Absolute idealism is chiefly associated with F. W. J. Schelling and G. W. F. Hegel, both of whom were German idealist philosophers in the 19th century. The label has also been attached to others such as Josiah Royce, an American philosopher who was greatly influenced by Hegel's work, the British idealists (often referred to as the neo-Hegelians<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA-->), and the Italian idealists, particularly the actual idealism of Giovanni Gentile.

According to Hegel, being is ultimately comprehensible only as an all-inclusive whole (das Absolute). Hegel asserted that in order for the thinking subject (human reason or consciousness) to be able to know its object (the world) at all, there must be in some sense an identity of thought and being. Otherwise, the subject would never have access to the object and we would have no certainty about any of our knowledge of the world.

The absolute idealist position dominated philosophy in nineteenth-century Britain and Germany, while exerting significantly less influence in the United States. The absolute idealist position should be distinguished from the subjective idealism of Berkeley, the transcendental idealism of Immanuel Kant, or the post-Kantian critical idealism<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> (or post-Kantian transcendental idealism) of J. G. Fichte.

Schelling and Hegel's concepts of the absolute

According to the scholar Andrew Bowie, Hegel's system depends upon showing how each view and positing of how the world has an internal contradiction: "This necessarily leads thought to more comprehensive ways of grasping the world, until the point where there can be no more comprehensive way because there is no longer any contradiction to give rise to it."

For Hegel, the interaction of opposites generates, in a dialectical fashion, all concepts necessary to comprehend what is.

For Kant, reason was only for us, and the categories only emerged within the subject. However, for Hegel, reason is fully immanent. Spirit emerges from nature in history and, in art, religion, and philosophy, knows itself in its truth.

Hegel shows that the world is not other than self. With the realization that mind and world are, by logical necessity, meaningfully coherent, our access to the world is made secure, a security that was lost in Kant's proclamation that the thing-in-itself was ultimately inaccessible.

Hegel's position is a critical transformation of the concept of the absolute advanced by Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775–1854), who argued for a philosophy of Identity; as articulated by Bowie:

Reactions<!--'Neo-Hegelianism', 'Neo-hegelianism', 'Neo-Hegelian', 'Neo-hegelian', 'Post-Hegelianism', and 'Post-Hegelian' redirect here-->

Absolute idealism has greatly altered the philosophical landscape. This influence is mostly felt in the strong opposition it engendered. Both logical positivism and analytic philosophy grew out of a rebellion against Hegelianism prevalent in England during the 19th century. Continental phenomenology, existentialism, and postmodernism also seek to 'free themselves from Hegel's thought'.

Geoffrey Warnock, writing after the demise of absolute idealism as a philosophical movement in Britain, wrote that the absolute idealists were motivated by emotional concerns, which he says Bradley and McTaggart admitted. He also criticized them for vagueness and overreliance on rhetoric as opposed to argument, he added that in the writings of some "solemnity and unclarity seem to rise not seldom to the pitch of actual fraud".

Martin Heidegger, one of the leading figures of Continental philosophy in the 20th century, sought to distance himself from Hegel's work. One of Heidegger's philosophical themes in Being and Time was "overcoming metaphysics," aiming to distinguish his book from Hegelian tracts. After the 1927 publication, Heidegger's "early dismissal of them [German idealists] gives way to ever-mounting respect and critical engagement." He continued to compare and contrast his philosophy with Absolute idealism, principally due to critical comments that certain elements of this school of thought anticipated Heideggerian notions of "overcoming metaphysics."

See also

  • Doctrine of internal relations
  • Jena Romanticism
  • Objective idealism

Notes

Further reading

  • Robert B. Pippin, Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self Consciousness, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1989.
  • Rebecca Comay, John McCumber (eds.), Endings: Questions of Memory in Hegel and Heidegger, Evanston (Ill.), Northwestern University Press, 1999.