Idealism

Idealism . Philosophical current opposed to materialism in the way of resolving the fundamental Question of Philosophy . According to idealism, the spiritual, the immaterial has a primary character, and the material, a secondary character; This brings it closer to the theses of religion about the finite nature of the world in time and space and about its creation by God . Idealism sees consciousness outside of nature, thereby inevitably mystifying human consciousness and the process of knowledge ; As a general rule, he espouses skepticism and agnosticism .

Consequent idealism contrasts the theological point of view ( Theology ) with materialist determinism. Bourgeois philosophers use the term idealism in many senses, but the current itself is considered authentically philosophical. Marxism-Leninism demonstrates the inconsistency of the idealist point of view; However, in the face of metaphysical and vulgar materialism, which considers idealism only as absurd and nonsense, it emphasizes the existence of gnoseological roots in any specific form of idealism. The development of theoretical thinking means that the possibility of idealism – separation of concepts from their objects – already exists in the most basic abstraction. This possibility becomes a reality only in the conditions of a class society, where idealism arises as an extension, clothed in scientific form, of fantastic mythological and religious representations. Due to its social roots, idealism, in opposition to materialism, usually appears as a conception of the world of conservative and reactionary strata and classes not interested in the being being faithfully reflected, nor in the productive forces being developed and radically restructured. Social relations.

Summary

[ disguise ]

• 1 Definition
• 2 Representatives
  • 1 Plato
    • 1.1 Works
    • 1.2 Thinking
  • 2 Rene Descartes
    • 2.1 Thinking
  • 3 Nicolás Malebranche
    • 3.1 Thinking
  • 4 Godfrey William Leibniz
    • 4.1 Thinking
  • 5 Immanuel Kant
    • 5.1 Thinking
  • 6 Juan Teófilo Fichte
    • 6.1 Works
    • 6.2 Thinking
  • 7 Federico Guillermo José Schelling
    • 7.1 Works
    • 7.2 Thinking
  • 8 George William Frederick Hegel
    • 8.1 Works
    • 8.2 Thinking
  • 3 Classes
    • 1 Absolute Idealism
    • 2 Subjective Idealism
    • 3 Objective Idealism
    • 4 Transcendental Idealism
  • 4 I
  • 5 News
  • 6 Philosophy of “integrity” (Integrism)
  • 7 Sources

Definition

It was Leibniz who used the term idealist when referring to Plato and other authors for whom reality is the form or the idea. These idealist or formalist authors hold doctrines different from those already proposed by other authors, such as, for example, Epicurus , described as a materialist. The idealist philosophy of modern times is also based on ideas, although the modern meaning of the idea is not always the same as that of Platonism, but we cannot separate it from its ancient meaning.

Some authors consider that it is a mistake to attribute the paternity of idealism to Plato, since although in Plato there is a theory of ideas, it is an exaggeratedly realistic idealism. Idealism as a doctrine is opposed to realism and reduces what we can perceive through the senses and that is accessible to mere thought, since for this current what cannot yet be seen can be understood. “Idealism seeks to reduce the world to an activity of the spirit… it seeks to identify the real with the rational, the object with the subject or consciousness.”

Representatives

Plato

He was born in Athens in 429 BC, from a noble family, belonging to the highest aristocracy. His proper name was Aristocles. He received an excellent education , as befitted his high social status. He also studied mathematics and music , and also cultivated poetry . He received his first lessons from Cratylus and then from Socrates . His philosophical method is dialectic . He died when he was 82 years old, in 347 BC, being buried in the garden of the Academy.

Plays

“The Dialogues”, “Criton”, “Phaedo”, “Phaedrus”, “Gorgias”, “The Symposium”, “The Republic”, among many others.

Thought

Plato takes Socrates’ method, very soon complementing it in a double sense. For Plato “about nascent and perishable things we have sensible knowledge, opinion; of what is, of consistent reality, we can achieve intelligible knowledge, science . In the area of ​​science there are two degrees of knowledge: Reasoning or reason, which Its object is mathematical beings, numbers that, although universal, are concretized and realized in particular beings, and philosophical knowledge or intelligence, which through dialectics, ascends to the intuitive contemplation of ideas, that is, of essences. absolutes or unconditioned realities”. In reality, it is quite difficult to explain Plato’s thought according to the common concept of philosophy. Plato seeks to respond to a large set of problems that have already been posed since the pre-Socratics, but that when illuminated by his genius acquire a new and deeper meaning.

For him, philosophy is a company in which the ultimate destiny of man comes into play, linked to virtue. Plato “tends rather to affirm that man can truly know, and tries above all to find out what the genuine object of knowledge is.” Plato inherited from Socrates, his teacher, the conviction that knowledge is possible, understanding this as objective and universally valid knowledge. In his work “The Theaetetus” Plato’s method consists of dialectically seeking a clear exposition of the theory of knowledge. Without a doubt, all of Plato’s thought, like his entire life, revolves around a strong effort towards the absolute and transcendent. “For Plato, the object of true knowledge must be stable and permanent, fixed, capable of clear and scientific definition.”

Rene Descartes

Thought

It is obvious that Descartes ‘ fundamental objective was the achievement of philosophical truth through the use of reason. He became interested in developing a method, since for him it is not enough to have talent, but one must learn to use it well. Descartes in his philosophy always tried to exclude impressions and knowledge through the senses, since according to him, to reach a truth it is essential to completely distance oneself from the senses and seclude oneself only in one’s intellectual interiority in order to, through reason, arrive at a truth and preserve oneself from error.

When searching for the truth, one is left with only reason, since it functions detached from the entire world of experience, rigorously starting from clear and distinct ideas. Start from the idea to reach reality.

For Descartes there are three kinds of ideas and he chooses from among them one that gives him more security when philosophizing, so that it is a solid foundation and he takes it as a starting point for his deduction:

• The ideas acquired come from the sensitive experience of teaching or dealing with others. “Descartes denies that the senses know or the validity of knowledge, but he ignores them, because he does not consider them absolutely safe or certain.”
• Artificial ideas or ideas created by ourselves, through our imagination.
• Natural or innate ideas, which do not come from the senses nor have they been developed by us, but come from God. He infuses them directly into our understanding. “They are evident, intuitive… and true, because they come from God and are guaranteed by his truth.”

Intuition is a direct perception of ideas that excludes all doubt and error. Intuition makes ideas present to intelligence, and it directly intuits itself and its own ideas.

Nicolas Malebranche

Thought

It is Cartesian in the expository order of the system. For him, ideas do not come from objects, nor are they produced by the subject. A finite spirit can never be the subject of infinite ideas: “all our clear ideas are in God, as his intelligible reality.” The only one who enjoys a perfection not inferior to the immutability, necessity, eternity and infinity of ideas is God. For him, God is the one who makes a person know inaccessible things.

Godfrey William Leibniz

Thought

It defines substance as any center of force, energy and activity. For him, substances are infinite and make up the metaphysical structure of beings, which he calls “Monads”: “The monad has no parts, it does not have extension, figure or divisibility. A thing does not have a figure unless it is extensive, nor “it can be divisible unless it has extension. But a simple thing cannot be extensive, since simplicity and extension are incompatible.”

Monads are the constitutive principles of things. “Monadology allows Leibniz to solve the problems of innate ideas, which were decisive for the philosophical speculation of the century.” In fact, he accepts empiricism which maintains that there is nothing in the understanding that has not passed through the senses, and this applies to everything, except the intellect itself.

Immanuel Kant

Thought

He says that “our knowledge derives in the spirit from two fundamental sources: the first is the receptivity of impressions; the second, the faculty of recognizing an object through these representations.”

Thought, then, results from the conjunction of both faculties. Intuition and concept make up all the elements of our knowledge. The Kantian idea is the possibility of existence that determines the use of understanding in the whole of complete experience.

Juan Teófilo Fichte

He was born in Rammennau in 1762 , and died in Berlin in 1814 . He from proletarian parents. He studied at the University of Jena , where he became a professor, having Schelling and Hegel as colleagues . Accused of atheism, he was dismissed from his professorship; He went to Berlin where he dedicated himself to private teaching and cultivated relationships with the romantics, there he died of typhus, infected by his wife.

Plays

“Essays on a critique of all revelation”, “Foundations of the doctrine of science”, “Foundations of natural law according to the principles of the doctrine of science”, “System of moral philosophy according to the principles of the doctrine of science “, “On the foundation of our faith in a divine government of the world”, “The destiny of man “, “The closed commercial state”, “Address to the German nation”, among others.

Thought

For Fichte , idealism is any philosophy that starts from a reflection on reality, although strictly speaking, idealism is the system that denies the existence of things outside of thought. It is with him that idealism bursts into German philosophy, by exalting the human self it breaks the barriers of critical rationalism.

“He maintains that the principle of reality is the self, which constructs the formal and material part of knowledge. Everything that is put into the self is created by the self. Reality is deducible from the self.”

For Fichte, the real is the product of subjective activity and being is founded on intelligence: “the first principle of philosophy is precisely this pure or transcendental self.”

Federico Guillermo José Schelling

He was born in Leonberg in 1775 and died in Bad-Ragaz in 1854 . He is one of the leading figures of German idealism. He studied with Hegel and Hölderling at the Protestant Seminary in Tübingen .

Plays

“Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature”, “Treatise on the Soul of the World”, “The First Sketch of a System of Philosophy of Nature”, “Philosophy and Religion”, “System of Transcendental Idealism”.

Thought

Schelling is the one who takes the step from subjective to objective idealism, already accentuating the idea of ​​the absolute. For him “the complete system of science starts from the absolute self.” Properly, intelligence only captures what is intelligible.

For him, there are only two philosophies: dogmatism, which admits things in themselves; and idealism, which only admits contents of conscience.

George William Frederick Hegel

He was born in Stuttgart in 1770 , to a wealthy Protestant family. He did his first studies at the Gymnasium in his hometown. He later studied philosophy and theology in Tübingen. From 1783 to 1800 he was a private teacher (privatdozent), first in Bern , with an aristocratic family, and later in Frankfurt on the Main . He was also editor of a Bamberg newspaper , and later rector of the Nuremberg Gymnasium . In 1816 he was appointed professor at Heidelberg, and in 1818 called by the University of Berlin , where he died in 1831 .

Plays

His main works are: “Phenomenology of the Spirit” ( 1807 ), “Science of Logic” ( 1812 – 1816 ), “Encyclopedia of philosophical sciences” ( 1817 ), “Fundamental features of the philosophy of law” (1820). They should also be remembered, among the courses published by his disciples: “Philosophy of universal history”, “Philosophy of religion”, “History of Philosophy”.

Thought

In Hegel, philosophy is science of man about the absolute itself. “Thinking is different from knowing. Knowing is knowing what things are; it has an essential moment that refers to things…”. Hegel distinguishes mere information (history) and conceptual knowledge, in which I have the concepts of things (this would be the sciences in which there is effective knowledge). But absolute knowledge is needed.

The dialectic of the spirit according to Hegel, goes through a series of stages before reaching absolute knowledge. For him the subject is a spirit that knows itself.

The philosophy of spirit follows the “Being itself” (Idea), which has returned from its other Being through the stages of Subjective, Objective and Absolute Spirit. The system represents the self-development of the Absolute Spirit until its realization in the totality of reality, through a dialectical process of thesis, antithesis and synthesis.

Classes

Absolute Idealism

What the theory of science aims to do is develop the system of the necessary ways of representing and knowing, thus wanting to be a first philosophy or fundamental ontology. That was what Kant ultimately wanted to achieve, with his transcendental deduction of the pure concepts of understanding. In a way, Fichte locates himself at that point in Kant’s thought, which in fact he wants to complete, “since in his opinion Kant has stayed halfway.” According to Kant, Fichte has taken the categories of experience, and in no way will he be able to demonstrate that these categories form “the system of the necessary forms of acting” and that they are only a form of pure intelligence. What Fichte expresses is something exact.

In Fichte the spirit is everything. We thus find the fundamental premise of absolute idealism, a defined philosophy of the spirit: “The absolute is the universal and unique idea that, judging and discerning, is specified in the system of particular ideas.” Absolute Idealism is thinking, being and truth, everything is similar to the spirit. In Hegel this idealism is exposed by saying that everything comes from the Idea and its becoming.

Subjective Idealism

The starting point is Kant’s Idealism; but it is the Kant of Practical Reason that is revealed to Fichte as the true Kant. Fichte is not interested in being and the cosmos, since Kant saw absolute value in man. The man is everything. Fichte’s SELF is the original source of all cosmic beings. Kant’s Idealism was a critical idealism, for Fichte it was drawing boundaries for the cognitive and volitional SELF where there are no limits; This is why we call subjective this idealism that reduces each and every thing to the subject, which is everything. Kant saw absolute value in man, but for him there would be something more than man, now man is everything. “Fichte’s Ego is the original source of all cosmic being.”

Objective Idealism

Schelling discovers behind the being, the spirit, as authentic being and source of becoming. But this spirit being independent of our “I”. It is in this way that we arrive at objective idealism, expounded mainly by Schelling. Schelling started from Fichte’s infinite self and the Spinocian substance to harmonize them with his Absolute self, giving rise to the principle of objective infinity. The proposition from which all science begins is: “I am I.” There is no subject without object nor object without subject and its link is representation, since the absolute self must be thought. The main role of philosophy is to solve the problem of the existence of the world, and this is only solved taking into account the identity between subject and object whose distinction must transcend the absolute.

Transcendental Idealism

In the a prioriism of form Kant saw the revolutionary character of his philosophy. Until now it was admitted that all our knowledge had to be governed by objects; Kant inverts the terms, establishing that objects must be governed by our knowledge. This is what is known in Kant as his Copernican turn. In addition to founding mathematics as a science, the Transcendental Aesthetic has another very important consequence for Kant: “we have sufficiently proven that everything that is intuited in space or time, that is, all the objects of a possible experience for us, are not It is something other than phenomena, that is, simple representations that (…) have no self-founded existence outside of our thought» (Cf. Critique of Judgment).

What Kant means is the following: we can only know things to the extent that they are subject to the forms of our sensitivity, and since space and time are not real properties of things but something established by the subject, It is evident that we can never know things as they are in themselves, but only things as they appear to us. What appears to the subject, Kant calls “phenomenon”, and the thing in itself, “noumenon”. Using this terminology, we can summarize what we have been saying: we cannot know the noumenon, but only the phenomena. Things in themselves, precisely because they are in themselves and not in us, are unknowable.

To this doctrine, according to which we know all phenomena as simple representations and not as things in themselves, Kant gives the name “transcendental idealism.”

I

Main article: I (Philosophy)

Central concept of numerous idealistic systems that present the subject as a primary, active and ordering factor. In such systems, the “I” is understood as a completely independent bearer of psychic particularities. Starting with Descartes, the concept of “I” was linked to the problem of the “principle” in the constitution of philosophical systems. According to Descartes, the intuitive principle of rational thought, the “I” belongs to the thinking substance.

Hume , who rejected all substance, reduced the “I” to a “har” of perceptions. In Kant , the pure “I”, opposed to the individual empirical, appears as a transcendental unit of apperception and as the bearer of the categorical imperative. Fichte believes that the “I” is an absolutely creative principle, which presupposes itself and also presupposes everything that exists as the non-“I”. Hegel , as an objective idealist, refuted these attempts to start from the “I”, but interpreted it as a pure unity of objective self-consciousness. The “I” is assigned an absolute character in the newest subjective idealist tendencies (among others, empiriocriticism , neopositivism and existentialism ).

The extreme form of the subjective idealist conception of the “I” occurs in solipsism. Freud biologizes man and disintegrates him into “I” and “super-Ego.” To the irrationalist interpretation of the “I”, Marxism contrasts the materialist conception of man. Seeing the essence of the human “I” exclusively in social relations, Marxism demonstrates that man (the person) crowns, precisely, the development of all nature because he is the sole creator of his social relations, of all material culture and spiritual.

Present

Today, idealism is very distorted, because with the advance of science and technology in general, what can be demonstrated, the tangible and mathematical, gains much more ground. The term idealist is even used in a pejorative way, giving it a connotation of the which is illogical, and impossible to do.

Idealism as a scientific method is highly questioned today, because it admits that what cannot be seen can be understood; But for today’s man what rules is “seeing is believing”, “seeing is understanding”.

The idea continues to be a very important part within all the sciences, which is accepted and placed as important, even fundamental, the problem lies in how to transfer these ideas to tangible substances, how to objectify them without passing to materialism.

Idealism contemplates that materialism reduces knowledge, denying the spiritual, intangible part; For materialism, idealism is ethereal, abstract knowledge, difficult or impossible to objectify.

There continue to be philosophical, scientific, social and religious disciplines that base their knowledge on idealism, the theoretical world of statistics, consultations and speculations; these disciplines are increasingly less valid and more questioned and ignored.

It could be said that idealism is only a reference, a projective goal, but not a concrete means of knowledge and truth. Today’s man aims toward idealism, but knowing the impossibility of reaching it, he encrypts his truth in realism or other empiricist or materialist methods.

Certainly our world is not idealistic, although it is not unknown at all, it must be admitted that it is not the path of knowledge that satisfies the expectations and searches of modern man.

Philosophy of “integrity” (Integrism)

Variety of idealist philosophy, founded by the English Marshal Jan Christiaan Smuts (May 24, 1870 – September 11, 1950).

It is a reactionary system based on the mystical falsification of the principle of unity and mutual bond. By underlining the priority of the “whole” in relation to the “part”, and the impossibility of reducing the whole to its constituent parts, this philosophy gives the notion of integrity an idealistic and mystical meaning; the universe is considered as a hierarchy of mystical “integrities.” Smuts draws manifestly reactionary political conclusions from his philosophy: he sings the praises of British colonialism, he demands the docility of nations and classes subject to servitude in the name of a supposedly superior “integrity.”