Johann Gottlieb Fichte was a major contributor to German idealism philosophy. He is known to be one of the most insightful philosophers during the period between Kant and Hegel, developing his own method of transcendental philosophy, the “Wissenschaftslehre”. Fichte entered the world of German philosophy on the tail of Immanuel Kant and just before Hegel. Fichte was extremely influential to contemporaries that followed him and was commended for his unique thoughts in German Idealism, particularly the concept of freedom. However, he was not without his faults. Throughout this essay, I will discuss Fichte’s approach and understanding to freedom as our consciousness and consciousness as our freedom and the limits of this human freedom. I will also discuss the problems and criticisms that Fichte has run into while portraying his …show more content…
His work on “Wissenschaftslhre”, or the “Science of Knowledge” as it may be referred to, revolves around the theme of freedom, as does Fichte’s entire philosophy. He pens in a letter to fellow philosopher Karl Leonhard Reinhold stating "my system is from beginning to end but an analysis of the concept of freedom” . Fichte focussed his relatively short career on searching for the possibility of complete human freedom. For Fichte, freedom is the absolute highest truth, and believes that the world could operate much more fluidly if we could all live as free beings consisting of harmony. He also believes that if we could build a society purely built with the intentions of being a free society, we would live in a united, peaceful civilisation. Through Fichte’s philosophy, his goal was to live in a world where beings had freedom of action, movement, development and thought. He believed that this would lead to a happier world. In order for Fichte to even begin to think about a world like this, he had to consider the issue of
Foner not only focuses on the dimensions of freedom, he also focuses on the second and third theme as well. The second theme covers the social conditions which makes freedom possibl...
This paper will examine the reliability of George Berkeley’s metaphysical theory of Idealism. Berkeley’s Idealism holds that reality is made real by what the mind perceives and that what we perceive to be material is really a collection of immaterial sensations. Idealism is defined as the view “that only mental entities exist, so physical things exist only in the sense that they are perceived” (“Idealism”). Berkeley’s argument of Subjective Idealism is the view that reality consists of one’s mind and its ideas, while Objective Idealism says in addition, a supreme mind produces ideas in the physical world that do not depend on human minds to exist (Velasquez 146). Without Objective Idealism, one can undergo solipsism which is the belief that only one’s self and experiences of the world are real and everything else does not exist (“Solipsism”). Opposing Idealism is the metaphysical view of Materialism which holds that only physical things exist (“Materialism”). This paper will start by examining George Berkeley’s views of Subjective and Objective Idealism and how they apply to reality. Then, the critiques made and supported by Aristotle and Thomas Hobbes against both views of Idealism will be argued. However, these arguments fail to properly examine Berkeley’s Idealism, thus causing the critiques to be based upon misinformation. Although the criticisms pose potential flaws, Berkeley’s Idealism continues to be a major discussion in the metaphysical debate.
(7) Hegel, Lectures on the History of Philosophy in three volumes, vol. 2 (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1995) 97. I made some corrections in the translation of this piece from Hegel.
Following in the path of Kant and Fichte, Hegel has become one of the most influential philosophers in history. His philosophy has influenced important people, such as Karl Marx, and influential schools of thought, such as the Frankfurt School. This influence rides heavily on the chapter, Master and Slave in his book Phenomenology of Spirit. This chapter examines the relationship between two self-consciousnesses, and the process of self-creating. The relationship between the two self-consciousnesses and the eventual path to ‘acknowledgment’ or recognition of the self is outlined in the first line of the chapter: “Self-consciousness exists in itself and for itself, in that, and by the fact that it exists for another self-consciousness; that
In this paper I will be presenting Berkeley’s views on idealism, then I’ll argue about how does Berkeley assumes that all physical objects are just ideas that only exist in human minds as ideas only. Then I will discuss how Berkeley uses John Locke’s theory of matter in order to reject the theory of matter and the existence of physical world exterior to our minds. Then I will move forward to present the idea of “Laws of Nature” and how the existence of God orders and regulates our sensory ideas. Finally, I will argue against Berkeley’s main points with the help of some examples that refutes his arguments that might be wrong or not well presented.
First, the Oriental World understood that “one is free,” that individuals are on their own autonomous beings. But, the Oriental World fell short in that they did not realize that while one was free, so was Mankind, or the collection of peoples in a state. Hegel then proceeds to the Classical World, particularly the ancient Greeks. The Greeks and Romans possessed the “consciousness of freedom,” but the fact that they owned and exploited slaves precludes them from being a truly free society and renders their Volksgesit less authentic. The Germanic World, the final stage in Hegel’s evolution of consciousness, reached the intellectual point where, through the influence of Christianity, they were able to “attain the consciousness that Man, as Man, is free…” , making them intellectually prepared for a codified document, like a constitution. To simplify Hegel (and perhaps this is not doing him justice), this evolution in the consciousness of freedom describes the progression from anarchy to the civil society--Man is free in the Oriental World but Mankind is free in the Germanic
Throughout history, western philosophers have vigorously attempted to define the word freedom, to little avail. This is because the word carries so many meanings in many different contexts. The consequences of these philosophers’ claims are immense: as “free” people, we like to rely on the notion of freedom, yet our judicial system relentlessly fights to explain what we can and cannot do. For instance, is screaming “bomb!” on an airplane considered one of our “freedoms?” Martin Luther, in his “Preface to the Epistle of St. Paul to the Romans” asserts that people are free when their actions naturally reflect laws and morality to the point that those laws are considered unnecessary. Immanuel Kant, in his “An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment?”, articulates a similar view: freedom for Kant is the ability to exercise one’s reasoning without limitation in a public sphere. A deeper reading of these two texts exposes that Kant’s and Luther’s interpretations of freedom are actually more similar than different. Indeed, they are mutually exclusive: one cannot coexist with the other and Kant’s views can even be read as a restating of Luther’s understandings.
Free will is a problem that has been occupying the minds of many philosophers. The classical debate is whether we have free will or we are determined and therefore free will in an illusion. There are many views that philosophers have brought to the table in order to tackle this debate. Some of which are determinism, libertarianism, and compatibilism. Harry Frankfurt’s general intake on the debate is that free will is not about having the ability to do otherwise. Instead, free will is about having the ability to make judgements about our desires. The purpose of this paper is to expound and asses Harry Frankfurt’s semi-compatibilist view, his concept of a person, and how it relates to the freedom of the will.
Jean-Paul Sartre claims that there can be no human nature, or essence, without a God to conceive of it. This claim leads Sartre to formulate the idea of radical freedom, which is the idea that man exists before he can be defined by any concept and is afterwards solely defined by his choices. Sartre presupposes this radical freedom as a fact but fails to address what is necessary to possess the type of freedom which would allow man to define himself. If it can be established that this freedom and the ability to make choices is contingent upon something else, then freedom cannot be the starting point from which man defines himself. This leaves open the possibility of an essence that is not necessarily dependent upon a God to conceive it. Several inconsistencies in Sartre’s philosophy undermine the plausibility of his concept of human nature. The type of freedom essential for the ability to define oneself is in fact contingent upon something else. It is contingent upon community, and the capacity for empathy, autonomy, rationality, and responsibility.
One needs specific initiation into the classics of transcendental philosophy (Kant’s "Criticism," Descartes’s "Metaphysics," and Fichte’s "Doctrine of Science") because all say farewell to the common sense view of things. The three types of transcendental thinking converge in conceiving rational autonomy as the ultimate ground for justification. Correspondingly, the philosophical pedagogy of all three thinkers is focused on how to seize and make that very autonomy (or active self-determination) intellectually and existentially available. In the concrete way of proceeding, however, the three models diverge. Descartes expects one to become master of oneself and "the world" by methodologically suspending his judgement on what cannot qualify itself to be undoubtable. Kant leads us to the point where we can triangulate universal conditions of the possibility of knowledge through individually acquiring the competence to judge the legitimacy of encountered propositional claims. Finally, Fichte confronts us with the idea of the identity of self-consciousness and objectivity. (1)
Third was the nature of nature. Fichte believed nature to be the absolute Ego’s thought arising from reflection of the non-Ego. While Samkara maintained that the world was actually Brahman that appeared to be other due to the same confusion that constituted the apparent
Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals can be assessed in regards to the three essays that it is broken up into. Each essay derives the significance of our moral concepts by observing
For Kant and Luther, the question of human freedom and the amount individuals are at liberty of, if any, is determined in an effort to achieve high morality. However, it is precisely the outlook that Kant deems fatalist which Luther argues for, that is, freedom through faith. For Luther, we do not possess the liberty required to live a moral life without God’s guidance. On the other hand, for Kant, the predestination that Luther argues for places individuals in a state of “immaturity” and therefore unable to achieve freedom to be moral. In contrast to Luther’s argument, Kant’s self-determination, autonomy, and morality are closely related to his notion of human freedom.
In the late eighteenth century, with the publication of his theories on morality, Immanuel Kant revolutionized philosophy in a way that greatly impacted the decades of thinkers after him. The result of his influence led to perceptions and interpretations of his ideas reflected in the works of writers all around the world. Kant’s idealism stems from a claim that moral law, a set of innate rules within each individual, gives people the ability to reason, and it is through this that people attain truth. These innate rules exist in the form of maxims: statements that hold a general truth. Using this, Kant concluded with the idea of autonomy, in which all rational human wills are autonomous, each individual is bound by their own will and in an ideal society, people should operate only according to their reason. Influenced by Kant’s ideas, an american writer by the name of Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote his own call to individual morality through an essay on Self-Reliance. In “Self-Reliance”, Emerson tells individuals to trust in their own judgments, act only according to their own wills, and to use their own judgment to determine what is right. Emerson’s Self-Reliance and Kant’s autonomy differ to the extent of where reason comes from. However, they agree on its purpose in dictating the individual’s judgment and actions. As a result, Autonomy and Self-Reliance have essentially the same message. Both Kant and Emerson agree that the individual should trust only their own reason, that they are bound only by their own free will, and that the actions of an individual should be governed by reason.
Friedrich Nietzsche has probably been one of the most criticized and controversial philosophers of modern times. His philosophy and ideas offended many, as much as it attracted others for over a century after his death. Most of his work was done under ill conditions that included headaches, depression and loneliness throughout the years he lived. His philosophical ideas included, firstly, that God was death. Secondly, the concept of an “Overman”. Thirdly, the idea of master morality. Friedrich’s arguments have influenced on how different individuals see today’s concept of religion, morals and achievement of power.