The metaphysical unity of life

[totalcel]

What is the explanation of all plurality, of all numerical diversity of existence? Time and Space. Indeed it is only through the latter that the former is possible: because the concept "many" inevitably connotes the idea either of succession (time), or of relative position (space). Now, since a homogeneous plurality is composed of Individuals, I call Space and Time, as being the conditions of multiplicity, the principium individuationis (the principle of individuation); and I do not here pause to consider whether this expression was exactly so employed by the Schoolmen.

If in the disclosures which Kant's wonderful acumen gave to the world there is anything true beyond the shadow of a doubt, this is to be found in the Transcendental Aesthetics, that is to say, in his doctrine of the ideality of Space and Time. On such solid foundations is the structure built that no one has been able to raise even an apparent objection. It is Kant's triumph, and belongs to the very small number of metaphysical theories which may be regarded as really proved, and as actual conquests in that field of research. It teaches us that Space and Time are the forms of our own faculty of intuition, to which they consequently belong, and not to the objects thereby perceived; and further, that they can in no way be a condition of things in themselves, but rather attach only to their mode of appearing, such as is alone possible for us who have a consciousness of the external world determined by strictly physiological limits. Now, if to the Thing in itself, that is, to the Reality underlying the kosmos, as we perceive it, Time and Space are foreign; so also must multiplicity be. Consequently that which is objectivated in the countless phaenomena of this world of the senses cannot but be a unity, a single indivisible entity, manifested in each and all of them. And conversely, the web of plurality, woven in the loom of Time and Space, is not the Thing in itself, but only its appearance-form. Externally to the thinking subject, this appearance-form, as such, has no existence; it is merely an attribute of our consciousness, bounded, as the latter is, by manifold conditions, indeed, depending on an organic function.

The view of things as above stated,—that all plurality is only apparent, that in the endless series of individuals, passing simultaneously and successively into and out of life, generation after generation, age after age, there is but one and the same entity really existing, which is present and identical in all alike;—this theory, I say, was of course known long before Kant; indeed, it may be carried back to the remotest antiquity. It is the alpha and omega of the oldest book in the world, the sacred Vedas, whose dogmatic part, or rather esoteric teaching, is found in the Upanishads. There, in almost every page this profound doctrine lies enshrined; with tireless repetition, in countless adaptations, by many varied parables and similes it is expounded and inculcated. That such was, moreover, the fount whence Pythagoras drew his wisdom, cannot be doubted, despite the scanty knowledge we possess of what he taught. That it formed practically the central point in the whole philosophy of the Eleatic School, is likewise a familiar fact. Later on, the New Platonists were steeped in the same, one of their chief tenets being: (All souls are one, because all things form a unity.) In the ninth century we find it unexpectedly appearing in Europe. It kindles the spirit of no less a divine than Johannes Scotus Erigena, who endeavours to clothe it with the forms and terminology of the Christian religion. Among the Mohammedans we detect it again in the rapt mysticism of the Sûfi. In the West Giordano Bruno cannot resist the impulse to utter it aloud; but his reward is a death of shame and torture. And at the same time we find the Christian Mystics losing themselves in it, against their own will and intention, whenever and wherever we read of them!* *The Cantico del Sole by St. Francis of Assisi sounds almost like a passage from the Upanishads or the Bhagavadgîtâ.

Now if plurality and difference belong only to the appearance-form; if there is but one and the same Entity manifested in all living things: it follows that, when we obliterate the distinction between the ego and the non-ego, we are not the sport of an illusion. Rather are we so, when we maintain the reality of individuation,—a thing the Hindus call Mâyâ, that is, a deceptive vision, a phantasma. The former theory we have found to be the actual source of the phaenomenon of Compassion; indeed Compassion is nothing but its translation into definite expression. This, therefore, is what I should regard as the metaphysical foundation of Ethics, and should describe it as the sense which identifies the ego with the non-ego, so that the individual directly recognises in another his own self, his true and very being. From this standpoint the profoundest teaching of theory pushed to its furthest limits may be shown in the end to harmonise perfectly with the rules of justice and loving-kindness, as exercised; and conversely, it will be clear that practical philosophers, that is, the upright, the beneficent, the magnanimous, do but declare through their acts the same truth as the man of speculation wins by laborious research, by the loftiest flights of intellect. Meanwhile moral excellence stands higher than all theoretical sapience. The latter is at best nothing but a very unfinished and partial structure, and only by the circuitous path of reasoning attains the goal which the former reaches in one step. He who is morally noble, however deficient in mental penetration, reveals by his conduct the deepest insight, the truest wisdom; and puts to shame the most accomplished and learned genius, if the latter's acts betray that his heart is yet a stranger to this great principle,—the metaphysical unity of life.

 

[Knajjd]

That's all well and good but what is the precise and exact method to reach the non-ego?

 

[totalcel]

That's all well and good but what is the precise and exact method to reach the non-ego?

• personal experience of an extremely great suffering that leads to non-ego; or
• intuitively "recognize the whole, comprehend the essence, and find that it is constantly passing away, caught up in vain strivings, inner conflict, and perpetual suffering". The negation of the ego, in other words, stems from the insight that the world in-itself (free from the forms of space and time) is one.

Esoteric religions such as Advaita vedanta and Zen buddhism recommend self-enquiry and hua-tou respectively. The name of the practice differ but the practice itself is the same.

Self-enquiry (Ramana Maharshi) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hua Tou - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Knajjd]

Esoteric religions such as Advaita vedanta and Zen buddhism recommend self-enquiry and hua-tou respectively. The name of the practice differ but the practice itself is the same.

Thank you kindly.

I know of Ramana and also of Nisargadatta.

Their last words were along the line of "Practice, Practice, Practice !".

 

[IsolationHurts]

the ideality of Space and Time.

regarded as really proved

Youre delusional. Literally every single philosopher that came after Kant rejected the theory about the unknowability of reality (noumenon). Schiller, Fichte, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, etc. And contemporary philosophy is extremely anti-idelistic and just ignore Kants critic to metaphysics (Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Horkheimer, etc.) or try to overcome it through an analysis of language (Carnap, Wittgenstein, Bunge, etc.).

Now, if to the Thing in itself, that is, to the Reality underlying the kosmos, as we perceive it, Time and Space are foreign; so also must multiplicity be.

Youve not read Critic of Pure Reason. Multiplicity and unity are both trascendental categories of the faculty of understanding. Reality is beyond both of them.

Consequently that which is objectivated in the countless phaenomena of this world of the senses cannot but be a unity, a single indivisible entity, manifested in each and all of them.

Again, youve not read the Critic of Pure Reason. There is a unconditioned single "entity" thanks to which we can percieve and understand inner or subjective reality and outer or objective reality, but its not a trascendental category of the faculty of understanding, but a trascendental idea of the faculty of reason, and so, there is no possible empirical object that could fill it.

bounded, as the latter is, by manifold conditions, indeed, depending on an organic function.

Trascendental function, not organic. The conditions under which we perceive, understand and reason reality are set in stone, they are unchanging, and dont depend on empirical entities. The are trascendental.

The view of things as above stated,—that all plurality is only apparent, that in the endless series of individuals, passing simultaneously and successively into and out of life, generation after generation, age after age, there is but one and the same entity really existing, which is present and identical in all alike;—this theory, I say, was of course known long before Kant; indeed, it may be carried back to the remotest antiquity. It is the alpha and omega of the oldest book in the world, the sacred Vedas

Thats what Schopenhauer thought about Kant, but has very little to do with his actual doctrines.

when we obliterate the distinction between the ego and the non-ego, we are not the sport of an illusion.

Repulsive new age stuff. Non-duality is a philosophical joke. And strictly unscientific. I would say that these kind of shallow philosophies are just a new form of ideology in the marxist sense of the word.

Rather are we so, when we maintain the reality of individuation,—a thing the Hindus call Mâyâ, that is, a deceptive vision, a phantasma. The former theory we have found to be the actual source of the phaenomenon of Compassion; indeed Compassion is nothing but its translation into definite expression. This, therefore, is what I should regard as the metaphysical foundation of Ethics

Im glad you like Schopenhauer. I liked him too, years ago. Now i think he is pretty outdated.

Meanwhile moral excellence stands higher than all theoretical sapience.

There is no contradiction between them. The fact that you want to find one kind of tells that you think that studyin is hard, so you prefer to give up intelectual effort and just read Schopenhauer and Huxley and feel good about yourself.

 

[subhuman]

Kant was actually wrong about that, because he didn't know about quantum mechanics and general relativity. Take the Deleuze pill

Thus, Deleuze at times refers to his philosophy as a transcendental empiricism ([UWSL]empirisme transcendantal[/UWSL]), alluding to Kant. In Kant's transcendental idealism, experience only makes sense when organized by intuitions (namely, space and time) and concepts (such as causality). Assuming the content of these intuitions and concepts to be qualities of the world as it exists independently of our perceptual access, according to Kant, spawns seductive but senseless metaphysical beliefs (for example, extending the concept of causality beyond possible experience results in unverifiable speculation about a first cause). Deleuze inverts the Kantian arrangement: experience exceeds our concepts by presenting novelty, and this raw experience of difference actualizes an idea, unfettered by our prior categories, forcing us to invent new ways of thinking

Gilles Deleuze borrowed the doctrine of ontological univocity from Scotus.[4] He claimed that being is univocal, i.e., that all of its senses are affirmed in one voice. Deleuze adapts the doctrine of univocity to claim that being is, univocally, difference. "With univocity, however, it is not the differences which are and must be: it is being which is Difference, in the sense that it is said of difference. Moreover, it is not we who are univocal in a Being which is not; it is we and our individuality which remains equivocal in and for a univocal Being."[5] Deleuze at once echoes and inverts Spinoza,[6] who maintained that everything that exists is a modification of the one substance, God or Nature. He claims that it is the organizing principle of Spinoza's philosophy, despite the absence of the term from any of Spinoza's works. For Deleuze, there is no one substance, only an always-differentiating process, an origami cosmos, always folding, unfolding, refolding. Deleuze and Guattari summarize this ontology in the paradoxical formula "pluralism = monism".[7]

@the virgin shepherd thoughts?

 

[based_meme]

Schiller, Fichte, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, etc.

This is why I don't like philosophy today. These names (and others) are treated as if they're saints in the Church of Philosophy, and their works are regarded as canonical or something to be canonized.

People just throw out names and say shit like, "X in the Treatise on Philosophical Discourse (or whatever the fuck ) didn't agree with this, therefore you're retarded/delusional/whatever and should kys."

 

[Knajjd]

Repulsive new age stuff. Non-duality is a philosophical joke. And strictly unscientific. I would say that these kind of shallow philosophies are just a new form of ideology in the marxist sense of the word.

Non duality is the most based idea there is.

Why is it new age? The gnostic christians and neoplatonists had the same idea.

 

[based_meme]

Why is it new age?

It's not, it just gets confused as new age nonsense. The new age spiritualists just like this metaphysic and take it to be the default in their philosophies.

 

[Billowel]

This is why I don't like philosophy today. These names (and others) are treated as if they're saints in the Church of Philosophy, and their works are regarded as canonical or something to be canonized.

People just throw out names and say shit like, "X in the Treatise on Philosophical Discourse (or whatever the fuck ) didn't agree with this, therefore you're retarded/delusional/whatever and should kys."

philosophy by itself is quite beatiful and have lead many men to god and to comteplate his existence,but generally most "philosophers" you meet out there are completely insuferrable and don't really believe in anything,much less something they read from a book written 500 years ago whilst imaginging themselves as future ivy league genius professors in an extramarital relationship with some random 18 year old girl. most "philosophers" are just academia bitches,who want some random "comfy" work in academia,and if you go agaisn't their establishement you will be killed in an instant.they only care about philosophy if it affects their pay.

 

[based_meme]

philosophy by itself is quite beatiful and have lead many men to god and to comteplate his existence,but generally most "philosophers" you meet out there are completely insuferrable and don't really believe in anything,much less something they read from a book written 500 years ago whilst imaginging themselves as future ivy league genius professors in an extramarital relationship with some random 18 year old girl. most "philosophers" are just academia bitches,who want some random "comfy" work in academia,and if you go agaisn't their establishement you will be killed in an instant.they only care about philosophy if it affects their pay.

All true, sadly.

 

[totalcel]

most "philosophers" are just academia bitches,who want some random "comfy" work in academia,and if you go agaisn't their establishement you will be killed in an instant.they only care about philosophy if it affects their pay.

 

[totalcel]

Trascendental function, not organic. The conditions under which we perceive, understand and reason reality are set in stone, they are unchanging, and dont depend on empirical entities. The are trascendental.

If I removed 3/4 of your brain, would you still be able to perceive, understand and reason as well as before?

 

[based_meme]

What is the explanation of all plurality, of all numerical diversity of existence? Time and Space. Indeed it is only through the latter that the former is possible: because the concept "many" inevitably connotes the idea either of succession (time), or of relative position (space). Now, since a homogeneous plurality is composed of Individuals, I call Space and Time, as being the conditions of multiplicity, the principium individuationis (the principle of individuation); and I do not here pause to consider whether this expression was exactly so employed by the Schoolmen.

If in the disclosures which Kant's wonderful acumen gave to the world there is anything true beyond the shadow of a doubt, this is to be found in the Transcendental Aesthetics, that is to say, in his doctrine of the ideality of Space and Time. On such solid foundations is the structure built that no one has been able to raise even an apparent objection. It is Kant's triumph, and belongs to the very small number of metaphysical theories which may be regarded as really proved, and as actual conquests in that field of research. It teaches us that Space and Time are the forms of our own faculty of intuition, to which they consequently belong, and not to the objects thereby perceived; and further, that they can in no way be a condition of things in themselves, but rather attach only to their mode of appearing, such as is alone possible for us who have a consciousness of the external world determined by strictly physiological limits. Now, if to the Thing in itself, that is, to the Reality underlying the kosmos, as we perceive it, Time and Space are foreign; so also must multiplicity be. Consequently that which is objectivated in the countless phaenomena of this world of the senses cannot but be a unity, a single indivisible entity, manifested in each and all of them. And conversely, the web of plurality, woven in the loom of Time and Space, is not the Thing in itself, but only its appearance-form. Externally to the thinking subject, this appearance-form, as such, has no existence; it is merely an attribute of our consciousness, bounded, as the latter is, by manifold conditions, indeed, depending on an organic function.

The view of things as above stated,—that all plurality is only apparent, that in the endless series of individuals, passing simultaneously and successively into and out of life, generation after generation, age after age, there is but one and the same entity really existing, which is present and identical in all alike;—this theory, I say, was of course known long before Kant; indeed, it may be carried back to the remotest antiquity. It is the alpha and omega of the oldest book in the world, the sacred Vedas, whose dogmatic part, or rather esoteric teaching, is found in the Upanishads. There, in almost every page this profound doctrine lies enshrined; with tireless repetition, in countless adaptations, by many varied parables and similes it is expounded and inculcated. That such was, moreover, the fount whence Pythagoras drew his wisdom, cannot be doubted, despite the scanty knowledge we possess of what he taught. That it formed practically the central point in the whole philosophy of the Eleatic School, is likewise a familiar fact. Later on, the New Platonists were steeped in the same, one of their chief tenets being: (All souls are one, because all things form a unity.) In the ninth century we find it unexpectedly appearing in Europe. It kindles the spirit of no less a divine than Johannes Scotus Erigena, who endeavours to clothe it with the forms and terminology of the Christian religion. Among the Mohammedans we detect it again in the rapt mysticism of the Sûfi. In the West Giordano Bruno cannot resist the impulse to utter it aloud; but his reward is a death of shame and torture. And at the same time we find the Christian Mystics losing themselves in it, against their own will and intention, whenever and wherever we read of them!* *The Cantico del Sole by St. Francis of Assisi sounds almost like a passage from the Upanishads or the Bhagavadgîtâ.

Now if plurality and difference belong only to the appearance-form; if there is but one and the same Entity manifested in all living things: it follows that, when we obliterate the distinction between the ego and the non-ego, we are not the sport of an illusion. Rather are we so, when we maintain the reality of individuation,—a thing the Hindus call Mâyâ, that is, a deceptive vision, a phantasma. The former theory we have found to be the actual source of the phaenomenon of Compassion; indeed Compassion is nothing but its translation into definite expression. This, therefore, is what I should regard as the metaphysical foundation of Ethics, and should describe it as the sense which identifies the ego with the non-ego, so that the individual directly recognises in another his own self, his true and very being. From this standpoint the profoundest teaching of theory pushed to its furthest limits may be shown in the end to harmonise perfectly with the rules of justice and loving-kindness, as exercised; and conversely, it will be clear that practical philosophers, that is, the upright, the beneficent, the magnanimous, do but declare through their acts the same truth as the man of speculation wins by laborious research, by the loftiest flights of intellect. Meanwhile moral excellence stands higher than all theoretical sapience. The latter is at best nothing but a very unfinished and partial structure, and only by the circuitous path of reasoning attains the goal which the former reaches in one step. He who is morally noble, however deficient in mental penetration, reveals by his conduct the deepest insight, the truest wisdom; and puts to shame the most accomplished and learned genius, if the latter's acts betray that his heart is yet a stranger to this great principle,—the metaphysical unity of life.

This is what happens when you put two fingers in your ass and then get high off the scent.

 

[IsolationHurts]

This is why I don't like philosophy today. These names (and others) are treated as if they're saints in the Church of Philosophy, and their works are regarded as canonical or something to be canonized.

People just throw out names and say shit like, "X in the Treatise on Philosophical Discourse (or whatever the fuck ) didn't agree with this, therefore you're retarded/delusional/whatever and should kys."

I never said i agree with any of them. I named them because i wanted to refute OP´s claim: everyone accepted that time and space are trascendental. All those well known philosophers reject that idea. Ergo, its not "proved"

Non duality is the most based idea there is.

Why is it new age? The gnostic christians and neoplatonists had the same idea.

Have you read a single Ennead? Maybe Irenaeus´ Against the Heresies? If you did, you would know that Plotinus and, lets say, Valentinus, have almost nothing in common.
It is a New Age idea that Zen buddhists, Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism... have something in common. They dont, unless you cherrypick and misinterpret the texts. This wrong conception was introduced in the west, as far as i can tell, from Huxley and his Philosophia perennis.

most "philosophers" you meet out there are completely insuferrable and don't really believe in anything

I agree

If I removed 3/4 of your brain, would you still be able to perceive, understand and reason as well as before?

I never said i agreed with Kant. Im just showing you that you dont know the ideas youre talking about, so youre wrong by default.

 

[totalcel]

I never said i agreed with Kant. Im just showing you that you dont know the ideas youre talking about, so youre wrong by default.

thinking and perceiving are organic functions dependent on the health of the brain, just as digestion is an organic function of the stomach.

 

[based_meme]

I never said i agree with any of them. I named them because i wanted to refute OP´s claim: everyone accepted that time and space are trascendental. All those well known philosophers reject that idea. Ergo, its not "proved"

Oh, so the threshold for "proof" in philosophy is how many philosophers agree with you and don't reject your idea?

 

[totalcel]

Youre delusional. Literally every single philosopher that came after Kant rejected the theory about the unknowability of reality (noumenon). Schiller, Fichte, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, etc.

Schiller is a poet.
Marx wrote mainly on political/economic ideology aka communism.

Hegel was a philosophaster. He lacked even common human understanding. Here are three different examples. First is from his students’ compendium entitled Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, a book that a Hegelian has called the Hegelians’ bible. So in that book, in the section called ‘Physics’ §293, he is dealing with specific gravity, which he calls specifische Schwere, and contests the assumption that it rests upon difference in porosity, using the following argument: ‘An example of the existent specification of gravity is furnished by the following phenomenon: when a bar of iron, evenly balanced on its fulcrum, is magnetized, it loses its equilibrium and shows itself to be heavier at one pole than at the other. Here the one part is so affected that without changing its volume it becomes heavier; the matter, without increase in its mass, has thus become specifically heavier.’ Here, then, Hegel makes the following inference: ‘If a bar supported at its centre of gravity subsequently becomes heavier on one side, then it falls to that side; but an iron bar falls to one side once it has been magnetized: therefore it has become heavier in that place.’ A worthy analogue to the inference: ‘All geese have two legs, you have two legs, therefore you are a goose.’ For, put into categorical form, the Hegelian syllogism reads: ‘Everything that becomes heavier on one side falls to that side; this magnetized bar falls to one side: therefore it has become heavier in that place.’ That is the syllogistic reasoning of this ‘distinguished philosopher’ and reformer of logic, whom people unfortunately forgot to teach that ‘from mere affirmatives in the second figure nothing follows’. But seriously it is innate logic that makes inferences of that kind impossible for every healthy and straightforward understanding, and whose absence is designated by the term lack of understanding. How likely it is that a textbook containing arguments of this sort and speaking of bodies becoming heavier without increase in mass will render the straightforward understanding of young people crooked and bent – requires no discussion. – That was the first thing.

The second example of the lack of common human understanding in Hegel the philosophaster is put on record by §269 of the same main work, which is also a teaching work, in the sentence: ‘Gravitation directly contradicts the law of inertia; for, by virtue of the former, matter strives to get away out of itself to an Other.’ – What? not grasping that it no more contravenes the law of inertia that one body is attracted by another than that it is repelled by it?! In the one case as in the other it is indeed the additional occurrence of an external cause that removes or alters the hitherto pertaining rest or movement, and in such a way that, in both attraction and repulsion, action and counter-action are equal to one another. To anyone who can think (which was not the case with Hegel, who merely placed ‘the thought’ constantly in his mouth, as innkeepers place the prince who never enters their establishment on their sign) it is no more explicable that a body repels the other than that it attracts it, since unexplained natural forces, of the sort that every causal explanation has as its presupposition, lie at the basis of the one just as much as the other. So if someone wishes to say that a body that is attracted to another by gravitation strives to get away to it ‘out of itself’, they must also say that the body that is repelled flees ‘out of itself’ away from the repelling body, and see the law of inertia as being broken in the one case as in the other. The law of inertia flows immediately out of that of causality, and indeed is really only its converse: ‘Every alteration is brought about by a cause’, says the law of causality; ‘Where no cause intervenes, no alteration occurs’, says the law of inertia. So a state of affairs that contradicted the law of inertia would directly contradict that of causality too, i.e. would contradict what is certain a priori, and would show us an effect without cause: and to assume that is at the core of all lack of understanding. – That was the second thing.

Hegel gives the third proof of the innate characteristic just mentioned in §298 of the same master work, where, polemicizing against the explanation of elasticity by means of pores, he says: ‘True, it is admitted in the abstract that matter is perishable, not absolute, yet in practice this admission is resisted, . . . ; so that in point of fact, matter is regarded as absolutely self-subsistent, eternal. This error springs from the general error of the understanding, that etc.’ – What fool has ever conceded that matter is perishable? And which one calls the opposite an error? – That matter persists, i.e. that it does not come into existence and perish like everything else, but is and remains through all time, indestructible and ungenerated, and that its quantum can therefore neither be increased nor diminished – this is a cognition a priori, as firm and certain as any mathematical one. Even imagining a coming into existence or perishing of matter is utterly impossible for us, because the form of our understanding does not admit it. So to deny this, to declare this to be an error, means renouncing all understanding outright. – That was the third thing. – Even the predicate absolute can rightfully and fittingly be applied to matter, as it conveys that its existence lies quite outside the region of causality, and does not enter into the endless chain of causes and effects, which only concerns, and binds together, its accidents, states, forms: the law of causality with its coming into existence and perishing extends only to these, to the alterations that take place in matter, and not to matter. In fact that predicate absolute has in matter the sole instance through which it gains reality and is admissible, otherwise it would be a predicate for which no subject could be found, hence a concept plucked from the air that could not be realized by anything, nothing more than a well inflated ball for fun-philosophers to play with. – By the way, the above pronouncement by this Hegel brings to light in a quite naive way what an old-womanish spinning-wheel-philosophy such a sublime, hypertranscendent, aerobatic and bottomlessly profound philosopher is really, in his heart, childishly attached to, and what propositions he has never brought himself to call into question.

So Hegel teaches explicitly that bodies can become heavier without increase in their mass, and that this is particularly the case with a magnetized iron bar; likewise that gravitation contradicts the law of inertia; and finally that matter is perishable. These three examples will certainly suffice to show what sticks out a mile when an opening is left for once in that thick cloak of nonsensical gibberish that scorns all human reason, in which the ‘distinguished philosopher’ is wont to be enveloped as he strides in and impresses the intellectual rabble. They say ‘tell the lion from its claw’; but, decently or indecently, I must say ‘tell the donkey from its ear’. – Anyway, someone who is just and nonpartisan can now judge from the three specimens of Hegelian philosophy presented here who it was who really ‘mentioned in an indecent fashion’: he who without beating about the bush called such a teacher of absurdities a charlatan, or he who decreed from the academic chair that he is a ‘distinguished philosopher’?

I must add that out of the rich selection of absurdities of all kinds that the works of the ‘distinguished philosopher’ provide I have given preference to the ones presented here because, on the one hand, it is not a matter of difficult philosophical problems that may be unsolvable and therefore admit of a diversity of views; nor, on the other hand, is it here a matter of specialized truths of physics that presuppose more precise empirical knowledge, but rather of a priori insights, i.e. problems that everyone can solve by mere reflection. So a mistaken judgment in things of this kind is already a decisive and undeniable sign of quite abnormal lack of understanding, but the brazen exhibition of such nonsense doctrines in a textbook for students reveals to us what impertinence an ordinary mind is capable of if people proclaim him as a great mind. Doing this is, therefore, a means that no end can justify. With the three specimens from physics provided here one should compare the passage in §98 of the same master work, which begins ‘And since a force of attraction’ – and see the infinite loftiness with which this sinner looks down upon Newton’s universal attraction and Kant’s metaphysical principles of natural science. Anyone who has the patience should also read §§40 to 62, where the ‘distinguished philosopher’ gives a distorted portrayal of the Kantian philosophy and then, unable to gauge the magnitude of Kant’s achievements and placed too low by nature to be able to rejoice at the appearance – so unspeakably rare – of a truly great mind, instead looks down loftily on this great, great man from the height of self-assured, infinite superiority, as if on someone he passes over a hundred times and in whose school-boyish efforts he indicates the mistakes and misconceptions with cold contempt, half ironically, half pityingly, for the education of his pupil. §254 is relevant here too. True, this affectation of superiority towards genuine achievements is a well known trick of all charlatans on foot and on horseback, yet when presented to imbeciles it does not readily fail in its effect.

 

[totalcel]

Have you read a single Ennead?
It is a New Age idea that Zen buddhists, Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism... have something in common. They dont, unless you cherrypick and misinterpret the texts. This wrong conception was introduced in the west, as far as i can tell, from Huxley and his Philosophia perennis.

The whole of the All-One doctrine of Plotinus primarily and undeniably testifies to an Indian origin, through Egypt, of the Neoplatonic dogmas, and we find this admirably presented in the fourth Ennead. The very first chapter of its first book, On the essential nature of the soul, gives very briefly the fundamental teaching of his whole philosophy of a Soul (Ψυχή) that is originally one and is split up into many only by means of the corporeal world. Of special interest is the eighth book of this Ennead which explains how that Soul (Ψυχή) fell into this state of plurality through a sinful striving; accordingly, it bears a double guilt, namely that of its having descended into this world, and also of its sinful deeds therein.

For the former guilt it atones through temporal existence in general; for the latter, which is less important, it atones through metempsychosis or the transmigration of souls. This is obviously the same idea as the Christian original sin and particular sin. But the most readable of all is the ninth book, where in c. 3, Whether all souls are one from the unity of that world-soul, among other things, the marvels of animal magnetism are explained, especially the phenomenon, to be met with even now, where the somnambulist hears at the greatest distance a softly spoken word. This, of course, must be effected by means of a chain of persons standing in contact with her.

With Plotinus there even appears, probably for the first time in Western philosophy, idealism that had long been current in the East even at that time, for it is taught (Enneads, iii) that the soul has made the world by stepping from eternity into time, with the explanation: 'for there is for this universe no other place than the soul or mind.' Indeed the ideality of time is expressed in the words: 'We should not accept time outside the soul or mind.' That (the life hereafter) is the opposite of (this life), and is a concept very familiar to him, which he explains more fully by 'The world of Ideas and the world of the senses', also by 'Up there and here below'. In chapters 1 I and 1 2 very good explanations are given for the ideality of time. Connected therewith is the fine explanation that in our temporal condition, we are not what we ought to be and might be. Thus we expect from the future always better things and look forward to the fulfilment of our shortcomings; and from this arise the future and its condition, namely time (c. 2 et c. 3). A further proof of the Indian origin is afforded by Jamblichus (De mysteriis, sect. 4, c. 4 et c. 5) in his exposition of the doctrine of metempsychosis, and also by the doctrine (sect. 5, c. 6) of the ultimate liberation and salvation from the bonds of birth and death, 'The purification and perfection of the soul and the liberation from becoming, the fire at the sacrifice delivers us from the fetters of becoming.', and hence that promise, stated in all Indian religious books and expressed in English as final emancipation or salvation. Finally, we have in addition (op. cit., sect. 7, c. 2) the account of the Egyptian symbol that shows a creative God sitting on the lotus. This is obviously the world- creating Brahma sitting on the lotus blossom that springs from the navel of Vishnu, as he is frequently depicted in Indian literature.

This symbol is extremely important as a sure proof of the Indian origin of the Egyptian religion; as is also in the same respect the account given by Porphyry, De abstinentia, lib. n, that in Egypt the cow was sacred and no one was allowed to slaughter it. It is related by Porphyry in his life of Plotinus that, after being for several years the disciple of Ammonius Saccus, Plotinus wanted to go to Persia and India with Gordian's army, but was prevented from so doing by the defeat and death of Gordian. Even this circumstance indicates that the doctrine of Ammonius was of Indian origin, and that ·Plotinus now intended to draw it more purely from its source. The same Porphyry furnished a detailed theory of metempsychosis which is wholly in the Indian spirit, although adorned with Platonic psychology. It is found in the Eclogues of Stobaeus, lib. I, c. 52, § 54·

 

[Knajjd]

It is a New Age idea that Zen buddhists, Advaita Vedanta, Sufism, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism... have something in common. They dont, unless you cherrypick and misinterpret the texts. This wrong conception was introduced in the west, as far as i can tell, from Huxley and his Philosophia perennis.

Well I think they have a core idea in common which is that the waking state itself is false.

 

[IsolationHurts]

thinking and perceiving are organic functions dependent on the health of the brain, just as digestion is an organic function of the stomach.

I... might agree. Im too tired to write right now. I just dont agree with your conclusions tho. Im not a monist. And i think monism as a serious philosophical thesis is just wrong at many, many levels.

Oh, so the threshold for "proof" in philosophy is how many philosophers agree with you and don't reject your idea?

Nope.
Look, its easy: If you claim something like a classical kantian idea (time and space are trascendental) has been proven, it could only mean two things:
1- Every single philosopher accepted that idea as true, till now
2- It has been scientifically proven.

2 is obviously false. 1 is easily proven as false too: many philosophers rejected that idea.

Ergo, that kantian idea is not "proven".
Im just stating the obvious: time and space are not sthetical trancendental cathegories, they are "real" in some way. This is true from sciences perspective, and mostly true to almost every philosopher after kant. In other words, the fact that time and space are properties of reality (hence, multiplicity) is something that most reasonable people nowadays would accept. Im among those. Thats all.

Schiller is a poet.
Marx wrote mainly on political/economic ideology aka communism.

Hegel was a philosophaster. He lacked even common human understanding. Here are three different examples. First is from his students’ compendium entitled Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, a book that a Hegelian has called the Hegelians’ bible. So in that book, in the section called ‘Physics’ §293, he is dealing with specific gravity, which he calls specifische Schwere, and contests the assumption that it rests upon difference in porosity, using the following argument: ‘An example of the existent specification of gravity is furnished by the following phenomenon: when a bar of iron, evenly balanced on its fulcrum, is magnetized, it loses its equilibrium and shows itself to be heavier at one pole than at the other. Here the one part is so affected that without changing its volume it becomes heavier; the matter, without increase in its mass, has thus become specifically heavier.’ Here, then, Hegel makes the following inference: ‘If a bar supported at its centre of gravity subsequently becomes heavier on one side, then it falls to that side; but an iron bar falls to one side once it has been magnetized: therefore it has become heavier in that place.’ A worthy analogue to the inference: ‘All geese have two legs, you have two legs, therefore you are a goose.’ For, put into categorical form, the Hegelian syllogism reads: ‘Everything that becomes heavier on one side falls to that side; this magnetized bar falls to one side: therefore it has become heavier in that place.’ That is the syllogistic reasoning of this ‘distinguished philosopher’ and reformer of logic, whom people unfortunately forgot to teach that ‘from mere affirmatives in the second figure nothing follows’. But seriously it is innate logic that makes inferences of that kind impossible for every healthy and straightforward understanding, and whose absence is designated by the term lack of understanding. How likely it is that a textbook containing arguments of this sort and speaking of bodies becoming heavier without increase in mass will render the straightforward understanding of young people crooked and bent – requires no discussion. – That was the first thing.

The second example of the lack of common human understanding in Hegel the philosophaster is put on record by §269 of the same main work, which is also a teaching work, in the sentence: ‘Gravitation directly contradicts the law of inertia; for, by virtue of the former, matter strives to get away out of itself to an Other.’ – What? not grasping that it no more contravenes the law of inertia that one body is attracted by another than that it is repelled by it?! In the one case as in the other it is indeed the additional occurrence of an external cause that removes or alters the hitherto pertaining rest or movement, and in such a way that, in both attraction and repulsion, action and counter-action are equal to one another. To anyone who can think (which was not the case with Hegel, who merely placed ‘the thought’ constantly in his mouth, as innkeepers place the prince who never enters their establishment on their sign) it is no more explicable that a body repels the other than that it attracts it, since unexplained natural forces, of the sort that every causal explanation has as its presupposition, lie at the basis of the one just as much as the other. So if someone wishes to say that a body that is attracted to another by gravitation strives to get away to it ‘out of itself’, they must also say that the body that is repelled flees ‘out of itself’ away from the repelling body, and see the law of inertia as being broken in the one case as in the other. The law of inertia flows immediately out of that of causality, and indeed is really only its converse: ‘Every alteration is brought about by a cause’, says the law of causality; ‘Where no cause intervenes, no alteration occurs’, says the law of inertia. So a state of affairs that contradicted the law of inertia would directly contradict that of causality too, i.e. would contradict what is certain a priori, and would show us an effect without cause: and to assume that is at the core of all lack of understanding. – That was the second thing.

Hegel gives the third proof of the innate characteristic just mentioned in §298 of the same master work, where, polemicizing against the explanation of elasticity by means of pores, he says: ‘True, it is admitted in the abstract that matter is perishable, not absolute, yet in practice this admission is resisted, . . . ; so that in point of fact, matter is regarded as absolutely self-subsistent, eternal. This error springs from the general error of the understanding, that etc.’ – What fool has ever conceded that matter is perishable? And which one calls the opposite an error? – That matter persists, i.e. that it does not come into existence and perish like everything else, but is and remains through all time, indestructible and ungenerated, and that its quantum can therefore neither be increased nor diminished – this is a cognition a priori, as firm and certain as any mathematical one. Even imagining a coming into existence or perishing of matter is utterly impossible for us, because the form of our understanding does not admit it. So to deny this, to declare this to be an error, means renouncing all understanding outright. – That was the third thing. – Even the predicate absolute can rightfully and fittingly be applied to matter, as it conveys that its existence lies quite outside the region of causality, and does not enter into the endless chain of causes and effects, which only concerns, and binds together, its accidents, states, forms: the law of causality with its coming into existence and perishing extends only to these, to the alterations that take place in matter, and not to matter. In fact that predicate absolute has in matter the sole instance through which it gains reality and is admissible, otherwise it would be a predicate for which no subject could be found, hence a concept plucked from the air that could not be realized by anything, nothing more than a well inflated ball for fun-philosophers to play with. – By the way, the above pronouncement by this Hegel brings to light in a quite naive way what an old-womanish spinning-wheel-philosophy such a sublime, hypertranscendent, aerobatic and bottomlessly profound philosopher is really, in his heart, childishly attached to, and what propositions he has never brought himself to call into question.

So Hegel teaches explicitly that bodies can become heavier without increase in their mass, and that this is particularly the case with a magnetized iron bar; likewise that gravitation contradicts the law of inertia; and finally that matter is perishable. These three examples will certainly suffice to show what sticks out a mile when an opening is left for once in that thick cloak of nonsensical gibberish that scorns all human reason, in which the ‘distinguished philosopher’ is wont to be enveloped as he strides in and impresses the intellectual rabble. They say ‘tell the lion from its claw’; but, decently or indecently, I must say ‘tell the donkey from its ear’. – Anyway, someone who is just and nonpartisan can now judge from the three specimens of Hegelian philosophy presented here who it was who really ‘mentioned in an indecent fashion’: he who without beating about the bush called such a teacher of absurdities a charlatan, or he who decreed from the academic chair that he is a ‘distinguished philosopher’?

I must add that out of the rich selection of absurdities of all kinds that the works of the ‘distinguished philosopher’ provide I have given preference to the ones presented here because, on the one hand, it is not a matter of difficult philosophical problems that may be unsolvable and therefore admit of a diversity of views; nor, on the other hand, is it here a matter of specialized truths of physics that presuppose more precise empirical knowledge, but rather of a priori insights, i.e. problems that everyone can solve by mere reflection. So a mistaken judgment in things of this kind is already a decisive and undeniable sign of quite abnormal lack of understanding, but the brazen exhibition of such nonsense doctrines in a textbook for students reveals to us what impertinence an ordinary mind is capable of if people proclaim him as a great mind. Doing this is, therefore, a means that no end can justify. With the three specimens from physics provided here one should compare the passage in §98 of the same master work, which begins ‘And since a force of attraction’ – and see the infinite loftiness with which this sinner looks down upon Newton’s universal attraction and Kant’s metaphysical principles of natural science. Anyone who has the patience should also read §§40 to 62, where the ‘distinguished philosopher’ gives a distorted portrayal of the Kantian philosophy and then, unable to gauge the magnitude of Kant’s achievements and placed too low by nature to be able to rejoice at the appearance – so unspeakably rare – of a truly great mind, instead looks down loftily on this great, great man from the height of self-assured, infinite superiority, as if on someone he passes over a hundred times and in whose school-boyish efforts he indicates the mistakes and misconceptions with cold contempt, half ironically, half pityingly, for the education of his pupil. §254 is relevant here too. True, this affectation of superiority towards genuine achievements is a well known trick of all charlatans on foot and on horseback, yet when presented to imbeciles it does not readily fail in its effect.

I dont know why i wrote Schiller, i meant Schelling.
I dont think you take marxist critic to ideology seriously. One of the main reasons i reject your kind of monism, that is attached to a ascetic morals, is because of Marx. Its easy to tell that, from Plato to Hegel, idealism is just a theory that hides the true nature of reality, or at least one of the most important aspects of reality from a materialist perspective: economical relations and the existence of social classes based in economic reasons. Or just economical exploitation. I can see (and i might be wrong) how your condition (youre an incel, i suppose) might have pushed you to a philosophical explanation of reality in which the real, material and unfair social relationships between you and the rest of humans is characterized by the rejection of the reality of those relations. In other words, i think monism is just a sophisticated way of scapism. I respect it as a cope, but i just dont agree.
I dont agree with Hegel either, and he is closer to your position that to mine, so lets just abandon him. As i alread said, i dont agree with him. I just listed those philosophers, historically close to Kant, to prove my point: they reject kantian ideas, so they are not proven. If i wanted to test those kind of kantian ideas (related to his epistemology) i would cite gestalt psychology. As far as i can tell, those "thinkers" are the closest to actual neo-kantians that exist in the XX century. Anyway, i know Kant very well, but Hegel is just not my coup of tea. Ive read what youre citing, but i dont know him well enought to tell if youre representation of him is accurate or not,... and i mostly dont care. Im interested in post-Hegelian thinkers mostly. Hegel is just something i had to read in order to understand, lets say, Feuerbach, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche or Freud. So im sorry i cant say anything about your critic against Hegel. But at least i can tell that you agree with many other thinkers: Hegels natural philosophy is clearly the weakest point of his system. I would agree... if i cared enought about him.

Again, i admire Kant too. Ive read everything he wrote, and i literally teach about him (once every year lol). We agree on this. But Kant is not a monist, not even close. Only from Schopenhauer perspective (maybe also from Schelling?) Kant can be interpreted as a monist (he would reject plurality, and his doctrine about trascendental categories would be similar to the Maya´s veil ancient eastern doctrine... which is just unnacurate and basically false), or as a monist that doesnt know he is a monist, and thats how Schopenhauer states the absolute unity of Will, and how compassion is the recognition of the same nature of me and any other thing, etc. I like Schopenhauer, but he is just wrong, he is forcing a wrong interpretation of Kant so he can put his own system as a logical continuation of kants system... which is just absurd. Im thinking about the last part of The world as will and representation, that long text about Kant.

The whole of the All-One doctrine of Plotinus primarily and undeniably testifies to an Indian origin, through Egypt, of the Neoplatonic dogmas, and we find this admirably presented in the fourth Ennead. The very first chapter of its first book, On the essential nature of the soul, gives very briefly the fundamental teaching of his whole philosophy of a Soul (Ψυχή) that is originally one and is split up into many only by means of the corporeal world. Of special interest is the eighth book of this Ennead which explains how that Soul (Ψυχή) fell into this state of plurality through a sinful striving; accordingly, it bears a double guilt, namely that of its having descended into this world, and also of its sinful deeds therein.

For the former guilt it atones through temporal existence in general; for the latter, which is less important, it atones through metempsychosis or the transmigration of souls. This is obviously the same idea as the Christian original sin and particular sin. But the most readable of all is the ninth book, where in c. 3, Whether all souls are one from the unity of that world-soul, among other things, the marvels of animal magnetism are explained, especially the phenomenon, to be met with even now, where the somnambulist hears at the greatest distance a softly spoken word. This, of course, must be effected by means of a chain of persons standing in contact with her.

With Plotinus there even appears, probably for the first time in Western philosophy, idealism that had long been current in the East even at that time, for it is taught (Enneads, iii) that the soul has made the world by stepping from eternity into time, with the explanation: 'for there is for this universe no other place than the soul or mind.' Indeed the ideality of time is expressed in the words: 'We should not accept time outside the soul or mind.' That (the life hereafter) is the opposite of (this life), and is a concept very familiar to him, which he explains more fully by 'The world of Ideas and the world of the senses', also by 'Up there and here below'. In chapters 1 I and 1 2 very good explanations are given for the ideality of time. Connected therewith is the fine explanation that in our temporal condition, we are not what we ought to be and might be. Thus we expect from the future always better things and look forward to the fulfilment of our shortcomings; and from this arise the future and its condition, namely time (c. 2 et c. 3). A further proof of the Indian origin is afforded by Jamblichus (De mysteriis, sect. 4, c. 4 et c. 5) in his exposition of the doctrine of metempsychosis, and also by the doctrine (sect. 5, c. 6) of the ultimate liberation and salvation from the bonds of birth and death, 'The purification and perfection of the soul and the liberation from becoming, the fire at the sacrifice delivers us from the fetters of becoming.', and hence that promise, stated in all Indian religious books and expressed in English as final emancipation or salvation. Finally, we have in addition (op. cit., sect. 7, c. 2) the account of the Egyptian symbol that shows a creative God sitting on the lotus. This is obviously the world- creating Brahma sitting on the lotus blossom that springs from the navel of Vishnu, as he is frequently depicted in Indian literature.

This symbol is extremely important as a sure proof of the Indian origin of the Egyptian religion; as is also in the same respect the account given by Porphyry, De abstinentia, lib. n, that in Egypt the cow was sacred and no one was allowed to slaughter it. It is related by Porphyry in his life of Plotinus that, after being for several years the disciple of Ammonius Saccus, Plotinus wanted to go to Persia and India with Gordian's army, but was prevented from so doing by the defeat and death of Gordian. Even this circumstance indicates that the doctrine of Ammonius was of Indian origin, and that ·Plotinus now intended to draw it more purely from its source. The same Porphyry furnished a detailed theory of metempsychosis which is wholly in the Indian spirit, although adorned with Platonic psychology. It is found in the Eclogues of Stobaeus, lib. I, c. 52, § 54·

Wow, thats interesting. Do you read latin and/or greek and/or german? I dont. Youre lucky if you do.

I might answer you at any other time, im taking a break right now.
But i can tell that you are pretty convinced of western metaphysical monism, and that you find it more convincing if you can trace it back to indian philosophy... for some reason. Dont get me wrong, i like reading ancient religious texts from the East (ive read some Nikayas from the Pali Canon, most Vedas, some Upanishads...) but i dont think there is nothing philosophically valuable there. At least not in the way that you see it. Anyway, thats... unusual. At least from my perspective, every single contemporary spanish philosopher (Unamuno, Ortega, Zubiri, Bueno, etc) were pluralists (in one way or another) so, from my background, i can only reject it because of.. well... many reasons i dont want to elaborate too much. Vitalist, existentialist, hermeneutic, phenomenological reasons, i suppose.

 

[IsolationHurts]

Well I think they have a core idea in common which is that the waking state itself is false.

I dont understand

 

[Billowel]

I dont understand

I don't want to bother you(especially since i never personally read kant and barely read any philosophy post kant),but how does idealism have anything to do with economics?i suppose most strands of it are(as many of the old idealists hold the world to be a joke) toxic when it comes to the material world,but economics is about perception in any sense of the world,and not about reality as it is.just confused since,you can hold the world to be real and important(catholics,christrians,muslims etc etc all hold the world to play an important role in gods plan),yet see it as decrepit and full of evil and sinfulness(as most saints and anyone with eyes can see) .we know that most of evilness is caused over a battle of economics(sex,love,friendships,etc etc are mostly/all economics),and anyone can tell you that too. i suppose you could think their reasoning is foolish,but i don't thtink that's what you were saying here as you made it seem that idealism inherently makes you opposed to a way of seeing economics or the blackpill for that matter.maybe i am too retarded,and i have no clue what you are on about.

 

[based_meme]

Oh, so the threshold for "proof" in philosophy is how many philosophers agree with you and don't reject your idea?

Nope.
Look, its easy: If you claim something like a classical kantian idea (time and space are trascendental) has been proven, it could only mean two things:
1- Every single philosopher accepted that idea as true, till now

... What?

2- It has been scientifically proven.

2 is obviously false. 1 is easily proven as false too: many philosophers rejected that idea.

Ergo, that kantian idea is not "proven".
Im just stating the obvious: time and space are not sthetical trancendental cathegories, they are "real" in some way. This is true from sciences perspective, and mostly true to almost every philosopher after kant. In other words, the fact that time and space are properties of reality (hence, multiplicity) is something that most reasonable people nowadays would accept. Im among those. Thats all.

Regardless of the content of the claim (in the OP), my contention is with the notion that something is "proven" by consensus. It never is, and that's a very unsophisticated and low bar for proof - it's basically useless as a standard of proof.

The standard of proof is the validity and soundness of an argument, the truth value of the premises and conclusions, and any evidence provided (if the claims are empirical or verifiable in nature). When all of these are present, you can say with certainty that you've proven something.

 

[totalcel]

I just listed those philosophers, historically close to Kant, to prove my point: they reject kantian ideas, so they are not proven. If i wanted to test those kind of kantian ideas (related to his epistemology) i would cite gestalt psychology. As far as i can tell, those "thinkers" are the closest to actual neo-kantians that exist in the XX century.

In his 1909 book Kant's Philosophy as Rectified by Schopenhauer, Michael Kelly drew attention to Schopenhauer's discussion of Kant's Schemata. In his Preface, Dr. Kelly justified his book by saying: "...a short exposition of Transcendental Idealism with Schopenhauer's constructive and destructive criticism may be of use to those that cannot make a simultaneous study of Kant and Schopenhauer in the original. To think that the former [Kant] can be understood without the latter [Schopenhauer] is a fatal delusion. If anybody should doubt this, let him try to make out what Kant meant by the ' Schematismus,' and he will soon find it advisable to avail himself of the assistance of a man who is worth ten times more than all the post-Kantian philosophers and professors put together."

Kant's first apostle Reinhold said that he fathomed the real meaning of the Critique ofPure Reason only after he had strenuously studied it five times.

 

[totalcel]

Youre delusional. Literally every single philosopher that came after Kant rejected the theory about the unknowability of reality (noumenon). Schelling, Fichte, Hegel...

Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel are in my opinion not philosophers; for they lack the first requirement of a philosopher, namely a seriousness and honesty of inquiry. They are merely sophists who wanted to appear to be rather than to be something. They sought not truth, but their own interest and advancement in the world. Appointments from governments, fees and royalties from students and publishers, and, as a means to this end, the greatest possible show and sensation in their sham philosophy-such were the guiding stars and inspiring genii of those disciples of wisdom. And so they have not passed the entrance examination and cannot be admitted into the venerable company of thinkers for the human race.

Nevertheless they have excelled in one thing, in the art of beguiling the public and of passing themselves off for what they are not; and this undoubtedly requires talent, yet not philosophical. On the other hand, that they were unable to achieve in philosophy anything substantial was ultimately due to the fact that their intellect had not become free, but had remained in the service of their personal aims. For it is true that the intellect can achieve an extraordinary amount for the ego and its aims, yet it can do nothing for philosophy, any more than it can for art. For these lay down, as their very first condition, that the intellect acts only spontaneously and of its own accord and that, during the time of this activity, it ceases to submit to the ego, that is, to have in view one's own personal aims. But when the intellect itself is of its own accord active, by its nature it knows of no other aim than truth. Hence to be a philosopher, that is to say, a lover of wisdom (for wisdom is nothing but truth), it is not enough for a man to love truth, in so far as it is compatible with his own interest, with the will of his superiors, with the dogmas of the Church, or with the prejudices and tastes of contemporaries; so long as he rests content with this position, he is only a friend of his own ego, not a friend of wisdom.

For this title of honour is well and wisely conceived precisely by its stating that one should love the truth earnestly and with one's whole heart, and thus unconditionally and unreservedly, above all else, and, if need be, in defiance of all else. Now the reason for this is the one previously stated that the intellect has become free, and in this state it does not even know or understand any other interest than that of truth. The consequence, however, is that we then conceive an implacable hatred of all lying and deception, in whatever garb they may appear. In this way, of course, we shall not get on very well in the world, but we shall in philosophy. On the other hand, the auspices for philosophy are bad if, when proceeding ostensibly on the investigation of truth, we start saying farewell to all uprightness, honesty, and sincerity, and are intent only on passing ourselves off for what we are not.

We then assume, like those three sophists, first a false pathos, then an affected and lofty earnestness, then an air of infinite superiority, in order to impose where we despair of ever being able to convince. One writes carelessly because, thinking only in order to write, one had saved up one's thoughts till the moment of writing. The attempt is made to smuggle in palpable sophisms as proofs, to give out hollow and senseless verbiage for profound ideas. A reference is made to intellectual intuition or to absolute thought and the self-movement of concepts. One expressly challenges the standpoint of 'reflection', in other words, of rational deliberation, impartial consideration, and honest presentation, and thus the proper and normal use of the faculty of reason generally. Accordingly, an infinite contempt is expressed for the 'philosophy of reflection', by which name is designated every course of thought that deduces consequents from grounds, such as constitutes all previous philosophising. If, therefore, one is provided with sufficient audacity and is encouraged by the pitiable spirit of the times, one will hold forth somewhat as follows: 'It is not difficult to see that the manner of stating a proposition, of adducing grounds or reasons for it, and likewise of refuting its opposite through grounds or reasons, is not the form in which truth can appear. Truth is the movement of itself within itself', and so on. (Hegel, Preface to the phenomenology of the Mind, p. lvii, in the complete edition, p.36.) I do not think that it is difficult to see that whoever puts forward anything like this is a shameless charlatan who wants to fool simpletons and observes that he has found his people in the Germans of the nineteenth century.

The true distinguishing character of the philosophy of the whole of this so-called post-Kantian school is dishonesty, its element mist and smoke, and its goal personal aims. Its exponents were concerned to appear, not to be; they are, therefore, sophists, not philosophers.

Incidentally, associated with the above-mentioned tendency of these men is the bickering and abusive tone which everywhere pervades Schelling's writings as an obligato accompaniment. Now if all this were not the case, and if Schelling had gone to work with honesty instead of with bluff and humbug, then, as being decidedly the most gifted of the three, he might at least have occupied in philosophy the subordinate position of an eclectic, useful for the time being. The amalgam prepared by him from the doctrines of Plotinus, Spinoza, Jacob Boehme, Kant, and of the natural sciences of the 19th century, could to this extent fill for the time being the great gap produced by the negative results of the Kantian philosophy, until a really new philosophy came along and properly afforded the satisfaction demanded by the former. In particular, he has used the natural science of the 19th century to revive Spinoza's abstract pantheism. Thus without any knowledge of nature, Spinoza had philosophized at random merely from abstract concepts and, without properly knowing the things them- selves, he had erected the structure of his system. T o have clothed this bare skeleton with flesh and blood and to have imparted life and movement to it, as well as might be, by applying natural science that had in the meantime developed, although this was often falsely applied, is the undeniable merit of Schelling in his Naturphilosophie, which is also the best of his many different attempts and new departures.

Just as children play with weapons intended for serious purposes or with other implements belonging to adults, so have the three sophists we are considering dealt with the subject here discussed, in that they have furnished the grotesque pendant of two centuries of laborious investigations on the part of musing and meditating philosophers.

Thus after Kant had more than ever accentuated the great problem of the relation between what exists in-itself and appearance-form, and so had brought it a great deal nearer to solution, Fichte came forward with the assertion that there is nothing more behind the appearance-form and that these are simply products of the knowing subject, of the ego. While attempting in this way to outdo Kant, he produced merely a caricature of that philosopher's system since, by constantly applying the method of those three pseudo-philosophers which was already much vaunted, he entirely abolished the real and left over nothing but the ideal.

Then came Schelling who, in his system of the absolute identity of the real and the ideal, declared that whole difference to be of no account and maintained that the ideal is also the real and that the two are identical. In this way, he attempted again to throw into confusion that which had been so laboriously separated by means of a slow and gradually developing process of reflection, and to mix up everything. (Schelling, Vom Verluiltniss der Naturphilosophie zur Fichte'schen, pp. 14-21.) The distinction of the ideal and the real is just boldly denied in imitation of the above-censured errors of Spinoza. At the same time, even the monads of Leibniz, that mon- strous identification of two absurdities, thus of the atoms and of the indivisible, originally and essentially knowing individuals called souls, are again fetched out, solemnly apotheosized, and made use of. (Schelling, /deen zur Naturphilosophie, 2nd edn., pp. 38 and 82.)

Schelling's philosophy of nature bears the name of the philosophy of identity because, following in Spinoza's footsteps, it abolishes three distinctions which he too had abolished, namely that between God and the world, that between body and soul, and finally also that between the ideal and the real in the intuitively perceived world. This last distinction, however, as was previously shown when we considered Spinoza, does not by any means depend on those other two. On the contrary, the more it was brought into prominence, the more were those other two rendered doubtful; for they are based on dogmatic proofs (overthrown by Kant), whereas it is based on a simple act of reflection. In keeping with all this, metaphysics was by Schelling identified with physics and accordingly the lofty title Von der Weltseele was given to a merely physico-chemical diatribe. All really metaphysical problems that untiringly force themselves on human consciousness were to be silenced through a flat denial by means of peremptory assertions. Nature is here just because it is, out of itself and through itself; we bestow on it the title of God, and with this it is disposed of; whoever asks for more is a fool. The distinction between subjective and objective is a mere trick of the schools, like the whole Kantian philosophy, and this philosophy's distinction of a priori and a posteriori is of no account. Our empirical intuitive perception quite properly furnishes us with the things-in-themselves, and so on. Let us see Ueber das Verhaltniss der Natur- philosophie zur Fichte'schtn, pp. 51 and 67 and also p. 61, where those are expressly ridiculed 'who are really astonished that there is not nothing and who cannot be surprised enough that anything actually exists'. Thus to Herr von Schelling everything seems to be a matter of course. At bottom, however, such talk as this is a veiled appeal, in pompous phrases, to the so-called sound, i.e. crude, common sense. Significant for our subject, and very naive, is the passage on page 6 of Schelling's, above-quoted book: 'If empiricism had completely attained its object, its opposition to philosophy, and therewith philosophy itself, would disappear as a particular sphere or species of science. All abstractions would dissolve themselves into direct, "friendly" intuitive perception; the highest would be a sport of pleasure and innocence; the most difficult would be easy, the most immaterial material, and man would be able to read gladly and freely in the book of nature.' That would, of course, be most delightful! But with us it is not like that; thinking cannot be shown the door in this way. The serious old sphinx with its riddle lies there motionless, and it does not plunge down from the rock because you declare it to be a ghost. Therefore when Schelling himself later observed that metaphysical problems cannot be dismissed by peremptory assertions, he gave us a really metaphysical essay in his treatise on freedom. This, however, is a mere piece of the imagination, a conte bleu, a fairy-tale; and so it is that whenever the style assumes the tone of demonstration (e.g. pp. 453ff.), it has a decidedly comical effect.

Through his doctrine of the identity of the real and the ideal, Schelling had accordingly tried to solve the problem that was started by Descartes, dealt with by all great thinkers, and finally brought to a head by Kant. He attempted to solve this problem by cutting the knot, in that he denied the antithesis between the real and the ideal. In this way he really came into direct contradiction with Kant from whom he professed to start. Meanwhile he had firmly kept at any rate the original and proper meaning of the problem which concerns the relation between our intuitive perception and the being and essence-in-itself of the things that present them- selves in that perception. But since he drew his doctrine mainly from Spinoza, he soon adopted from him the expressions thinking and being which state very badly the problem we are discussing and later gave rise to the absurdest monstrosities.

Now the inaccurate expression, borrowed by Schelling from Spinoza, was later used by that insipid and inane charlatan Hegel, who in this respect appears as Schelling's buffoon, and it was so distorted that thinking itself in the proper sense and hence concepts were to be identical with the essence-in-itself of things. Therefore what is thought in abstracto, as such and directly, was to be identical with what is objectively present in itself, and accordingly logic was at the same time to be the true metaphysics. In that case, we should need only to think, or put our trust in concepts, in order to know how the world outside is absolutely constituted. According to this, everything haunting a skull would at once be true and real. Now since 'the madder the better' was the motto of the philosophasters of this period, this absurdity was supported by a second, namely that we did not think, but the concepts, alone and without our assistance, completed the thought process, which was, therefore, called the dialectical self-movement of the concept, and was now to be a revelation of all things in et extra naturam.

But this buffoonery was really based on yet another that likewise rested on a misuse of words, and indeed was never clearly expressed, although it is undoubtedly at the bottom thereof. After the manner of Spinoza, Schelling had given the world the title of God. Hegel took this in the literal sense. Now as the word really signifies a personal being who, together with other qualities absolutely incompatible with the world, has also that of omniscience, this too was now transferred by Hegel to the world. Naturally it could not find any other place than the simple mind of man, whereupon he needed only to give free play to his thoughts (dialectical self-movement) in order to reveal all the mysteries of heaven and earth, namely in the absolute gibberish of the Hegelian dialectic. There is one art that Hegel has really understood, and that is how to lead Germans by the nose.

The professors of philosophy still take these three sophists seriously and consider it important to assign to them a place in the history of philosophy. This is only because it belongs to their livelihood, since here they have material for elaborate dissertations, verbal and written, on the history of the so-called post-Kantian philosophy wherein the tenets and dogmas of these sophists are expounded in detail and seriously considered. But from a rational point of view, we should not bother about what these men brought to market in order to appear to be something, unless it were the intention to regard Hegel's scribblings as medicinal to be kept in chemists' shops as a psychically effective vomitive, for the disgust they excite is really quite specific.

 

[totalcel]

every single philosopher that came after Kant rejected the theory about the unknowability of reality (noumenon).

Kant’s principal result may be summarised in its essence as follows: “All concepts which do not have as their basis a perception in space and time (sensuous perception), or in other words, have not been drawn from such a perception, are absolutely empty, that is to say, they give us no knowledge. But as perception can furnish only phenomena, not things-in-themselves, we too have absolutely no knowledge of things-in-themselves.”

I admit this of everything, but not of the knowledge everyone has of his own volition. This is neither a perception (for all perception is spatial), nor is it empty; on the contrary, it is more real than any other knowledge. Further, it is not a priori, like merely formal knowledge, but entirely a posteriori; hence we are unable to anticipate it in the particular case, but in this are often guilty of error concerning ourselves. In fact, our volition is the only opportunity we have of understanding simultaneously from within any event that outwardly manifests itself; consequently, it is the one thing known to us immediately, and not given to us merely in the appearance, as all else is.

Here, therefore, lies the datum alone capable of becoming the key to everything else, the only narrow gateway to truth. Accordingly, we must learn to understand nature from ourselves, not ourselves from nature. What is directly known to us must give us the explanation of what is only indirectly known, not conversely. Do we understand, let us say, the rolling away of a ball when it has received an impulse more thoroughly than we understand our own movement when we have perceived a motive? Many may think so, but I say that the reverse is the case.

 

[totalcel]

Anyway, i know Kant very well

Mathematics is based on intuitive perceptions on which its proofs are supported; yet because such perceptions are not empirical but a priori, its theories are apodictic. Philosophy, on the other hand, has mere concepts as the given element from which it starts and which is to impart necessity (apodicticity) to its proofs. For it cannot rely directly on merely empirical intuitive perception because it undertakes to explain the universal of things not the particular, its purpose being to lead beyond what is empirically given. Now there remains for it nothing but universal concepts since these, of course, are not what appertains to intuitive perception and are not purely empirical. Such concepts must, therefore, furnish the foundation of its theories and proofs, and a start must be made from them as something present and given. Accordingly, philosophy is now a science from mere concepts, whereas mathematics is a science from the construction (intuitive presentation) of its concepts. Strictly speaking, however, it is only the demonstration or argumentation of philosophy that starts from mere concepts. Thus this demonstration cannot start, like the mathematical, from an intuitive perception because such would have to be either purely a priori or empirical; the latter gives no apodicticity and the former furnishes only mathematics.

If, therefore, it tries somehow to support its doctrines by demonstration or argumentation, this must consist in the correct logical inference from concepts that are taken as a basis. Things had gone on quite well in this direction throughout the long period of Scholasticism and even in the new epoch established by Descartes, so that we see even Spinoza and Leibniz follow this method. But at last it had occurred to Locke to investigate the origin of concepts, and the result had been that all universal concepts, however, abstract they may be, are drawn from experience, in other words, from the actual existing, sensuously perceivable, empirically real world, or else from inner experience such as is afforded to everyone by empirical self-observation. Consequently, those concepts derive their whole content only, from these two; and so they can never furnish more than what outer or inner experience has put there. Strictly speaking, it should have been inferred from this that they never lead beyond experience, that is, they never lead to the goal; but with the principles drawn from experience Locke went beyond experience.

In further opposition to his predecessors and for the purpose of correcting Locke's doctrine, Kant showed that there are in fact some concepts which form an exception to the above rule and therefore do not originate from experience. But at the same time, he also showed that these are drawn partly from the pure, i.e. a priori, given intuitive perception of space and time, and that in part they constitute the peculiar functions of our understanding itself for the purpose of their use in experience that is regulated by them. Consequently, he demonstrated that their validity extends only to possible experience which is to be produced at all times through the medium of the senses, since they themselves are merely destined, on the stimulation of sensation, to generate in us that experience, together with all its events that conform to law. In themselves devoid of content, they therefore obtain all their material and content solely from sensibility in order then to produce therewith experience. Apart from this, however, they have no content or significance since they are valid only on the assumption of an intuitive perception that rests on sensation and refer essentially to this. Now from this it follows that they cannot furnish us with the guides to lead us beyond all possibility of experience; and again that metaphysics is impossible as being the science of that which lies beyond nature, that is, beyond the possibility of experience.

Now as the one element of experience, namely the universal, the formal, and the one that conforms to law, is knowable a priori, but for that very reason depends on the essential and regular functions of our intellect, whereas the other element, namely the particular, the material, and the contingent, springs from sensation, it follows that both are of subjective origin. From this it follows that the whole of experience together with the world presenting itself therein is a mere phenomenon, in other words, something existing primarily and directly only for the subject that knows it. Yet this phenomenon points to a thing-in-itself that underlies it and, as such, is nevertheless absolutely unknowable. These, then, are the negative results of the Kantian philosophy.

When, through careful and serious study and by reading the really profound chapters of the Critique of Pure Reason and giving our whole attention to the subject, we now succeed in actually thinking with Kant's mind and thus in being elevated far above ourselves. This is the case, for example, when we once again go through the ' Principles of the Pure Understanding'; when we consider especially the 'Analogies of Experience' and now fathom the profound idea of the Synthetic Unity of Apperception. We then feel ourselves removed and estranged in a marvellous way from the wholly dream-like existence in which we are submerged. For we take up each of its primary elements by itself and now see how time, space, and causality, connected by the synthetic unity of apperception of all phenomena, render possible this empirical complex of the whole and its course wherein our world, so greatly conditioned by the intellect, consists, being precisely on this account mere phenomenon. The synthetic unity of apperception is thus that connection of the world as a whole which rests on the laws of our intellect and is therefore inviolable. In its description Kant demonstrates the primary and fundamental laws of the world where they con- verge into one with the laws of intellect and before us he holds them up strung out on one thread. This method of consideration which is exclusively Kant's own, may be described as the most detached view that has ever been cast on the world and has the highest degree of objectivity. To follow this method affords an intellectual pleasure perhaps unequalled by any other. For it is of a higher order than that provided by poets who are, of course, accessible to everyone, whereas the pleasure here described must have been preceded by effort and exertion.

 

[Knajjd]

For it is of a higher order than that provided by poets who are, of course, accessible to everyone, whereas the pleasure here described must have been preceded by effort and exertion.

Have you achieved this higher order state?

 

[IsolationHurts]

... What?




Regardless of the content of the claim (in the OP), my contention is with the notion that something is "proven" by consensus. It never is, and that's a very unsophisticated and low bar for proof - it's basically useless as a standard of proof.

The standard of proof is the validity and soundness of an argument, the truth value of the premises and conclusions, and any evidence provided (if the claims are empirical or verifiable in nature). When all of these are present, you can say with certainty that you've proven something.

I mostly agree. For something to be proven its required more than consensus, specially true in science fields. But no consensus at all regarding a philosophical thesis means impossibility to take that thesis as "proven". Youre taking this too serious.

 

[IsolationHurts]

idealism inherently makes you opposed to a way of seeing economics or the blackpill for that matter.

Its a basic marxist idea, and i mostly agree with it. Idealist philosophy is just ideology, or in other words, just hides reality (the materiality of economical relantions in a society), justifies it, and so, makes the economical system perdure. Its "reactionary" or "scapist"... english is not my first language, and im too tired today to use the translator. If youre interested in this, i would suggest reading any text book about marxist philosophy.

 

[IsolationHurts]

In his 1909 book Kant's Philosophy as Rectified by Schopenhauer, Michael Kelly drew attention to Schopenhauer's discussion of Kant's Schemata. In his Preface, Dr. Kelly justified his book by saying: "...a short exposition of Transcendental Idealism with Schopenhauer's constructive and destructive criticism may be of use to those that cannot make a simultaneous study of Kant and Schopenhauer in the original. To think that the former [Kant] can be understood without the latter [Schopenhauer] is a fatal delusion. If anybody should doubt this, let him try to make out what Kant meant by the ' Schematismus,' and he will soon find it advisable to avail himself of the assistance of a man who is worth ten times more than all the post-Kantian philosophers and professors put together."

Kant's first apostle Reinhold said that he fathomed the real meaning of the Critique ofPure Reason only after he had strenuously studied it five times.

That looks like an interesting reading, i might give it a try.

To think that the former [Kant] can be understood without the latter [Schopenhauer] is a fatal delusion.

Now i see where you come from. I disagree. Both of them are worth reading, and you dont need Schopenhauer in order to understand Kant. And i dont think that, nowadays, you need five years to understand the first critic, we have tons of materials created by college professors that have nothing better to do that explaining Kant over and over and over. Just my opinion. I dont claim to understand Kant perfectly, either. Ive just read all his work, i understand most of it well enought to see how everything connects with his goals (or the goals of the movement he said he belonged to, the enlightment)

Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel are in my opinion not philosophers; for they lack the first requirement of a philosopher, namely a seriousness and honesty of inquiry. They are merely sophists who wanted to appear to be rather than to be something. They sought not truth, but their own interest and advancement in the world. Appointments from governments, fees and royalties from students and publishers, and, as a means to this end, the greatest possible show and sensation in their sham philosophy-such were the guiding stars and inspiring genii of those disciples of wisdom. And so they have not passed the entrance examination and cannot be admitted into the venerable company of thinkers for the human race.

Nevertheless they have excelled in one thing, in the art of beguiling the public and of passing themselves off for what they are not; and this undoubtedly requires talent, yet not philosophical. On the other hand, that they were unable to achieve in philosophy anything substantial was ultimately due to the fact that their intellect had not become free, but had remained in the service of their personal aims. For it is true that the intellect can achieve an extraordinary amount for the ego and its aims, yet it can do nothing for philosophy, any more than it can for art. For these lay down, as their very first condition, that the intellect acts only spontaneously and of its own accord and that, during the time of this activity, it ceases to submit to the ego, that is, to have in view one's own personal aims. But when the intellect itself is of its own accord active, by its nature it knows of no other aim than truth. Hence to be a philosopher, that is to say, a lover of wisdom (for wisdom is nothing but truth), it is not enough for a man to love truth, in so far as it is compatible with his own interest, with the will of his superiors, with the dogmas of the Church, or with the prejudices and tastes of contemporaries; so long as he rests content with this position, he is only a friend of his own ego, not a friend of wisdom.

For this title of honour is well and wisely conceived precisely by its stating that one should love the truth earnestly and with one's whole heart, and thus unconditionally and unreservedly, above all else, and, if need be, in defiance of all else. Now the reason for this is the one previously stated that the intellect has become free, and in this state it does not even know or understand any other interest than that of truth. The consequence, however, is that we then conceive an implacable hatred of all lying and deception, in whatever garb they may appear. In this way, of course, we shall not get on very well in the world, but we shall in philosophy. On the other hand, the auspices for philosophy are bad if, when proceeding ostensibly on the investigation of truth, we start saying farewell to all uprightness, honesty, and sincerity, and are intent only on passing ourselves off for what we are not.

We then assume, like those three sophists, first a false pathos, then an affected and lofty earnestness, then an air of infinite superiority, in order to impose where we despair of ever being able to convince. One writes carelessly because, thinking only in order to write, one had saved up one's thoughts till the moment of writing. The attempt is made to smuggle in palpable sophisms as proofs, to give out hollow and senseless verbiage for profound ideas. A reference is made to intellectual intuition or to absolute thought and the self-movement of concepts. One expressly challenges the standpoint of 'reflection', in other words, of rational deliberation, impartial consideration, and honest presentation, and thus the proper and normal use of the faculty of reason generally. Accordingly, an infinite contempt is expressed for the 'philosophy of reflection', by which name is designated every course of thought that deduces consequents from grounds, such as constitutes all previous philosophising. If, therefore, one is provided with sufficient audacity and is encouraged by the pitiable spirit of the times, one will hold forth somewhat as follows: 'It is not difficult to see that the manner of stating a proposition, of adducing grounds or reasons for it, and likewise of refuting its opposite through grounds or reasons, is not the form in which truth can appear. Truth is the movement of itself within itself', and so on. (Hegel, Preface to the phenomenology of the Mind, p. lvii, in the complete edition, p.36.) I do not think that it is difficult to see that whoever puts forward anything like this is a shameless charlatan who wants to fool simpletons and observes that he has found his people in the Germans of the nineteenth century.

The true distinguishing character of the philosophy of the whole of this so-called post-Kantian school is dishonesty, its element mist and smoke, and its goal personal aims. Its exponents were concerned to appear, not to be; they are, therefore, sophists, not philosophers.

Incidentally, associated with the above-mentioned tendency of these men is the bickering and abusive tone which everywhere pervades Schelling's writings as an obligato accompaniment. Now if all this were not the case, and if Schelling had gone to work with honesty instead of with bluff and humbug, then, as being decidedly the most gifted of the three, he might at least have occupied in philosophy the subordinate position of an eclectic, useful for the time being. The amalgam prepared by him from the doctrines of Plotinus, Spinoza, Jacob Boehme, Kant, and of the natural sciences of the 19th century, could to this extent fill for the time being the great gap produced by the negative results of the Kantian philosophy, until a really new philosophy came along and properly afforded the satisfaction demanded by the former. In particular, he has used the natural science of the 19th century to revive Spinoza's abstract pantheism. Thus without any knowledge of nature, Spinoza had philosophized at random merely from abstract concepts and, without properly knowing the things them- selves, he had erected the structure of his system. T o have clothed this bare skeleton with flesh and blood and to have imparted life and movement to it, as well as might be, by applying natural science that had in the meantime developed, although this was often falsely applied, is the undeniable merit of Schelling in his Naturphilosophie, which is also the best of his many different attempts and new departures.

Just as children play with weapons intended for serious purposes or with other implements belonging to adults, so have the three sophists we are considering dealt with the subject here discussed, in that they have furnished the grotesque pendant of two centuries of laborious investigations on the part of musing and meditating philosophers.

Thus after Kant had more than ever accentuated the great problem of the relation between what exists in-itself and appearance-form, and so had brought it a great deal nearer to solution, Fichte came forward with the assertion that there is nothing more behind the appearance-form and that these are simply products of the knowing subject, of the ego. While attempting in this way to outdo Kant, he produced merely a caricature of that philosopher's system since, by constantly applying the method of those three pseudo-philosophers which was already much vaunted, he entirely abolished the real and left over nothing but the ideal.

Then came Schelling who, in his system of the absolute identity of the real and the ideal, declared that whole difference to be of no account and maintained that the ideal is also the real and that the two are identical. In this way, he attempted again to throw into confusion that which had been so laboriously separated by means of a slow and gradually developing process of reflection, and to mix up everything. (Schelling, Vom Verluiltniss der Naturphilosophie zur Fichte'schen, pp. 14-21.) The distinction of the ideal and the real is just boldly denied in imitation of the above-censured errors of Spinoza. At the same time, even the monads of Leibniz, that mon- strous identification of two absurdities, thus of the atoms and of the indivisible, originally and essentially knowing individuals called souls, are again fetched out, solemnly apotheosized, and made use of. (Schelling, /deen zur Naturphilosophie, 2nd edn., pp. 38 and 82.)

Schelling's philosophy of nature bears the name of the philosophy of identity because, following in Spinoza's footsteps, it abolishes three distinctions which he too had abolished, namely that between God and the world, that between body and soul, and finally also that between the ideal and the real in the intuitively perceived world. This last distinction, however, as was previously shown when we considered Spinoza, does not by any means depend on those other two. On the contrary, the more it was brought into prominence, the more were those other two rendered doubtful; for they are based on dogmatic proofs (overthrown by Kant), whereas it is based on a simple act of reflection. In keeping with all this, metaphysics was by Schelling identified with physics and accordingly the lofty title Von der Weltseele was given to a merely physico-chemical diatribe. All really metaphysical problems that untiringly force themselves on human consciousness were to be silenced through a flat denial by means of peremptory assertions. Nature is here just because it is, out of itself and through itself; we bestow on it the title of God, and with this it is disposed of; whoever asks for more is a fool. The distinction between subjective and objective is a mere trick of the schools, like the whole Kantian philosophy, and this philosophy's distinction of a priori and a posteriori is of no account. Our empirical intuitive perception quite properly furnishes us with the things-in-themselves, and so on. Let us see Ueber das Verhaltniss der Natur- philosophie zur Fichte'schtn, pp. 51 and 67 and also p. 61, where those are expressly ridiculed 'who are really astonished that there is not nothing and who cannot be surprised enough that anything actually exists'. Thus to Herr von Schelling everything seems to be a matter of course. At bottom, however, such talk as this is a veiled appeal, in pompous phrases, to the so-called sound, i.e. crude, common sense. Significant for our subject, and very naive, is the passage on page 6 of Schelling's, above-quoted book: 'If empiricism had completely attained its object, its opposition to philosophy, and therewith philosophy itself, would disappear as a particular sphere or species of science. All abstractions would dissolve themselves into direct, "friendly" intuitive perception; the highest would be a sport of pleasure and innocence; the most difficult would be easy, the most immaterial material, and man would be able to read gladly and freely in the book of nature.' That would, of course, be most delightful! But with us it is not like that; thinking cannot be shown the door in this way. The serious old sphinx with its riddle lies there motionless, and it does not plunge down from the rock because you declare it to be a ghost. Therefore when Schelling himself later observed that metaphysical problems cannot be dismissed by peremptory assertions, he gave us a really metaphysical essay in his treatise on freedom. This, however, is a mere piece of the imagination, a conte bleu, a fairy-tale; and so it is that whenever the style assumes the tone of demonstration (e.g. pp. 453ff.), it has a decidedly comical effect.

Through his doctrine of the identity of the real and the ideal, Schelling had accordingly tried to solve the problem that was started by Descartes, dealt with by all great thinkers, and finally brought to a head by Kant. He attempted to solve this problem by cutting the knot, in that he denied the antithesis between the real and the ideal. In this way he really came into direct contradiction with Kant from whom he professed to start. Meanwhile he had firmly kept at any rate the original and proper meaning of the problem which concerns the relation between our intuitive perception and the being and essence-in-itself of the things that present them- selves in that perception. But since he drew his doctrine mainly from Spinoza, he soon adopted from him the expressions thinking and being which state very badly the problem we are discussing and later gave rise to the absurdest monstrosities.

Now the inaccurate expression, borrowed by Schelling from Spinoza, was later used by that insipid and inane charlatan Hegel, who in this respect appears as Schelling's buffoon, and it was so distorted that thinking itself in the proper sense and hence concepts were to be identical with the essence-in-itself of things. Therefore what is thought in abstracto, as such and directly, was to be identical with what is objectively present in itself, and accordingly logic was at the same time to be the true metaphysics. In that case, we should need only to think, or put our trust in concepts, in order to know how the world outside is absolutely constituted. According to this, everything haunting a skull would at once be true and real. Now since 'the madder the better' was the motto of the philosophasters of this period, this absurdity was supported by a second, namely that we did not think, but the concepts, alone and without our assistance, completed the thought process, which was, therefore, called the dialectical self-movement of the concept, and was now to be a revelation of all things in et extra naturam.

But this buffoonery was really based on yet another that likewise rested on a misuse of words, and indeed was never clearly expressed, although it is undoubtedly at the bottom thereof. After the manner of Spinoza, Schelling had given the world the title of God. Hegel took this in the literal sense. Now as the word really signifies a personal being who, together with other qualities absolutely incompatible with the world, has also that of omniscience, this too was now transferred by Hegel to the world. Naturally it could not find any other place than the simple mind of man, whereupon he needed only to give free play to his thoughts (dialectical self-movement) in order to reveal all the mysteries of heaven and earth, namely in the absolute gibberish of the Hegelian dialectic. There is one art that Hegel has really understood, and that is how to lead Germans by the nose.

The professors of philosophy still take these three sophists seriously and consider it important to assign to them a place in the history of philosophy. This is only because it belongs to their livelihood, since here they have material for elaborate dissertations, verbal and written, on the history of the so-called post-Kantian philosophy wherein the tenets and dogmas of these sophists are expounded in detail and seriously considered. But from a rational point of view, we should not bother about what these men brought to market in order to appear to be something, unless it were the intention to regard Hegel's scribblings as medicinal to be kept in chemists' shops as a psychically effective vomitive, for the disgust they excite is really quite specific.

Man, i wish i had your free time, not kidding I have a job, and im reading other things right now in my free, so i cant spend a week refreshing my german idealism so i can give you a proper answer. Im sorry.
Anyway, I get it, you dont agree with german idealism in general, and dont like those german post-kantian philosophers. I think i already said that me neither. I quoted them just to prove a very simple point: not everyone agrees with Kant, so his doctrines are far from "proven" (given that you prove a philosophical thesis by consensus, which is a premise i wouldnt agree anyway, but sounds reasonable enough for my pourposes). Also, youre not alone: every single philosophical school after Hegel is a reaction, in one way or another, against him and his disciples. Feuerbach, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Peirce, Carnap, Husserl, Heidegger... The list is endless. So, yeah, we both agree with the contemporary philosophical consensus: German Idealism sucks. You dont need to convince me. I dont even think there are many hegelians nowadays (let alone fichteans or schellingeans?)

I admit this of everything, but not of the knowledge everyone has of his own volition. This is neither a perception (for all perception is spatial), nor is it empty; on the contrary, it is more real than any other knowledge. Further, it is not a priori, like merely formal knowledge, but entirely a posteriori; hence we are unable to anticipate it in the particular case, but in this are often guilty of error concerning ourselves. In fact, our volition is the only opportunity we have of understanding simultaneously from within any event that outwardly manifests itself; consequently, it is the one thing known to us immediately, and not given to us merely in the appearance, as all else is.

Here, therefore, lies the datum alone capable of becoming the key to everything else, the only narrow gateway to truth. Accordingly, we must learn to understand nature from ourselves, not ourselves from nature. What is directly known to us must give us the explanation of what is only indirectly known, not conversely. Do we understand, let us say, the rolling away of a ball when it has received an impulse more thoroughly than we understand our own movement when we have perceived a motive? Many may think so, but I say that the reverse is the case.

I see you really agree with Schopenhauer. Thats nice, dont get me wrong. I just think that many interesting things have happened between him and us (like Nietzsche, Simmel, Heidegger, Ortega, Zubiri, etc.). I think he was a genius because he realized the metaphisical implications of will, and how it is a more basic and more "real" dimension of reality that what he called "representation". We own him this idea, that was taken very seriously by vitalist and existential philosophy.
Despite of that, his conclusions are as absurd as the idealistic philosophies that were being written in his time. The world as will and representation is widely regarded as "sophistry", exactly as the phenomenology of the spirit. And i would mostly agree with the critics.

Mathematics is based on intuitive perceptions on which its proofs are supported; yet because such perceptions are not empirical but a priori, its theories are apodictic. Philosophy, on the other hand, has mere concepts as the given element from which it starts and which is to impart necessity (apodicticity) to its proofs. For it cannot rely directly on merely empirical intuitive perception because it undertakes to explain the universal of things not the particular, its purpose being to lead beyond what is empirically given. Now there remains for it nothing but universal concepts since these, of course, are not what appertains to intuitive perception and are not purely empirical. Such concepts must, therefore, furnish the foundation of its theories and proofs, and a start must be made from them as something present and given. Accordingly, philosophy is now a science from mere concepts, whereas mathematics is a science from the construction (intuitive presentation) of its concepts. Strictly speaking, however, it is only the demonstration or argumentation of philosophy that starts from mere concepts. Thus this demonstration cannot start, like the mathematical, from an intuitive perception because such would have to be either purely a priori or empirical; the latter gives no apodicticity and the former furnishes only mathematics.

If, therefore, it tries somehow to support its doctrines by demonstration or argumentation, this must consist in the correct logical inference from concepts that are taken as a basis. Things had gone on quite well in this direction throughout the long period of Scholasticism and even in the new epoch established by Descartes, so that we see even Spinoza and Leibniz follow this method. But at last it had occurred to Locke to investigate the origin of concepts, and the result had been that all universal concepts, however, abstract they may be, are drawn from experience, in other words, from the actual existing, sensuously perceivable, empirically real world, or else from inner experience such as is afforded to everyone by empirical self-observation. Consequently, those concepts derive their whole content only, from these two; and so they can never furnish more than what outer or inner experience has put there. Strictly speaking, it should have been inferred from this that they never lead beyond experience, that is, they never lead to the goal; but with the principles drawn from experience Locke went beyond experience.

In further opposition to his predecessors and for the purpose of correcting Locke's doctrine, Kant showed that there are in fact some concepts which form an exception to the above rule and therefore do not originate from experience. But at the same time, he also showed that these are drawn partly from the pure, i.e. a priori, given intuitive perception of space and time, and that in part they constitute the peculiar functions of our understanding itself for the purpose of their use in experience that is regulated by them. Consequently, he demonstrated that their validity extends only to possible experience which is to be produced at all times through the medium of the senses, since they themselves are merely destined, on the stimulation of sensation, to generate in us that experience, together with all its events that conform to law. In themselves devoid of content, they therefore obtain all their material and content solely from sensibility in order then to produce therewith experience. Apart from this, however, they have no content or significance since they are valid only on the assumption of an intuitive perception that rests on sensation and refer essentially to this. Now from this it follows that they cannot furnish us with the guides to lead us beyond all possibility of experience; and again that metaphysics is impossible as being the science of that which lies beyond nature, that is, beyond the possibility of experience.

Now as the one element of experience, namely the universal, the formal, and the one that conforms to law, is knowable a priori, but for that very reason depends on the essential and regular functions of our intellect, whereas the other element, namely the particular, the material, and the contingent, springs from sensation, it follows that both are of subjective origin. From this it follows that the whole of experience together with the world presenting itself therein is a mere phenomenon, in other words, something existing primarily and directly only for the subject that knows it. Yet this phenomenon points to a thing-in-itself that underlies it and, as such, is nevertheless absolutely unknowable. These, then, are the negative results of the Kantian philosophy.

When, through careful and serious study and by reading the really profound chapters of the Critique of Pure Reason and giving our whole attention to the subject, we now succeed in actually thinking with Kant's mind and thus in being elevated far above ourselves. This is the case, for example, when we once again go through the ' Principles of the Pure Understanding'; when we consider especially the 'Analogies of Experience' and now fathom the profound idea of the Synthetic Unity of Apperception. We then feel ourselves removed and estranged in a marvellous way from the wholly dream-like existence in which we are submerged. For we take up each of its primary elements by itself and now see how time, space, and causality, connected by the synthetic unity of apperception of all phenomena, render possible this empirical complex of the whole and its course wherein our world, so greatly conditioned by the intellect, consists, being precisely on this account mere phenomenon. The synthetic unity of apperception is thus that connection of the world as a whole which rests on the laws of our intellect and is therefore inviolable. In its description Kant demonstrates the primary and fundamental laws of the world where they con- verge into one with the laws of intellect and before us he holds them up strung out on one thread. This method of consideration which is exclusively Kant's own, may be described as the most detached view that has ever been cast on the world and has the highest degree of objectivity. To follow this method affords an intellectual pleasure perhaps unequalled by any other. For it is of a higher order than that provided by poets who are, of course, accessible to everyone, whereas the pleasure here described must have been preceded by effort and exertion.

I make a living literally by explaining Kant... i know man. Dont worry, i dont need a summary of his ideas. However, Its envious how much you value him, if i could, i would bring you to my class so you can tell them how awesome he is. I would invite you to a beer if you convince any of my students of the following:

This method of consideration which is exclusively Kant's own, may be described as the most detached view that has ever been cast on the world and has the highest degree of objectivity.

I dont agree with that at all, btw. And i suspect that your kind of eccentric conviction about the magnificence of Kant work is probably motivated by prejudices youre trying to prove through any means: you seem to accept an ancient monist dogma, that you probably obtained reading indian philosophy through the lens of new age thought. I might be wrong, but proving this wrong (youre a dogmatic monist, and all your writing is just scholasticism, making your dogmas reasonable by forcing others peoples thinking into your preconceptions) is going to be WAY more interesting to read that your long dissertations about thing that everyone knows.

For example, i can see when Kant and your interpretation of kant merge in your imagination:

We then feel ourselves removed and estranged in a marvellous way from the wholly dream-like existence in which we are submerged.

Its fine to say that, from your point of view, Kant denounced that phenomenic world is "dream like", but that idea is not and could not be in Kants works. You seem obsesed with making Kant say what Schopenhauer wanted him to say. He didnt. He was a boring teacher, far far away from the kind of eastern mysticism that Schopenhauer knew and valued. And you seem to be defending good old Schopenhauer because you seem dogmatically convinced about the unity or all life or reality (as you said in the original post). So, where do you get this? Does this conviction come from a mystical experience? A dogmatic reception of ancient indian ideas? (or ancient greek ideas, like Parmenides?) Or is it a way to escape your harsh reality as an incel, is it just ideology in the marxist sense of the word?

Im sorry if my english is not nearly as polished as yours, my first language is not english and even in my native language, i dont like pedantic writing. It just makes the conversation esoteric for no reason.

 

[Deleted member 41309]

• personal experience of an extremely great suffering that leads to non-ego; or
• intuitively "recognize the whole, comprehend the essence, and find that it is constantly passing away, caught up in vain strivings, inner conflict, and perpetual suffering". The negation of the ego, in other words, stems from the insight that the world in-itself (free from the forms of space and time) is one.

Esoteric religions such as Advaita vedanta and Zen buddhism recommend self-enquiry and hua-tou respectively. The name of the practice differ but the practice itself is the same.

Self-enquiry (Ramana Maharshi) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Hua Tou - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

The transcendental "Self" of Hinduism is just another fabrication of the mind. It doesn't exist. True no-self is very rare brah. But maybe Ramana, J krishnamurti and UG krishnnamruti are in that state, maybe. Idk

 

[totalcel]

The transcendental "Self" of Hinduism is just another fabrication of the mind. It doesn't exist. True no-self is very rare brah. But maybe Ramana, J krishnamurti and UG krishnnamruti are in that state, maybe. Idk

The Buddhists with complete frankness describe the matter only negatively as Nirvana, which is the negation of this world or of Samsara. If Nirvana is defined as nothing, this means only that Samsara contains no single element that could serve to define or construct Nirvana. For this reason the Jains, who differ from the Buddhists only in name, call the Brahmans who believe in the Vedas, Sabdapramans, a nickname supposed to signify that they believe on hearsay what cannot be known or proved.