German idealism

The German idealism is the generic name which one gave to a whole of philosophies developed in Germany at the end of the XVIIIè century and at the beginning of the XIXè century. Its principal representatives are: Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Schelling and Hegel.

A contestable label

But there are great differences between their thoughts , and of many debates between them, as opposed to what this single denomination (and retrospective) can let believe.

This very vast label makes it possible to distinguish them at the same time:

of philosophies which precede them:

Rene Descartes
Leibniz and Wolf
Empiricism of John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume

of philosophies which succeed to them:

Common features

The first testimony of the German Idealism is a text called the oldest program of the German Idealism (" Das älteste Systemprogramm of the deutschen Idealismus"). Even if its date is about certain (1797), one wondered a long time who was the author: Hegel, Hölderlin, Schelling was evoked. One leans today for Hegel.

The common point of all the philosophers of the German Idealism is that they take again and exceed all at the same time the Kantian thought. They just like try Kant to exceed and of refonder the traditional Métaphysique through the Morale and of the Esthétique (cf celebrates it first letter of the German Idealism). But they want to also correct what seems to them to be erroneous at Kant. Hegel for example will always affirm the possibility of a speculative Métaphysique in spite of what Kant affirms.

They take again moreover a certain number of ideas to him for example that the Subjectivité is one of the bases of any philosophy. They follow from this point of view Kant for which subjectivity is the base of the Philosophie transcendantale (cf §16 of the " Critical of the pure reason "). Fichte and Hegel will redévelopperont this idea through the concept of Me at Fichte and spirit at Hegel.

German idealism and Aufklärung

The German idealism corresponds at the end of the German Lumières (the Aufklärung ). Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel was fascinated by the French revolution. One tells that Kant would have stopped its daily walk, for the single time of his life, while wanting to get information about the evolution of the revolution. As for Hölderlin, Schelling and Hegel, one says that they would have planted a tree of freedom when they were seminarists with the Stift of Tübingen.

Criticisms

The criticism of the idealism will rest primarily on the fact that while claiming to exceed the opposition between metaphysics and empiricism, it restored metaphysics by subjecting the very whole experiment to it.

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