. Continental phenomenology, existentialism and post-modernism also seek to 'free themselves from Hegel's thought'. Martin Heidegger, one of the leading figures of Continental philosophy in the 20th century, sought to distance himself from Hegel's work. One of Heidegger's philosophical themes was "overcoming metaphysics". Logical positivism is a school of philosophy that combines empiricism—the idea that observational evidence is indispensable for knowledge of the world — with a version of rationalism—the idea that our knowledge includes a component that is not derived from observation. ...
Analytic philosophy is a generic term for a style of philosophy that came to prominence during the 20th Century. ...
This article is about the philosophical movement. ...
Existentialism is a philosophical movement in which individual human beings are understood as having full responsibility for creating the meanings of their own lives. ...
Postmodernism (sometimes abbreviated pomo) is a term applied to a wide-ranging set of developments in critical theory, philosophy, architecture, art, literature, and culture, which are generally characterized as either emerging from, in reaction to, or superseding, modernism. ...
Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976) (pronounced ) was an influential German philosopher, best known as the author of Being and Time (1927). ...
Continental philosophy is a term used in philosophy to designate one of two major traditions of modern Western philosophy. ...
See also Emanationism is a component in the cosmology or cosmogony of certain religious or philosophical systems that argue that a sentient, self-aware Supreme Being, born from an unmanifested The Absolute (Root of Existence) beyond comprehension, emanated lower and lower spiritual modalities and lastly matter (the physical universe) as the resultant...
Idealism is an approach to philosophical enquiry that asserts that everything we experience is of a mental nature. ...
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (April 22, 1724 – February 12, 1804) was a Prussian philosopher, generally regarded as one of Europes most influential thinkers and the last major philosopher of the Enlightenment. ...
In epistemology and in its broadest sense, rationalism is any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification (Lacey, 286). ...
Neutral monism, in philosophy, is the metaphysical view that nature consists of one kind (hence monism) of primal stuff, which in itself is neither mental nor physical, but is capable of mental and physical aspects or attributes. ...
Jorge Luis Borges short story has been widely translated. ...
Sources - Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (Garfield)
- Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Blackburn)
- A History of Christian Thought (Tillich)
- From Socrates to Sartre (Lavine)
- Hegel: Een inleidng (Ed. Ad Verbrugge et al) (in Dutch)
- Hegels Idealism, The Satisfactions of Self Consciousness (Pippin)
- Endings, Questions of Memory in Hegel and Heidegger (Ed. Mc Cumber, Comay)
|
Feeds |
Contact