Idealism: Part III: German Idealism

German idealism is the name given to the movement in Germany that began in the 1780s and extend through the 1840s. As far as philosophical movements, its impact was felt throughout the world, especially in the United States.

The movement was a collective commitment to idealism, but it was to an idealism that was more absolute than abstract. Kant's transcendental idealism was a doctrine that exposed the difference between appearances and things, and claimed that objects of human cognition are appearances and not things in themselves, fitting philosophically inside idealism. But, it was this idea that was transformed by other German idealists like Fichte, Schelling and Hegel who pushed Kant's transcendental idealism into a more absolute idealism by contending that things in themselves are contradictions because things must be objects of our consciousness if they are objects at all.

German idealism brought a systematic application to idealism that was missing from general idealism and a push towards a first idealist principle for all aspects of philosophy. This first principle was known as "the absolute;" it was considered unconditional in that it must precede all principles, which are conditioned by the difference between principles. German idealism began with Kant's ideas of human cognition; he held that objects of human cognition are ideal and empirically real. Kant called them "transcendentally ideal" because he believed we could only know objects to the extent that are objects to us.

Kant posited that we could have objectively valid cognition of empirically real objects because we are affected by things outside of our beings; he recognized that our sensations confirmed this state. Kant believed that sensations constituted judgement, which, for Kant, demonstrated the conditions of possibility of objective valid cognition. The synthesis found in judgment produced, for Kant, objective valid cognition of empirically real objects, moving the impact of idealism from the consciousness of the mind to external points outside the mind.

Kant's idea of contradiction was the mechanism used by other German idealists in developing a more absolute idealism, allowing idealism to now extend beyond ideas of the mind. The idea of a thing in itself was used by another German idealist, Fichte, who maintained that a thing, which is not an object for us but does exist independently of us, is a contradiction. Fichte claimed that there can be no thing in itself because a thing was only a thing when it becomes a thing for us. So, for Fichte, the thing in itself is, in fact, a product of our consciousness, which to Fichte, completes the process of a thing becoming a thing. Fichte concluded that everything occurring in our mind can be explained by our mind. This aspect of German idealism closed the circle, if you will, by explaining everything in accordance with consciousness. A thing is a thing only if it is recognized as a thing, and a thing is only recognized as a thing by the mind, which makes the mind determinant of all things.

This circulatory line of thinking presented life as an existence totally dependent on the mind of men and women (which Fichte refereed to as the I) because recognition was necessary for existence. Fichte held that consciousness was a circle in which the I posited itself and determined what belonged to the I and what belonged to the not-I (that area outside the circle). Schelling, another German idealist, defended Fichte by maintaining that the I was the unconditional condition of being and thinking because the existence of the I precedes all thinking; this I was consciousness and not God. For Schelling, the I must exist in order to think, which was necessary because thinking, for Schelling, determined all being.

German idealism provided a means of pulling sensation and external matter into its closed system. Its systematic "natural" approach provided German idealism with a new-found ability to defend itself and respond to all areas philosophical in nature. The first principle concept certainly made it more compatible with Christianity as God would certainly qualify as that first preceding principle. Yet, at the end, it was still a worldview that rooted itself, for the most part, in mankind, which presents a dilemma of sorts. If nothing exists except that which is in the mind of men and women how would we ever know that there are things that do not exist? Can that thought even be possible in an idealistic environment?

George Berkley, and some past idealists, thought that idealism was the best way to prove God's existence for one simple reason... there is an idea of God in culture. Can one be truly rooted in idealism and still doubt God?  As far as ideas go, the idea of God is one of the oldest and most populated ideas (If God were only an idea.), so to dismiss it, even as an idea, seems rather inconsistent with idealism as a whole.

As far as ideas go, God is not one for if He were then His existence would depend on the mind of mankind, and we know it does not. Ideas depend on past thoughts on which new thought are built. God depends on no one. He has been found to be present in all cultures and civilizations. His thoughts are not our thoughts nor our ideas.