Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer emerged from the German Idealist movement. This school of Philosophy was partly influenced by post-revolution French Romanticism, and partly a reaction to British Empiricism, which they despised, believing it had damaged Metaphysics as a worthwhile pursuit.
KANT
Wrote 'A Critique of Pure Reason', in which he discussed how humans acquire knowledge. He argued that knowledge comes both from logical reasoning and also ideas with no foundation in logic, but all knowledge comes from experience.
Logical knowledge comes in two forms - 'synthetic' and 'analytic'.
Synthetic knowledge is that which we only know to be true by experience, which can be stated without evidence other than experience. Analytic knowledge is that which is known to be true based on the concept of contradiction, for example "an equilateral triangle is a triangle" is true, as to say it was not true would be self-contradictory.
Kant then divided synthetic knowledge, into that which we know 'empirically', and that which we know 'a priori'.
Empirical knowledge is that which relies upon sensory data, whether our own or that of another. History, Geography and the laws of Science all are examples of such knowledge, as they have been experienced through senses and recorded. A priori knowledge however may be first understood through sensory perception, however need not be every time, knowledge which can be learnt through the senses but has a certainty which surpasses the need for assurance. Mathematics is an example, as 2 + 2 = 4 is true, regardless of whether there is a physical example of it.
Here we return, as we always seem to in HCJ, to issues of causality.
Kant accepted Hume's proof that the law of causality is not analytic, and as such its truth could not be guaranteed. Kant accepted it to be synthetic, but also believed it was a priori, and so set about trying to prove that something could be both synthetic and a priori. It took him 12 years, but he cracked it.
Basically, it is the world itself which causes sensation, but we interpret it through our mental apparatus. It is our eyes and our minds which interpret what we experience and order them into space and time, concepts which we understand. The things which themselves cause our sensation cannot be truly known, as they are not in space and time, it is our interpretation which places them there. The example Russell uses is that if you always wore blue glasses, everything would appear blue, however the objects themselves would not necessarilly be blue, that would simply be ones interpretation and perspective. Kant says that space and time are not concepts, they are forms of intuition. There are also a priori concepts, which comprise Kant's 12 'categories'. Theses categories are divided into four sets of three
1 - of quantity: unity, plurality, totality.
2 - of quality: reality, negation, limitation.
3 - of relation: substance-and-accident, cause-and-effect, reciprocity.
4 - of modality: possibility, existence, necessity.
Kant maintains that, if we attempt to apply space and time, or the categories, to things that have not been experienced, we are troubled by 'antinomies' - mutually contradictory propositions, each of which can apparently be proved.
Kant gives four examples, each of which consists of a thesis and an antithesis.
1 - Thesis - 'the world has a beginning in time, and is also limited as regards space'
Antithesis - 'the world has no beginnings in time and no limit in space; it is infinite as regards both time and space'
2 - proves that every composite substance both is, and is not, made up of simple parts.
3 - Thesis - there are two kinds of causality, one according to the laws of nature, the other of freedom.
Antithesis - there is only one causality according to the laws of nature.
4 - proves that there is, and is not, an aboslutely necessary Being.
This is the part of the Critique that greatly influenced...
HEGEL
Hegel is in many ways a bridge between Kant and Marx, two of the most influential philosophers of the 20th Century. This is not to say that Hegel was not himself important.
Hegel believed that we were not viewing the world in its truest sense as it must be viewed as a whole.
Hegel's system relies on two forms of logic:
- that which is not self-contradictory.
- that which fits in the dialectic triad.
The dialectic triad was used by Hegel to discover the true nature of reality, and was composed of three elements: the thesis, the antithesis and the synthesis of the two.
In this case, the thesis was that the whole is a "pure being" because it has no purpose other than containing all that is within it.
The anithesis is that the absolute cannot exist without properties, so the absolute is nothing.
The synthesis is that, as the whole is both 'pure being' and 'nothing', it is 'becoming'.
In Hegel's view this makes the whole of nature "becoming", and lead to him saying "change is the only constant".
Scientifically speaking, Hegel was bang on, as our cells are constantly dying and being replaced. Despite the constant change though, everything retains its "geist", the soul or being of an object. As an example, if you took an existing ship and replaced every single plank on the ship, it would remain the ship, even though all constituent parts had been replaced. Similarly, the Universe must have a geist, despite its constant change. According to Hegel, the purpose of the geist is to know itself.
Right, that seems to be the important bits covered.
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