Philosophy After Kant
Kant advanced philosophy by solving Hume's problem of skepticism but as we've seen it was only a partial solution. Kant had drawn definite limits to our knowledge but the way he did so seemed suspicious to some. In this chapter and the next two, I want to trace out several lines of thought that arose as a direct result of Kant's critical philosophy. In this chapter, we will address the resurgence of idealism and the rise of psychology. In the next, we'll address the resurgence of rationalism and in the third of this series, we discuss the rise of logical positivism and existentialism.
The resurgence of idealism can be explained, in part, by Kant's limit to pure reason. In saying that our knowledge extends only to objects of sense experience (phenomena) Kant has to postulate a transcendental realm (noumena). Furthermore, he maintains that this noumenal realm causes the phenomena we perceive. However, this seems to violate the very limit on reason Kant has set. Causality cannot extend beyond objects of sense experience. But, in saying that noumena cause phenomena he seems to do precisely that. What's worse, we've set ourselves the same trap that Locke fell into with representative realism. There's no way to test the claim that objects of sense experience correspond to objects independent of our observations. This seems to be an intractable problem of dualism; the metaphysics John Locke was advocating. If you remember, the last time we faced this problem the solution was idealism. Instead of claiming that our ideas were caused by objects, we postulated that our ideas were the objects. We have, in a sense, returned to that position, modified slightly, as German Idealism.
The first attempt to formulate this position was made by Johann Fichte. He recognized the problem we stated above and pointed out, further, that the very claim that noumenal objects exist violates the limits Kant placed on knowledge. Existence, after all, was merely one of the categories of the mind and could not apply to noumena. The only consistent solution is idealism. Rather than say that objects of sense experience are products of noumena, we have to say that objects of sense experience are products of the mind. Many philosophers in the 19th century saw the promise of this "new idealism" as a way to preserve the gains Kant had made in epistemology while advocating consistent metaphysics at the same time. Among these were Friedrich Schelling, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The most significant of these German Idealists was Hegel.
The irony of Hegel's philosophy is that, while it builds on the advances of Kant's critical philosophy, it also does the one thing Kant maintained was impossible. Kant argued that pure reason cannot give us speculative metaphysical knowledge of all reality. This is precisely what Hegel sets out to do with his "Absolute Idealism." In a similar fashion to Berkeley, Hegel postulates that all of reality is the product of an objective mind. It can't be our minds for the same reason Berkeley rejected this possibility. If reality were the product of our minds alone, things would be popping in and out of existence with our perceptions or absence of perceptions. That just isn't born out by our observations. Still, it won't do to say that objects have an independent existence from any mind. To postulate the existence of a material substance is equally inconsistent with the facts. No, the only solution is for reality to be the product of an objective, "absolute" mind.
Before you jump to the conclusion that Hegel, like Berkeley, is talking about God let me stop you. This absolute mind is not somehow separate from the reality we perceive. If it were we'd be right back to the problems Kant left us with. It’s not that some reality somewhere is causing the appearance of things here. No the appearance here is the reality. So, the absolute mind is reality itself; more precisely, it’s the unfolding of itself through the process which Hegel called dialectic. In this respect, Hegel's philosophy is more similar to Spinoza's than Berkeley's. However, in Hegel's view this one substance (which Spinoza, remember, called God), this Absolute Idea, is constantly unfolding and realizing itself through a dynamic process. As Hegel put it, "the world is a manifestation of absolute spirit."
Very briefly this process involves three stages which can be described in logical terms which seem appropriate for a process involving an unfolding idea. First in the process is the thesis. Second, is the opposite of its antithesis. These two stand in conflict until they resolve themselves into a higher synthesis. This higher synthesis then becomes a new thesis for the process to repeat constantly building on itself. A good example of this is the process of Being (thesis) and Nothing (antithesis) resolving into the higher synthesis of Becoming. Among other things, this dialectic process was to have a major impact on the Romantic Movement in art and literature. It was also to spark (if that's the right word for it!) major developments in our understanding of the basic theory of electromagnetism. At the time we thought they were irreconcilable opposites (thesis-antithesis) until a scientist named Maxwell figured out how to unite them (synthesis).
Hegel also recognized that this dialectical process also applied to history. Given that the nature of reality is a gradual unfolding of the Absolute Idea this seemed natural. So, we can view the progression of events in terms of the thesis-antithesis-synthesis triad. Good examples of this can be seen in the history of philosophy. We began with an investigation of Platonic rationalism (thesis) then proceeded to Aristotle's empiricism (antithesis). These conflicting views were resolved into the higher synthesis of Cartesian philosophy. Then Descartes' rationalism became the thesis to compare with the antithesis of British empiricism. The synthesis, of course, was Kant's critical philosophy. And so it goes. This application of dialectics to history was to influence more than just philosophy. It was to have major consequences in the 20th century when it was combined with materialism. The author of this brainchild, Dialectical Materialism, was Karl Marx.
Kant's philosophy also had a profound effect on the formation of psychology. Philosophers have always been concerned about the mind and so it seems natural that psychology would be the outgrowth of that interest. The interesting thing is that, until Kant, philosophy's view of the mind had been, for the most part, transparent. What I mean is that philosophers had never concentrated too much on the actual workings of the mind as an integral part of metaphysics and epistemology. Of course, Descartes had mentioned various faculties of the mind as had Locke and Hume. But for them, the mind was mostly like a mirror. Its function was to reflect reality (remember Locke's faculty of reflection?). What's more, for Descartes, the mind was essentially an open book. One could reflect on the contents of the mind and obtain a clear and distinct picture of the mind's contents. What was missing, and is commonly associated with psychology, is a notion of the unconscious; a part of the mind hidden from immediate inspection. With Kant's emphasis on the actual structure of the mind, this was to change.
1859 was a key year for change. In science, Darwin published The Origin of Species which forever changed our view of ourselves. We will discuss evolution in a later chapter. That same year, the founder of the 20th century School of philosophy called phenomenology was born named Edmund Husserl. Phenomenology deals with how our perspective on the world is affected by our very being in the world. The connections with Kant will seem clearer when we discuss phenomenology next time. Lastly, 1859 witnessed the birth of the American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey. It is to pragmatism's most famous advocate that we turn to investigate his contribution to our understanding of the mind.
While Dewey was influential, perhaps the most famous exponent of pragmatism was William James. James is important in our story of the mind because of his publication, in 1890, of the first major work in the field: Principles of Psychology. While many look to Freud as the founder of psychoanalysis, it was James who laid the foundation of psychology in part by discussing the, as yet uninvestigated, unconscious aspect of the mind. Freud, by the way, was born three years before the anis mirabilis 1859. James' contribution to psychology cannot be underestimated and Kant's influence on James was a contributing factor.
That influence continues to this day with the advances in brain science: neurology. Consider what three neurologists have to say in a book discussing the relationship of brain science to the belief in God called Why God Won't Go Away. Lest you think philosophy only provides hopeless speculation while science provides all the answers listen to this. "Neurology cannot completely explain how a nonmaterial mind can arise from mere biological functions." What we do know sounds very Kantian. "Nothing enters consciousness whole. There is no direct, objective experience of reality." Our experiences are only "secondhand depictions of what may or may not be real." They continue by explaining causality, among other things, as a function of the mind. So we are now seeing the tangible payoff of Kant's idea that the mind contains innate structures that guide our experience of the world. Along with this, it might not surprise you to learn that a resurgence of rationalism began and carried forward into the 20th century. It is to this new rationalism that we now turn.
The resurgence of idealism can be explained, in part, by Kant's limit to pure reason. In saying that our knowledge extends only to objects of sense experience (phenomena) Kant has to postulate a transcendental realm (noumena). Furthermore, he maintains that this noumenal realm causes the phenomena we perceive. However, this seems to violate the very limit on reason Kant has set. Causality cannot extend beyond objects of sense experience. But, in saying that noumena cause phenomena he seems to do precisely that. What's worse, we've set ourselves the same trap that Locke fell into with representative realism. There's no way to test the claim that objects of sense experience correspond to objects independent of our observations. This seems to be an intractable problem of dualism; the metaphysics John Locke was advocating. If you remember, the last time we faced this problem the solution was idealism. Instead of claiming that our ideas were caused by objects, we postulated that our ideas were the objects. We have, in a sense, returned to that position, modified slightly, as German Idealism.
The first attempt to formulate this position was made by Johann Fichte. He recognized the problem we stated above and pointed out, further, that the very claim that noumenal objects exist violates the limits Kant placed on knowledge. Existence, after all, was merely one of the categories of the mind and could not apply to noumena. The only consistent solution is idealism. Rather than say that objects of sense experience are products of noumena, we have to say that objects of sense experience are products of the mind. Many philosophers in the 19th century saw the promise of this "new idealism" as a way to preserve the gains Kant had made in epistemology while advocating consistent metaphysics at the same time. Among these were Friedrich Schelling, Arthur Schopenhauer, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The most significant of these German Idealists was Hegel.
The irony of Hegel's philosophy is that, while it builds on the advances of Kant's critical philosophy, it also does the one thing Kant maintained was impossible. Kant argued that pure reason cannot give us speculative metaphysical knowledge of all reality. This is precisely what Hegel sets out to do with his "Absolute Idealism." In a similar fashion to Berkeley, Hegel postulates that all of reality is the product of an objective mind. It can't be our minds for the same reason Berkeley rejected this possibility. If reality were the product of our minds alone, things would be popping in and out of existence with our perceptions or absence of perceptions. That just isn't born out by our observations. Still, it won't do to say that objects have an independent existence from any mind. To postulate the existence of a material substance is equally inconsistent with the facts. No, the only solution is for reality to be the product of an objective, "absolute" mind.
Before you jump to the conclusion that Hegel, like Berkeley, is talking about God let me stop you. This absolute mind is not somehow separate from the reality we perceive. If it were we'd be right back to the problems Kant left us with. It’s not that some reality somewhere is causing the appearance of things here. No the appearance here is the reality. So, the absolute mind is reality itself; more precisely, it’s the unfolding of itself through the process which Hegel called dialectic. In this respect, Hegel's philosophy is more similar to Spinoza's than Berkeley's. However, in Hegel's view this one substance (which Spinoza, remember, called God), this Absolute Idea, is constantly unfolding and realizing itself through a dynamic process. As Hegel put it, "the world is a manifestation of absolute spirit."
Very briefly this process involves three stages which can be described in logical terms which seem appropriate for a process involving an unfolding idea. First in the process is the thesis. Second, is the opposite of its antithesis. These two stand in conflict until they resolve themselves into a higher synthesis. This higher synthesis then becomes a new thesis for the process to repeat constantly building on itself. A good example of this is the process of Being (thesis) and Nothing (antithesis) resolving into the higher synthesis of Becoming. Among other things, this dialectic process was to have a major impact on the Romantic Movement in art and literature. It was also to spark (if that's the right word for it!) major developments in our understanding of the basic theory of electromagnetism. At the time we thought they were irreconcilable opposites (thesis-antithesis) until a scientist named Maxwell figured out how to unite them (synthesis).
Hegel also recognized that this dialectical process also applied to history. Given that the nature of reality is a gradual unfolding of the Absolute Idea this seemed natural. So, we can view the progression of events in terms of the thesis-antithesis-synthesis triad. Good examples of this can be seen in the history of philosophy. We began with an investigation of Platonic rationalism (thesis) then proceeded to Aristotle's empiricism (antithesis). These conflicting views were resolved into the higher synthesis of Cartesian philosophy. Then Descartes' rationalism became the thesis to compare with the antithesis of British empiricism. The synthesis, of course, was Kant's critical philosophy. And so it goes. This application of dialectics to history was to influence more than just philosophy. It was to have major consequences in the 20th century when it was combined with materialism. The author of this brainchild, Dialectical Materialism, was Karl Marx.
Kant's philosophy also had a profound effect on the formation of psychology. Philosophers have always been concerned about the mind and so it seems natural that psychology would be the outgrowth of that interest. The interesting thing is that, until Kant, philosophy's view of the mind had been, for the most part, transparent. What I mean is that philosophers had never concentrated too much on the actual workings of the mind as an integral part of metaphysics and epistemology. Of course, Descartes had mentioned various faculties of the mind as had Locke and Hume. But for them, the mind was mostly like a mirror. Its function was to reflect reality (remember Locke's faculty of reflection?). What's more, for Descartes, the mind was essentially an open book. One could reflect on the contents of the mind and obtain a clear and distinct picture of the mind's contents. What was missing, and is commonly associated with psychology, is a notion of the unconscious; a part of the mind hidden from immediate inspection. With Kant's emphasis on the actual structure of the mind, this was to change.
1859 was a key year for change. In science, Darwin published The Origin of Species which forever changed our view of ourselves. We will discuss evolution in a later chapter. That same year, the founder of the 20th century School of philosophy called phenomenology was born named Edmund Husserl. Phenomenology deals with how our perspective on the world is affected by our very being in the world. The connections with Kant will seem clearer when we discuss phenomenology next time. Lastly, 1859 witnessed the birth of the American pragmatist philosopher John Dewey. It is to pragmatism's most famous advocate that we turn to investigate his contribution to our understanding of the mind.
While Dewey was influential, perhaps the most famous exponent of pragmatism was William James. James is important in our story of the mind because of his publication, in 1890, of the first major work in the field: Principles of Psychology. While many look to Freud as the founder of psychoanalysis, it was James who laid the foundation of psychology in part by discussing the, as yet uninvestigated, unconscious aspect of the mind. Freud, by the way, was born three years before the anis mirabilis 1859. James' contribution to psychology cannot be underestimated and Kant's influence on James was a contributing factor.
That influence continues to this day with the advances in brain science: neurology. Consider what three neurologists have to say in a book discussing the relationship of brain science to the belief in God called Why God Won't Go Away. Lest you think philosophy only provides hopeless speculation while science provides all the answers listen to this. "Neurology cannot completely explain how a nonmaterial mind can arise from mere biological functions." What we do know sounds very Kantian. "Nothing enters consciousness whole. There is no direct, objective experience of reality." Our experiences are only "secondhand depictions of what may or may not be real." They continue by explaining causality, among other things, as a function of the mind. So we are now seeing the tangible payoff of Kant's idea that the mind contains innate structures that guide our experience of the world. Along with this, it might not surprise you to learn that a resurgence of rationalism began and carried forward into the 20th century. It is to this new rationalism that we now turn.