i. Albert Price: Brother of Fenny Price. He had some similarity of Fanny’s appearance. He didn’t like Fanny’s stay at France and advised her to come back to London. At Fanny’s death he came to France unwillingly and he didn’t look sorry.
ii. Miss Alice Antonia: She was a well known socio-economic accustomed to be of friendly terms on gallery boys of provincial musical halls.
iii. Mr. Albert Nixon: He was a family solicitor who advised Philip to try and become a chattered accountant.
iv. Anna: The younger daughter of professor Erlin. She was tall and plain and had a pleasant voice and always made her useful.
v. Thorpe Athenly: He was a patient of Philip suffering from jaundice, when they first met. He was forty-eight years old. He was a tall man who took many professions in life including a job in a tree-plantation project in Ceylon, traveler in America for Italian wine, secretary ship of a water company in Toledo and also a journalist; editor and sub-editor of some newspapers. Now he has settles as a press representative of a big company named linen-drapers. He reminded Philip a good deal of Cornshaw.
vi. Athelstan: He was the son of Athenly.
vii. Mr. Barker: He married a cousin of Mr. Athenly.
viii. Bell: Philip’s co-worker in linen-draper. He was a cheerful youth of sixteen.
ix. Miss Bennett: Miss Bennett was a woman of massive proportions with a very large red face heavily powdered and a bust of imposing dimensions. She did her best to make people at home; she slapped them at their shoulders and laughed a great deal. She loved dancing and poetry better than anything in the world, though she was quite slow to dance.
x. Betty/Miss Athenly: She was the mother of nine children of Athenly though they were not married. She used to work in Athenly’s wives house. She was a large woman, at least three inches high from her husband. Bearing of many children made her fatty. She spent her youth near just near Baclstable, in a village named Ferne. She was a cheerful mother with hospitality and good humour.
xi. Mrs. Black: Mrs. Black had a cottage where she combined the office of postmistress along with that of universal provider.
xii. Fraulein Cacilie: She was a pretty young woman living in professor Erlin’s house. She once thought Philip was in love with her. Finally we find her secretly leaving with the Chinese man Herr Sung.
xiii. Mr. Cameren: He was the teacher of anatomy at St. Luke’s medical school. He also lectured to the students of Royal Academy.
xiv. Mrs. Carey/Helen: Philip’s mother a beautiful but penniless orphan whom Henry Carey married. She died in Philip’s childhood.
xv. Chandler: Chandler was the senior obstetric clerk at St. Luke’s medical school. He was a tall man of few words, with a long nose and a thin face much lined for his age.
xvi. Mr. Clutton: A young talented painter whom Philip met in Paris. He had a group of painter who shared their ideas and criticized each other’s work. But soon Clutton formed his new idea that an artist has nothing to do with critics. So he left his friends and went away. When he returns he quarrels with most of his friends, shows his work to no one and remains almost penniless. He was supposed to be genius or mad.
xvii. Connie: She was the daughter of Athenly.
xviii. Cornshaw: He was a poet living in France. He helped Philip to formulate his view during his stay in Paris. He was very fond of cricket. He changed his view about the surroundings by saying; there is no absolute morality and made Philip realize that life is only meaningless. He died coming in England at Philip’s apartment. His life seemed to have nothing except to give a pushing journalist an occasion to write an article in a review. But still he represented man’s struggle for intellect, a life very difficult to follow.
xix. Doctor Deacon: The old doctor who treated Philip when he was on London.
xx. Mr. Donaldson: He was an electric engineer who wanted to marry Sally. He was good looking and an eligible man.
xxi. Monsieur Ducroz: He taught Philip French during his stay at Heidelberg. He spoke very few words and was punctual more than necessary. He had been expelled from Geneva for some political offence. Philip felt sorry for his miserable life e led in old age.
xxii. Dunsford: Philip’s fist friend during his stay at medical school. He was a fresh complexioned man from Clifton. Philip used to go to tea and to music hall, gallery or theatre with him. He used to fall in love with beautiful waitresses in the coffee shops.
xxiii. Aunt Elizabeth: She was an aunt of Mrs. Athenly and was quite popular among the Anthenly children though they have never seen. They teased their elder sister Sally by saying that she would be as fat as her.
xxiv. Frau Professor Erlin: She was a short stout woman with a red face and an effusive manner. Philip stayed in their house for thirty marks during his stay at Heidelberg. She used to teach Philip German and Latin.
xxv. Edward: He was the son of Athenly.
xxvi. Emil: Was the servant of professor Erlin’s house.
xxvii. Emma: The maidservant who worked for Mrs. Carey.
xxviii. Erlin: He was a boy of fourteen who was clubfooted. He came to the medical school for treatment. He was jolly and talkative and was not shy at all. Philip felt that the boy had no humiliation that he felt in his boyhood.
xxix. Miss Fanny Price: The woman whom Philip met in Paris. She was trying hard to become a painter and knew all the basics. But unfortunately she could not draw well. She helped Philip much at the beginning. No one liked her for her high temper and rough behaviour. Philip was her only friend and she had a very soft corner for Philip. She was very industrious and her devotion for art cannot be described in words. She struggled with extreme poverty for the sake of art; at last the poor woman gave away to poverty and committed suicide due to starving.
xxx. Mr. Flanagan: He was an American who came to France to learn painting. He had a jolly face and a laughing mouth, thought himself a scattered brain person of the world, and also had a tenderness of heart, which was unexpected and charming. But afterwards we find that he gave away painting and was making a good money in popper’s business.
xxxi. Dr. Fleming: Dr. Fleming was the headmaster of the King’s school at Tercenbury for about a quarter of a century who received six hundred pounds of pension a year. He chose Mr. Perkins as the new headmaster of the school.
xxxii. Mrs. Fletcher: She was the woman who sold sandwiches to the workers. She was a kind-hearted woman who often landed sandwiches at debt at the ending of the month. She was very funny and the workers liked her a good deal.
xxxiii. Mrs. Fletcher (in Ivy Lane): She was an old patient of Dr. South whom he treated since her birth.
xxxiv. Mr. Fointer: Mr. Fointer was their drawing instructor. We come to know he was not pleased with his second rated painter life and suggested Philip to leave the profession if he had any other option.
xxxv. Fraulein Forster: She was a Dutch spinster of masculine appearance. She lived by the pension and was a permanent customer.
xxxvi. Mrs. Foster: The kind housekeeper of William Carey who looked after Mr. Carey with a great deal of care till he died.
xxxvii. Madame Foyot: The mother of the girls whom Miss Wilkinson educated at France.
xxxviii. George: He was a Swiss and worked as a writer. Cornshaw shared his room while he came in England.
xxxix. Mr. Gladstone: The then Prime minister of England.
xl. Mr. Gibbons: He was a middle-aged man; he had brisk movement and a clever face. Philip appeared at the first interview of his life to him and was refused.
xli. Mr. Goodworthy: He was the manager of the accountant farm. He was a man of short length and had a large head.
xlii. Rev. B. B. Gordon: Mr. Gordon never possessed the qualities of a master. He was impatient and choleric. He had a sandy hair and a bristly moustache. His eyes were red and the students among teachers feared him most.
xliii. Griffith/Harry: Griffith lived on the top stairs of Philip’s room while he was a medical student. There was peculiar charm in his manners. A mingling of gravity and kindness that was infinitely attractive. They didn’t have much intimacy. It grew after a long while when Griffith took good care of Philip when he was ill. Everybody liked him for his jolly nature. He had a very good relation with Philip, which came to an end when Griffith fell in love with Mildred.
xliv. Gwennie: She was a middle-aged woman came with her mother to enjoy summer vacation. They claimed they had a nice house in London and they were not used to such places.
xlv. Mrs. Harding: She was a woman who took Mildred’s child for seven shilling a year. She was a stout elderly woman lived in a small but clean and tidy house. Her husband was an old curate who earned very little. To Philip, she looked kind.
xlvi. Miss Graves: Sister of Mr. Graves who kept house for him. She was the secretary of maternity club, which provided pregnant poor with flannel, baby linen, coals and five shillings.
xlvii. Herb: He was the husband of one of Philip’s patients. He was a recently married young man who earned a great deal of money. He and his wife were very happy with their family and the newborn baby they had. He was a nonunion man and used to be a football player before he got married. All these made him an interesting character.
xlviii. Harris: Philip’s co-worker in linen draper. He was a tall thin young man with a hooked nose and a pasty face.
xlix. Harry: He was aged only eighteen; was married and earned sixteen shillings a week. Poverty was nothing unexpected to him. He and his wife were completely alone and knew no one at that place.
l. Hayward: He came to the professor’s house two months after the arrival of Philip. He was a man of twenty-six and thought himself a poet. Philip seemed to have a great influence of him. At least, his literary sense attracted Philip though later it was found his sense was not as sharp as he used to express. Philip had a long lasting relation with him. He volunteered as a soldier in the war and died of enteric after reaching the war field.
li. Helen: Mr. Watson’s wife, a dark woman with black hair. She had thick lips and a small nose. Her eyes were large and black. There was a singular coldness in her appearance. She seldom spoke and more seldom smiled.
lii. Fraulein Hedwig: She was a pretty young woman who lived in professor Erlin’s house. She loved a lieutenant but her parents did not like the boy. But afterwards she managed to marry him.
liii. Harold: He was the son of Ahtenly.
liv. Herr Sung: Herr Sung was the Chinaman who took two rooms on the ground floor from professor Erlin. He was a good customer. He ate a bottle of moselle at each meal from which professor Erlin made a good profit. He had a love affair with Frailein Cacilie.
lv. Henry Carey: Father of Philip and a well-reputed surgeon. He was a kind-hearted man but died a premature death.
lvi. Mr. Herbert Carter: Mr. Herbert Carter owned the accountant farm in London. He looked like a military man with his appearance and wearing. He was fond of games and thought of the good of the country. He went to France with Mr. Goodworthy for the first time for some business affairs.
lvii. Mrs. Hodges: She was a little woman of forty-five working at linen-drapers. She left her barrister husband and decided to live an independent life. She had the habit of calling everyone dear.
lviii. Hunter: The boy with who rose made friendship while Philip was absent.
lix. Mr. Jacobs: He was the surgeon under whom Philip had dressed. He made an operation on Philip’s clubfoot.
lx. Jane/Maria Del Pilar: She was the third daughter of Athenly. Her nickname was pudding face.
lxi. Miss Jewell: She worked in linen-draper and was about to marry a doctor.
lxii. Joseph: He was a son of Levi who sold jewel in Holborn. He once made an offer of marriage to Sally.
lxiii. Mr. Josiah Graves: The manager, choirmaster and treasurer of the bank as well as a churchwarden. He was a tall, thin man with a swallow face, a long nose and white hair. He was involved in politics and liked being a clergyman.
lxiv. Mr. Kingsford: He was a man of forty, clean shaved and had long hair neatly pressed down. He was a man of more than average height large shouldered. He was the editor of one of Harm Worth’s magazines.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Some Importent Topics of Western Ideas
Paradox of Learning
According to Rousseau, man is by nature good, but our institutions have made him bad. Civilization is the cause of unhappiness. The corruption in the society is caused by learning in arts and sciences. In the earlier times, our morals were rude but natural. Modern manners have made everyone conform to speech, dress and attitude, following the laws of fashion but not our own nature.
Rousseau directed his attack against luxury and against political leaders. These leaders emphasized the economic aspects of politics. For Rousseau, luxury cannot produce a lasting society. Money can buy everything but morals and citizens. Artists and musicians pursuing luxury lower their genius to the level of the time. This, for Rousseau, is the evil consequence of arts and science. Morals no longer have their rightful place. He says that the question is no longer whether a man is honest but whether he is clever.
Rousseau did not mean to say that philosophy and science had no value. He was, in fact, concerned about the danger to morals and society caused by the confusion of contending theories and points of view. According to Rousseau, a stable society is based upon a set of opinions or values, which is accepted by the majority as the rules for their thoughts and behaviors. But science and philosophy seek to discover the universal truth, and consequently, expose the local rules as less than the truth. Since science and philosophy requires evident and proof, the dominant local opinions, which are subject to doubt, loose their binding force. Science requires an attitude of doubt and it suspends faith. But it is faith that keeps society together, not knowledge. To get rid of this, Rousseau proposes that the suspension of faith should be restricted to special individuals. Skepticism leads to the loosening of morals, which ultimately causes a weakness in public moral, or as Rousseau puts it, the virtue of patriotism.
So, it is clear that Rousseau is concerned about the popularization of science and philosophy. He says that it is proper to allow some men to apply themselves to the study of these. His attack was upon those who would distort knowledge by popularizing them. For him, ordinary men build their happiness upon the opinion of the heart. Virtue is the sublime science of simple minds, for the true philosophy is to listen to the voice of the conscience.
The Social Contract
For Rousseau, the social contract is a living reality, which will be found to be present wherever there is a legitimate government. This contract helps to overcome the lawlessness of absolute license and assures liberty. Here, people willingly adjust their conducts to harmonize with the legitimate freedom of others. In this contract, man puts his person and all his power in common under the direction of the general will and each member is received as an indivisible part of a whole. According to Rousseau, whoever refuses to obey the general rule shall be compelled to do so by the whole body, which means that he will be forced to be free.
The law is the product of the general will, which, in turn, is the will of the sovereign. The sovereign consists of the total number of citizens of a given society. The general will of the sovereign is therefore the single will which reflects the sum of the wills of all the citizens. The many wills of the citizens can be considered one general will because all people are in search of common good. All citizens by thinking of their own good realize that they should refrain from any behavior that would cause others to turn upon and injure them. Therefore each individual’s will is identical with every other individual’s, since they are all directed to the same purpose, namely, the common good. From this, it can be said that there is only one will, the general will. If each individual is the author of the laws, which come from the sovereign’s general will, it has to be said that one obeys only himself. For Rousseau, force can only be applied when one refuses to obey a law. Rousseau says that if the law represents the common good or justice, it expresses the general will. For him, if this law is in conformity with the general will, then the person refusing to obey it is in error and only then he could be forced to obey it as it provides him with the greatest amount of freedom. There is one more thing that Rousseau points out. According to him, if everyone were required to obey the law, then all the citizens should be equally involved in making the laws.
Absolute Idealism
Hegel looked upon the world as an organic process. For him, the truly real is the absolute. Absolute Idealism is an attempt to explain the reality. It is the claim that reality is rational, conceptual totality. Hegel looked upon the world as an organic process. It is the absolute mind that expresses itself in all areas of human knowledge and experience. Hegel claims that the rational, the concept, the idea is real. In his own words, “The real is the rational and the rational is the real. The Absolute reveals itself to our finite minds in all areas of human knowledge. For Hegel, the reality of rational concepts is not another object than the existence, it is the same object more deeply understood. Absolute idealism claims to penetrate existence to find the rational truth, which is its core. According to Hegel, the rational concepts have no separate, independent existence apart from the concrete world of things, but constitute their rational core. He says that whatever is, is rational. By this he means that everything has an intelligible structure which human reason can grasp.
According to Hegel, absolute mind is a unified totality of all rational truths concerning all areas of experience and knowledge. But, at the same time, it organizes all the diversity into a coherent unity. The Absolute is a unity in diversity. It is a One that includes the many.
Concept of Right
According to Hegel, the individual is aware of his freedom, which is expressed by his act of free will. For Hegel, will and reason are synonymous. A person’s will is expressed in the relation of material things. An individual appropriates them, uses the, and exchanges them. For Hegel, appropriation means the demonstration of the majesty of man’s will to things. The basis of the right to property is the free will of the individual. As much as the will resides in the individual, property is a private right. Free men can also alienate themselves by exchanging things through a contract, which is the product of two free wills. This indicates the development of duty. Hegel says that rationality indicates the harmony between the universal will and the individual will. But whenever the harmony is broken there occurs the negation of right. This is a dialectic between the way wrong will acts and the way of the universal will. This conflict between right and wrong gives rise to morality. For Hegel, morality does not simply refer to obeying laws and keeping contracts. The essence of morality is found in the internal intension and purpose of man. But Hegel does not want to restrict the scope of morality within the subjective aspect of the free will. Human beings act in the context of other man. So moral duty comes from the requirement of recognizing a person’s will with the universal will. A person should act in a way that should not harm the will of others. According to Hegel, morality is an element in the dialectic process. The thesis is the abstract right of the individual will, the antithesis is morality. This dialectic process is moving towards a harmony between the subjective and the objective and Hegel says that the good is the realization of freedom, the absolute purpose of the world.
Dialectic Process
Hegel’s view was that we could know the essence of reality by moving logically step by step and avoiding all self – contradictions along the way. He had identified the rational with the actual. The logical process of deduction is at the heart of his dialectic philosophy. Hegel’s dialectic process exhibits a triadic movement, which is described as a movement of thesis to antithesis and finally to synthesis. The synthesis becomes a new thesis and it continues until it ends in the Absolute Idea. For Hegel, thought moves and that contradiction acts as a positive moving force in human reasoning. Hegel’s dialectic method could be illustrated by the triad of being, nothing and becoming. The various things have one thing in common, namely their being, which is the most general concept that the mind can formulate. Being is logically prior to any specific thing. Logic begins with the indeterminate, with the original featurelessness that precedes all definite characters and is the very first of all. This is what we call being and Hegel’s concept begins with the concept of being, and this is the thesis. This idea of being is a universal concept and Hegel believed that from this concept it was possible to deduce another concept. He believed that because pure being is mere abstraction, it is therefore absolutely negative. Since the concept of being is fully indeterminate, it passes into the concept of not – being. Hitherto, Hegel has deduced the concept of nothing from the concept of being. The antithesis, nothing is contained in the thesis, being.
The movement of the mind from being to nothing produces a third category, namely becoming. It understands that being, for the above reason, is the same as nothing. It is the unity of being and nothing. Becoming is therefore the synthesis of being and nothing. Hegel says that a thing can both be and not be at the same time when it becomes. Throughout his vast and intricate system, Hegel employs this dialectic method of a thesis from which comes an antithesis and combining the two we find a synthesis.
Moral Philosophy
According to Hegel, human behaviour must be understood as the actions of individuals. For him, the individual is aware of his freedom, which he expresses by an act of will. A person expresses his freedom chiefly in relation to material things, appropriating them, using them and exchanging them. The basis of right to property is the free will of the individual in an act of appropriation. Inasmuch as the free will resides in the individual, property is a private property. Free man can also alienate themselves from property through a contract. The contract also indicates the development of a duty. Hegel says that as long as the free will acts rationally, the free acts conform to the rationality of the universe. Their individual wills harmonize with the universal will. But there is always the possibility of the opposite of right, which is exemplified in fraud and violence. The dialectic relation between right and wrong produces tension and this tension gives rise to morality. For Hegel, morality has to do with those deeds for which men can themselves be held responsible. The essence of morality is found in a person’s intention and purpose. Now Hegel says that moral duty is broader than the concerns or intentions of the individual. Human behaviour takes place in the context of other people. It derives from the requirement of identifying a person’s individual will with the universal will. The principle of morality requires that a person must exercise his will in such a way that the wills of other persons can also achieve their welfare as well.
Philosophy Of Nature
According to Hegel, nature represents the idea outside itself. Hegel’s premise is that ‘the real is the rational’, which means nature is simply rationality, or the idea in its external form. For Hegel, ultimate reality is a single organic and dynamic whole. Nature is the opposite, the antithesis, of the rational idea, the thesis. Our thought moves dialectically from the rational, the idea to the nonrational, the nature. The concept of nature leads our thought finally to a synthesis represented by the unity of the idea and nature in the new concept of spirit. It is the dialectic movement of nature that drives our thought from nature back to spirit. For Hegel, the philosophy of nature begins with the most abstract thing, which is space. Space is empty. At one end, nature touches emptiness and at the other end, it passes over into spirit. Between these two, is the diversity of particular things, or else, the nature. Hegel’s aim was to discover through a philosophy of nature a rational structure and a pattern in all of reality. Nature is a realm of necessity, which is to be considered as a system of stages, of which one necessarily precedes from the other.
The State
In his theory of the state, Hegel says that between the individual and the state, there are two dialectic steps, namely family and society. The family is the first stage of the objective will. In marriage two persons give up their individual wills to some degree to become one person. It is a single unit. The family constitutes the first moment of the embodiment of the universal will. At the same time, the family contains its own anti – thesis, namely individuals who will eventually grow up, leave the family and enter into the larger context of the civil society. The state is the synthesis of the family and the civil society. The family, in this analysis, stands for the embodied universal, whereas civil society represents particularity as each individual, unlike the members of the family, sets his own goals. These two elements, universality and particularity are contained in each other. Their unity is found in the state, which is the synthesis of universality and particularity. It is a unity is difference. Hegel concludes that the synthesis of the universal and the particular consists in the individual. In this context, the state is conceived as an individual, the true individual, an organic unity of partial individuals.
According to Hegel, the state is the actuality of the ethical idea. It represents a universal self – consciousness. An individual has an ethical life as a member of the state. For him, there would be preservation by the state of the individual’s liberty. The laws of the state are universal and they do not issue arbitrary command. The reason for laws is that men, in their ability to make free choices, are capable of choosing ends that might harm others. These behaviours are irrational. The function of the state is to bring rationality to behaviour. Only a person who acts rationally is free. The function of the state is to increase the aggregate of rational behaviour. The laws of the state are rational rules of behaviour that the individuals would choose if he were acting rationally.
World History
According to Hegel, the history of the world is the history of nations. Progress in the consciousness of freedom is represented in the dynamic unfolding of history. This progress is a rational process. Te world is dominated by reason and so Hegel says that history is a dynamic process. The dialectic of the historical process consists in the opposition between states. There is a national spirit in every nation. The national spirit is made possible by the fact that the minds of a particular people develop a spirit of unity. The dialectic in history is represented by the interplay between national spirits. Nations are carried along the way by the wave of history. In each epoch there is always a dominant people. Special historical persons lift nations to the top of the world and whose values consist in the creativeness to the unfolding Idea of Freedom. According to Hegel, history is a dialectic process, which is moving towards a purposive end, namely freedom. Hegel indicated three moments on the development of freedom, namely the Orientals, the Greeks and the Romans and the Germanic people. Hegel says that the East have always been aware that one is free, the Greek and the Roman, that some are free and the German world knows that all are free. But the highest freedom is achieved when the individual acts in accordance with the universal, the rational will of the society.
Dialectic Materialism
According to Karl Marx, the existence of classes is the only bound up with particular historic phases in the development of production. For him, the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat and this dictatorship constitutes the transition to the abolition of the classes and to a classless society. In his famous Capital, Marx defines this as the economic law of motion of modern society and this law of motion became his theory of dialectic materialism.
Marx divides history into five epochs, namely the primitive communal, slave, feudal, capitalist and the socialist and communist phases. He wanted to discover the law of motion. His aim was to explain both the past and future. From his analysis of each of the epochs, he found that class conflict was the decisive force at work and so history was the product of it. Marx’s dialectic is highly materialistic. He sees history as a movement caused by conflict in the material order. Since the ever-changing material world is the true reality, there are no stable fixed points in it. So history is in the process of change from one epoch to another in accordance with the laws of motion. Change means the emergence of a new structure. The cause of this is the alternation of quantity to quality. What moves history is the change of some quantitative elements into qualitative ones. The changes in the quantitative facts in capitalism would destroy it. Along with the decrease in the number of capitalist magnates, there would be an increase in the mass of poverty, enslavement, endangerment, degeneration and exploitation. At the same time, there would be intensification in the role of the working class and, as a result, there would be an incompatibility between the two classes. This bursts asunder. The expropriators are expropriated. This is the consequent transition from quantity to quality. For Marx, history has a definite and inexorable process of movement and change. Even though the social order is a complex phenomenon, its future state can be plotted. So, from the basis of his analysis of the epochs, Marx thought he had discovered a kind of inner logic in events, which causes history to move from one epoch to another. From this basis, he predicted that capitalism would inevitably give way to socialism and communism. In addition, with the emergence of socialism and finally communism, history would end. For him, when the inner contradictions between classes are resolved, all the changes and inner movements would be gone, a classless society would emerge, and it would be perpetual.
Five Epochs of History
Marx indicated that there are some particular phases of history to which the class struggle is bound up. He divided history into five epochs. These are the primitive communal, slave, feudal, capitalist and the socialist and communist phases. Marx set out to discover the ‘law of motion’. From his analysis of each epoch, Marx concluded that class conflict is the decisive force at work. The five epochs represent the dialectic movement of history, which is caused by the conflict of the material order. History is in the process of change from one epoch to another in accordance with the rigorous and inexorable ‘law of motion’. For him, the change in the quantitative elements forces a qualitative change in the arrangement of society. This is the process that has moved history from the primitive communal to the slave and in turn to the feudal and capitalist epoch. Marx’s prediction was that the qualitative change in capitalism would eventually destroy it. Along with the decrease in the number of capitalist magnates, there would be an increase in the mass of poverty, enslavement, endangerment, degeneration and exploitation. At the same time, there would be intensification in the role of the working class and, as a result, there would be an incompatibility between the two classes. This bursts asunder. The expropriators are expropriated. This is the consequent transition from quantity to quality. For Marx, history would end with the emergence of socialism and finally communism. When the inner contradictions between the classes are resolved the principle cause of movement and change would disappear and the classless society would emerge where all the forces and interests would be in perfect balance and this situation would be perpetual. As there would be no further development in history, there would also not be any more epochs.
Inexorable Law
According to Marx, there is an ‘inexorable law’ in history according to which the dialectic process progresses. He holds that there is a fundamental contradiction within every essence of things that causes the dialectic movement. Even though this process can be delayed or accelerated, there is no way to stop it from unfolding. All things are related to each other causally. This is why, according to Marx, there is no isolated event in history. The implication of this is that there is an unalterable process of movement and change, which produces history. But this historical law of determinism is not displayed in a mechanical way. The social order is a complex phenomenon and it is the result of necessary causation and determinism and its new forms are capable of prediction. With the help of the inexorable law of history, Marx says that it is possible to predict the future. Marx discovered the inexorable law of motion from his analysis of the epochs of history, which causes history to move from one epoch to another with a relentless determinism. On the basis of this, Marx predicted that capitalism would inevitably fall and would be transformed by the future, giving way to the qualitatively different social order of socialism and communism.
Substructure
For Marx, materialism means the sum total of the natural environment including all of inorganic nature, the organic world, social life and human consciousness. Marx defines matter as an objecting reality existing outside the human mind. The chief characteristic of his materialism is that it recognizes a wide diversity in the material world without reduction. The material order contains everything in the natural world that exists outside the mind. Marxism affirms the primacy of the material order and regards mental activity as a secondary by – product of matter. This is why Marx calls the material world ‘the substructure’. This substructure consists of ‘the factors of production’ and the ‘relations of production’.
The factors of production include the raw materials, instruments along with the experienced labour skill by means of which men produce food, shelter, clothing, which are essential for sustaining life. These factors represent the way men are related to each other. For Marx, what is of greater importance is the relation of men to each other in the process of production. These relations of production are affected by the factors of production. Marx’s analysis of the material is centered the relations of production. The key fact in the relations of production was the status of property to its ownership that is what determined how men were related to each other in the process of production was their relation to property. In each epoch of history, the ownership of property divides the property into those who have and those who have not. In the feudal system, the feudal lord owns the means of production. Here the serf rises above the level of the former slaves and has some share in the ownership of tools. In capitalism, the workers are free as compared to the serfs and the slaves, but they do not own the means of production. Although conflict is present in all these periods, it is particularly violent under capitalism. The some of these components of production in any particular society is called the substructure, which, according to Marx, is the only reality and from which man’s ideas are derived.
Superstructure
Marx’s explanation of the cultural life of society is derived from the economic foundation. The economic foundation of society conditions or determines the entire realm of culture. For him, each epoch has its dominant ideas. These ideas grow out of or reflect the actual material conditions of the historic period. For Marx, thinking comes after the material world has affected man’s mind. Marx calls these ideas, philosophies and religious beliefs Superstructure, determined by the existing substructure, the economic mode of productions. According to Marx, it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but on the contrary, their existence determines their consciousness. The source of ideas is rooted in the material world. All these are contributed by the economic foundation of society, especially by the class conflict within it. The dominant ideas are the ideas of the dominant class. The class, which is ruling the material forces of society, is at the same time, its ruling intellectual force. The class, which has the means of material productions at its disposal, has control over its mental productions. For Marx, the dominant ideas in all areas of human thought are distortions and falsifications of the truth. They do not reflect reality, but the viewpoint of the dominant and oppressive economic class. If this is the case, then each epoch has its own set of ideas, its own dominant philosophy. For Marx, as a result of the dynamic nature of the material world, there would occur also the conflict of ideas. This is the ideological side of the dialectic process. Since members of the society are related to the dialectic process by belonging to different social classes, there ideas are also logically opposed. For him, concepts such as justice, goodness and righteousness cannot be universal as they come from the material world, which is constantly changing. Ideas are particularly useless when they have no relationship to the reality. Marx’s cultural substructure includes philosophy, law, political thought, morality and art, which, according to him, are distortions and falsifications of the truth and only serve the interests of the dominant class.
Apollonian and Dionysian
In his effort to find out whether there is any reason to affirm life, Nietzsche turned to the aesthetic elements in man, which is the result of the fusion between the principles represented by the two great Greek Gods, Apollo and Dionysus. For Nietzsche, the Dionysian represents the dynamic stream of life, which knows no restrain and defies all limitations. Apollo, on the other hand, was the symbol of order, restraint and form, the power to create beauty through art. Dionysus symbolized man’s unity with life where his own individuality is absorbed in the larger reality of the life force. On the other hand, Apollo was the symbol of the power that controls and restrains the dynamic process of life. From another point of view, Dionysian represents the negative and destructive dark powers of the soul. But the Apollonian represents the power to harness the destructive powers in order to create art. Nietzsche’s conclusion was that man was not faced with the choice between the two. Nietzsche saw the production of the Greek tragedy as the rejection of the Dionysian elements, but as the awareness of these elements. It was a creation of art as a response of the basically healthy elements, the Apollonian, to the challenge of the Dionysian elements. Nietzsche thought that if the Dionysian was considered as the only principle of life, it would lead to a negative attitude towards life. For him, the supreme achievement of human nature was only possible by the fusion of these two elements. For him, the vital forces could not be denied expression. He thought that life was higher than knowledge and the raw vital force is finally life – defeating. This is why; Nietzsche wanted to fuse the two elements in order to transform the human life into an aesthetic phenomenon. Such a formula, for Nietzsche, could replace religious faith, which is unable to provide a new foundation of human behaviour.
Attack on Christianity
Nietzsche was seriously critical about the principles of Christianity. He considered the European morality as dishonest as it denied the primacy of will to power and, for this, he primarily held Judaism and Christianity as responsible. His attack was very direct. He regarded Christianity as a fatal and impious lie. He was annoyed with the fact that the Christian morality should be the measure of all things. In the Christian morality, the least qualified people were given the job of dealing with the greatest problems. The people, who knew very little, were talking about problems like God, the world and life, as if they were not problems at all. It is in the very nature of man to hate his enemies, but Christian morality requires man to do the opposite. For Nietzsche, it suppresses the natural morality by injecting god into man’s affection. He thought that the Judeo – Christian religions seek to keep alive the failures of man. Even though the spiritual man had given Europe comfort and courage to the sufferings, it, in fact, deteriorated the European race. It had shattered the strong, spoiled the great hopes, and broke down everything autonomous and manly. Christianity had transformed the instincts of full man into distress and uncertainty. It, over all, turned the love of the earthly things into the hatred of the earthly things and the earth.
God is Dead
The concept of the death of God is the best known of Nietzsche’s many compelling contributions to philosophy. In his book The Joyful Wisdom, Nietzsche presents the shocking story of the madman who on a bright morning lightened a lantern and ran to the marketplace looking for God and announced that God is dead. By the concept of the death of God, Nietzsche means the death of man’s beliefs in God. Nietzsche is famous for the claim that the crisis of the modern world is that, in the loss of man’s belief in God he has also lost the foundation of truth and value. Many, in the nineteenth century, regarded Europe as the symbols of power and security. But Nietzsche saw amid that the collapse of the traditional support of the values. He prophesied power politics and vicious wars were in store. He sensed the approaching of a nihilism, seeds of which had already been sown. For him, the belief in Christian God had radically declined to the point where he could say that God is dead.
According to Nietzsche, the death of God is a cultural event of which everyone had not yet become aware. Though it means a decline of truth and value, for Nietzsche, it, at the same time, means the opening of a new day, a day when the essentially life – denying ethics of Christianity could be replaced with a life – affirming philosophy. It will enable men to lose his childlike dependency on God and also to find themselves the courage to become Gods in a world without God. For Nietzsche, the aesthetic dimensions of human nature as the most promising alternative to religion. He proposes civilization to develop a new individual, the superman, who will be strong, hard and courageous and who will be intellectually and morally independent. This will break the life – denying morals to which the masses are still enslaved. By the concept of the death of God, Nietzsche counsels us to become Gods, joyous, hard, independent superman. For Nietzsche, only as an aesthetic phenomenon, are existence and the world eternally justified.
Master morality and slave morality
Nietzsche rejected the notion of a universal and absolute system of morality for everyone. Different kinds of human nature cannot be directed by one set of rules. There is one characteristic that is present in humans. It is the will to power, which is an inner drive to express a vigorous affirmation of all of man’s powers. History shows that there are two types of morality, namely master morality and slave morality. In master morality, ‘good’ means noble and ‘evil’ means vulgar. The noble regards himself as the determiner and creator of values. He acts out of his feeling of power. On the other hand, slave morality originates with the lowest elements of society, the absurd, the oppressed, the slaves and those who are uncertain about themselves. Here, ‘good’ is the symbol of all those qualities that serves to alleviate the existence of sufferers, such as sympathy, patience, diligence, humility and friendliness. Goodness refers to whatever is beneficial to the weak and powerless.
There is a deep – seated resentment for the noble among the slaves that forces them to topple the nobles. Here, the virtues of the noble aristocrats are translated into evil. In western morality, the slave, in course of time, turns the noble qualities into vices and all the weak ones into virtues. The positive affirmation of life is considered bad. The weak races erected a strong psychic defense and broke the psychic power of the noble. New values, new ideas, such as peace, equality were put forward as principles of society. The weak have created a negative attitude towards the natural drives of men. The slave morality is “a will to the denial of life”, a principle of dissolution and decay. Nietzsche was displeased with the overcoming of the nobles. For him, “the will to power is the will to life, a fundamental fact of all history”. For him, man should be honest to himself.
Nietzsche was willing for the herd to have their own morality. But it should not be imposed on the higher ranks of man. He spoke of rising above the dominant herd morality of his day. He had a vision of a day when men will reject the negative morality of the herd. For him, the honest morality is based on the will to power, which was transfigured by the slaves. Nietzsche wanted to preserve the herd as its basis and from it emerges the ‘superman’, who goes beyond good and evil.
Superman
Nietzsche’s concept of ‘the will to power’ is best expressed in the concept of the ‘superman’. Nietzsche did not believe in equality. For him, each class should have its own morality. He said that great things remain for the great, everything rare for the rare. He said that the superman is the next stage of human evolution. He would be the exceptional man towards which history is moving. The goal is the superman. The superman could only be found when superior individuals would have the courage to revalue all values and respond with freedom to the ‘will to power’. For Nietzsche, man has to be surpassed. For him, the superman represents the highest level of development and expression to physical, intellectual and emotional strength. This man would be absolutely free. Nothing is forbidden for him except what obstructs his ‘will to power’. He will be the very embodiment of the spontaneous affirmation of life. But Nietzsche did not think that this man would be a tyrant. He said that there would be much of the Dionysian elements in him. His ideal man would have to posses a balanced unity of the Dionysian and Apollonian elements. His passions would be controlled and his animal nature harmonized with his intellect. Nietzsche’s ideal man, the superman, would be a passionate man who has his passions under control.
Existential Ethics
The concept of existential ethics is derived from the analysis of individual responsibility. For Sartre, man is responsible for what he is. Existentialism puts the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon each man. If man is what he makes of himself, he has no one to blame for what he is except himself. Moreover when man chooses in the process of making himself he chooses not only for himself but for all man. He is therefore responsible not only for his own individuality but he is responsible for all man. Sartre says that even though we create our own values and thereby create ourselves, we nevertheless, create, at the same time, an image of our human nature. When we choose this or that way of acting we affirm the value of what we have chosen and nothing can be better for any one unless it is better for all.
For Sartre, all men must choose, must make decisions, and although they have no authoritative guide, they must still choose and at the same time ask whether they would be willing for others to choose the same action. There is no escape from it. Whenever he tries to do he so falls into the trap of self-deception, inauthenticity or bad faith. There is a sense of anguish as men are responsible not only for themselves but also for each other. Sartre’s existentialism does not give us any particular set of rules by which we can guide ourselves. But there is a solution to this in the analysis of bad faith or self-deception. According to Sartre, man acts morally when he abandons self-deceptions and makes the choice with the recognition that he is a free conscious being in choosing and responsible for what he chooses.
By denying any general principles or ideas as the foundation of moral choice, existentialism makes ethics almost impossible. It has given us the principle for our action by asking us to avoid bad faith or inauthenticity. But these are all negative rules. In order to avoid bad faith or inauthenticity we must know the positive meaning of authenticity.
Existential Freedom
In regard to human freedom, Sartre says that the nothingness that human beings bring about by negating, doubting, asking questions is, at the same time, human freedom. For him, to be conscious is to be free in relation to objects of consciousness, from the determined world of things. Man is free to negate, to doubt, and to imagine possibilities that are not present. This freedom, which Sartre calls the freedom of being – for – itself, is his power. This is the power to negate, annihilate, break up and destroy. Through this power consciousness thinks of what is not the case, what is absent. Sartre wants to point out that to be a conscious being is to be free and according to him, there is no difference between the being of man and his being free.
Another thing, which is important for Sartre, is that consciousness is undetermined and spontaneous. It is free in its own existence. It is free from the past as well as the future. This total freedom of destruction brings anguish. Sartre wants to establish that freedom is the essential characteristic of human beings. Human beings choose the meaning that they have for them. They live in a situation they have structured. We are free in the sense that we make ourselves out of what conditions we have made of us. A man is free to construct a new situation for himself. He is not determined by his past. But now Sartre says that total freedom means that a man is solely responsible for everything he does, since he is the only source of every meaning, truth or value.
Existentialism
Existentialism emerged in its contemporary form in Paris following the World War II, invading virtually every form of human thought and expression. Its main concern was about existence, human existence, the conditions and quality of the existing human individual.
Sartre’s version of existentialism is the product of special mixture of the thoughts of Marx, Husserl and Heidegger. What these three had in common for Sartre was their concern about man’s active role in foregoing his destiny. Sartre’s principle of Existentialism was that ‘existence precedes essence’. According to him, we cannot describe the human nature in the same way we describe an article of manufacture. When we consider for example, a paper knife, we know that it has been made by someone who had the idea of it in his mind, including what it would be used for and how it would be made. Thus, even before it is made, the knife is conceived of as having a definite purpose and as being the product of a definite process. If by the essence of the paper knife we mean the procedure by which it is made and the purpose for which it is produced, it can be said that the paper knife’s essence precedes its existence. When we think about people’s nature, we tend to describe them as the product of a maker, of a creator, of God. We think of God, most of the time, as a ‘supernatural artisan’ implying that when God creates, He knows precisely what he is creating. This would mean that in the mind of God the conception of humanity is comparable to the conception of the paper knife in the mind of the artisan. Each individual, in this view, is a fulfillment or realization of a definite conception, which resides in God’s understanding.
It is thought that each person is a particular example of the universal conception of humanity. They all possess the same essence and their essence precedes their existence. But since, according to Sartre, there is no God, there is no given human nature, precisely because there is no God to have the conception of it. Human nature cannot be identified in advance because it is not completely thought out in advance. People merely exist and later become their essential selves. To say that existence precedes essence means that people first of all exist, confront themselves, emerge in the world and define themselves afterwards. At first, a person simply is. Sartre wants to argue that people are simply that which they make of themselves. This theory may seem highly subjective. Sartre’s chief point here is that a person has a greater dignity than a stone or a table. What gives a person dignity is his subjective life, meaning that a person is something, which moves itself towards a future and is conscious that it is doing so.
Region of Being
According to Sartre, consciousness is the starting point of philosophy. And there are two types of being, which appears to the consciousness – the being of myself as consciousness or being–for-itself and the being of that, which is other than myself, the objects of which I am conscious or the being–in–itself. Being-in-itself refers to the objects of consciousness, the being of existing things. These are the things that are subject to causal laws and are determined to be what they are. They have no consciousness and thus no awareness of things other then themselves. They simply exist. These are also called the ‘in-itself’.
But being-for-itself refers to the conscious being. It is a being, which is conscious of objects and of itself as conscious of them. It is always self-conscious, that is, it is always aware of being conscious of the objects. There is no ‘inner life’ of thought, feeling or belief within consciousness. In other words, consciousness is empty. Sartre also says that a conscious being is always free. It is free in its own existence. A human being is just a conscious being or being-for-itself. To be a conscious being is to be aware of a gap between my consciousness and its objects. A conscious being is aware of a distance, emptiness, a gap that separates us from the world of things.
According to Rousseau, man is by nature good, but our institutions have made him bad. Civilization is the cause of unhappiness. The corruption in the society is caused by learning in arts and sciences. In the earlier times, our morals were rude but natural. Modern manners have made everyone conform to speech, dress and attitude, following the laws of fashion but not our own nature.
Rousseau directed his attack against luxury and against political leaders. These leaders emphasized the economic aspects of politics. For Rousseau, luxury cannot produce a lasting society. Money can buy everything but morals and citizens. Artists and musicians pursuing luxury lower their genius to the level of the time. This, for Rousseau, is the evil consequence of arts and science. Morals no longer have their rightful place. He says that the question is no longer whether a man is honest but whether he is clever.
Rousseau did not mean to say that philosophy and science had no value. He was, in fact, concerned about the danger to morals and society caused by the confusion of contending theories and points of view. According to Rousseau, a stable society is based upon a set of opinions or values, which is accepted by the majority as the rules for their thoughts and behaviors. But science and philosophy seek to discover the universal truth, and consequently, expose the local rules as less than the truth. Since science and philosophy requires evident and proof, the dominant local opinions, which are subject to doubt, loose their binding force. Science requires an attitude of doubt and it suspends faith. But it is faith that keeps society together, not knowledge. To get rid of this, Rousseau proposes that the suspension of faith should be restricted to special individuals. Skepticism leads to the loosening of morals, which ultimately causes a weakness in public moral, or as Rousseau puts it, the virtue of patriotism.
So, it is clear that Rousseau is concerned about the popularization of science and philosophy. He says that it is proper to allow some men to apply themselves to the study of these. His attack was upon those who would distort knowledge by popularizing them. For him, ordinary men build their happiness upon the opinion of the heart. Virtue is the sublime science of simple minds, for the true philosophy is to listen to the voice of the conscience.
The Social Contract
For Rousseau, the social contract is a living reality, which will be found to be present wherever there is a legitimate government. This contract helps to overcome the lawlessness of absolute license and assures liberty. Here, people willingly adjust their conducts to harmonize with the legitimate freedom of others. In this contract, man puts his person and all his power in common under the direction of the general will and each member is received as an indivisible part of a whole. According to Rousseau, whoever refuses to obey the general rule shall be compelled to do so by the whole body, which means that he will be forced to be free.
The law is the product of the general will, which, in turn, is the will of the sovereign. The sovereign consists of the total number of citizens of a given society. The general will of the sovereign is therefore the single will which reflects the sum of the wills of all the citizens. The many wills of the citizens can be considered one general will because all people are in search of common good. All citizens by thinking of their own good realize that they should refrain from any behavior that would cause others to turn upon and injure them. Therefore each individual’s will is identical with every other individual’s, since they are all directed to the same purpose, namely, the common good. From this, it can be said that there is only one will, the general will. If each individual is the author of the laws, which come from the sovereign’s general will, it has to be said that one obeys only himself. For Rousseau, force can only be applied when one refuses to obey a law. Rousseau says that if the law represents the common good or justice, it expresses the general will. For him, if this law is in conformity with the general will, then the person refusing to obey it is in error and only then he could be forced to obey it as it provides him with the greatest amount of freedom. There is one more thing that Rousseau points out. According to him, if everyone were required to obey the law, then all the citizens should be equally involved in making the laws.
Absolute Idealism
Hegel looked upon the world as an organic process. For him, the truly real is the absolute. Absolute Idealism is an attempt to explain the reality. It is the claim that reality is rational, conceptual totality. Hegel looked upon the world as an organic process. It is the absolute mind that expresses itself in all areas of human knowledge and experience. Hegel claims that the rational, the concept, the idea is real. In his own words, “The real is the rational and the rational is the real. The Absolute reveals itself to our finite minds in all areas of human knowledge. For Hegel, the reality of rational concepts is not another object than the existence, it is the same object more deeply understood. Absolute idealism claims to penetrate existence to find the rational truth, which is its core. According to Hegel, the rational concepts have no separate, independent existence apart from the concrete world of things, but constitute their rational core. He says that whatever is, is rational. By this he means that everything has an intelligible structure which human reason can grasp.
According to Hegel, absolute mind is a unified totality of all rational truths concerning all areas of experience and knowledge. But, at the same time, it organizes all the diversity into a coherent unity. The Absolute is a unity in diversity. It is a One that includes the many.
Concept of Right
According to Hegel, the individual is aware of his freedom, which is expressed by his act of free will. For Hegel, will and reason are synonymous. A person’s will is expressed in the relation of material things. An individual appropriates them, uses the, and exchanges them. For Hegel, appropriation means the demonstration of the majesty of man’s will to things. The basis of the right to property is the free will of the individual. As much as the will resides in the individual, property is a private right. Free men can also alienate themselves by exchanging things through a contract, which is the product of two free wills. This indicates the development of duty. Hegel says that rationality indicates the harmony between the universal will and the individual will. But whenever the harmony is broken there occurs the negation of right. This is a dialectic between the way wrong will acts and the way of the universal will. This conflict between right and wrong gives rise to morality. For Hegel, morality does not simply refer to obeying laws and keeping contracts. The essence of morality is found in the internal intension and purpose of man. But Hegel does not want to restrict the scope of morality within the subjective aspect of the free will. Human beings act in the context of other man. So moral duty comes from the requirement of recognizing a person’s will with the universal will. A person should act in a way that should not harm the will of others. According to Hegel, morality is an element in the dialectic process. The thesis is the abstract right of the individual will, the antithesis is morality. This dialectic process is moving towards a harmony between the subjective and the objective and Hegel says that the good is the realization of freedom, the absolute purpose of the world.
Dialectic Process
Hegel’s view was that we could know the essence of reality by moving logically step by step and avoiding all self – contradictions along the way. He had identified the rational with the actual. The logical process of deduction is at the heart of his dialectic philosophy. Hegel’s dialectic process exhibits a triadic movement, which is described as a movement of thesis to antithesis and finally to synthesis. The synthesis becomes a new thesis and it continues until it ends in the Absolute Idea. For Hegel, thought moves and that contradiction acts as a positive moving force in human reasoning. Hegel’s dialectic method could be illustrated by the triad of being, nothing and becoming. The various things have one thing in common, namely their being, which is the most general concept that the mind can formulate. Being is logically prior to any specific thing. Logic begins with the indeterminate, with the original featurelessness that precedes all definite characters and is the very first of all. This is what we call being and Hegel’s concept begins with the concept of being, and this is the thesis. This idea of being is a universal concept and Hegel believed that from this concept it was possible to deduce another concept. He believed that because pure being is mere abstraction, it is therefore absolutely negative. Since the concept of being is fully indeterminate, it passes into the concept of not – being. Hitherto, Hegel has deduced the concept of nothing from the concept of being. The antithesis, nothing is contained in the thesis, being.
The movement of the mind from being to nothing produces a third category, namely becoming. It understands that being, for the above reason, is the same as nothing. It is the unity of being and nothing. Becoming is therefore the synthesis of being and nothing. Hegel says that a thing can both be and not be at the same time when it becomes. Throughout his vast and intricate system, Hegel employs this dialectic method of a thesis from which comes an antithesis and combining the two we find a synthesis.
Moral Philosophy
According to Hegel, human behaviour must be understood as the actions of individuals. For him, the individual is aware of his freedom, which he expresses by an act of will. A person expresses his freedom chiefly in relation to material things, appropriating them, using them and exchanging them. The basis of right to property is the free will of the individual in an act of appropriation. Inasmuch as the free will resides in the individual, property is a private property. Free man can also alienate themselves from property through a contract. The contract also indicates the development of a duty. Hegel says that as long as the free will acts rationally, the free acts conform to the rationality of the universe. Their individual wills harmonize with the universal will. But there is always the possibility of the opposite of right, which is exemplified in fraud and violence. The dialectic relation between right and wrong produces tension and this tension gives rise to morality. For Hegel, morality has to do with those deeds for which men can themselves be held responsible. The essence of morality is found in a person’s intention and purpose. Now Hegel says that moral duty is broader than the concerns or intentions of the individual. Human behaviour takes place in the context of other people. It derives from the requirement of identifying a person’s individual will with the universal will. The principle of morality requires that a person must exercise his will in such a way that the wills of other persons can also achieve their welfare as well.
Philosophy Of Nature
According to Hegel, nature represents the idea outside itself. Hegel’s premise is that ‘the real is the rational’, which means nature is simply rationality, or the idea in its external form. For Hegel, ultimate reality is a single organic and dynamic whole. Nature is the opposite, the antithesis, of the rational idea, the thesis. Our thought moves dialectically from the rational, the idea to the nonrational, the nature. The concept of nature leads our thought finally to a synthesis represented by the unity of the idea and nature in the new concept of spirit. It is the dialectic movement of nature that drives our thought from nature back to spirit. For Hegel, the philosophy of nature begins with the most abstract thing, which is space. Space is empty. At one end, nature touches emptiness and at the other end, it passes over into spirit. Between these two, is the diversity of particular things, or else, the nature. Hegel’s aim was to discover through a philosophy of nature a rational structure and a pattern in all of reality. Nature is a realm of necessity, which is to be considered as a system of stages, of which one necessarily precedes from the other.
The State
In his theory of the state, Hegel says that between the individual and the state, there are two dialectic steps, namely family and society. The family is the first stage of the objective will. In marriage two persons give up their individual wills to some degree to become one person. It is a single unit. The family constitutes the first moment of the embodiment of the universal will. At the same time, the family contains its own anti – thesis, namely individuals who will eventually grow up, leave the family and enter into the larger context of the civil society. The state is the synthesis of the family and the civil society. The family, in this analysis, stands for the embodied universal, whereas civil society represents particularity as each individual, unlike the members of the family, sets his own goals. These two elements, universality and particularity are contained in each other. Their unity is found in the state, which is the synthesis of universality and particularity. It is a unity is difference. Hegel concludes that the synthesis of the universal and the particular consists in the individual. In this context, the state is conceived as an individual, the true individual, an organic unity of partial individuals.
According to Hegel, the state is the actuality of the ethical idea. It represents a universal self – consciousness. An individual has an ethical life as a member of the state. For him, there would be preservation by the state of the individual’s liberty. The laws of the state are universal and they do not issue arbitrary command. The reason for laws is that men, in their ability to make free choices, are capable of choosing ends that might harm others. These behaviours are irrational. The function of the state is to bring rationality to behaviour. Only a person who acts rationally is free. The function of the state is to increase the aggregate of rational behaviour. The laws of the state are rational rules of behaviour that the individuals would choose if he were acting rationally.
World History
According to Hegel, the history of the world is the history of nations. Progress in the consciousness of freedom is represented in the dynamic unfolding of history. This progress is a rational process. Te world is dominated by reason and so Hegel says that history is a dynamic process. The dialectic of the historical process consists in the opposition between states. There is a national spirit in every nation. The national spirit is made possible by the fact that the minds of a particular people develop a spirit of unity. The dialectic in history is represented by the interplay between national spirits. Nations are carried along the way by the wave of history. In each epoch there is always a dominant people. Special historical persons lift nations to the top of the world and whose values consist in the creativeness to the unfolding Idea of Freedom. According to Hegel, history is a dialectic process, which is moving towards a purposive end, namely freedom. Hegel indicated three moments on the development of freedom, namely the Orientals, the Greeks and the Romans and the Germanic people. Hegel says that the East have always been aware that one is free, the Greek and the Roman, that some are free and the German world knows that all are free. But the highest freedom is achieved when the individual acts in accordance with the universal, the rational will of the society.
Dialectic Materialism
According to Karl Marx, the existence of classes is the only bound up with particular historic phases in the development of production. For him, the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat and this dictatorship constitutes the transition to the abolition of the classes and to a classless society. In his famous Capital, Marx defines this as the economic law of motion of modern society and this law of motion became his theory of dialectic materialism.
Marx divides history into five epochs, namely the primitive communal, slave, feudal, capitalist and the socialist and communist phases. He wanted to discover the law of motion. His aim was to explain both the past and future. From his analysis of each of the epochs, he found that class conflict was the decisive force at work and so history was the product of it. Marx’s dialectic is highly materialistic. He sees history as a movement caused by conflict in the material order. Since the ever-changing material world is the true reality, there are no stable fixed points in it. So history is in the process of change from one epoch to another in accordance with the laws of motion. Change means the emergence of a new structure. The cause of this is the alternation of quantity to quality. What moves history is the change of some quantitative elements into qualitative ones. The changes in the quantitative facts in capitalism would destroy it. Along with the decrease in the number of capitalist magnates, there would be an increase in the mass of poverty, enslavement, endangerment, degeneration and exploitation. At the same time, there would be intensification in the role of the working class and, as a result, there would be an incompatibility between the two classes. This bursts asunder. The expropriators are expropriated. This is the consequent transition from quantity to quality. For Marx, history has a definite and inexorable process of movement and change. Even though the social order is a complex phenomenon, its future state can be plotted. So, from the basis of his analysis of the epochs, Marx thought he had discovered a kind of inner logic in events, which causes history to move from one epoch to another. From this basis, he predicted that capitalism would inevitably give way to socialism and communism. In addition, with the emergence of socialism and finally communism, history would end. For him, when the inner contradictions between classes are resolved, all the changes and inner movements would be gone, a classless society would emerge, and it would be perpetual.
Five Epochs of History
Marx indicated that there are some particular phases of history to which the class struggle is bound up. He divided history into five epochs. These are the primitive communal, slave, feudal, capitalist and the socialist and communist phases. Marx set out to discover the ‘law of motion’. From his analysis of each epoch, Marx concluded that class conflict is the decisive force at work. The five epochs represent the dialectic movement of history, which is caused by the conflict of the material order. History is in the process of change from one epoch to another in accordance with the rigorous and inexorable ‘law of motion’. For him, the change in the quantitative elements forces a qualitative change in the arrangement of society. This is the process that has moved history from the primitive communal to the slave and in turn to the feudal and capitalist epoch. Marx’s prediction was that the qualitative change in capitalism would eventually destroy it. Along with the decrease in the number of capitalist magnates, there would be an increase in the mass of poverty, enslavement, endangerment, degeneration and exploitation. At the same time, there would be intensification in the role of the working class and, as a result, there would be an incompatibility between the two classes. This bursts asunder. The expropriators are expropriated. This is the consequent transition from quantity to quality. For Marx, history would end with the emergence of socialism and finally communism. When the inner contradictions between the classes are resolved the principle cause of movement and change would disappear and the classless society would emerge where all the forces and interests would be in perfect balance and this situation would be perpetual. As there would be no further development in history, there would also not be any more epochs.
Inexorable Law
According to Marx, there is an ‘inexorable law’ in history according to which the dialectic process progresses. He holds that there is a fundamental contradiction within every essence of things that causes the dialectic movement. Even though this process can be delayed or accelerated, there is no way to stop it from unfolding. All things are related to each other causally. This is why, according to Marx, there is no isolated event in history. The implication of this is that there is an unalterable process of movement and change, which produces history. But this historical law of determinism is not displayed in a mechanical way. The social order is a complex phenomenon and it is the result of necessary causation and determinism and its new forms are capable of prediction. With the help of the inexorable law of history, Marx says that it is possible to predict the future. Marx discovered the inexorable law of motion from his analysis of the epochs of history, which causes history to move from one epoch to another with a relentless determinism. On the basis of this, Marx predicted that capitalism would inevitably fall and would be transformed by the future, giving way to the qualitatively different social order of socialism and communism.
Substructure
For Marx, materialism means the sum total of the natural environment including all of inorganic nature, the organic world, social life and human consciousness. Marx defines matter as an objecting reality existing outside the human mind. The chief characteristic of his materialism is that it recognizes a wide diversity in the material world without reduction. The material order contains everything in the natural world that exists outside the mind. Marxism affirms the primacy of the material order and regards mental activity as a secondary by – product of matter. This is why Marx calls the material world ‘the substructure’. This substructure consists of ‘the factors of production’ and the ‘relations of production’.
The factors of production include the raw materials, instruments along with the experienced labour skill by means of which men produce food, shelter, clothing, which are essential for sustaining life. These factors represent the way men are related to each other. For Marx, what is of greater importance is the relation of men to each other in the process of production. These relations of production are affected by the factors of production. Marx’s analysis of the material is centered the relations of production. The key fact in the relations of production was the status of property to its ownership that is what determined how men were related to each other in the process of production was their relation to property. In each epoch of history, the ownership of property divides the property into those who have and those who have not. In the feudal system, the feudal lord owns the means of production. Here the serf rises above the level of the former slaves and has some share in the ownership of tools. In capitalism, the workers are free as compared to the serfs and the slaves, but they do not own the means of production. Although conflict is present in all these periods, it is particularly violent under capitalism. The some of these components of production in any particular society is called the substructure, which, according to Marx, is the only reality and from which man’s ideas are derived.
Superstructure
Marx’s explanation of the cultural life of society is derived from the economic foundation. The economic foundation of society conditions or determines the entire realm of culture. For him, each epoch has its dominant ideas. These ideas grow out of or reflect the actual material conditions of the historic period. For Marx, thinking comes after the material world has affected man’s mind. Marx calls these ideas, philosophies and religious beliefs Superstructure, determined by the existing substructure, the economic mode of productions. According to Marx, it is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but on the contrary, their existence determines their consciousness. The source of ideas is rooted in the material world. All these are contributed by the economic foundation of society, especially by the class conflict within it. The dominant ideas are the ideas of the dominant class. The class, which is ruling the material forces of society, is at the same time, its ruling intellectual force. The class, which has the means of material productions at its disposal, has control over its mental productions. For Marx, the dominant ideas in all areas of human thought are distortions and falsifications of the truth. They do not reflect reality, but the viewpoint of the dominant and oppressive economic class. If this is the case, then each epoch has its own set of ideas, its own dominant philosophy. For Marx, as a result of the dynamic nature of the material world, there would occur also the conflict of ideas. This is the ideological side of the dialectic process. Since members of the society are related to the dialectic process by belonging to different social classes, there ideas are also logically opposed. For him, concepts such as justice, goodness and righteousness cannot be universal as they come from the material world, which is constantly changing. Ideas are particularly useless when they have no relationship to the reality. Marx’s cultural substructure includes philosophy, law, political thought, morality and art, which, according to him, are distortions and falsifications of the truth and only serve the interests of the dominant class.
Apollonian and Dionysian
In his effort to find out whether there is any reason to affirm life, Nietzsche turned to the aesthetic elements in man, which is the result of the fusion between the principles represented by the two great Greek Gods, Apollo and Dionysus. For Nietzsche, the Dionysian represents the dynamic stream of life, which knows no restrain and defies all limitations. Apollo, on the other hand, was the symbol of order, restraint and form, the power to create beauty through art. Dionysus symbolized man’s unity with life where his own individuality is absorbed in the larger reality of the life force. On the other hand, Apollo was the symbol of the power that controls and restrains the dynamic process of life. From another point of view, Dionysian represents the negative and destructive dark powers of the soul. But the Apollonian represents the power to harness the destructive powers in order to create art. Nietzsche’s conclusion was that man was not faced with the choice between the two. Nietzsche saw the production of the Greek tragedy as the rejection of the Dionysian elements, but as the awareness of these elements. It was a creation of art as a response of the basically healthy elements, the Apollonian, to the challenge of the Dionysian elements. Nietzsche thought that if the Dionysian was considered as the only principle of life, it would lead to a negative attitude towards life. For him, the supreme achievement of human nature was only possible by the fusion of these two elements. For him, the vital forces could not be denied expression. He thought that life was higher than knowledge and the raw vital force is finally life – defeating. This is why; Nietzsche wanted to fuse the two elements in order to transform the human life into an aesthetic phenomenon. Such a formula, for Nietzsche, could replace religious faith, which is unable to provide a new foundation of human behaviour.
Attack on Christianity
Nietzsche was seriously critical about the principles of Christianity. He considered the European morality as dishonest as it denied the primacy of will to power and, for this, he primarily held Judaism and Christianity as responsible. His attack was very direct. He regarded Christianity as a fatal and impious lie. He was annoyed with the fact that the Christian morality should be the measure of all things. In the Christian morality, the least qualified people were given the job of dealing with the greatest problems. The people, who knew very little, were talking about problems like God, the world and life, as if they were not problems at all. It is in the very nature of man to hate his enemies, but Christian morality requires man to do the opposite. For Nietzsche, it suppresses the natural morality by injecting god into man’s affection. He thought that the Judeo – Christian religions seek to keep alive the failures of man. Even though the spiritual man had given Europe comfort and courage to the sufferings, it, in fact, deteriorated the European race. It had shattered the strong, spoiled the great hopes, and broke down everything autonomous and manly. Christianity had transformed the instincts of full man into distress and uncertainty. It, over all, turned the love of the earthly things into the hatred of the earthly things and the earth.
God is Dead
The concept of the death of God is the best known of Nietzsche’s many compelling contributions to philosophy. In his book The Joyful Wisdom, Nietzsche presents the shocking story of the madman who on a bright morning lightened a lantern and ran to the marketplace looking for God and announced that God is dead. By the concept of the death of God, Nietzsche means the death of man’s beliefs in God. Nietzsche is famous for the claim that the crisis of the modern world is that, in the loss of man’s belief in God he has also lost the foundation of truth and value. Many, in the nineteenth century, regarded Europe as the symbols of power and security. But Nietzsche saw amid that the collapse of the traditional support of the values. He prophesied power politics and vicious wars were in store. He sensed the approaching of a nihilism, seeds of which had already been sown. For him, the belief in Christian God had radically declined to the point where he could say that God is dead.
According to Nietzsche, the death of God is a cultural event of which everyone had not yet become aware. Though it means a decline of truth and value, for Nietzsche, it, at the same time, means the opening of a new day, a day when the essentially life – denying ethics of Christianity could be replaced with a life – affirming philosophy. It will enable men to lose his childlike dependency on God and also to find themselves the courage to become Gods in a world without God. For Nietzsche, the aesthetic dimensions of human nature as the most promising alternative to religion. He proposes civilization to develop a new individual, the superman, who will be strong, hard and courageous and who will be intellectually and morally independent. This will break the life – denying morals to which the masses are still enslaved. By the concept of the death of God, Nietzsche counsels us to become Gods, joyous, hard, independent superman. For Nietzsche, only as an aesthetic phenomenon, are existence and the world eternally justified.
Master morality and slave morality
Nietzsche rejected the notion of a universal and absolute system of morality for everyone. Different kinds of human nature cannot be directed by one set of rules. There is one characteristic that is present in humans. It is the will to power, which is an inner drive to express a vigorous affirmation of all of man’s powers. History shows that there are two types of morality, namely master morality and slave morality. In master morality, ‘good’ means noble and ‘evil’ means vulgar. The noble regards himself as the determiner and creator of values. He acts out of his feeling of power. On the other hand, slave morality originates with the lowest elements of society, the absurd, the oppressed, the slaves and those who are uncertain about themselves. Here, ‘good’ is the symbol of all those qualities that serves to alleviate the existence of sufferers, such as sympathy, patience, diligence, humility and friendliness. Goodness refers to whatever is beneficial to the weak and powerless.
There is a deep – seated resentment for the noble among the slaves that forces them to topple the nobles. Here, the virtues of the noble aristocrats are translated into evil. In western morality, the slave, in course of time, turns the noble qualities into vices and all the weak ones into virtues. The positive affirmation of life is considered bad. The weak races erected a strong psychic defense and broke the psychic power of the noble. New values, new ideas, such as peace, equality were put forward as principles of society. The weak have created a negative attitude towards the natural drives of men. The slave morality is “a will to the denial of life”, a principle of dissolution and decay. Nietzsche was displeased with the overcoming of the nobles. For him, “the will to power is the will to life, a fundamental fact of all history”. For him, man should be honest to himself.
Nietzsche was willing for the herd to have their own morality. But it should not be imposed on the higher ranks of man. He spoke of rising above the dominant herd morality of his day. He had a vision of a day when men will reject the negative morality of the herd. For him, the honest morality is based on the will to power, which was transfigured by the slaves. Nietzsche wanted to preserve the herd as its basis and from it emerges the ‘superman’, who goes beyond good and evil.
Superman
Nietzsche’s concept of ‘the will to power’ is best expressed in the concept of the ‘superman’. Nietzsche did not believe in equality. For him, each class should have its own morality. He said that great things remain for the great, everything rare for the rare. He said that the superman is the next stage of human evolution. He would be the exceptional man towards which history is moving. The goal is the superman. The superman could only be found when superior individuals would have the courage to revalue all values and respond with freedom to the ‘will to power’. For Nietzsche, man has to be surpassed. For him, the superman represents the highest level of development and expression to physical, intellectual and emotional strength. This man would be absolutely free. Nothing is forbidden for him except what obstructs his ‘will to power’. He will be the very embodiment of the spontaneous affirmation of life. But Nietzsche did not think that this man would be a tyrant. He said that there would be much of the Dionysian elements in him. His ideal man would have to posses a balanced unity of the Dionysian and Apollonian elements. His passions would be controlled and his animal nature harmonized with his intellect. Nietzsche’s ideal man, the superman, would be a passionate man who has his passions under control.
Existential Ethics
The concept of existential ethics is derived from the analysis of individual responsibility. For Sartre, man is responsible for what he is. Existentialism puts the entire responsibility for his existence squarely upon each man. If man is what he makes of himself, he has no one to blame for what he is except himself. Moreover when man chooses in the process of making himself he chooses not only for himself but for all man. He is therefore responsible not only for his own individuality but he is responsible for all man. Sartre says that even though we create our own values and thereby create ourselves, we nevertheless, create, at the same time, an image of our human nature. When we choose this or that way of acting we affirm the value of what we have chosen and nothing can be better for any one unless it is better for all.
For Sartre, all men must choose, must make decisions, and although they have no authoritative guide, they must still choose and at the same time ask whether they would be willing for others to choose the same action. There is no escape from it. Whenever he tries to do he so falls into the trap of self-deception, inauthenticity or bad faith. There is a sense of anguish as men are responsible not only for themselves but also for each other. Sartre’s existentialism does not give us any particular set of rules by which we can guide ourselves. But there is a solution to this in the analysis of bad faith or self-deception. According to Sartre, man acts morally when he abandons self-deceptions and makes the choice with the recognition that he is a free conscious being in choosing and responsible for what he chooses.
By denying any general principles or ideas as the foundation of moral choice, existentialism makes ethics almost impossible. It has given us the principle for our action by asking us to avoid bad faith or inauthenticity. But these are all negative rules. In order to avoid bad faith or inauthenticity we must know the positive meaning of authenticity.
Existential Freedom
In regard to human freedom, Sartre says that the nothingness that human beings bring about by negating, doubting, asking questions is, at the same time, human freedom. For him, to be conscious is to be free in relation to objects of consciousness, from the determined world of things. Man is free to negate, to doubt, and to imagine possibilities that are not present. This freedom, which Sartre calls the freedom of being – for – itself, is his power. This is the power to negate, annihilate, break up and destroy. Through this power consciousness thinks of what is not the case, what is absent. Sartre wants to point out that to be a conscious being is to be free and according to him, there is no difference between the being of man and his being free.
Another thing, which is important for Sartre, is that consciousness is undetermined and spontaneous. It is free in its own existence. It is free from the past as well as the future. This total freedom of destruction brings anguish. Sartre wants to establish that freedom is the essential characteristic of human beings. Human beings choose the meaning that they have for them. They live in a situation they have structured. We are free in the sense that we make ourselves out of what conditions we have made of us. A man is free to construct a new situation for himself. He is not determined by his past. But now Sartre says that total freedom means that a man is solely responsible for everything he does, since he is the only source of every meaning, truth or value.
Existentialism
Existentialism emerged in its contemporary form in Paris following the World War II, invading virtually every form of human thought and expression. Its main concern was about existence, human existence, the conditions and quality of the existing human individual.
Sartre’s version of existentialism is the product of special mixture of the thoughts of Marx, Husserl and Heidegger. What these three had in common for Sartre was their concern about man’s active role in foregoing his destiny. Sartre’s principle of Existentialism was that ‘existence precedes essence’. According to him, we cannot describe the human nature in the same way we describe an article of manufacture. When we consider for example, a paper knife, we know that it has been made by someone who had the idea of it in his mind, including what it would be used for and how it would be made. Thus, even before it is made, the knife is conceived of as having a definite purpose and as being the product of a definite process. If by the essence of the paper knife we mean the procedure by which it is made and the purpose for which it is produced, it can be said that the paper knife’s essence precedes its existence. When we think about people’s nature, we tend to describe them as the product of a maker, of a creator, of God. We think of God, most of the time, as a ‘supernatural artisan’ implying that when God creates, He knows precisely what he is creating. This would mean that in the mind of God the conception of humanity is comparable to the conception of the paper knife in the mind of the artisan. Each individual, in this view, is a fulfillment or realization of a definite conception, which resides in God’s understanding.
It is thought that each person is a particular example of the universal conception of humanity. They all possess the same essence and their essence precedes their existence. But since, according to Sartre, there is no God, there is no given human nature, precisely because there is no God to have the conception of it. Human nature cannot be identified in advance because it is not completely thought out in advance. People merely exist and later become their essential selves. To say that existence precedes essence means that people first of all exist, confront themselves, emerge in the world and define themselves afterwards. At first, a person simply is. Sartre wants to argue that people are simply that which they make of themselves. This theory may seem highly subjective. Sartre’s chief point here is that a person has a greater dignity than a stone or a table. What gives a person dignity is his subjective life, meaning that a person is something, which moves itself towards a future and is conscious that it is doing so.
Region of Being
According to Sartre, consciousness is the starting point of philosophy. And there are two types of being, which appears to the consciousness – the being of myself as consciousness or being–for-itself and the being of that, which is other than myself, the objects of which I am conscious or the being–in–itself. Being-in-itself refers to the objects of consciousness, the being of existing things. These are the things that are subject to causal laws and are determined to be what they are. They have no consciousness and thus no awareness of things other then themselves. They simply exist. These are also called the ‘in-itself’.
But being-for-itself refers to the conscious being. It is a being, which is conscious of objects and of itself as conscious of them. It is always self-conscious, that is, it is always aware of being conscious of the objects. There is no ‘inner life’ of thought, feeling or belief within consciousness. In other words, consciousness is empty. Sartre also says that a conscious being is always free. It is free in its own existence. A human being is just a conscious being or being-for-itself. To be a conscious being is to be aware of a gap between my consciousness and its objects. A conscious being is aware of a distance, emptiness, a gap that separates us from the world of things.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
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