G.W.F. Hegel

Idealist System
The Painter and His Picture
 The reality is a teleological process through contradictions and crises. A painter paints a picture. What’s happen here? Through this work he knows himself. The work is an alienation of his inner life. So, the reality is both the spirit (painter) and the nature (picture). Nature is the externalization of the inner life of the spirit. It is the alienated spirit (the picture is also the alienated mind of the painter).
The Dialectics
 The dialectics is a three-steps-dynamic of all thing. It is called thesis, antithesis and synthesis.
 We can understand it as a process in which the mind alienated itself into the outer world. This alienation of mind is then solved through reconciliation of the world and its producer or the mind.
 Note: In this reconciliation Hegel follows Schelling’s Philosophy of Identity (Schelling thinks that there is no difference between consciousness and nature)
Aufhebung
 The synthesis is a process of reconciliation through Aufhebung, i.e:

 1. To receive some elements of thesis and antithesis
 2. To eliminate the other elements
 3. To lift up into a higher level (aufgehoben)

 Synthesis is not mere combination, but a qualitative new form. (Like Child is a synthetical form of father and mother)
Das Absolute
 Hegel’s philosophical standpoint is “das Absolute” or the absolute. He takes this starting point from Schelling. The absolute has no difference in itself between subject and object. It is the whole reality that include subject and object.
 But it develops in time and space.
The Big Three
 The Idea (internal)
 The Nature (external)
 The Spirit (internal-external)
Three Steps of Development of Reality [or the absolute]
 The absolute develops in three steps like the development of human person:
 1. The absolute in itself [das Absolute an sich] or the Idea – comparable with the child that has not yet recognized himself
 2. The absolute for itself [das Absolute fuer sich] or the nature – comparable with the adult that knows the world outside but still searches himself
 3. The absolute for and in itself [das Abasolute an und fuer sich] or the spirit – comparable with an old man that knows himself through the world
The Absolute as Idea (subjective moment)
 Hegel’s system begins with “logic”. Logic is the subjective moment of the absolute or idea. There are three moments here:
 1. Being (Sein) - external
 2. Essence (Wesen) – internal
 3. Concept (Begriff) – external-internal
The Absolute as Nature (objective moment)
 The second part of Hegel’s System is Philosophy of Nature
 1. Physics - material
 2. Mechanics - movement
 3. Organics - life

The Absolute as Spirit (absolute moment)
 The third and final part of Hegel’s System is Philosophy of Spirit
 1. Subjective spirit: Phenomenology of Spirit
 2. Objective spirit: Philosophy of Right
 3. Absolute Spirit: Art, Religion and Philosophy
An Example: Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
 The objective spirit consists in three steps or aspects, i.e:
 1. Abstract Right: property right
 2. Morality: intention, guilt
 3. Ethical Life (Sittlichkeit), that consists of three moments:
 A. Family : natural substance (more than sex)
 B. Civil Society: contract and individualism
 C. State: more than economics or contract
Sittlicher Staat
 Hegel’s State is a sacral and religious state. The citizens obey the law without alienation, i.e. freely, because there is reconciliation between abstract right (thesis) and morality (antithesis) in form of ethical life of the state (synthesis).
The Three Moment is Synchronic
 We must regard the three moment of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right not as chronological chain or diachronic, but as synchronic: They are aspects of the same political reality, i.e.: the capitalist state. The modern state can be seen as [1] a collection of families; [2] as a civil society; or as [3] liberal state.

Immanuel Kant

Historical Context
 Kant lived during the age of enlightenment
 The spirit of enlightenment (Aufklaerung):
 1. Universalism: The thinker tried to reflect the cultural development of science and economics as new era in humanity
 2. Struggle against religious worldview: Religion was seen as superstition that must be clarified by an scientific explanation of the reality.
 3. The alternative Worldviews: a. Deism (England); b. Materialism (French). In Germany the enlightenment was not radical and tended to a synthesis of all contrary streams.

The Project of Kant’s Philosophy
 Kant’s philosophical project can be formulated in three questions:
 1. What can I know? The Answer is the content of “Critique of pure Reason” [Kritik der reinen Vernunft]
 2. What should I do? The Answer is the content of “Critique of practical Reason” [Kritik der praktischen Vernunft]
 3. What can I hope? The Answer is the content of “Critique of Judgment” [Kritik der Urteilkraft]
Kant’s Approach to the Problem of Knowledge - Criticism
 Kant’s Philosophy is called “criticism”. It can be defined as a philosophy that is critical against the dogmatism. Dogmatism is a form of knowledge that is achieved without researching first the condition of possibility [die Bedingung der Moeglichkeit] of our knowledge capacity. E.g. metaphysics. Contrary to it the criticism is a form of knowledge that is achieved, after we question first the limits of our capacity to know the reality.

Proceduralism
 For Kant it is more interesting to know the form of our knowledge than the content of our knowledge. Therefore he focused his research on the procedure by which we get our knowledge of reality. So, his epistemology is a research on the validity of our knowledge.
 He wanted to know, if the mathematics, physics and metaphysics are valid as science or not.
 Valid as science means that they can give us a reliable knowledge that has empirical evidence.
The Main Problem of “Kritik der reinen Vernunft”
 Kant asks, how the synthetical judgment like “all events in the world has a cause” is possible.
 “all events in the world” = subject of the sentence
 “has a cause” = predicate of the sentence
 The predicate is not the analytical result of the subject, but gives us a new information (so, it is synthetic, and not analytic)
 However all the sentence is a priori (a priori synthetic): We needn’t to find the causes of all events in order to justify the truth of his sentence.
 So, Kant’s question is: How is the a priori synthetical judgment in Physics possible?

Three Levels of Knowledge
 Kant answers the question in that he sketches the process of our knowing activity as three levels:
 1. Transcendental Aesthetics (Knowledge on the sensuous level)
 2. Transcendental Analytics (Knowledge on the intellectual level)
 3. Transcendental Dialectics (Knowledge on the rational level)

The Phenomenal and Noumenal
 According to Kant we don’t know the thing in itself (das Ding an sich). We know only the appearance of the table, for example, but the table in itself, i.e. the essential table, cannot be known.
 The table that we see is the combination between the result of our sensuous activity and the appearance of the object that is caused by “das Ding an sich” beyond the empirical reality.
 The table lies on the phenomenal field of reality
 The table in itself lies on the noumenal field of reality
I. On the sensuous level (Sinnlichkeit)

 On this level our knowledge on the table is a combination between a priori and a posteriori elements:
 A priori on the side of knowing subject: our senses have a priori of space and time
 A posteriori on the side of known object: the appearance of the table is chaotic without the a priori of the subjective side of knowledge.
 The a priori can be illustrated as glasses. Without then the reality outside seems blur.
 On this level Kant justifies Mathematics as science, because space and time are our a priori
Space as a priori
 “Space is not an empirical concept…the representation of space cannot be borrowed through experience from relations of external phenomena, but, on the contrary, this external experience becomes possible only by means of the representation of space” (Kant, Chritique of Pure Reason, in: Baird, p. 492)
Time as internal sense
 “Time is nothing but the form of the internal sense, that is, of our intuition of ourselves, and of our internal state…Time ist the formal condition, a prioru, of all phenomena whatsoever…”
II.The Intellectual Level (or Verstand)
 On this level our mind combines two or more separated phenomena. E.g. “The table is damage because of fire”
 How it combines “table” and “fire”? According to Kant our mind has a priori categories (12 categories). One of them is “causality”. So, this category constructs two or more separated phenomena in an intellectual order.
 Then we know why the table is damage, i.e. because of fire.
 On this level Kant justifies the validity of physics as science, because the causality that is central on the physics is the a priori category of our mind.
Verstand or Understanding
 “All judgements therefore are functions of unity among our representations, the knowledge of an object being brought about, not by an immediate representation, but by a higher one, comprehending , comprehending this and several others, so that many possible cognitions are collected into one.”
III.The Rational Level (or Vernunft)
 On this level our mind produces argument by combining the statements of our intellect.
 The a priori of our mind is the three ideas of pure reason, i.e. “world”, “soul” and “God”.
 The ideas are not objects of knowledge, but principles in our mind that guarantee the unity of events in the physical world (world), the psychical world (soul) and in the all thing (God). They are also not constitutive, but regulative.
Is the metaphysics possible as science?
 Kant answered with a no. Why? The ideas of God, world and soul are not object of knowledge, but only unifying principles of our mind. They are not empirical reality, but transcendental principles by which we unify the physical and psychical processes in a rational order.
 Also, the metaphysics is a form of knowledge that doesn’t reflect the reality outside our mind. In the metaphysics our mind reflects itself.
 Although the metaphysics is not valid as science, it is according to Kant a possible form of knowledge. It is not a science, but a form of knowledge.
 The metaphysical claims of God, world and soul have not ground in the empirical world. They go beyond the limits of our reason.

Karl Marx and Materialism

Feuerbach’s Materialism
 The German idealists suppose that nature can be known through our consciousness. But how does the consciousness come into being? Where does it originate?
 Freuerbach finds the answer in that the consciousness originates in that we differ ourselves from nature. So, nature is the fundamental of consciousness. What so called “Idea” or “Spirit” depends on nature, i.e. material process.
God as Projection
 Feuerbach applied Hegel’s theory of alienation in the phenomenon of religion. Man thinks on his own characteristics, e.g. that he is just, good or powerful. These characteristics are idealized so that he doesn’t find them no more as his own characteristics. They are projected outside his mind as objective realities. Then he views them as the characteristics of God. But in fact they are the essences of man. Here the theology is actually an anthropology. In the theology man talks about his own essences, i.e. his characteristics in idealized form.
Marx and Feuerbach
 Marx agreed with Feuerbach that religion is a form of alienation (or projection). But he disagrees with all materialists before him, because their doctrines are contemplative and not practical.
 The young Marx adopted the materialism of Feuerbach, but his starting point was different: For him matter is not ‘nature’, but ‘social labor’ (instrumental action).
Marx and Hegel
 Marx adopted Hegel’s dialectic as his method. But he criticizes Hegel that the Hegelian synthesis occurs only in Hegel’ mind. It doesn’t exist in the empirical or concrete social reality. Instead of synthesis there are contradictions in the capitalist society, i.e. between the bourgeois and working classes.
 He wanted to build ‘a philosophy with practical intention’, i.e. a though that transforms the social reality.
11th Theses on Feuerbach
 “Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert, es koemmt darauf an, sie zu veraendern” [The philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways. But the problem is how to change the world]
Social Labor and Alienation
 Labor expresses that man is a social being, because he expresses and realizes him self through his products. This deep anthropological meaning of labor is collapse in the capitalist society. The laborer is alienated from his own products, because he sells his labor (Lohnarbeit = paid labor) to the factory owner.
 The forces of his body is objectified as a thing that can be counted and sold. So, the labor is alienated from its producer.
Threefold Alienation
 1. The laborer are alienated from their own products, because these products are no more theirs.
 2. They are alienated from themselves, because they lose their freedom
 3. They are also alienated each other and from the capitalists. So, the social solidarity is broken.
Root of Alienation: Private Property
 Contrary to Hegel, Marx thinks that not the spirit (der Geist), but the laborer is alienated in history. Agree with Hegel he says that the cause of this alienation is not the individual, but something beyond the individuals, i.e. the structure of capitalist society that is based on private property. This private property is the base of the dichotomy between the capitalist class and the working class.
 Marx convinced that the alienation is solved through the elimination of the private property.
Base-Superstructure Analysis
 Marx saw the society as a huge structure that consists of two parts:
 1. The base (Unterbau), i.e. economics: the productive forces ( technology) and the relations of production (power relation)
 2. The superstructure (Ueberbau), i.e. consciousness: law, religion, ideology, politics etc.
 The base determines the superstructure. So, the change of the economic base determines necessarily the change of the ideological superstructure.
How does the revolution happen?
 1. The contradictions in the economic base of the capitalist society (between the conservative relation of production and the progressive force of production) become intense. The revolution explodes through this tension. The private property is eliminated by the working/ proletariat class
 2. The change in the base transforms the whole ideological superstructure.

Karl Marx and Materialism

Feuerbach’s Materialism
 The German idealists suppose that nature can be known through our consciousness. But how does the consciousness come into being? Where does it originate?
 Freuerbach finds the answer in that the consciousness originates in that we differ ourselves from nature. So, nature is the fundamental of consciousness. What so called “Idea” or “Spirit” depends on nature, i.e. material process.
God as Projection
 Feuerbach applied Hegel’s theory of alienation in the phenomenon of religion. Man thinks on his own characteristics, e.g. that he is just, good or powerful. These characteristics are idealized so that he doesn’t find them no more as his own characteristics. They are projected outside his mind as objective realities. Then he views them as the characteristics of God. But in fact they are the essences of man. Here the theology is actually an anthropology. In the theology man talks about his own essences, i.e. his characteristics in idealized form.
Marx and Feuerbach
 Marx agreed with Feuerbach that religion is a form of alienation (or projection). But he disagrees with all materialists before him, because their doctrines are contemplative and not practical.
 The young Marx adopted the materialism of Feuerbach, but his starting point was different: For him matter is not ‘nature’, but ‘social labor’ (instrumental action).
Marx and Hegel
 Marx adopted Hegel’s dialectic as his method. But he criticizes Hegel that the Hegelian synthesis occurs only in Hegel’ mind. It doesn’t exist in the empirical or concrete social reality. Instead of synthesis there are contradictions in the capitalist society, i.e. between the bourgeois and working classes.
 He wanted to build ‘a philosophy with practical intention’, i.e. a though that transforms the social reality.
11th Theses on Feuerbach
 “Die Philosophen haben die Welt nur verschieden interpretiert, es koemmt darauf an, sie zu veraendern” [The philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways. But the problem is how to change the world]
Social Labor and Alienation
 Labor expresses that man is a social being, because he expresses and realizes him self through his products. This deep anthropological meaning of labor is collapse in the capitalist society. The laborer is alienated from his own products, because he sells his labor (Lohnarbeit = paid labor) to the factory owner.
 The forces of his body is objectified as a thing that can be counted and sold. So, the labor is alienated from its producer.
Threefold Alienation
 1. The laborer are alienated from their own products, because these products are no more theirs.
 2. They are alienated from themselves, because they lose their freedom
 3. They are also alienated each other and from the capitalists. So, the social solidarity is broken.
Root of Alienation: Private Property
 Contrary to Hegel, Marx thinks that not the spirit (der Geist), but the laborer is alienated in history. Agree with Hegel he says that the cause of this alienation is not the individual, but something beyond the individuals, i.e. the structure of capitalist society that is based on private property. This private property is the base of the dichotomy between the capitalist class and the working class.
 Marx convinced that the alienation is solved through the elimination of the private property.
Base-Superstructure Analysis
 Marx saw the society as a huge structure that consists of two parts:
 1. The base (Unterbau), i.e. economics: the productive forces ( technology) and the relations of production (power relation)
 2. The superstructure (Ueberbau), i.e. consciousness: law, religion, ideology, politics etc.
 The base determines the superstructure. So, the change of the economic base determines necessarily the change of the ideological superstructure.
How does the revolution happen?
 1. The contradictions in the economic base of the capitalist society (between the conservative relation of production and the progressive force of production) become intense. The revolution explodes through this tension. The private property is eliminated by the working/ proletariat class
 2. The change in the base transforms the whole ideological superstructure.

Auguste Comte and Early Positivism

• The Intellectual Background of Positivism is the efforts in the rehabilitation of the social order after the French Revolution 1789. There are two mainstreams:
• 1. They who will return to the traditional society (political romanticists)
• 2. They who seek the new values of modernity and dream of future of the scientific industrial society (positivists)
What is ‘Positivism”?
• An epistemological doctrine that the true knowledge is only about the fact. The fact or the factual is an object that can be observed empirically with our senses. The term ‘positive’ doesn’t mean normatively, but descriptively. It means ‘the factual’.
Fact and Phenomenon
• The factual assumes that there is no the reality beyond or outside of the observable world. So, the positivists neglect the Kantian doctrine of “das Ding an sich”. For them the reality is only the phenomenal world.
Positivist View of History
• According to Comte the history of mankind develops in three stages:
• 1. Theological Stage
• 2. Metaphysical Stage
• 3. Positivist Stage
Theological Stage
• Man searched the causes of natural phenomena behind the empirical world and found the superhuman forces like idols (fetishism), gods (polytheism) and God (monotheism).
• There was a progress of knowledge from the knowledge of impersonal forces to personal God.
• The social organization was absolutism
• But this stage can be compared with the infantile stage of human person.
Metaphysical Stage
• In this stage the natural forces were not imagined as superhuman forces. They were grasped with abstract concepts like ‘cause’, ‘ether’ , ‘being’, ‘substance’ etc. There was no more God in this stage, because God was conceptualized as an abstract entity.
• The social organization was laws oriented society
• This stage is comparable with the stage of adolescence of human person.
Positivist Stage
• Man explains the natural phenomena factually, i.e. he doesn’t try to explain them through theological or metaphysical causes. So, the fall of an apple is not cause by God or by the ‘primal cause’, but by ‘gravitation’. We can observe neither God nor primal cause. They are not facts. Only fact is observable.
• The social organization is industrial society
• In this stage the mankind reach the stage of maturity of his knowledge.
Is Comte’s History factual?
• Of course he developed his historical view according to certain ideological framework, i.e. the positivist ideology. In this ideology it is assumed that only the positivism is mature stage of knowledge. And the positivist society is the purpose of human history.
The Hierarchy of Sciences
• According to Comte the mathematics is the fundamental of all sciences. So, the mathematics is the basis of the modern astronomy, and the mathematics and astronomy are the basis of modern physics. These three sciences are the basis of the chemistry, and biology. The complete and last science is sociology that assumes the other five sciences.
The Positivist Religion
• In the spirit of positivism Comte will construct a new religion like Rousseau’s civil religion. This positivist religion, so imagined Comte, imitates the catholic Church but without personal God. The god of positivist Religion is called “grand etre” (supreme being). So, Comte’s Religion has its own priests, calendar, saints etc.

Fichte and Schelling

Introduction to German Idealism
The Origin of German Idealism
 1. Philosophical Background: Critique on Kantian Doctrine of “das Ding an sich”
 2. Theological Background: German idealism is a kind of ‘rationalization’ or ‘demitologization’ of Christian theology.
 3. Historical Background: Romantic movement, French Revolution etc.

Fichte and The Doctrine of “Pure Ego”
 In his work Wissenschaftslehre (Theory of Science), Fichte formulates his idealism that philosophy must be scientific. What does ‘scientific’ mean?
 1. Philosophy must be coherence (deductive logic) and systematic
 2. Philosophy must be exact like mathematic.
Two Kinds of Presentation
 According to Fichte our empirical life, like a journey in Venice, is a presentation (Vorstellung) that is accompanied with the sense of necessity. But our free imagination, like a journey in Mars or another Galaxies, is a presentation that is accompanied with the sense of freedom.
If the “das Ding an sich” is erased
 So, Fichte thought that our reality outside our mind is our presentation. He got this position from his critique on Kant.
 He erased “das Ding an sich” und views the reality as the Subject or Ego (like cartesian Cogito in absolute ‘size’).
 He calls the reality (Being) ‘pure Ego’ (absolutes Ich).
Three Steps of “Being”
 The whole reality can be seen as three moments of pure ego:
 1. The first moment is the pure ego in it self. That is the reality that has not been conscious of itself.
 2. The second moment: The pure ego differs in itself two aspects, ie. Ego and non-ego. But both of them are still absolute
 3. The third moment: Both of them limit themselves and become limited ego and limited non-ego.

The Tree in front of us
 What does Fichte mean with empirical and concrete objects like the tree in front of us?
 That tree is the limited non-ego, whereas our consciousness (subject) of it is the limited ego.
 So, the pure ego is a result of infinite regression of our consciousness, a reflection on reflection.
Schelling and Absolute Identity
 Schelling rejects Fichte’s Idealism. He views the reality neither as subject nor as object, but as identity of subject and object.
Philosophy of Identity
 Schelling’s Philosophy is called philosophy of identity. He tried to overcome the distinction between subject and object not only in our consciousness but also in the whole Being. So, he imagined that in the beginning there were not dichotomy between consciousness and nature. The absolute is an absolute identity of consciousness and nature, thinking and thing.
Three Moments of Identity
 The first moment is the pure identity of subject and object in itself. Schelling calls it with Spinozian term ‘natura naturans’ or the internal life of the absolute.
 The second moment is the externalization of the pure identity into ‘natura naturata’ or objective nature (our empirical reality).
 The third moment is the synthesis between the absolute as inner life and the absolute as objective nature. That is the pure identity in its end unity.
 All three moment are the one action of reality.

Rene Descartes and Rationalism

Lecturer: Dr. F. Budi Hardiman
Biographical Notes

• 1596: born on 31st March in La Haye Touraine
• 1604: entered the Jesuit College in La Fleche, studied natural sciences and philosophy of scholastics i
• 1613: studied law Poitiers
• 1615: studied mathematics in Paris
• 1617: Military service in Bavaria, Germany
• 1621: Traveled to Swiss, Poland, Italia
• 1625: lived in Paris
• 1629: emigrated to Netherland
• 1637: published Discours de la Methode
• 1641: published Meditationes de prima Philopophia, debated with Gassendi, Hobbes and Mersenne
• 1644: published Principia Philosophiae
• 1650: was dead in Stockholm
Le doute methodique
• Method is rule that can be used to find the solid foundation of our knowledge.
• Descartes tried to find this absolute foundation that cannot be shook by mere opinions or claims of belief
• His method was unique and has not been practiced in the history of western philosophy – the method of doubt
What happens, if I doubt everything?
• Our knowledge comes from tradition, authority, socialization etc. Is it fictitious or real? If we doubt the mathematical axioms, metaphysical claims, religious beliefs or everything in our experience or sense of perception, then we stay in an situation in which we loss all certainty. The dream or fiction cannot be differed from the reality. Descartes provoked us to assume that the material world is only an impression that is produced by a ‘genius malignus’ (an intelligent devil).
Cogito or The Result of the Doubt about the Doubt
• If we doubt everything, i.e. the material world outside or the spiritual world inside, we reach the point in which “we are doubting” cannot be doubted anymore. So, the fact that we are doubting is not doubtful, but certain. It is not refutable.
• Descartes concludes that “I doubt” or “I think” (Latin: cogito) is the certain and solid foundation of our knowledge.
Je pense donc je suis
• “I think” cannot be refused. It means also that “I think” exists. In other words, my consciousness that I am thinking now demonstrates that I exist as a thinking being. Descartes says shorter: Je pense donc je suis (I think therefore I am/ Cogito ergo sum).
The Consequences of the These on Cogito
• The reality outside of us is constructed by our thought. As a construction of our consciousness it depend on our subjectivity.
• The reason, i.e. our faculty of thinking, is the only source of human knowledge. It is a priori in character, i.e. the knowledge does not come from the experience, but from the logical principles of our reason.
• These consequences are very critical, because they test belief, dogma or authority under the control of reason.
The Doctrine of Innate Ideas
• Where do the “I think” come from? Descartes answers this question that [1] the faculty of thinking is inherent to us. It is an innate idea that we have since we were born.
• There are another innate ideas, i.e. [2] the idea of extension through which we know our body and the material reality outside of us and [3] the idea of God by which we strive to perfection.
The Doctrine of Substances
• The three innate Ideas, i.e. thinking, extension and God, are not only inside of us, but they stand also outside of us. Because our thought, i.e. the idea, constructs the external reality.
• So, Descartes teaches us that there are three substances or kinds of reality outside of us, i.e. res cogitans (or thinking thing), res extensa (or expanding thing) and God. The three substances are not only in our though as ideas, but also exist outside of us as realities.
The Existence of God
• God is an innate idea. We can think of God because of this idea. But God is not only in us, i.e. in our thought. He exists outside of us. This argument that concludes the existence of God from the fact that we have an a priori knowledge of God is called “ontological argument”.
• This evidence of God existence through ontological argument can be traced back to the British medieval philosopher Anselmus of Cantenbury.
Religion and Philosophy
• Cartesian View of the existence of God show us the role of philosophy to approach the religious phenomenon rationally. Philosophy has no claim to substitute the religion. It tries to understand the religious phenomenon with our reason. But what for? It is right that the religious phenomenon is beyond rationality, but the rational understanding of religion can make the religious experience more discursive and communicative. And rational discourse protects us against an absolutization of subjective religious experience.
Ontological Argument
Anthropological View
• Descartes sees the human body as res extensa that is separate from the human soul or res cogitans. So, we find here the dualistic view of man that claims that man consist of two separate substances, i.e. the material and the mental reality.
• In our body there are a bridge that connects our body and our mind. It is the ‘glandula pinealis’. The body is mere l’homme machine (human machine) and the soul is the steering faculty that is comparable to a captain that steers the ship.
Body and Soul
• Cartesian view on the relation between body and soul approaches the Platonic dualism. According to the body and soul dualism our body is material in character, whereas our soul is spiritual and eternal. The soul takes control over the body machine.
• World religions still believe in this kind of dualism.
Critique on Descartes’ Representationalism
• Is it true that what we think can be found also in the external reality? A picture does not always correspond to the picture object and vice versa. This bridge problem shows the basic difficulty in the cartesian philosophy.
Rationalism
• According to cartesian View of Reality the objective world is a rational entity that can be known by means of our rational consciousness. So, the history of modern philosophy begins with a optimism that the human reason can grasp the reality.
• Descartes is the father of modern philosophy and the forerunner of rationalism
The other Rationalist
• Baruch de Spinoza: monism and pantheism – the being as single substance
• Leibniz: pluralism – the reality consists of multitude tiny units called “monads”.
• Pascal: le coeur a ses raison que la raison ne connait point – le pari
Newton and Modernity
• Newton influents deeply the modern thought. The thinker such as Leibniz assumes the mechanistic world view that bases the modern physics.