Contemporary philo (Essay Sample)

Summary of the Post-Kantian system
The immediate background for idealism was provided by the philosophy of Kant, who had attacked metaphysics in order to provide theoretical knowledge of reality. On the other hand the Germans idealist looked themselves as the true spiritual successors of Kant and simply not reacting against ideas some of the idealists felt that Kant had placed himself in a quagmire, in the sense that the position he was he could not accept to abandon the notion of the thing-in-itself as the cause of the given. Probably Kant would have been inconsistent because to him the concept of cause can not be used to explain our knowledge beyond the phenomenal sphere. The notion of the thing-in-itself is the starting point of an explanation of the development of metaphysical idealism.
If critical philosophy is transferred into a consistent idealism, all things then must be regarded as the product of thought. In this case therefore extra mental world can not be interpreted as the product of the mind since they did affect people in various ways. So it is true that the idealists were quick to recognize the contradiction in Kants argument concerning the noumenon. That is the thing in itself. When they asked: how is it possible to say that something exists yet we can not know anything about it? Do we know anything about it whenever we say it exists? In my opinion by the fact that I can say that john exists, I categorically identify John as one who exists and this makes me know the living nature of John, in this case therefore to identify a thing in itself without contradiction is to know something a about the thing, as I have mention with John. To say that the thing in itself exists is to go beyond the limits Kant had set for knowledge because existence is a category of the mind, a concept which applies on to objects that we experience.
Production of the world can not be attributed to the individual self at all, even conscious or not. Therefore idealism must go to an absolute subject. The idealist in their view says whatever is, is knowable. The theory that the mind imposes its categories upon experience and transformed it into the theory that every object and may be the whole world of material is a product of the mind, it is tantamount to transforming Kants critical philosophy into a metaphysical idealism. The mind is structured in such a way that it can not come to terms with the phenomenon. In this case therefore the mind can know the noumenon by the act of the will. The idealists now explain it that the content as well as the forms of knowledge must be the product of the mind. In this case therefore I would infer the world as the product of knowledge so everything is idea.
Absolute ego is the ultimate principle to Fitche, while Hegel refers it as the infinite reason. To the metaphysical idealists reality is process of self expression. While the general idealist accepted the necessity of transforming the critical philosophy into idealism and by transforming the world has to be regarded as the product of reason. When Fitch called his first principle the ego this turned Kants transcendental ego into a metaphysical or ontological principle, he Fitche used the word Ego absolutely therefore metaphysical idealism is a process of self-expression or manifestation of finite thought or reason. Metaphysical idealism does not entail empirical reality as a subjective idea, however the vision of the world and history are the objective expression of creative reason.
Post-Kantians were influenced too by Kants doctrine of the primacy of the practical reason, it’s the nature of a reflective mind to form a coherent and unified interpretation of reality as a result the post medieval philosophers had to reconcile the scientific view of the world as a mechanical system with a needs of moral and religious consciousness so as to bring overall interpretation. Kant was not clear in his idea so at all hand we have the phenomenal world, world of Newtonian science governed by necessary laws and at the other hand we have super science world of free moral agent and of God. On the other note there is no reason of affirming the phenomenal world as the only reality while there is no theoretical prove of the existence of the supersentious reality, thus only faith resting on the moral conscious. Kants metaphysics of the future is a transcendental critique of human experience and knowledge.
This is the human minds reflective awareness of its own spontaneous formative activity. The activity of the thing in itself is attributed, not to the infinite human mind but to the absolute reason. The transformation of the Kantian theory of Knowledge into metaphysics of realities has important changes for instant elimination of thing in itself, the world becomes the self manifestation of reason in this case therefore Kantian distinction of a priori and a posteriori loses its absolute character.
Nature is the expression of manifestation of thought in its movement towards a goal so process of nature must be teleological in character. For the idealist, philosophy is the conceptual reconstruction of a dynamic activity, a self-unfolding infinite life than a strict analysis of the meaning and implications of one basic proposition. In life we always have the idea of rational process when we substitute a context of idealist metaphysics for the context of Kants theory of human knowledge and experience. This is reality becoming aware of itself in and trough mans philosophical reflection, as a result universe knows itself in and through. The idealist movement was not simply the result of transformation of the critical philosophy into metaphysics. At this point in time in time, Fitches at Jena, Shelling and Hegel at Tubingen were all students of philosophy.
Post Kantian idealists were not subjective idealists in the sense of holding that all objects of knowledge are the product of finite human subject. For instant productive subject was finite ego as such for Fitches but the absolute ego, a transcendental and supera-individual principle. On the other hand Hegel and Schelling held that any production of things to products of the individual finite mind was entirely foreign to their thought. Hegel hold God as the subject matter of philosophy, his point of departure is in relationship between infinite and finite that is God and creatures. This relationship was over taken by events since it was a theological idea not philosophical. He, Hegel explains the relationship between Christianity to Hegelianism as that of absolute religion to the absolute philosophy; it shows the two ways of apprehending and expressing the same truth content.
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