How Any Idiot Can Memorize The Entire History of Philosophy
Summary
TLDRThis video offers a concise 30-minute overview of the history of philosophy, explaining it through six key concepts: metaphysics, epistemology, axiology, pre-modernism, modernism, and post-modernism. It traces philosophical thought from pre-Socratics to contemporary issues, emphasizing how each era's approach to these concepts shaped its worldview. The video simplifies complex ideas, making philosophy accessible and equipping viewers to understand any philosopher within this historical framework.
Takeaways
- 🧠 Philosophy can be summarized into three fundamental categories: metaphysics (study of ultimate reality), epistemology (study of knowledge), and axiology (study of value, including ethics and aesthetics).
- 📚 The history of philosophy is often divided into three periods: pre-modernism, modernism, and post-modernism, each with distinct approaches to metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology.
- 🌟 Pre-modernism starts with metaphysical claims about reality and then considers how knowledge conforms to these realities.
- 🔍 Modernism, marked by the Enlightenment, prioritizes epistemology, focusing on how we know what we know, often doubting or questioning metaphysical claims.
- 🔧 Post-modernism emphasizes axiology, particularly ethics, and is suspicious of any claims to objective truth, viewing them as power plays.
- 🤔 The shift from pre-modernism to modernism is known as the 'epistemic shift,' where the focus moves from metaphysical to epistemological concerns.
- 📉 Hegel's dialectic process (thesis, antithesis, synthesis) suggests that history and human thought progress through a rational dialectic towards a more unified and reasonable state.
- 🙏 Kierkegaard反驳了黑格尔的观点,认为宗教状态是个体与上帝相遇的最高阶段,而不是黑格尔所说的婴儿阶段,强调个体性和主观性在理性中的重要性。
- 🌐 Post-modernism arose in part as a response to the Holocaust, with philosophers like Emmanuel Levinas and Martin Buber seeing it as an outcome of Enlightenment rationality's failure to account for metaphysical realities.
- 🔄 The script suggests that in the face of modernity and post-modernity's challenges, some look to pre-modern sources like religious revelation for a re-enchantment with the world and a grounding in metaphysics.
Q & A
What is the main goal of the video?
-The main goal of the video is to provide a 30-minute summary of the entire history of philosophy, enabling viewers to understand and locate any philosopher within the historical context of philosophical thought.
What are the three fundamental categories of philosophy mentioned in the video?
-The three fundamental categories of philosophy mentioned are metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology.
What does metaphysics study according to the video?
-Metaphysics studies ultimate reality, including the immaterial world that gives shape and orders the material world.
How is epistemology defined in the video?
-Epistemology is defined as the study of knowledge, including what we can know, how we can know things, and the right and wrong ways of knowing.
What is axiology and what are its sub-disciplines?
-Axiology is the study of value, including sub-disciplines like aesthetics, which studies beauty and ugliness, and ethics, which studies right and wrong.
What are the three ways of relating metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology discussed in the video?
-The three ways of relating metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology are pre-modernism, modernism, and post-modernism.
What is the difference between pre-modernism and modernism in philosophy?
-Pre-modernism begins with metaphysical claims and then asks how epistemology conforms to that metaphysics, while modernism prioritizes epistemology over metaphysics, focusing on method rather than ultimate reality.
What is the significance of the epistemic shift in the history of philosophy?
-The epistemic shift signifies the move from prioritizing metaphysics as the foundation of knowledge to prioritizing epistemology, which is marked by the Enlightenment and the idea of thinking for oneself rather than speculating about substances and forms.
How does the video describe the philosophical contributions of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle?
-Socrates is described as teaching the world to ask bigger questions about reality, Plato applied the concept of 'thinking meta' to the entire world, suggesting the material world is less real than the world of ideas, and Aristotle argued that forms exist within material things, not in a separate reality.
What is the main critique of modernism according to post-modernism as presented in the video?
-Post-modernism critiques modernism for its inability to see metaphysical realities and its disenchantment with the world, which, according to some philosophers, allowed for the Holocaust to occur by enabling the dehumanization of Jews.
What is the role of ethics in post-modernism as discussed in the video?
-In post-modernism, ethics is front-loaded, meaning that ethical responsibility to one's neighbor and the pursuit of global justice are prioritized, with epistemology serving as a tool to defend and fortify this pursuit.
Outlines
📚 Introduction to the Philosophy Summary
The speaker introduces a 30-minute summary of the entire history of philosophy, aiming to provide a framework that allows anyone to understand and locate any philosopher, no matter how obscure. The speaker acknowledges the intimidation that comes with philosophical knowledge but emphasizes the importance of grasping the basic story of philosophy, which can be summarized in six essential words. These words are divided into three categories: metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology. Metaphysics deals with ultimate reality, epistemology with the study of knowledge, and axiology with the study of value, including aesthetics and ethics. The speaker assures that by memorizing this simple story, one can make sense of any philosophical concept or figure.
🌟 The Pre-Socratics and the Birth of Philosophy
The paragraph delves into the pre-modern period of philosophy, highlighting the pre-Socratic philosophers who lived before Socrates. These early thinkers made elemental claims about the world, such as 'all is water' or 'all is fire,' which were metaphysical in nature. The pre-Socratics were divided into two schools: the Heracliteans, who saw the world as in constant flux and chaos, and the Eleatics, who emphasized order and unity. The Heracliteans prioritized sense experience as the proper epistemology, while the Eleatics favored reason. Socrates then shifted the focus to asking bigger questions about reality, leading to metaphysical inquiries about the nature of concepts like goodness and rightness.
📖 Plato, Aristotle, and the Development of Metaphysics
The speaker discusses the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle, emphasizing their differing views on the nature of reality. Plato believed in a separate, ideal world of forms that were more real than the material world, which was merely a shadow of the ideal. He argued that true knowledge came from reason and contemplation of these forms. Aristotle, on the other hand, believed that forms or essences exist within material things, making the material world itself metaphysical. This shift influenced his ethical views, leading him to emphasize virtues that balanced human nature rather than conforming to abstract forms of justice.
🔄 The Epistemic Shift and the Enlightenment
The paragraph introduces the concept of modernism, marked by an epistemic shift that prioritizes epistemology over metaphysics. This period, known as the Enlightenment, focused on thinking for oneself and method over speculation about substances and forms. Key figures like Descartes, with his method of radical doubt, and Hume, with his distinction between impressions and ideas, are discussed. Descartes' rationalism and Hume's empiricism set the stage for a philosophical approach that prioritized how we know what we know over questions of ultimate reality.
🤔 Kant, Hegel, and the Pursuit of Reason
The speaker discusses the philosophies of Kant and Hegel, who attempted to reconcile the rationalism of Descartes with the skepticism of Hume. Kant introduced the distinction between the noumenal (things as they are in themselves) and the phenomenal (things as we perceive them) worlds, arguing that we can only have justified knowledge of the phenomenal world. Hegel, on the other hand, saw the world progressing through a rational dialectic, where each generation's ideas would be challenged and synthesized into a higher truth, leading to a more reasonable and unified human existence.
🌐 Post-Modernism and the Search for Global Justice
The final paragraph addresses post-modernism, which prioritizes axiology and ethical responsibility, particularly in the wake of events like the Holocaust that cast doubt on the Enlightenment's rationality. Post-modernism is characterized by a focus on the pursuit of global justice and equity, often skeptical of claims to objective truth. The speaker suggests that in the absence of a metaphysical foundation, post-modernism seeks to establish human dignity and ethical obligations through a commitment to global justice. The paragraph concludes by hinting at the potential for a return to metaphysics through revelation, as suggested by the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Metaphysics
💡Epistemology
💡Axiology
💡Pre-Modernism
💡Modernism
💡Post-Modernism
💡Dialectic
💡Revelation
💡Authenticity
💡Enlightenment
Highlights
The talk aims to summarize the entire history of philosophy in 30 minutes, providing a framework to understand any philosopher.
Philosophical knowledge can be intimidating, but understanding the basic story of philosophy can demystify it.
The story of philosophy is based on six essential words: metaphysics, epistemology, axiology, pre-modernism, modernism, and post-modernism.
Metaphysics is the study of ultimate reality, including the immaterial world that shapes the material one.
Epistemology is the study of knowledge, including what we can know and how we can know it.
Axiology is the study of value, encompassing aesthetics and ethics.
Pre-modernism starts with metaphysical claims and builds epistemology based on those claims.
Modernism prioritizes epistemology over metaphysics, focusing on method and human reason.
Post-modernism emphasizes axiology, particularly ethical responsibility and global justice.
The pre-Socratics made elemental claims about the world, emphasizing either change or order.
Socrates encouraged thinking 'meta' about realities, seeking justification for immaterial realities.
Plato believed in a separate, ideal world of forms, which is more real than the material world.
Aristotle argued that forms exist within material things, not in a separate reality.
Christianity was heavily influenced by Platonic thought, especially through figures like Augustine.
Aquinas used Aristotle's conception of substance to articulate Christian doctrine.
Descartes initiated the epistemic shift with radical doubt, prioritizing thinking over being.
Hume's empiricism questioned the justification of causality and moral principles from experience alone.
Kant attempted to reconcile rationalism and skepticism through the distinction between noumena and phenomena.
Hegel introduced the dialectic process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis as a rational progression.
Kierkegaard critiqued Hegel, arguing for the importance of individuality and the religious state.
Post-modernism arose as a response to the Holocaust, questioning the Enlightenment's disenchantment with the world.
Philosophy's task in the post-modern era is seen as the establishment of global justice and ethical responsibility.
The talk concludes by suggesting that revelation is a way to reconnect with metaphysics in a post-modern context.
Transcripts
today we're going to give a 30-minute
summary of the entire history of
philosophy and if you are ever sort of
pushed on your heels by somebody drop
name-dropping a particular philosopher
and you're not sure how to understand
them I'll tell you what once you
understand this summary and you can
memorize this story of philosophy no
matter what name anybody drops you even
if you've never heard them before I'm
gonna give you a story
in with in which you can locate that
person so that you're never going to be
caught off guard again you're going to
know the entire history of philosophy
how to make sense of it and how to
locate any philosopher that you come
across no matter who they are
[Music]
I'm often very intimidated by
philosophical knowledge okay people will
name job philosophers and ideas with
such fluency I often kind of feel like
an idiot right let's start talking about
show up and hire and I'll be like did it
did right and even after teaching
philosophy at a college level for years
I'm still kind of insecure about my
philosophical knowledge but one thing
that has always succeeded in making
sense of very unknown figures in
philosophy is my basic conception of the
story of philosophy and it is a very
simple story and can be explained
without footnotes or block quotes and if
you can memorize this simple story which
is constituted basically by six words
you will be able to locate and sort of
plug in a play any unknown or obscure
philosopher now there are three
fundamental categories of philosophy
which are these categories and they
constitute six of the essential words
that you need to understand basically
the entire story of philosophy and these
categories are this metaphysics
epistemology and axiology now what are
these words every single philosophical
concept falls within these three domains
or somehow relates relates these three
words to one another so metaphysics is
the study of ultimate reality
so if physics studies what is true of
the material world then metaphysics is a
way of describing them the immaterial
world which gives shape and orders the
material world so for example the claim
that the soul exists is a metaphysical
claim a more basically the claim that
the world exists according to the laws
of logic that's a metaphysical claim
metaphysics is the study of ultimate
reality so it explains not merely the
material but the conditions in which a
material world could exist
so that's metaphysics epistemology is
the study of knowledge epistemology is
the study of what we can know how we can
know things and right in wrong ways of
knowing so for example logic and
evidence are two kinds of epistemology
if you combine them together you get the
scientific method so the charge if
someone says to you you know you're
being irrational
that's an epistemological accusation so
atheism is a metaphysical claim right
God doesn't exist whereas agnosticism is
it's an epistemological claim which is
that we can't know that God exists okay
so that's how you kind of slice the pie
between metaphysics and epistemology
with reference to the question of God
so metaphysics is ultimate reality
epistemology is the study of knowledge
axiology is the study of value so within
axiology false sub disciplines like
aesthetics which is the study of beauty
and ugliness and ethics which is the
study of right and wrong
and unlike metaphysics and epistemology
which are black and white categories
axia logical realities can be measured
in degrees so a metaphysical claim such
as the claim the soul exists is either
true or it's not the epistemological
claim you have committed a logical
fallacy is either true or it's not
whereas the oxi illogical claim this
painting is beautiful or you should have
done better our statements of relativity
and statements of degree so every so
every single philosophical idea is
either metaphysical epistemological or
Axia logical or relates those three
somehow so those are the first three
words metaphysics the study of ultimate
reality epistemology the study of how we
know what we know the study of knowledge
and axiology the study of value
including aesthetics which is the study
of beauty and ugliness and ethics which
is the study of right and wrong now the
second set of three words which
constitutes the six basic words of the
story of philosophy are pre modernism
modernism and post-modernism and these
are three ways of relating metaphysics
epistemology in axiology pre modernism
begins all philosophical thought with
metaphysical claims that's what pre
modernism is it's a kind of worldview
it's a category of worldview so multiple
worldviews would fall within pre
modernism there are multiple pre-modern
worldviews to believe and epistemology
was determined by the pre-modern buyed
the nature of metaphysical reality so
for example the first philosophers the
pre-socratics who came right before
Socrates pre-socratics in the seventh
and sixth century BC they made very
elemental claims about the world like
all his water always fire and what they
meant by statements like this was
something metaphysical right they didn't
mean that we're literally all on fire
right now what they meant was in the
same way that fire is a flux the whole
world is a flux and change is real and
order is an illusion right and the
pre-socratics were composed to basically
two schools the Le addicts and the my
lesions and the my lesions emphasized
the disorder in the chaos of the world
and the Le addicts emphasized the
orderliness and
oneness of the world so accordingly that
my legions because they saw the
metaphysics of the world as chaotic they
emphasized sense experience as the
proper epistemology whereas the Le
addicts emphasized the orderliness of
the world even to the point of rejecting
that change was real at all and they saw
reason as the proper epistemology as
opposed to sense experience so the man
lesion philosophy emphasized changed or
metabolite was essentially what their
philosophy was about the world was in
metabolite wasn't change and the eleatic
philosophy emphasized unity or lagos so
metabolite versus lagos and Socrates
then came on the scene and taught the
world to ask bigger better questions
about reality so instead of asking what
is the right thing to do a philosopher
should ask what is goodness what is
rightness and in a sense Socrates taught
the world to think meta about realities
so to conceive of the immaterial
realities behind our operational use of
certain concepts so Socrates pushed for
conceptions of important realities that
could be justified and universally
applied without exception so Socrates a
student Plato took this notion of
thinking meta and applied it to the
entire world his claim kind of in line
with the Le addicts was that the
material world was less real than the
ideal world in fact it was the only
world of ideas which was actually real
so the material world was just a shadow
of the ideal world since ideas are
incorruptible and unchangeable and fixed
well while the material world fades and
disappears and Plato called these ideas
forms and defended the notion that we
must access this world of forms through
Reason through thinking of them through
conceiving of them in our minds and that
right reasoning was the necessary path
to live in the real world Plato's
student Aristotle argued against Plato
so Aristotle argued that forms or more
Fay as wise Plato called them using the
Greek word morphe a forms don't exist in
some separate reality but they exist in
the material things themselves so in
other words the metaphysical world isn't
just up there it's actually down here
it's actually in the things things
things themselves are a metaphysical
rather than being the shadows of the
metaphysical so take for example the
metaphysics of a human being is the
substance of a human being is it an
action
idea to which human beings perform you
know that a human need needs to conform
himself to through reason or is it an
intrinsic potential that he needs to
fulfill in order to be his best self so
Plato would say that the idea human
being is a form to which humans should
conform themselves whereas Aristotle
would say that a human being is a
substance that contains both form and
matter which dictates proper action in
order to fulfill its maximum potential
so Aristotle's metaphysical shift
changed the way he viewed ethics so
acting ethically for Aristotle was not
conceived in terms of conforming
yourself to some abstract form of
Justice like Socrates and Plato argued
instead for Aristotle ethics was
conceived as a balanced expression of
certain virtues which were inherently
fitting to human nature so for example
take the act of facing danger right if
you shy away from danger you're a coward
which is a vice but if you always rush
headlong into danger without thinking
tactically or strategically
well that's foolishness - but if you so
you have cowardice on one side and
foolishness on the other side or
foolhardy nassif you tactfully and
strategically engage danger not shying
away or rushing in that is a balance and
therefore is a virtue okay so it's not
so Aristotle because he believed that
metaphysics resided in the person it was
a different way of governing why people
should act rightly rather than
conforming yourself to an abstract idea
you fulfill what is right in a balanced
way and Christianity was heavily
platonic at its birth because the
Platonic notions of abstract forms
correlated well with the judeo-christian
speech about like the incorruptibility
of the divine essence and things like
that there was a happy marriage between
neoplatonism and Christianity and
platonic language served the early
Christology debates very well as it
starts to articulate a balanced
Christology and it was through Augustine
that Plato became the ruling
architecture of Christian doctrine for
the next millennium in the same way that
Plato really emphasized the oneness of
the world the order of the world
Augustine emphasized the oneness of the
Trinity over the three nests of the
Trinity and so on and so forth there
were multiple other similarities a
millennium later
Aristotle made its way back into the
West after his writings had been
preserved by Islamism actually and
philosopher
it's Aquinas most popularly popularly
used Aristotle as a framework for
articulating Christianity and the
sophistication of Aristotle's conception
of substance which we talked about
earlier as being in the object rather
than a form up there in the world
allowed Christian doctrine to exit the
realm of abstraction and begin making
more sophisticated formulations about
the spirituality and materiality of
Christianity which is why Aristotle gave
birth to a whole conversation about
sacrament ology because you're really
trying to account for the coexistence of
the spiritual and the material in the
same place in the same substance right
so all of these philosophers have in
common a pre-modern architecture all the
way from the pre-socratics through to
Socrates to Plato to Aristotle to the
early church and up to Thomas Aquinas
they are all pre modernist because the
first thing they do is posit the nature
of the metaphysical world and afterward
they ask how epistemology conforms to
that metaphysics then we move from pre
modernism to modernism modernism
prioritizes epistemology over
metaphysics this is called in history
this moment or this event in
philosophical history is called the
epistemic shift because it changes from
prioritizing metaphysics as the bottom
to epistemology instead it flips it buts
epistemology underneath and before
metaphysics and this epistemic shift is
sometimes historically called the
Enlightenment and the Enlightenment
being defined as thinking for oneself
rather than speculating about substances
and forms and modernism in the form of
the Enlightenment is when philosophy
really started thinking primarily about
method not so much about ultimate
reality
so this epistemic shift occurred first
in the philosopher Rene Descartes in the
17th century who doubted all
metaphysical knowledge he you know he
asked what happens if we doubt
everything that's the only way we could
be certain of anything is to mercilessly
prosecute and doubt every single thing
and then what's the end of this doubt
well a simple proof that even doubt is a
thought Descartes reasoned that even
doubt is a thought which means that even
if you doubt everything you're still
thinking which means that the act of
thinking can't be doubted therefore the
human mind exists yet the foundation of
doubt and he uses logic to construct an
entire philosophical edifice without any
religious or metaphysical speculation of
pre-modern ISM right
so if the pre-modern conceived the world
in terms of the phrase I am which is a
metaphysical claim therefore I think
which is in pitch is thinking is an
epistemological act so the pre-modern
conception of the human being would have
said I am therefore I think and it was
Dick Hart who flipped everything through
the epistemic shift right and he said
instead not I am therefore I think but I
think therefore I am because thinking is
the proof of itself then along comes
David Hume an 18th century philosopher
and he took des cartes radical doubt to
the next level so he made an important
distinction between impressions and
ideas impressions are experiences of the
world so if I see an eight ball on a
pool table and that eight ball makes an
impression on my mind because I see it
so if I see a cue ball on that same
table that cue ball makes a separate
impression on my mind if I see someone
hit the cue ball into the eight ball and
I witness the eight ball move Hume
argues that I impose the idea of
causality onto the relationship between
the cue ball and the eight ball
so in Humes view I am justified to
believe that the cue ball and the eighth
ball in the eight ball are real because
they've made direct impressions in my
mind but I am not justified in saying
that I know the cue ball caused the
eight ball to move because causality
isn't an object in the world so it can't
make an impression on my mind and we're
only justified in knowing in our knowing
of things which make impressions on our
mind
we've only impressed knowledge is
certain knowledge or can be certain
knowledge so Jim also classified
morality as an idea rather than an
impression and infamously declared is
doesn't entail aught you can't get from
is to ought you can't get from
metaphysics to ethics you just can't do
it
there's no metaphysical claim that
entails a certain ethical action so in
other words you can't deduce any binding
moral concepts from the bare material
world and Descartes philosophy is called
rationalism because he builds an entire
worldview based on a modernist
conception of reason
meaning that reason as a way of knowing
is the foundation of all justified
knowledge Humes philosophy is called
empiricism not rationalism empiricism
because he builds an entire worldview
based on a modern
conception of experience meaning that
experience as a way of knowing is the
foundation of all justified knowledge
then comes in a philosopher named
Immanuel Kant several decades after Hume
and Kant's attempted to reconcile their
carts rationalism and Hume skepticism so
Kant argued that we need to make a
distinction between what he called the
neumann already Phenom '''l realm the
new mental world represents the world as
it really is the world of ideas in
Descartes right and the phenomenal world
represents the world as it exists in our
perception so the world of impressions
in Hume so if a tree falls in the woods
and nobody is there to witness it did
anything happen
Numan only speaking yes it did
phenomenally speaking no it did not and
we only have access to the phenomenal
world but there is a mechanism in our
mind called the transcendental which
translates the new mental realm for us
and displays the phenomenal world in our
perception like a movie projector right
to use another metaphor think of the
transcendental the transcendental
operating in your mind which Kant
positives posits translates the numerals
of the phenomenal for us think of it
like a sausage maker so imagine the
numeral world is the raw material of
sausage in the phenomenal world is the
processed packaged sausage link now
imagine you go to a grocery store and
you read on the label that the sausage
is made of the highest quality pork and
it's organic
right so you try to visit the sausage
factory to verify that the sausage is
organic and that all the materials are
high-quality but they won't let you in
for security reasons for sanitary
reasons right and that seems
understandable to you why would they let
some Rando walk into their sausage
factory right so you decide you know I'm
just going to trust the sausage company
conte argues that we need to take the
same posture toward the transcendental
we will never have justified knowledge
of the world as it really is we'll never
be able to escape our mind we can never
make it to the sausage factory to visit
to verify whether our experience of the
world conforms to the actual world all
we have is our experience and in that
sense Humes critique of Descartes is
correct since all we have are sense
experiences but we should trust that the
transcendental gives to us in the form
of the phenomenal world what is
practically true and therefore while we
may not be epistemological a justified
in assuming that our claims about the
phenomena
we'll translate to the newman 'l we are
practically justified in assuming that
the laws of logic can establish common
rules of perception that govern
everyone's mind and therefore work as
common rules which human beings are
justified in taking for granted so Kant
likewise attempts to rectify Humes moral
crisis of saying you can't move from is
to oughts
by proposing what he calls the
categorical imperative which is the
notion that a moral law is binding if it
can be universalized so for example
lying or not telling the truth right
purposely to deceiving other people is
categorically wrong because if everybody
lied all the time there would be no such
thing as truth-telling and therefore no
such thing as lying
so therefore lying should be morally
wrong because to universalize it would
be to destroy the possibility of the
concept itself same thing for adultery
and murder and even homosexuality
content arguments have been made and
then comes along philosopher Georg Hegel
GWA Hegel who came in the 19th century
to critique Kant and his basic critique
is that Kant's nominal phenomenal
distinction doesn't actually solve the
disagreement between Descartes and Hume
but actually fortifies the tension and
is even more problematic for us it traps
people in the phenomenal and locks them
out of any justified knowledge of the
Newman award of the real world so Hegel
argued that ultimate reality makes
itself known to the world through
rationality but the way it makes itself
known is unique to Hegel
okay so Hegel argues that rationality uh
sure is the new mental world into our
world progressively through dialectic
what does that mean this mean what this
means is that one generation of
humankind may hold to a particular idea
that idea could be called a thesis about
the way the world works then the next
generation rebels income up comes up
with like an opposing idea right and
that idea is called the antithesis so
you have a thesis from the first
generation the antithesis from the
second generation then the third
generation rebels against the second
generation and combines the strengths of
both theses into a synthesis so you've
got thesis antithesis and then synthesis
then the fourth generation rebels
against the third generation and the
third generation synthesis becomes the
new thesis
and the fourth-generation proposes an
antithesis then the fifth-generation
rebels against the fourth-generation and
proposes a new synthesis and so on
thesis antithesis synthesis thesis
antithesis synthesis and that is called
the dialectic and so and so on and so
forth right
this is called an Hegel the rational
dialectic pure reason in a sense is a
future reality that is pulling us toward
itself through the dialectic like a
black hole reason is inevitable the
dialectic is pushing us forward is
propelling us to play a time place and
time in history before us in front of us
prospectively that will be perfectly
reasonable and the human race is
becoming inevitably and unstoppably more
reasonable and it is through reason that
the world will be saved and all
individuals will on the last day think
the same way and at the same perspective
and hold the same opinions then the
Newman and the phenomenal worlds will be
identical however we must resist the
notion that we are perfectly reasonable
today according to Hegel because to
suggest that we are dogmatically correct
today is to fall into the trap of
believing that no antithesis will come
that our beliefs will never be falsified
which is to fall into the error of the
pre-modern in Hegel's view so Hegel
thought Christianity is the most
rational expression of the Newman
already and for that reason ought to be
believed so we should all be Christians
but we must hold in principle that it
will be overcome and antitheses din the
future and therefore ought to be held in
an open hand so Hegel thought that the
human race was born in a religious state
that was the first thesis and was
liberated from that state through
objective ethical thinking and will one
day be rescued from merely ethical
thinking into a bliss of pure aesthetic
enjoyment through the rational
dialectics so he's saying all the human
the human race began in this religious
state moved to ethical and is moving to
religious oh sorry is moving to
aesthetic so it goes from religious to
ethical to aesthetic not only is that
the biography of the human race it is
the biography of each man and the way
that he enlightens himself the way he
liberate himself is to liberate himself
from the religious through ethical
thinking and to liberate himself through
the ethical thinking into aesthetic
thinking and the reason that the
aesthetic no longer
acquires ethics is because when
everybody thinks the same way
ethics won't be required reason will
bring us all together and in this way
Hegel saw the world unfolding in three
acts as the path every man ought to
journey for himself he's born stupid and
religious and grows into an ethical
state and through reason learns to
achieve existential bliss and Hegel gave
birth to two movements his defenders and
his detractors and his defenders believe
that the world ought to move in a more
homogeneous direction in which all
individuals eventually meld into a
single perspective where everything is
the same and individuality is now
important and obviously Hegel is in this
way the root of Marxism detracting from
Hegel are those who thought that
individuality was the essence of
rationality and to be an individual was
irreducible element of being reasonable
and in essence Hegel's detractors
conceived Hegel as the opposite of
rationality and this detraction was
represented most famously by Soren
Kierkegaard who argued that Hegel had
the three acts of the world and of the
human life exactly backwards in the
exact opposite order
so Kierkegaard argued that aesthetic
enjoyment is not the sophisticated
highest tier of human existence but is
rather the mental state of the infant
kind of drooling blissful and aesthetic
bliss right right according to his own
mind he's correct right then man exits
the aesthetic infantile stage of his
life and enters the ethical and then he
achieves the highest tier the religious
mode of existence which is not the
infantile stage as Hegel proposes but
the most sophisticated stages the
religious mode of existence which is a
man's authentic encounter with God as an
individual rights and in which in that
state and the religious state he
recognizes that God has the right to do
whatever he wants with him it is only in
this state of individuality which
Kierkegaard calls authenticity that a
man can be reasonable and ethical and
properly celebrate the true beauty of
the world as that to which he is not
entitled and in this existential age one
ethical entailment is the is that moral
principles have been relevant
relativized and in the rejection of
count through his alien ism Humes dictum
you can't get from is to oughts
haunted the world and the human race
pondered the potential
consequences of a modernist view of the
world that couldn't justify a universal
conception of the good as Socrates had
defended thousands of years earlier so
we moved from pre modernism which is a
way of looking at the world that
prioritizes metaphysics to modernism
which is a way of looking at the world
that prioritizes epistemology now to
post modernism and post-modernism front
loads not the metaphysical or
epistemological but the axial aaj achill
okay and post-modernism was rooted in
Hegelian existentialism but was jolted
into existence by the Holocaust and many
philosophers such as Emmanuel Levinas
and Martin Buber sought the Nazi Party
as representative of the inevitable
consequence of the Enlightenment they
saw they philosophize rather that
modernism's inability to see
metaphysical realities
their disenchantment with the world
allowed the Nazis to dehumanize the Jews
because the Nazis were slaved to a myth
of rationality that was in reality a way
of masking their attempt to gain
political power it is the entailment of
losing sight of the new moon or rome
altogether which is a product of contine
ISM so philosophy had two options in the
21st century to prevent another
Holocaust to go back to pre modernism
and give human beings dignity through
acknowledging their metaphysical value
such as the soul or abandon metaphysics
entirely in front-load axiology that is
front-load wants ethical responsibility
to one's neighbor and to pursue global
justice then epistemology simply becomes
a tool in defending and fortifying that
pursuit of justice and in this way
post-modernism is always on the hunt for
the agenda behind truth claims
post-modernism sees any claim to
objective truth as a veiled attempt to
gain power over another human being by
persuading them to submit to their way
of seeing the world because again we in
a world after Conte there's no such
thing in the new as as the new Manal all
we have is perception therefore all we
have to protect those around us is to
front-load the the human dignity of each
person with no metaphysical basis to
front-load your ethical obligation to
equity to perfect global equity or and
then and then to make sense of the world
after the fact and we must recognize
here that post-modernism did not
originate the claim that we do not have
access to objective truth that was
caught
who fortified the distinction between
the Newman world in the phenomenal world
and all that needed to occur for the
relationship between those worlds to be
broken is for some event to occur which
casts enough suspicion on the
transcendental that Kant posited to
distrust it to distrust the
sausage-maker and that event was the
Holocaust and once you're stuck in the
phenomenal world with no trustworthy
transcendental media at the numeral
world to you and people are acting as if
human dignity doesn't exist you're stuck
with subjectivity and an ethical
absolute and in this way the task of
philosophy becomes the establishment of
global justice not because people were
eager to abandon truth but because
through de cartes Hume and Kant people
became blind to metaphysics and
therefore blind to the necessary
theological foundations which exist at
the very bottom of every philosophical
question and post-modernism is not an
eager pursuit of relativism although
maybe it has become that in some circles
but a desperate scramble to minimize the
ethical damages that secularism has
wreaked on the world through an
unchecked enlightenment modernism and
today we exist not so much in a
postmodern age but in an age of
competing modernity x' people don't know
how to become enchanted with the
metaphysical world again even though
they want to people are grasping towards
something more than materialism but they
can't attain it because the structure of
modernity requires them to begin with
epistemology which dict or or even worse
a post modernity which requires them to
front-load and begin with an unjustified
axiology which dictates a principle of
radical doubt which will never allow the
justification of metaphysics ever so
what direction should we go how couldn't
become how can we become enchanted with
the world again you know should we not
all just become pre-socratics again and
start from scratch and start claiming
all is fire all is water certainly not
as the judeo-christian worldview
emphasizes the only way to begin with
metaphysics is not to speculate about
the metaphysical world but to have the
metaphysical world actually reach out to
you and Christians have historically
called this metaphysical point of
contact revelation God actually deigns
to reach down into the material world
and manifest himself to those who will
accept his self witness and much more
could be said about the relationship
between philosophy and theology and the
complex ways that philosophy has bearing
upon our cultural moment but for the
purpose of keeping the summary as short
as possible
doctrine of Revelation is as good a
place as any to conclude this
comprehensive survey on that survey of
the entire history of philosophy there
you go
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