The Paradigm of Change, Hegel, Kant and Schopenhaur - HCJ

Since there is a hell of a lot to go over and understand in this blog post im going to try and keep it as brief as possible so bare with me. Just a little reminder for myself – chronologically is goes Kant, Hegel and then Schopenhauer. Cool.

Paradigm: This is a connected way of thinking across all knowledge, think of it as a framework, this concept was introduced by Thomas Kuhn and according to him people are always thinking in certain paradigms and throughout history many paradigm shifts have occurred, for example people used to collectively think that the world was flat but it was discovered that the world is in fact a globe, this changed everyone’s way of thinking and is what we call a paradigm shift.

Hegel: Hegel was a historicist, this means that he believed history was always destined to follow a set course and that all things in the past and things that are still to pass all happen for one reason or another and this is linked to the idea of “God’s plan”. He calls this the Zeit Geist; this is a German term that literally translates to time ghost or spirit of time and this idea states that although something my change altogether, it is still the same thing at the heart of it, for example if you were to change the bricks of a house one by one every day the house will remain a house but will look different, the same can be said about human cells that die out and re-grow constantly.

Immanuel Kant: Kant is sometimes considered the first of the German idealists. German idealism was a philosophical movement that emerged in Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It developed out of the work of Kant, and went hand in hand with romanticism and the revolutionary politics of the Enlightenment. Hegel was hugely influential throughout the nineteenth century; by its end, according to my boy Russell, "the leading academic philosophers, both in America and Britain, were largely Hegelian"

Kant has the words “My life has been guided by two great mysteries – the starry heavens above and the moral law within” etched on his gravestone. Kant was a self-made pro and took it upon himself to directly oppose Hume and bring back metaphysics as Hume pretty much destroyed it with his logic. Kant was against Hume’s Fork idea:

Hume’s Fork = Matter of fact (can be investigated) A Posteriori, Vs.

                        Relation of ideas (things are true by definition) A Priori

Hume’s A Priori = a proposition that can’t be denied without contradiction – eg a circle is not round.

Kant’s A Priori = this is more pessimistic – if it can be figured out without experience of it but at the same time is not true by definition.

Synthetic A Priori is also scientific A Priori and so therefore we can know that arithmetic fits into this as 2+4 = 6, because we can figure it out and it relates to other things / aspects that we know to be true.

Analytic A Priori is more like geometry – eg all triangles have 3 sides. While Synthetic A Posteriori is more like oranges don’t taste like acid or whatever.

Still with me? Cause im sure not... Just two more things that I need to clarify and then we’re done! Yayyy J anyway, just two key words:

Phenomena = creation of the mind

Noumena = this is the real thing in itself, which apparently we can never know.

Hegel and the Zeit Geist: The idea of the Zeit Geist is that is must always know itself in order to avoid its ‘fall’, this fall comes about when the Geist struggles to know itself and in turn becomes alienated and this means it is no longer the same thing and has changed with time.

Hegel’s Dialectical Reasoning:
First there is a thesis (the beginning) and this comes to change through an antithesis and this in turn creates a synthesis, in Hegel’s view of history he saw:

·         Thesis = rise / fall of Greece

·         Antithesis = middle ages

·         Synthesis = reform / renaissance

Following this, the German state was in his eyes the equivalent to Ancient Greece and this cycle will continue until a utopia is reached in the end.

However, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche both disagree with Hegel saying that his view on history is far too linear; and with that the famous quote, “The Owl of Minerva does not fully spread her wings until the parting of the day” which means that we cannot fully know something without it happening first and looking back on it and studying it – as Chris hilariously said it’s like having a blacked out windshield in a car while driving and only having the rear view mirror and seeing all the bodies you’re hitting means that you should probably slow down, or stop driving altogether.

Schopenhauer: Not really much to say about this guy but he introduced the idea of existentialism which is an insane idea (pretty much). Ontology - this is what something is when it isn't being perceived: eg if a tree falls in the forest, and no-one is around to hear is, does it still make a sound... The sound should be there but it's not being perceived so can we really be sure? (is what Schopenhauer says at least). He also mentions Phenomenology and this is what something is when it is being.