Immanuel Kant
CAIBIDEIL IV
AN LOIDHNE-ROINN EADAR IDÈALAN AN T-SAIDHEINS AGUS NA PEARSANTACHD ANN AN KANT. AN SEÒRSA IDÈALACH DÉACHÚIL (CRITIGEACH) DE GHRUNND-IDÈA TAR-CHEUMNAIL FO PHRÌOMHACHAS IDÈAL DAONNAIREACH NA PEARSANTACHD.
§ 1 - RO-RÀDH. MÌ-THUIGSE GU BHEIL AN IDÈALACHAS TAR-CHEUMNAIL AIG KANT NA CHUR AN CÈILL FEALLSANACHAIL DE SPIORAD AN ATH-LEASACHAIDH.
_____________________
CHAPTER IV
THE LINE OF DEMARCATION BETWEEN THE IDEALS OF SCIENCE AND OF PERSONALITY IN KANT. THE (CRITICAL) DUALIST IDEALISTIC TYPE OF TRANSCENDENTAL GROUND-IDEA UNDER THE PRIMACY OF THE HUMANIST IDEAL OF PERSONALITY.
§ 1 - INTRODUCTION. THE MISCONCEPTION OF KANT'S TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM AS THE PHILOSOPHIC EXPRESSION OF THE SPIRIT OF THE REFORMATION
In the preceding chapters we have only given a sketch of the main lines of development of the basic antinomy in the transcendental ground-Idea of Humanistic thought during the period in which primacy was ascribed to the science-ideal. Our investigation ended in an examination of ROUSSEAU's philosophy in which the first violent reaction on the part of the religious freedom-motive manifested itself. In the light of this previous development the philosophic system of IMMANUEL KANT must be viewed as inaugurating a new phase in Humanistic thought: namely, the phase of "transcendental freedom-idealism".
This phase is typified by several characteristic features: The ideal of personality finally wrested itself free from the tyranny of the science-ideal. Primacy is now definitely acknowledged as belonging to the former and the ideal of science is limited to the world of sense-phenomena. The root of human personality is sought in the normative ethical function of its free will. In addition this new phase is marked by the growing self-reflection of Humanism upon the religious foundations of its philosophic attitude.
KRONER'S view of the relation of KANT'S transcendental idealism to the Christian religion.
It is typical of the lack of a critical view of historical-philosophical connections that in the XXth century KANT has often been characterized as the first to have expressed the intrinsic spirit of the Christian faith within a so-called philosophical life- and world-view. In this respect KANT'S "critical" idealism is sharply contrasted with medieval Christian thought. For example, the Hegelian philosopher RICHARD KRONER states: "The impact of Greek concepts on Medieval Christian thought in its totality was overwhelming, so that the true essence and the real depth of the Christian faith could not find here its full expression within a philosophical view of the world. It is especially KANT and German Idealism that deserve credit for having performed this enormous task, which is of unique importance in the history of the world. It was here for the first time that the idealism of the I-ness, surpassing that of the ἰδέαι and εἴδη, was opposed to the latter. Here at last the attempt was successful to conceive of God no longer as an objective Idea, as Pure Form, as First Cause and Substance, but rather out of the depth of the ethical-religious life" (1).
_________________________
(1) RICHARD KRONER: Von Kant bis Hegel I (1921) s. 45: "Während das gesamte christliche Denken des Mittelalters dem übermächtigen Anprall der Griechischen Begriffe gegenüber es nicht vermochte, das wahre Wesen, die eigene Tiefe des christlichen Glaubens innerhalb der philosophischen Weltanschauung zur vollen Geltung zu bringen, ist durch KANT und den deutschen Idealismus diese weltgeschichtliche Aufgabe gelöst worden. Hier zuerst wird dem Idealismus der ἰδέαι und εἴδη der ihn überragende Idealismus des Ich entgegengesetzt. Hier zuerst gelingt es, Gott, statt als objective Idee, als reine Form, als erste Ursache und Substanz, vielmehr aus der Tiefe des sittlich-religiösen Lebens heraus zu begreifen."
_________________________
Is KANT the philosopher of the Reformation? PRZYWARA.
Such a statement strongly attests to a complete lack of insight into the antithesis between the really Christian and Humanistic ground-motives of philosophical thought.
It is very much to be regretted that some Roman-Catholic thinkers foster this basic misconception by seeking in German idealism since KANT the philosophical expression of the view developed by the Reformation with respect to the relation of God and His creation. It is further contended that the Roman Catholic conception, as embodied in Thomism, forms the real philosophical antipode to this idealism (2).
_______________________
(2) See for example, the work of ERICH PRZYWARA, Thomas oder Hegel, in Logos Bnd. XV, Heft I, 1926, p. 12.
_______________________
We shall return to this point, but in passing, it is well to note, that this view of the philosophical antithesis between the Reformation and Roman Catholicism simply stems from the immanence-standpoint. Consequently, it can not do justice to the real situation.
KANT is not the philosopher of the evangelical idea of freedom; his philosophy is separated from the Biblical spirit of the Reformation by the irreconcilable cleft between the Christian and Humanistic ground-motives. Naturally this does not exclude the fact that KANT has been historically influenced by Puritanism and Pietism in his ethical and theological conceptions. But the very spirit and transcendental ground-Idea of his critical idealism is ruled by the Humanistic motive of nature and freedom. And the latter cannot be reconciled to the genuine Biblical ground-motive of the Reformation. All attempts at synthesis are born out of a lack of insight into the religious foundation of KANT'S philosophy, and into the integral and radical character of the Biblical ground-motive.
It cannot be denied that criticistic idealism has deeply influenced the philosophical thought of Protestantism. But this is not to be explained in terms of the religious spirit of the Reformation. On the contrary, it betrays the invasion of the scholastic spirit of accommodation, originating from the religious ground-motive of nature and grace in its dualist nominalistic conception. And we have shown that this very ground-motive has impeded the inner reformation of philosophical thought.
In KANT'S philosophy, it is actually the Humanistic ideal of personality which awakens from its lethargy and causes Humanism to become conscious of the ὑπόθεσις of its philosophic attitude. ROUSSEAU's religion of feeling could only signify a transitional stage in this course of development.
The deepest tendencies of the Humanistic ideal of personality could not reveal themselves in the psychical sphere of feeling which in KANT belongs to the realm of "nature" and "heteronomy". They could only find an adequate expression in a fundamental freedom-idealism which transcends "nature" as the particular domain of the science-ideal.
In KANT's critical ethics the "Idea" is the expression of the subjective autonomy of the rational and moral personality. And as the ideal subject this personality is itself the final source of the categorical ethical imperative. Henceforth, the Idea is identified in an increasingly greater degree with the religious totality of meaning and with the very origin of the temporal cosmos (3).
_______________________
( 3) Strictly speaking this identification of Origin and totality of meaning cannot be correct. For, as we saw in the Introduction, the Origin necessarily transcends meaning. In the Prolegomena I pointed out that the absolutization of the transcendental idea in idealism, actually issues from the religious ground-motive that makes this philosophy possible. In the transcendent religious sphere the idea can never maintain itself as the actual origin.
_______________________
The Idea of freedom as both the religious totality and origin of meaning: HÖNIGSWALD.
In a pregnant statement, RICHARD HÖNIGSWALD summarized this development in the conception of the "Idea", as the embodiment of the Humanistic ideal of personality which was becoming self-conscious: "so the course of the argument always urges us again to go back to the classical concept of the Idea: the latter signifies as ἀνυπόθετον totality and process, end and beginning, content and norm, datum and task. As the point of indifference of every question and every answer the Idea embodies the highest form of necessity. But this means neither that the Idea compels something else, nor that the former is subjected to a constraint strange to itself: the Idea itself is this necessity. For this very reason, however, it signifies also in the deepest and most complex sense of the word freedom. The Idea is, as BAUCH in a striking fashion has called it, the Λόγος of each phenomenon; the meaning of the concept, the problem of the being of the phenomenon. As an unbreakable bond it embraces world and experience, community and truth, language and object.
"Orienting itself to the world, the Idea furnishes itself with the organon of its working and only through this working it is. It is the Spirit which never has been and never will be; for the Idea simply "is": that is to say, it is, as HEGEL has said, "present", consequently, "essentially now". It is not in time, and neither outside it. For the Idea itself is time; not, to be sure, the mere concept of its order, not only NEWTON'S "tempus, quod aequabiliter fluit", but time in the fulness of its development, "standing time", time as totality, i.e. as eternity (!). In this — (and only in this conception) — the Idea means Being itself; Being, free from the notion of a mysterious "entity", Being as Meaning, grounded in itself, which eternally renews and forms itself, thereby, however, imposes and at the same time realizes — the highest conditions of the concept of the "Gegenstand". Meaning was "in the beginning"; and it stands at the end. In Meaning beginning and end are one. For meaning is the totality" (4).
_______________________
( 4) R. HÖNIGSWALD: Vom Problem der Idea (The problem of the Idea), Logos Bnd. XV, Heft 3 (1926) p. 301: "So drängt der Beweisgang immer aufs neue zurück zu dem klassischen Begriff der Idee: Sie bedeutet als ἀνυπόθετον Inbegriff und Prozesz, Letztheit und Anfang, Gehalt und Norm, Gegebenheit und Aufgabe auf einmal. Der Indifferenzpunkt jeder Frage und jeder Antwort, verkörpert die Idee die höchste Form der Notwendigkeit. Aber weder bedeutet das, dasz die Idee ein anderes bezwingt, noch auch dasz etwa sie fremdem Zwang unterliege: sie, die Idee, selbst ist diese Notwendigkeit. Ebendarum aber bedeutet sie auch im tiefsten und komplexesten Sinn des Wortes Freiheit. Sie ist, wie Bauch es einmal treffend nennt, der 'Λόγος jeglicher Erscheinung; der Sinn des Begriffs, das Problem des Seins der Erscheinung. Ein unzerreiszbares Band, umfängt sie Welt und Erleben, Gemeinschaft und Wahrheit, Sprache und Object.
"Die Idee schafft sich an der Welt das Organ ihres Wirkens, weil sie selbst in ihrem Werk und durch dieses Werk allein ist. Sie ist der Geist, der nie gewesen ist und nie sein wird; denn sie "ist" schlechthin: d.h. sie ist, mit den Worten HEGELS, "präsent" also "wesentlich itzt". Sie steht nicht in der Zeit; aber auch nicht auszerhalb dieser. Denn sie selbst ist ja die Zeit; nicht freilich der blosze Gedanke ihrer Ordnung, nicht nur NEWTON'S "tempus, quod aequabiliter fluit", sondern die Zeit in der Fülle ihrer Gestaltung, die "stehende" Zeit, die Zeit als Ganzheit, d.h. als Ewigkeit (!). In diesem, und nur im diesem Verstande bedeutet die Idee das Sein selbst; das Sein, frei von dem Gedanken an eine dunkele "Entität", als der sich ewig erneuernde und gestaltende, gerade damit aber die höchsten Bedingungen des Gegenstandsgedankens fordernde und zugleich erfüllende, in sich selbst gegründete Sinn. Der Sinn war "im Anfang"; und er steht am Ende. Im Sinn sind Anfang und Ende eins. Denn der Sinn ist das Ganze."
_______________________
The course of development in the conception of the Idea in this sense commences in KANT'S Critique of Practical Reason. It continues in dialectical tension in FICHTE, SCHELLING, and in Romanticism and it reaches its completion in HEGEL'S absolute idealism.
It is my intention to sketch this course of development in the light of the inner dialectic within the transcendental ground-Idea of Humanistic thought. Our discussion will center around the extremely complicated evolution of the thought of KANT and FICHTE. And from this evolution we shall seek to explain the intrinsic necessity of subsequent developments.
(Herman Dooyeweerd, New Critique of Theoretical Thought, Vol I/ Part 2/ Chapt 4/§1 pp 325-329)
