Talk:German idealism

Merge with Absolute Idealism

Please discuss the merge discussion on the Talk:Absolute idealism page. -Atfyfe

Hegel Sentence

Is it a fact that Hegel is now considered to be one of the greatest philosophers in history? It is my opinion that this is not true and should not be stated in this article.

In response to anonymous poster above:

Obviously, depends on who you ask -- there's countless interpretations of Hegel and countless views of his place in the history of philosophy. However, I think that there can be no question that Hegel has profounly influenced the shape of philosophy (for better or worse). Regardless, the sentence in question does not seem appropriate for a encyclopedia article. --MalcolmMcC 06:20, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Voice of History

In reference to the Kant section, why does "history" seem to "speak" that Marx was not an anti-idealist? Lestrade 17:09, 6 October 2005 (UTC)Lestrade

Plotinus Temporalized

What does "Plotinus temporalized" mean?

Does my explanation in the article help? --goethean ॐ 22:17, 6 October 2005 (UTC)

Herder

I can't find a connection between Herder and idealism. Lestrade 01:26, 7 October 2005 (UTC)Lestrade

If you accept the claim in the opening paragraph that "German idealism was born of the need to retain a variation of the concept of God after Kant had demonstrated its senselessness," then I think Herder clearly belongs to the German Idealist movement. His philosophical anthropology made a valuable contribution to vitalistic pantheism which was an important part of intellectual milieu.... In Kant's feud with Herder, a tension emerges over the value of "speculation" and the nature of "life." These fundamentally un-Kantian notions would come to have an impact in Schelling and Hegel... I'm also inclined to include Hamann whose Pietist response to Hume fits quite nicely with the oversimplified definition of German Idealism that I quoted from the opening paragraph. --Brijohn6882 (talk) 01:52, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Please find a secondary source to back up your claims. — goethean ॐ 20:19, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

Simplistic assertion: Whenever anyone tries to find the essential characteristic of something you can be sure that someone will label it as "simplistic." This is especially true in academia where jobs depend on complexity.Lestrade (talk) 21:48, 6 November 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

This Article Needs Urgent Care

We need to plan a major reworking of this article. It's a shame that a subject this important is in such a state. Wish I had more time to work on this! In the meantime, any ideas for improvements in organization? --MalcolmMcC 06:20, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

To say that the article needs urgent care and that it is a shame that it is in such a state is to say nothing. MalcolmMcC, please show us how the article can be improved. If you don't have enough time to provide us with a better article, what is the point of your critical judgments? Let's see MalcolmMcC's article on German Idealism. You can write it a few sentences at a time instead of all at once. We'll wait.Lestrade 15:05, 20 December 2005 (UTC)Lestrade

-The article might be improved by giving the appropriate credit and appreciation to Fichte, let alone to the whole category of German Idealism - the final quote insults the entire field. -S UofT

This article can't be improved by having it praise German Idealism. German Idealism was basically a theology without a God. Fichte created (posited) a Berkeleyan divine observer who was the observing subject for all observed objects. We individual subjects are supposed to be parts of that divine observer. That was his Absolute, who was supposed to be directly known through Reason. Fichte's fantasy can be described, but why should it be appreciated?Lestrade 13:15, 11 October 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Spinozist Conclusion

The Schopenhauer citation is a nice read but imho here misplaced, especially as Schopenhauer's opinion is far from being a consented claim, lest "conclusion" nowadays. Of course there could be a reference to Spinoza when talk comes on influences to german idealism, but here i'd like to cut it out. Greetings, Ca$$e 09:21, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

By all means, remove it. In its place, we might be able to include references regarding the topic in U.S. popular culture, like so many other Wikipedia articles. Are there any rap songs, cartoons, or car-chase movies that mention German Idealism?Lestrade 13:16, 29 June 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

The article is missing an important part because it doesn't give information on the influence of Spinoza. After belief in an anthropomorphic, personal God was no longer possible, Schelling and Hegel created their Absolute. This Absolute was modelled after Spinoza's impersonal God. As a result, there was a danger of being accused of atheism, an extremely serious charge at that time. If Spinoza's use of the word "God" is completely equivalent to the word "Nature," then there was no need for the concept of a personal God. This new use for the word "God" constituted atheism. Also, there was a problem in Protestant Germany with the idea of propounding the theological ideas of an ethnically Jewish philosopher.Lestrade (talk) 18:24, 18 February 2012 (UTC)Lestrade

German idealism in a nutshell

German Idealism is not concerned with perfection or the pursuit of the highest, most excellent, most valuable Ideals. That is not the kind of idealism that it references. It is an attempt to retain the attributes of an anthropomorphic God in a time when that divine personage was no longer believable. The German Idealists followed Berkeley in thinking that our only real, direct, immediate experience is of the ideas or mental images of our mind. The knowing subject of these experienced objects is not, however, an individual human observer, for the German Idealists. Instead, it is a universal observing subject, an Over-soul, Cosmic Mind, Universal Mind, or Berkeleyan God. This abstract knowing subject became known as the Absolute Spirit or Mind. The world that exists in the mind of this universal observer is, naturally, a world of images, not objects themselves. That is, it is a spiritual or mental world. This results in the declarations of the German Idealists that the world consists solely of mental ideas and is the product of the Absolute Spirit or Mind or Soul. It would promote understanding if the Wikipedia article could communicate this basic thought and avoid extraneous, vague issues. Lestrade 22:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)Lestrade

Quite a tour de force. Every single one of those sentences is not only false, but obviously, demonstrably, and tremendously false.

Ken WIlber?

given that this article is about German Idealism, carrying commentary by a modern American is out of place. yes, Wilber has ideas about these philosophers -- and so do nearly all other philosophers. hence the commentary is out of place. i would immediately delete it myself, but that is the kind of wiki-censorship that is not in the spirit of what we do, so i'll wait a few days after this post...

mitch —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.68.189.65 (talk) 05:43, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

Title

"German Idealism" is a proper noun nowadays, not a description. It names those philosophers from Kant through to, oh, say, Schopenhauer. So it should be capitalized. The capitalized form is, in any case, universal in English-language writing.

Schopenhauer was not a menber of the German Idealist group of philosophers.Lestrade (talk) 18:21, 28 May 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

Why arent Schopenhauer a "member of the German Idealist group of philosophers"? He considered himself a transcendental idealist. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 189.46.18.25 (talk) 01:58, 27 January 2012 (UTC)

See section entitled "Germans and idealism" below.Lestrade (talk) 18:27, 18 February 2012 (UTC)Lestrade

That has nothing to do with capitalizing the article. It's also false, but anyway. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.142.57.69 (talk) 00:45, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree about capitalization, although a whole swathe of articles should be changed: German idealism, British idealism, Objective idealism, Absolute idealism and Subjective idealism, and looking at the Idealism category, maybe Actual idealism, Epistemological idealism, Monistic idealism, Transcendental idealism and Platonic idealism.John Z (talk) 23:42, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Tried to move this myself, won't let me, the redirect German Idealism is preventing it, as it has had trivial edits. Will ask an admin to, maybe will get input for other pages.John Z (talk) 21:52, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a specific style guide called MOS:DOCTCAPS: "Doctrines, ideologies, philosophies, theologies, theories, movements, methods, processes, systems or "schools" of thought and practice, and fields of academic or professional study are not capitalized, unless the name derives from a proper name". --Omnipaedista (talk) 16:22, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Goethean's deletion

It was just a matter of time. Goethean finally executed the deletion that was fated to occur. However, it might be of interest to someone that John Oxenford's article "Iconoclasm in German Philosophy," in the Westminster Review, January and April issue of 1853, had a quotation on page 400 that refers to the German Idealists and their goal as mentioned in the passage that Goethean deleted. It was a passage written by a famous philosopher who must be left unnamed because of the perennial animosity that exists toward him in the philosophical establishment. In his Critique of Pure Reason (A 584–A 630), Kant had demonstrated the failure of philosophy to prove the existence of God. The three proofs (Ontological, Cosmological, and Physico–theological) were shown by Kant to be faulty. The German Idealists, however, made an attempt to rescue the concept of God by designating it with the word "Absolute." The philosopher's allegorical account is as follows: "What now have these gentlemen done with their old friend the cosmological demonstration, now so hardly pressed, and laid upon its back. Oh, they imagined a right cunning device. 'Friend,' they said to the cosmological demonstration, 'you are in a sad plight, a sad plight indeed, since your unlucky encounter with that old hard–headed fellow of Königsberg—aye, in as sad a plight as your two brothers, the ontological and physico–theological demonstrations. Never mind, we will not desert you—in fact, you know we are paid to assist you,—but—it cannot be helped—you must change your name and dress, for if we call you by your own name, everybody will run away. In your incognito, we will take you under the arm, and introduce you into society, only mind—incognito it must be. Your object shall henceforth bear the name of the "Absolute,"—….' "Lestrade (talk) 17:54, 10 November 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

If you attribute Oxenford's views to Oxenford, rather than treating them as divine writ, you can put them back in the article. — goethean ॐ 18:04, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, although the article is already overweighted toward criticism in the "Responses to idealism" section.John Z (talk) 23:21, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Please feel free to add as many positive responses to German Idealism as you can find. Žižek seems to think that Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel's post–Kantianism was an extremely valuable basis for his own thought.Lestrade (talk) 21:34, 13 November 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

Trio

An article on German idealism should convey the basic fact that this philosophy consisted of the writings of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. Other writers, previous, contemporary, and subsequent, were not German idealists. Other philosophers may have been German and they may have been idealists of some sort, but the name "German idealists" designates the various thoughts of only those three men.Lestrade (talk) 19:22, 18 November 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

Here's some reading material for you. — goethean ॐ 19:35, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the article may be overinclusive, but there are four, not three philosophers invariably included in the number of German Idealists- Kant too.John Z (talk) 20:30, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

I thought that German idealism was a post–Kantian philosophy.Lestrade (talk) 02:07, 19 November 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

There's a discussion of a similar point at talk:Absolute_idealism under Merge Discussion. As the German wiki article says, German Idealism is an "idea constellation." The other big three were arguing with Kant, largely using his vocabulary, and were enormously influenced by him. It is not like modern Continental and Analytic Philosophy, which don't have much to do with each other. For example, look at the Cambridge Companion and Ameriks' introductory essay there, which include Kant. So I'm restoring the Kant picture.John Z (talk) 17:45, 23 November 2009 (UTC)

Oh, and by the way, I think the Schopenhauer quote in the Ortega y Gasset section belongs under Schopenhauer. I'd remove the first paragraph of Schopenhauer mostly - what is controversial or important about the fact of Spinoza's influence on "the trio"? There's also the mention of the ding-an-sich there. Did Schopenhauer really say that the later idealists (mis)used the ding-an-sich? They all rejected the idea, Hegel called it "nothing", and thus didn't use it at all.John Z (talk) 20:47, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Fundamental tenets

Is it possible to "boil" the article "down" to a few basic doctrines of German idealism? For example, can it be said that German idealism teaches that the ground of all being is the Absolute and that this foundation can be known (but not thought) through the intellectual intuition of reason? The basic doctrines of German idealism would be those few characteristics that are shared in common by the philosophies of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and any other people who are considered to be members of this set.Lestrade (talk) 01:53, 19 November 2009 (UTC)Lestrade

Germans and idealism

One of the problems with the name "German Idealism" is that it is ambiguous. There is a set of doctrines created by Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel that is called "German Idealism." There is another classification of philosophies called "German Idealism" that includes people who were both Germans and Idealists. This other classification includes Kant and Schopenhauer. To make things worse, the name "Idealist" is extremely ambiguous.Lestrade (talk) 02:07, 17 February 2012 (UTC)Lestrade

Contradiction

"This distinguished [transcendental idealism] from earlier 'idealism', such as George Berkeley's, which held that we can only directly know the ideas in our minds, not the objects that they represent."

"Kant's transcendental idealism consisted of...understanding that the mind directly knows only phenomena or ideas."

If this isn't contradictory, it should be rewritten to be made more clear. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.10.123.123 (talk) 16:33, 4 March 2012 (UTC)

An attempt to resolve the contradiction was made as follows: "This distinguished it [transcendental idealism] from earlier 'idealism,' such as George Berkeley's, which held that external objects have actual being or real existence only when they are perceived by an observer. …Kant's transcendental idealism consisted of … understanding that the mind directly knows only phenomena or ideas." Berkeley's idealism was dogmatic and ontological. It was about being or that which exists. Kant's idealism was skeptical and epistemological. It was about what can be known.Lestrade (talk) 21:22, 4 March 2012 (UTC)Lestrade

The first German idealist was Kant

It should be clear that Kant was a German idealist, since he was German and he was an idealist. (Sometimes things are just that simple in philosophy.) The article needs to be reworked to reflect this. In particular the lead's sentence claiming that "[German idealism] reacted against Kant's Critique of Pure Reason" doesn't make any sense because (1) Kant's German idealist successors did not "react" against his philosophy but tried to complete it, resolving issues that he had raised but had not been able to solve himself; (2) the Critique was published in 1787, which means it appeared in the late 18th century; the preceding sentence however states that German idealism "emerged" "in the late 18th and early 19th centuries", which chronologically places Kant's first Critique in the scope of German idealism.

In case any documentation is required, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on German idealism (which this article gives in "External Links") begins thus:

German idealism is the name of a movement in German philosophy that began in the 1780s and lasted until the 1840s. The most famous representatives of this movement are Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.

The Introduction to The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism makes clear that it begins with Kant and ends with Hegel:

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. For this reason the era from the 1770s into the 1840s that we tend to call “the age of German Idealism” is often designated in Germany simply as the period of “classical German philosophy.” This designation is meant to indicate a level of preeminent achievement rather than to characterize a specific style or content. It thus bypasses issues such as how philosophers of this era match up with the division in German literature between classicism and romanticism, and how strong a distinction is to be made between the “Critical” or “transcendental” idealism of Kant and the so-called “absolute” idealism that culminated in the work of the three most famous philosophers who came after him: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.

So: (1) the lead needs to be corrected; (2) the first subsection in "Theorists" should be on Kant, with material on him moved from "Background"; (3) a picture of Kant needs to be added. – Herzen (talk) 21:56, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Looking over earlier Talk comments, I see that this issue has already been raised. Indeed, Kant's picture used to be here. Hopefully, we will be able to set things right.

German Wikipedia is clear: German idealism begins with Kant and ends with Hegel:

Beginn und Ausgangspunkt des Deutschen Idealismus stellt die Philosophie Immanuel Kants dar. In der Auseinandersetzung mit den von ihm aufgeworfenen Problemen entstand vor allem zwischen den Jahren 1781 (Erscheinen der Kritik der reinen Vernunft) und 1831 (Tod Hegels) eine Fülle sich abwechselnder Systementwürfe.

– Herzen (talk) 05:51, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Any Wikipedia reader who is interested in German Idealism will be misinformed if the article claims that Kant was a German Idealist. "German Idealism" isn’t merely a naïve sum of "German" and "Idealism." It is a name given to the theological philosophers who lived after Kant and who tried to support the concept of "God" by designating it as "Absolute Spirit." Kant had shown how the proofs for God’s existence were faulty and that faith was needed in their stead. An enlightened and educated public could no longer believe in an anthropomorphic God who resides in the clouds. However, that public, which feared atheism, could be persuaded by mystifying books and lectures about an Absolute Spirit who directs a progressive course of "history." As with many other philosophical words, there is a narrow, technical definition of "German Idealism" and there is a wide, commonplace definition. Philosophers should be accustomed to this distinction. Lestrade (talk) 12:33, 28 March 2013 (UTC)Lestrade

I have already quoted two sources (not counting German Wikipedia) which clearly state that German Idealism begins with Kant. John Z made the same point above. Here is yet a third source—Slavoj Žižek, Less Than Nothing:

[T]here is a unique philosophical moment in which philosophy appears "as such" and which serves as a key-as the only key-to reading the entire preceding and following tradition as phi­losophy... This moment is the moment of German Idealism delimited by two dates: 1787, the year in which Kant's Critique of Pure Reason appeared, and 1831, the year of Hegel's death. (pp. 7–8)

That German Idealism begins with Kant is completely noncontroversial. Yet you have continued to insist that it does not, although the first time you expressed this view you were more tentative, writing "I thought that German idealism was a post–Kantian philosophy.Lestrade (talk) 02:07, 19 November 2009 (UTC)Lestrade" The term "German Idealism" is not "ambiguous", as you claim above; there are not two "classifications", according to one of which Kant is not a German Idealist.

Can you provide any reliable sources which maintain the position that Kant is not considered to belong to German Idealism, or which support the claim you made directly above that German Idealism "is a name given to the theological philosophers who lived after Kant"? – Herzen (talk) 23:22, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

I've looked at the French, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Russian, Czech, and Japanese Wikipedia articles on German Idealism. All of them say German Idealism begins with Kant. This is not something about which there is any controversy. – Herzen (talk) 23:51, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

If Kant is to be included with the (Post-Kantian) German Idealists, then it might be a good idea to emphasize in the article the extremely important distinction and difference between Transcendental idealism and Absolute idealism. To careerist academics, Absolute idealism may be the progressively developed and historically advanced offspring of Kant’s doctrine. To those who turn to philosophy in order to investigate the problem of being human, however, the later idealism may seem to be more of a mooncalf. Lestrade (talk) 00:08, 31 March 2013 (UTC)Lestrade

What are we to make of the following words from Julian Young’s Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography (page 89, Cambridge U. Press, 2010)? Professor Young was discussing the influence of Friedrich Lange on Friedrich Nietzsche. He wrote: "Lange represented the beginning of Neo-Kantianism, an abandonment of the metaphysical excesses of 'German Idealists' such as Fichte and Hegel and a return to Kant’s epistemological modesty." Young seems to consider Kant as being separate and distinct from the German Idealists. Kant’s epistemology was then "modest" in comparison to the excessively metaphysical doctrine of the German Idealists.Lestrade (talk) 15:58, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Lestrade

Nobody denies that Kant's idealism was more "modest" than that of his German idealist successors. You are reading too much into that quote. Just because Young explicitly mentions Fichte and Hegel as being German idealists, doesn't mean that he objects to the consensus among philosophers that Kant is considered to be the first German idealist. Indeed, that Young mentions Fichte and Hegel explicitly suggests that he concurs with this consensus: if Young considered Kant to be clearly apart from German idealism, he could have simply written: "an abandonment of the metaphysical excesses of German Idealism and a return to Kant’s epistemological modesty." Finally, note that Young puts "German Idealists" in scare quotes, which suggests that he considers the category "German idealist" to be suspect for some reason, whether or not Kant is included. This could well be because Young, as someone who writes a book about Nietzsche, considers German idealism to be so contemptible that it doesn't even deserve to have a name. In any case, (1) the scare quotes alone make this quotation of no help to this article; (2) a book on Nietzsche is not the place to look to settle the matter of who is a German idealist and who is not.

I agree with your previous comment that the article must make clear the distinction between transcendental idealism and absolute idealism, while describing German idealism as beginning with Kant. – Herzen (talk) 17:11, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Professor Young may have put the words "German Idealists" in so–called scare quotes because he wanted to specify a certain group of theological philosophers, not merely writers who were from Germany and who were also Idealists. This is similar to an author writing "Pittsburgh Pirates" to mean a certain baseball team and not merely maritime criminals from southwest Pennsylvania.Lestrade (talk) 23:02, 3 April 2013 (UTC)Lestrade

Wow! quite a heated debate over what @Herzen convincingly shows is an uncontroversial point, that Kant is pretty much universally considered a German Idealist. It's not clear to me exactly why Lestrade would be so vehemently intent on denying this—although presumably it has something to do with the caricatured image he has of Kant's self-identified successors. No one in the field would accept that reading (inasmuch as it can even be called a reading), however, and so those particular views have no place on Wikipedia.

(There are, in case people are not aware, ways to have people banned from editing a page for that kind of behavior.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by PatrickJWelsh (talk • contribs) 17:22, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

Mistake under subheading 'Meaning of idealism'.

Under the subheading 'Meaning of Idealism' I believe a mistake may have been made. The phrase "we consider something that appears without respect to the specific manner in which it appears", while proving its royal self, may actually read differently to how the author intended. Rather than "...we consider something that appears without respect to the specific manner in which it appears", the author may have intended to say, "we consider a thing's appearance without comprehending precisely any innate constitution it may possess regardless". — Preceding unsigned comment added by GetSnufflegartened (talk • contribs) 15:25, 30 November 2013 (UTC)

Holderlin

In Holderlin's wikipedia article, it states that he "was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism." But he is not mentioned in this article. I wonder if we should add a mention of Holderlin's contribution to German Idealism here? ShaiGoldman18 (talk) 16:38, 10 December 2023 (UTC)

Yes, that would be an entirely appropriate and most welcome addition. Right now this "article" is pretty much just a largely unsourced list. Edit away!

Cheers, Patrick J. Welsh (talk) 16:44, 10 December 2023 (UTC)