by Peter Watson
Kant (1724–1804) is, for many people, the most important philosopher since Plato and Aristotle. One reason for this—an argument that underlies the first half of the present book—is that he was living in a crucial era, when the old certainties attaching to the Christian faith were being washed away and before Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection in 1859, which gave us a new, and in this case a biological understanding of ourselves, bringing with it a measure of intellectual agreement that simply did not exist at the time Kant was alive. Theology, as we have seen, was no longer the queen of the sciences.
This context helps explain the emergence of so-called German Idealism in the late eighteenth century. Insofar as these things can be understood at all, Idealism probably emerged in Germany rather than anywhere else because it was—or had been—the most fiercely Protestant country, with a virile tradition of looking inward to search for the truth, a strong, uncompromising semi-mystical form of self-examination.2 In Königsberg, there was in addition particular awareness of the ideas of the English and Scottish Enlightenments. This had a lot to do with the British navy’s need for a certain kind of timber for its ships’ masts—flexible and sturdy at the same time. Baltic timber, the trade centered on Königsberg, was just right. This made for a strong British presence in the port and, as is often the case, ideas followed commerce.
We have seen that among the new sciences taught in the reorganized philosophical faculty at Göttingen was what we would now call “empirical psychology,” though that term did not exist then. The shift to psychology in Germany—in all Europe—was to culminate in Kant, but three other Germans led the way: Christian Thomasius, Christian Wolff, and Moses Mendelssohn.3
Thomasius, one of the founders of the University of Halle, who daringly lectured in German, not Latin, famously argued that Nature, the source of law, exists independently of God’s will, and that ethics stem from a “special physics”—the empirical science of (human) nature.4 He devised what he called a “calculus of the passions” as a result of which rational judgments about conduct are (should be) made possible. He went so far as to assign numerical grades to the various passions on a scale from five to sixty. The precision of this system seems absurd now but its importance lies in the fact that Thomasius conceived human nature as a psychological entity, not a theological one.5
Christian Wolff, the son of a tanner, is sometimes called the prelector or teacher of Germany. Notoriously ordered out of Halle in 1723, because he argued, unwisely, that “reason does not allow itself to be ordered about,” he was much taken with mathematics because it comprised connected knowledge, connected logically. He tried to apply a similar reasoning to psychology; he thought the soul’s nature could be understood empirically, scientifically, so he too was replacing theological with psychological understanding.
Moses Mendelssohn was born in Dessau in 1729 and in 1743 went to Berlin, where he met Lessing, who published his first philosophical tract, the Philosophische Gespräche, in which he argued that genius creates what nature cannot, in the process bringing about new perfections.6 “A beautiful object enhances the perfection of our bodily state,” and this perfection impacts on the soul. For Mendelssohn, too, individual psychology replaces universal theology.7
These were important innovations, radical for their time and, with hindsight, all of a piece. Set beside Kant, however, they are simply confused.
THE LIMITS TO REASON
The sheer intellectual difficulty of the task, to discover what man is and should become, in the absence of a traditional creator or a clear biological understanding—the historical novelty of the predicament—is hard for us to grasp 200 years later. But this difficulty is very evident in the work of Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, for example. Many aspects of their thought are hard to grasp, and this is only partly to do with the fact that they were, admittedly, hardly the most elegant of writers. What they were seeking to uncover and describe was difficult; they tried to isolate phenomena that they themselves only glimpsed in moments of lucidity. Nonetheless, “The period of German Idealism constitutes a cultural phenomenon whose stature and influence has been frequently compared to nothing less than the golden age of Athens.” This is Karl Americks, the well-known Kantian scholar, writing in the Cambridge Companion to German Idealism.8 Americks is referring to the overall transformation in thinking achieved by the Idealist philosophers lasting from the 1770s into the 1840s rather than to any particular style. “The texts of German Idealism continue to be an enormous influence on other fields such as religious studies, literary theory, politics, art, and the general methodology of the humanities.”9
Idealism was developed in Königsberg, Berlin, Weimar, and Jena. Only Berlin was a city of any size—130,000 or so then. Both Herder and Fichte studied under Kant, later moving on to live near Goethe, who was sympathetic to Kant’s approach. Karl Leonhard Reinhold proved to be an excellent popularizer of Kant in the nearby university town of Jena, and he was followed by Fichte, Schelling, and, eventually, Hegel. They developed their own varieties of Idealism and at the same time forged alliances with the literary giants of the era—Schiller, Hölderlin, Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg), and Friedrich Schlegel. They were further augmented by the arrival of a new generation of talented individualists: Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, Friedrich Schleiermacher, Ludwig Tieck, Jean Paul Richter, August Wilhelm Schlegel, Friedrich Schlegel, Dorothea (Veit) Schlegel, Caroline (Böhmer) Schlegel, and Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt, “a relentlessly creative group.”10 Most of them moved on eventually to settle in Berlin when the new university was established there (see Chapter 10). Following Napoleon’s stunning victory at Jena in 1806, German Idealism contributed to Prussia’s recovery and in particular to the rise of nationalism and conservatism within Germany.11
“German Idealism deserves the attention it has received. It fills an obvious gap generated by traditional expectations of philosophy and problems caused by the rise of the unquestioned authority of modern science.” Idealism had the highest aims, seeking a synoptic understanding of all our most basic predicaments in a unified and autonomous approach. For the Idealists, philosophy should not be a series of ad hoc solutions to abstract technical puzzles. Ultimately, Idealism saw “culture” and “nation” as “higher” moral communities, stretching beyond individualism, the wholesome reflection of Christian duty.12 It went beyond religion and incorporated politics.
At its simplest, Idealism argues that the bodily organs that allow humans to understand the structure of nature must be phenomena that are “built in” to nature to begin with. It follows from this that there must be limits to reason and therefore limits to what we know and to what we can know. Idealism echoes clearly the Platonic notion of “ideas,” that “there is another level or realm of reality that exists beyond the common sense level in which we normally ‘experience’ life. For the idealists the world exists not quite in the manner that we assume it does…there is a set of features or entities that have a higher, more ‘ideal’ nature.”13 Kant called this realm the “noumenal” realm to distinguish it from the “phenomenal” realm, the realm of phenomena as we perceive them.
Kant’s early works had more to do with science than philosophy.14 Following the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, he produced a theory of earthquakes; he also conceived a theory of the heavens which predated Pierre-Simon Laplace’s nebular hypothesis—that the solar system was formed by a cloud of gas condensing under gravity. But it is as a philosopher that Kant is chiefly known, and in his philosophy he identified—and then sought to clarify—what were for him the three most important questions facing mankind. First, he addressed the problem of Truth: How do we know the world and is it a true representation? Second, Goodness: What principles should govern human conduct? Third, Beauty: Are there laws of aesthetics, conditions which nature and art must satisfy in order to be beautiful? 15
Kant addressed the first question in what is generally regarded as his most important book, Kritik der rei
nen Vernunft (Critique of Pure Reason), published in 1781 in Riga. It came after ten years of rumination and reflection—years that, as more than one critic has observed, did not improve his writing style. Kant rarely seems to have thought it necessary to give illustrations of his abstract points, never imagining that it would make his arguments easier to follow. His starting point was what for him was the crucial difference between two kinds of judgment. When someone says: “It is warm in this room,” what he or she really means is: “It seems to me warm in this room—others might not find it so.” On the other hand, the mathematical proposition that the sum of the angles in a triangle are equal to two right angles of 180 degrees is correct irrespective of the person making the measurement. It is true, as Kant put it, without reference to experience: it is universally true and “from the first” (a priori).16
How does this difference arise? Kant’s answer was that the shapes of geometry are “ideal constructions” of our mind. Geometry is in effect a creation of the human mind, insofar as no one has ever seen a “pure” triangle, say, without any other attributes. Such a phenomenon does not—could not—exist. The figures and triangles that we see about us are only imperfect representations. This, for Kant, was very important for it showed that cognition of the world, how we know the world, “need not necessarily be the product of experience, of the mere functioning of our senses.” Experience is the raw material but those experiences only become fully intelligible through the “productive activity” of the mind. Thought creates concepts.
Kant is saying that we do not have in our heads, as it were, an image of the world “out there” instead we have an idea of how it appears to us, according to the laws of our intellectual make-up, which are present a priori, and which—invariably, inevitably, and necessarily—shape experiences a posteriori. Because of this we can never know anything “in itself.”17
Kant identified several a priori aspects of our minds, of which the two most important were space and time. He was saying that we are born with an intuition of space and time, we understand them without experiencing them, in advance of any real sensation. Space and time, he argued, are not properties belonging to objects, but are merely subjective ideas we impose on them. Kant thought his case was proved by our idea that space is infinite, “which no one can experience or demonstrate.” Though we can imagine space with nothing in it, we cannot imagine the absence of space itself.18 The same is true of time. As with space, we can imagine not much happening over a certain period but we cannot imagine the absence of time itself. Time as we understand it—as with space—has no beginning and no end, it is infinite. It cannot stem from experience.
Kant’s underlying point was that our minds are “living, actively operative organisms,” not passively receiving information from without, through the senses and summed through experience; instead our minds shape our perceptions according to their own laws. He didn’t stop at space and time but identified twelve categories or laws of thought, which shape how we understand the world. Among them he included “unity,” “multiplicity,” “causality,” and “possibility.” “Things in themselves possess neither unity nor multiplicity…we ourselves, through the operation of our understanding, combine certain impressions a priori into a unity or multiplicity (trunk, branches, twigs, leaves, into the concept tree).” Kant did not say that there is no connection between the outer and inner world. Scientific experiments, for example, proved that there is a close connection. Insofar as we are able to manipulate phenomena in ways that others can replicate, “There must exist common ground between the sensuous world and the understanding.”19
This approach raised an intriguing set of questions in the world between doubt and Darwin. For example, where did it leave the question of God? Was what Kant was saying evidence for a metaphysical world that exists beyond reality, beyond our senses and our understanding? Many people cannot imagine a world without God, just as they cannot imagine a world without space, so did that make God an a priori intuition as real as space or time? Kant thought that the intuition to recognize the connection between external phenomena led to the idea of the universe, the absolute whole. This idea of the “whole” carried with it the further idea of an ultimate cause of the whole. By the same token, the fact that the inner structures—or laws—of our minds form a whole, a connected, interlocking, understandable whole, produces an equivalent idea, holding everything together—this is the concept of the soul. From there it was no great jump to say that the inner and outer worlds, soul and universe, point to an ultimate common basis, embracing both. The entity that “ holds and unites” everything we give the name of God.20
It is not quite as simple as that. The universe might be an “absolute necessity,” given the structure of our minds, but we cannot forget that the universe is not an object that we can experience in its entirety, but merely an inference—and this produces its own problems. For example, the very concept of a universe implies that it has a boundary. If that is so, what is there beyond this boundary? How then can the universe be infinite? The universe, in other words, is a “contradictory and hence impossible idea.” The same argument applies to time and the ideas of “before” and “after.” Time without end is simply inconceivable; so is an end to time. “Space and time are simply forms of our thought.”21
In analogous fashion, for Kant the existence of God can never be proved rationally. God is a notion, our notion, like space and time, and that is all. “God is not a being outside me, but merely a thought within me.” He was careful not to deny the existence of God—instead he denied our cognition of Him (for which the king reprimanded Kant). God, he argued, can be conceived only through the moral order in the world. Kant thought that humans “are compelled” to believe in God (and immortality), not because any science or insight leads them in that direction but because their minds are built that way.
EVOLUTION TOWARD MORALITY
The Critique of Pure Reason is Kant’s most basic work. In the Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (Critique of Practical Reason; 1788) he spread himself to examine the “faculty of desire,” morality. He started by conceding that morality may be judged in two ways. On the one hand, an action may be viewed as good if its consequences are good. On the other, an action will be good if it stems from good motives. Complications arise because it is easier to observe the consequences of an action than its motives. More complex still, good intentions may produce disaster, while evil intentions may have beneficial side effects.22
Kant’s first step was to eliminate religion and, very largely, psychology from the picture. Goodness, ethical behavior, does not deserve the name if, in performing some action, we expect to benefit personally or in a religious sense, for then such action is selfish and not, in and of itself, good (though good may result).23 This led Kant to his assertion that “There is nothing in the world which can be unreservedly regarded as good, except a good will.” But, he immediately asks, how is good will to be recognized? His answer is: duty. What he means by this is: follow your conscience, his famous concept of the “categorical [absolutely valid] imperative” (command). The categorical imperative or “inner command” is the voice of the conscience. “Conscience is the awareness of an inner seat of judgement within man,” says Kant. Our internal ethics do not stem from experience, but are inherent in reason, a priori, and have two elements. A person must determine his or her conduct from within him- or herself. And the ethical basis for that is very similar to the biblical injunction: do not give way to “the weather in your soul” do as you would be done by; act as you would wish others to act in equivalent situations.24
Again, this was more radical then than it sounds now. Goodness was embodied in justice and “Justice is the limitation of the liberty of each in the interest of the liberty of all, in so far as this can be achieved by a general system of laws.”25 Greater justice follows from greater self-knowledge and this is where, for Kant, education comes in. For him, the most important difference between man and animals is that man posse
sses the ability “to set himself aims and goals and to cultivate the raw potentialities of his nature…Behind education is concealed the great Arcanum of the perfection of human nature.”26
Kant thought that a central concern of man—maybe the main one—was an “evolution toward morality,” toward the moral character which is guided by good principles.27 Accordingly, the main elements of education for him were instruction towards obedience, veracity, and sociality. Absolute obedience must be imposed at first, gradually supplanted by voluntary obedience arising from an individual’s personal reflection. Obedience was important to Kant because, he argued, those who have not learned to obey others will be unable to obey themselves, their own convictions.28 Veracity was, he said, essential for the unity of the personality; people can be whole only if they lack inner contradictions. Sociality, friendliness, the third element, ought not to be overlooked either: “Only the joyful heart is capable of delighting in good.”
FINE ART AS THE PRODUCT OF GENIUS
The third of Kant’s great critiques was the Kritik der Urteilskraft (Critique of Judgment; 1790). In this, says Ernst Cassirer, “Kant touched the nerve of the entire spiritual and intellectual culture of his time more than with any other of his works…”29 Kant’s starting point is the concept of purposiveness. Against the background of the Enlightenment, the scientific revolution, and all the other developments considered in Chapter 2, Kant focused on the logic—or lack of it—in the relationship between parts and the whole. Which came first? Does that question make sense? An organism like an animal exists as a whole but consists of parts. The whole cannot survive without the parts and the parts cannot survive without the whole. What does it mean to be a part? Different species of animals, or plants, “belong” to higher taxa. What does this mean? Do these groups (genera, say, or families, though these categories did not have their modern meanings then) exist in any real sense outside our heads or is there some a priori process within us that determines how we understand parts and wholes and their relation?30
