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Hegels Überwindung von Kants Trennung Gottes
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00:00Hello, and great to have you back.
00:02Today we're going to be looking at two true giants of philosophy.
00:06Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
00:10Hello. Yes, two names that you can't ignore.
00:13Exactly. In this video, we will analyze their entirely divergent ideas regarding the nature of God and the scope of human understanding.
00:22We're going to be using the material you sent us this YouTube transcript as our basis.
00:26Mm-hmm. So the plan is, to start with Kant, you know, he sort of created a problem, a real issue for everyone who came after him.
00:35You could say that, yes, a real challenge.
00:38And then we'll look at how Hegel responded to it. Pretty radical, I have to say.
00:43Our goal today is to understand how these two thinkers approach one of the really big questions.
00:49Can we know God? And what does that mean for us, for our understanding of the world and history?
00:54Absolutely central. Kant and Hegel are really two poles.
00:59On the one hand, the question is, is there something absolute, a final reason, God?
01:06And if that's the case, can we even begin to tackle this with our way of thinking?
01:11Or is there simply a limit?
01:12Exactly. Will this transcendence repel remain forever closed to us?
01:17That is the area of tension.
01:18Okay, let's tackle it. First, let's look at his critique of pure reason.
01:23Where he makes this important distinction, phenomena...
01:27To be sure, we have on the one hand...
01:28Appearances, or the world as we encounter it.
01:31And on the other hand, the noumena. Things as they are, in themselves.
01:35What exactly does he mean by that?
01:36So, Kant is basically saying that everything we perceive, we do through our glasses, so to speak, through our senses and our intellect.
01:45Okay.
01:45These phenomena, in other words, are the things we perceive, filtered and shaped by our individual manner of perceiving, space, and time,
01:53and then organized by our inherent cognitive structures, including such fundamental categories as causality.
01:58That is the world in which we live, the world of experience, also of science.
02:02As for the Neumanns, they represent things precisely as they actually are.
02:06In short, irrespective of our capacity for perception or thought.
02:10We cannot grasp pure reality, what Kant terms the thing, in itself, through our cognitive processes.
02:15Just a second, though.
02:16Meh, if our intellect is equipped with tools like, uh, causality,
02:21then why can't we just use them to think about things beyond the superficial?
02:26Okay, uh, the question of the first cause, of God, for instance.
02:31Where precisely does Kant draw the line?
02:34That's a super important question.
02:36The principle is straightforward.
02:40Causality, unity, and plurality, all these foundational concepts are inherent in us, a priori, as he puts it,
02:46but they remain ineffective unless they are applied to something within the realm of our potential experience.
02:53So only with material from the senses.
02:55Exactly.
02:56They need input from the world of experience.
02:58Attempting to apply these categories to something completely beyond the senses,
03:02to the numinous, specifically God, the immortal soul, and the world in its entirety,
03:07causes, one might say, our understanding to overheat.
03:10It goes crazy.
03:12Kant states that the individual becomes caught in contradictions
03:14because the tools are inadequate for the task at hand.
03:17He calls this the antinomies of pure reason.
03:20You are trying to grasp something for which you have no tools.
03:23I see.
03:24That also means these really big questions.
03:28Does God exist?
03:29Is the soul immortal?
03:31Do we have free will?
03:33Anything which lies outside the bounds of direct experience, Kant states,
03:37is entirely beyond the reach of our theoretical reason, meaning we can know nothing about it.
03:41That's exactly the point.
03:43For theoretical, purely cognitive reason, these questions are unanswerable.
03:48It certainly sounds as though he's erected a truly substantial wall there.
03:53Between then, what's within our reach of understanding and everything else?
03:56The wall analogy fits perfectly.
03:59Kant draws a very clear line for speculative reason.
04:04But, and this is important, he does not mean to say that there is no God.
04:08Rather, his position is more of an agnosticism for reasons of reason.
04:15He argues that, through the application of pure reason alone,
04:18we are completely unable to determine the existence, or non-existence, of God.
04:23That is not part of its job, so to speak.
04:25Indeed, the source you're using there explicitly mentions this robust and truly impenetrable epistemological safeguard.
04:32Yes, exactly.
04:33It's Kant who draws this distinction between appearances and things in themselves.
04:38Almost a division between heaven and earth, if you will.
04:41Well, this safeguards science and all, accumulated knowledge from the dangers of unrestrained speculation,
04:47simultaneously opening up a space for faith, a faith that transcends the boundaries of pure scientific understanding.
04:52Okay, a clear separation.
04:53That initially seems quite understandable, maybe even a little modest in terms of its reliance on reason.
04:59But then, of course, Hegel enters the picture.
05:01Yes.
05:02Then he says, wait, that's right.
05:04Yes, it is.
05:20It is fascinating here that Hegel's underlying conviction is that reason cannot itself impose such a boundary and then just stay in front of it.
05:29To sharply separate on one side the world we can access and on the other the inaccessible world in its pure state,
05:35Hegel considers this a flawed way of thinking, an artificial divide.
05:40Okay, and what does he propose instead?
05:42His approach is radically different.
05:45To him, the ultimate reality, the absolute, the divine, is not to be found somewhere behind or beyond the confines of this world,
05:52but is intrinsically interwoven with its very fabric.
05:55It resides within the world, actively participating in its processes and manifests itself through the unfolding of history.
06:01That is to say, for Hegel, God or the absolute is not a Finnish thing that sits there somewhere, but rather a process, something that is still developing.
06:14Exactly. That is the core.
06:16Hegel often speaks of the absolute spirit or simply the spirit.
06:20This spirit, far from being static, is pure dynamism, a reason that continually evolves and progresses.
06:26How?
06:26Through contradictions, through conflicts, he calls this dialectic.
06:32The spirit does not comprehend itself all at once, but through a long, laborious process.
06:37The process, the very act of the spirit understanding itself, occurs in thought, in the workings of nature,
06:42but its most evident manifestation is found in the unfolding of human history.
06:46History, then, as the arena.
06:49Where the absolute reveals itself, the source also emphasizes this, very much, a...
06:53How should I imagine this?
06:55Is history, then, like, a script of the spirit?
06:58Almost.
06:59But not like a fixed script.
07:01Eh?
07:02Perhaps you could imagine history more like a giant play that only writes itself as it is played.
07:10Alright.
07:10The storyline, if you will, is this absolute spirit, which learns through the whole of human conflict, culture, ideas, and deeds, unfolds, and increasingly comes to itself,
07:21becoming more and more aware of its own self.
07:26For Hegel, all of these, the different epochs, the various religions, and the diverse philosophies are integral.
07:32Stages in the self-unfolding of the spirit.
07:35Then, God isn't the director overseeing the play from a distance.
07:38Rather, he's the rational principle inherent within the historical drama itself.
07:44This principle actively participates in the unfolding events, relentlessly striving toward a complete self-comprehension.
07:47Phew.
07:48Now, if we juxtapose these two contrasting viewpoints, KZ asserts,
07:53God is transcendent, meaning situated utterly outside the realm of our experience.
07:57Therefore, he remains beyond the reach of our rational, theoretical understanding.
08:01He belongs more to the domain of faith than to that of verifiable knowledge.
08:03A distinctly delineated boundary, then.
08:07In contrast, Hegel argues, no, the absolute spirit itself is intrinsically imminent within the world.
08:13Its progressive development through history constitutes precisely how it becomes accessible and intelligible to the rational mind.
08:19Yes, precisely.
08:20This is the central tension.
08:21And this Hegelian position naturally carries profoundly significant revolutionary implications.
08:28He is attempting, as the source text itself suggests, to bring heaven down to earth.
08:33How so?
08:35He sees the divine not solely in the afterlife, but rather actively present in this world,
08:40within the unfolding process of human history.
08:42This results in Hegel engaging in what one could term a philosophizing of religion.
08:47Let's pause a moment to consider that phrase, philosophizing of religion.
08:49What does it actually mean?
08:50It carries a certain implication, a sense that he might be placing religion under the umbrella or even subordinate to philosophic.
08:55And that's the heart of the issue.
08:57When he takes core religious ideas, revelation, redemption, the incarnation of God,
09:01and presents them as merely symbolic representations of the spirit's ongoing journey toward self-awareness,
09:07is he not?
09:08In essence, a stripping religion of its inherent power and fundamental substance?
09:12It seems almost as if he is saying,
09:14you the believers have understood these matters only through the lens of imagery,
09:17but I as a philosopher will now reveal to you their true essence.
09:20Isn't he somehow stripping religion of its substance there?
09:22This is precisely the point at which things get tricky and which also brought Hegel massive criticism.
09:28Much more so than Kant, probably from a religious perspective.
09:31Why Kant?
09:32Because Kant said, here we know, there we believe, there we believe.
09:36Separate, but both have their place.
09:39But Hegel seems to absorb religion into his system.
09:43Meh.
09:44He sees religion as an important, necessary stage.
09:47It expresses profound truths, but in the form of ideas, images, symbols, symbols.
09:54For Hegel, however, the highest form of understanding is the philosophical concept.
09:58Philosophy decodes, so to speak, the religious images,
10:01and translates them into clear, rational insights.
10:05And with that, religion is then
10:07abolished, as Hegel says,
10:09in this double sense of it being preserved in its core of truth,
10:13but at the same time overcome and raised to a higher level,
10:17namely, that of philosophy.
10:19It loses its independence,
10:21its immediate, indeed, metaphysical power.
10:24God becomes spirit, redemption, self-awareness.
10:27Exactly.
10:28God becomes the developing absolute spirit.
10:31Revelation becomes the self-revelation of the spirit of history.
10:36Redemption becomes the full self-awareness of reason
10:38at the end of this entire process.
10:41He borrows the words, yet reinterprets them,
10:43imbuing them with fresh philosophical, historical, and inherent meaning.
10:47And, of course, many theologians found that difficult,
10:50but completely understandable.
10:52So what does that mean in the end?
10:53We see a truly radical change here.
10:55Kant draws a line.
10:57Here is the safe shore of knowledge.
11:00Out there lies the expansive sea of metaphysics and faith,
11:02a domain where reason's reach is limited.
11:04Right.
11:05Furthermore, Hegel just breaks down this boundary
11:07and declares that the absolute is situated in this very ocean,
11:11in this historic progression,
11:13and reason can learn how to navigate and grasp it.
11:16That sums it up very well.
11:18Hegel was completely convinced that he had successfully overcome
11:21the epistemological fortifications constructed by Kant.
11:25For him, history is not just what happens.
11:28For Kant, that would be part of the world of appearances.
11:30But it is the dynamic self-realization of the absolute spirit.
11:35The divine is therefore not only up there, but also down here.
11:39Exactly.
11:40Not only transcending, yet equally, and most importantly, imminent,
11:43its presence and power profoundly felt throughout all the major transformations
11:46within the course of human history, as your material so eloquently articulates.
11:49One could put it in a nutshell.
11:51In Hegel's view, God is a rational process.
11:53This process drives history forward, unfolds within it,
11:56and moves towards a defined goal.
11:58What goal?
11:59The complete self-consciousness of the spirit.
12:03What he calls the end of history.
12:06In the philosophical sense, of course.
12:08Okay.
12:09So what we take away as a central point is
12:11this fundamental change of direction.
12:13Should we seek the absolute in a beyond
12:15that is inaccessible to us, as Kant suggests,
12:18and thus acknowledge the limits of our knowledge?
12:22Is the focus to be placed on transcendence?
12:24Or should we be able to seek and find it
12:26within the ongoing events of world history,
12:27as Hegel compels us to do?
12:29A perspective that, of course, grants our reason a vast interpretative capacity.
12:33Yes, this focus on eminence and development fundamentally
12:35alters our perspectives on meaning, progress,
12:38and even our own self-understanding.
12:39Absolutely.
12:40And this fundamental debate continues to have an impact today.
12:43It challenges us again and again to position ourselves.
12:47How much can we know?
12:48How much do we want to understand?
12:50Do we rather trust the sober skepticism of a Kant
12:53or the all-encompassing interpretive claim of a Hegel?
12:57Tony?
12:58It now leads me to one final question directed directly to you out there.
13:02To adopt a Hegelian perspective,
13:04to consider history as the progressive unfolding of a rational principle
13:09as a manifestation of Geist striving towards self-awareness,
13:13then how might we interpret the current events we see around us?
13:17Events that frequently strike us as chaotic contradictory
13:21and at times seeming entirely irrational.
13:24Is there perhaps a hidden logic in it all,
13:27a struggle of the spirit to reach the next level?
13:31Given the intricacy and the profound depths of our current circumstances,
13:35perhaps you find his skepticism regarding the capacity of our reason
13:41to definitively answer these fundamental questions significantly more persuasive.
13:45A good question to think about.
13:47Definitely food for thought.
13:50Thank you very much for joining us on this exploration.
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