Understanding German Idealism and Neoplatonism
German Idealism
German Idealism: A philosophical system which holds that the being of things resides in consciousness. The precursor to idealism is Descartes, along with other idealistic rationalists, and Kant (transcendental idealism).
German Idealism is a unique intellectual movement that developed in Germany towards the end of the eighteenth century and throughout much of the nineteenth century. Its key figures are Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. It is characterized by radical idealism, phasing out any reference to anything that remains outside of consciousness. Hegel’s idealism is often called absolute idealism.
German Idealism can be defined by its opposition to the theories of the Enlightenment, and in particular, against Kantian theses:
- Faced with the Enlightenment, it shows the following theses:
- Advocates nationalism and popular traditions.
- Maintains a historical conception of reason. For German Idealism, reason is displayed in history.
- Defines religious sentiment as born of the feeling of infinity.
- Against the Kantian thesis, it states the following positions:
- Rejects the notion of things-in-themselves as self-contradictory.
- As a result of its rejection of things-in-themselves, it proposes a new conception of reason: infinite reason.
- Rejects the analytic-inductive nature of Kantian philosophy.
- The main problems that arise are explaining: 1) how we can capture all, and 2) how the absolute and related fiction relate.
- Science par excellence will never be mathematics or physics, but philosophy.
- Revaluation of the church.
However, it does take from Kant’s philosophy: the concept of liberty and the pursuit of the unconditional by reason.
Neoplatonism
Neoplatonism: The Neo-Platonic school of Alexandria was founded by Ammonius Saccas, teacher of Plotinus and Origen.
Plotinus, in the third century, developed the doctrine of assumptions and emanations, a descriptive model of all being and thought, based on Plato’s theory. According to this theory, the world is ordered according to a hierarchical structure of being: The One, Spirit or Mind, and Soul. The true reality is absolutely transcendent, absolute, and complete with respect to the material world.
The key problem is the derivation of the multiple from the One. The lower level occurs in each case by emanation or radiation from the superiors, without them being affected by a decrease:
- The basis of all beings is the One, primary, also designated as good or divine.
- Reason or the Spirit is the site of multiplicity and Platonic ideas.
- The Soul is conceived in part as the soul of the universe, as well as the soul of humans, animals, or plants. It has two sides: one addressed to the intellect and the other to nature.
- Beyond are incomplete assumptions of the corporeal world.
The highest ethical and spiritual end of man is supra-unification with the One primary, a release from the body.
In the third and fourth centuries, there was a school in Syria, whose greatest representative was Iamblichus, characterized by an emphasis on spirituality and a magical character.
In Renaissance Platonism, we should point out:
Marsilio Ficino emphasizes the definition of man as a spiritual being.
Pico della Mirandola claims that God gives man free will, by which he can degenerate into the world of beasts or rise to the upper world of the divine.