Within continental philosophy there is a widespread reliance upon basic presuppositions of the human person that have their roots firmly planted in the soil of German Idealism. As with most things, this has both its positives and its negatives. It's benefits, perhaps, lie in the seriousness in which it takes any investigation of the human, fully aware of the psychological complexities of the mind and the limits of any real investigation into the self. Now, this is not to say that all German Idealism consists of is mere psychological brainteasers, frantically groping into the murky depths of the subconscious. Although, as with anything, there is some of that too. But to be fair to German Idealism, there are many brilliant and interesting discoveries made to bare, that perhaps are too often neglected, atleast in the English-speaking world. Nevertheless, to the point. What I present here is a summation of a brief treatise written by one of the so called "Tubingen Three," either Hegel, Schelling, or Hoderlin. (Although, it seems to me that its entirely possible it was a collaboration). No matter the author, it provides the general environment in which German Idealism flourished, and paints a colorful picture of what life ought to be like, if only we all became German Idealists. What follows is partly a summation and partly a presentation of their ideas. I leave it you to determine its validity, and whether it truly reflects reality.
***
One of the principle foundations on which German Idealism rests is Fichte’s famous statement, ‘I am I.’ Within such a principle, for Fichte, we can locate the primordial self-consciousness, the starting point on which idealism will be developed. Within this principle is located both the subject and the object, the “I think,” or the transcendental apprehension, and the unknown noumena or the objective ‘thing-in-itself.’ Hence, fittingly, Fichte explains such a principle as an intellectual intuition, a seeming oxymoron, yet yielding perfectly within Neo-Kantian structures. The absolute grounding of such a principle, for Fichte, was the absolute ego. Only from this primordial ground can we understand the subject, or partial ego and the object, or non-ego. Rejecting this absolute ego as the primordial grounding, Holderlin argues that there is a primordial split between the subject and object, one grounded not in an absolute ego as Fichte believed, but in an absolute ‘being.’ Where Fichte understood this primordial split of the absolute being between the partial ego and non-ego, Holderlin postulates that the split ought to be between subject and object, with being as the absolute. Furthermore, Schelling, disagreeing with Holderlin, postulates that the grounding of the absolute is only understood within identity, developing an identity philosophy. Hence, the primordial split between subject and object occurs under the elusive identity.
The natural question that underlies the progression of these perceptions of the self is how does one unify the subjective and the objective? Moreover, what philosophical discipline will allow for such seeming contrasting principles? After all, it was Schelling who dichotomized the subjective, with its freedom, spontaneity, ethics, goodness on one side and the objective, that is, determinism, necessity, physics, laws, and truth on the other. How ought the two be understood together, and thus recognizing the underlying absolute? For this, these philosophers provided the concept of beauty and aesthetics. Through the perception of beauty one can understand both the subjective and objective, the uniting of the good and the true. For example, in a painting, the subjective element is presented as a product of the self, yet the objective is revealed in its ability to objectify the self, to stand and observe the self-created as other than oneself. Hence, in their eyes, true philosophy must be poetic.
It is this philosophical aestheticism that is at work in The Oldest System-Program of German Idealism. There it is described how truth and goodness can be unified in the aesthetical act, “I am convinced that the highest act of reason (in containing all ideas) is an aesthetical act, and that Truth and Goodness are only related in Beauty – the philosopher must possess as much aesthetical power as the poet.” Under this understanding, the philosopher is not understood as a rigid logician, void of the power of the subjective, but rather ought to unite the primordial split through their commonality in beauty. This becomes in contrast to the professional philosophers, who have the ability to systematize and categorize ‘lower ideas,’ but can never understand the ‘higher dignity’ of the poet. “The human beings without an aesthetical sense are book-philosophers. The philosophy of the spirit is an aesthetic philosophy. One cannot be ingenious, one cannot even reason about history in an ingenious way, without aesthetical sense.” The test of philosophical worth becomes the ability to unite subject and object so as to recall the primordial self which is both.
Moreover, also curiously correlated with the notion of philosophy of poetics is the notion of the need for the mythological. Reason has been too cold and calculating, unaware of the beauty in which the primordial split can be united. Additionally, the goal of such a mythology is to provide an interest to everyday, average people who do not have the philosophical knowledge to arrive at these conclusions. Hence, beauty is turned into mythos, and mythos in turn becomes reasonable, thus correlating the average people to that which is beautiful in a manner suitable to their ability. “Until we make the ideas aesthetical, i.e. mythological, they will have no interest to the simple people – and vice versa…mythology has to become philosophical and the people reasonable, while philosophy has to become mythological in order to make the philosopher sensual.” The interesting dynamic at work is a direct resemblance of romanticism. Rejecting the perceived complete objectivity and superiority of the Enlightenment, these idealists call for a philosophy that matters to the people, to unite the philosophers with the common man. “Finally the enlightened and unenlightened must shake hands.” The rejection of a class of philosophers, as the uniting of the self, subject and object, would take precedence within the beautiful.
Another interesting aspect of this work is its replacement of the religious with the aesthetical and mythological. “Then eternal unity will rule among us. Never again the condescending look, and never again the trembling of the people before its sages and priests.” Where in the past, truth and goodness were dictated to the people by philosophers, or religion, according these idealists, once beauty has been mythologized it will finally replace the need for superstitious religious beliefs that hinder the uniting of the self. In this regard, the religion of the Church is supplanted by the religion of the beautiful. “A higher spirit, send from heaven, will have to be the founder of this new religion among us; it will be the last and great work of humanity.” These pseudo-religious overtones intentionally parallel aestheticism which had previously been dominated by the Church. It was after all the Church in which most of artwork had been created and sustained. It was also the Church and religion in which the aesthetical and the mythological were united in revealing a primordial truth. Hence, we can rightly claim that within this work, the new aesthetics, purely humanistic, and the new mythology, based upon such aesthetics, will be the new religion of the people, revealing a primordial truth. This truth for Schelling would be one’s identity, and for Holderlin this would be being itself. Overall, the goal of such is to recollect one’s true self, a self which has been split and needs to be united. It is not a coincidence that in doing so, these idealists purposely uses religious terminology. By pursuing a fundamental and primordial state of being, they are replacing the monotheism of Christianity, with the monotheism of “reason and heart.”
1 comment:
This seems to be the same Cartesian problem over and over again. When you start with the "I think" you never get passed the "I."
Br Steve
Post a Comment