BLOCK-4 INTRODUCTION

Idealism holds the view that everyday world of things and people are not the world as it really is
but simply as it appears to be. In Idealism, concepts are often viewed as being real. Thus
‘humankind’ is seen to have a reality beyond being just an idea. Perhaps the most influential
Idealist was Immanuel Kant. After Kant, Hegel concluded that the finite world is a reflection of
the mind, which alone is truly real. Truth is just the coherence between thoughts. Idealism is
opposed to many philosophies that stress material outlook, including empiricism, skepticism,
atheism, materialism and positivism. Positivism holds that the only authentic knowledge is that
which is based on actual sense experience. The positivist perspective, however, has been
associated with ‘scientism,’ which is of the view that the methods of the natural sciences may be
applied to all areas of investigation, be it philosophical, social, scientific, or otherwise. It has also
been welcomed by ‘technocrats’ who believe in the inevitability of social progress through
science and technology. This block consists of 4 units that deal with Kant (I&II), Hegel and
positivism.

Unit 1, “Kant-I,” explains that Immanuel Kant, through his masterpiece Critique of Pure Reason,
has made an attempt to resolve the issues emerging from the conflict between rationalistic and
empiricist approaches by proposing a system that was fundamentally a priori but without
sacrificing the value of the phenomenal reality. According to his approach, the reality that human
beings know is basically the reality constituted or constructed by human beings themselves. In a
nutshell, with the help of a set of a priori forms and the phenomenal data, the world – all
sciences and all forms of knowledge – is shaped.

Unit 2, “Kant-II,” aims at exposing Kant’s practical philosophy in the light of his two major ethical
works: Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (GM) and Critique of Practical Reason (CPrR). After a
brief and general introduction to Kant’s practical philosophy, the study presents two kinds of imperatives
in Kant’s ethical works: hypothetical and categorical imperatives. The categorical imperative is identified
as Kant’s concept of moral law for all empirical rational beings. The exposition proceeds to show that a
priori moral law poses freedom, God and immortality as postulates of morality.

Unit 3, “Hegel,” highlights the philosophical thought of Georg Hegel who devoted his life wholly to
academic pursuit. His science of logic, dialectical reasoning, encyclopaedia of philosophical
sciences, Philosophy of Right – all provide an intellectual foundation for modern nationalism. He
was an idealist who methodically constructed a comprehensive system of thought.

Unit 4 is on “Positivism,” which is one of the important philosophical movements originated in

the nineteenth century and shaped the thinking of scientists and scholars in the 20th century too.
The aim of this unit is to make the students acquaint with the background, origin and
development of positivism, especially the contribution of Auguste Comte, its later development
and continued relevance for an understanding of natural and social sciences today.

As we have seen above, idealism views concepts as real. After the most influential critical
idealist, Immanuel Kant, Hegel concluded that the finite world is a reflection of the mind, which
alone is truly real. According to Kant, the reality that human beings know is basically the reality

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constituted or constructed by human beings themselves; such a construction is manifest in their
ethical behaviour too, in the “categorical imperative” identified as Kant’s concept of moral law
for all. For Hegel, “the real is the rational and the rational is the real.” Even as he methodically
constructed a comprehensive system of thought deductively, positivism, especially the one
developed by Auguste Comte in the 19th century inductively, influenced the thinking of scientists
and scholars.

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UNIT 1 KANT-1

Contents

1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 The Critical Project
1.3 The Structure of the Critique of Pure Reason
1.4 Challenge to Metaphysics
1.5 Faculties and Nature of Knowledge
1.6 Transcendental Freedom
1.7 The Transcendental Ideal for Systematic Unity
1.8 Phenomenon vs. Noumenon
1.9 Synthetic a priori Character of Knowledge
1.10 Let Us Sum Up
1.11 Key Words
1.12 Further Readings and References
1.13 Answers to Check Your Progress

1.0 OBJECTIVES

As you study this unit, you will have to pay special attention to:

• The ongoing philosophical debate between rationalism and empiricism

• The paradigm of knowledge, which according to an empiricist is to acquire knowledge
through the senses and to a rationalist is to acquire knowledge through the reason or
understanding.

1. 1. INTRODUCTION

Immanuel Kant, through his philosophical enterprise known as critical idealism or transcendental
idealism, has made an attempt to resolve the issues emerging from the conflict between
rationalistic and empiricist approaches by proposing a system that was fundamentally a priori
but without sacrificing the value of the phenomenal reality. According to his approach, the
reality that human beings know is basically the reality constituted or constructed by human
beings themselves. In a nutshell, with the help of a set of a priori forms and the phenomenal
data, the world – all sciences and all forms of knowledge – is shaped. The same is the case with
regard to the practical sphere: the autonomous individual, through the proper exercise of the will,
constructs the moral world. So, the Kantian approach to theoretical as well as practical
knowledge is centred on the individual agent.
Kant’s definitive insistence that we can have a priori knowledge, which is necessary and
universal, however, does not blind him to the contributions of the senses. He holds that all our

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knowledge is ultimately rooted in sense intuitions as well as in concepts; all the same, he
categorically denies that we could have theoretical knowledge about anything that lies beyond
the bounds of possible experience. Thus, in the Prolegomena, Kant claims that “the word
‘transcendental’ ... does not signify something passing beyond all experience but something that
indeed precedes it a priori, but that is intended to make cognition of experience possible”
(Prolegomena, Appendix, Ak. 4:373n). It is in this sense that he calls his philosophy
transcendental.
An inquiry into the nature of knowledge is, therefore, an inquiry into the cognitive
constitution of the subject, and not into the nature of the objects, but concerns only what makes it
possible. Hence, he defines his philosophy as “a science of the mere examination of reason, its
sources and limits” (CPR A11/B25). Understood negatively, according to Beck, it highlights the
‘police’ function of the Critique “in preventing or exposing the dialectical illusions of
speculative metaphysics” (Beck, 44), while, understood positively, it secures to reason the “sure
path of science” in the wake of the challenges from rationalism and empiricism. Thus,
practically speaking, the Critique becomes the final court of appeal for Kant, even to the extent
of becoming a limiting factor in his further philosophical endeavour.
The unifying thought that runs through the whole of the Critique is his self-proclaimed
novel question “How is synthetic a priori knowledge possible?” (CPR B19). To begin with,
Kant assumes that synthetic a priori propositions exist both in pure mathematics and physics,
and his conviction about the success of these branches of knowledge impels him to invest
himself in critical inquiry with a view to justify the possibility of such propositions in the realms
of knowledge and morality. Thus, the critical problem, which he formulates against the
backdrop of dogmatic and empiricist philosophies, unravels in the first Critique by posing the
problem of whether and to what extent can we find a priori principles of knowledge in the
respective faculties of reason, understanding, and judgment. As for the claims of the Critique
itself, the apparent transcendent nature of a priori knowledge is rectified, and its concreteness
safeguarded by Kant, by his incessant insistence that “we come to know of a priori ideas, like all
other ideas, only through experience ... [and] that this a priori knowledge nevertheless must
apply to object of experience...” (Paton, 1:563-64). This is possible, he claims, not as a result of
the independent nature of the things, but due to the nature of the intellectual faculties. This step,
according to Kant, ensures both the purity and validity of transcendental knowledge, which
“entitles him to develop the entire system of pure speculative reason without reference to
anything other than the abstract principles” and “without reference to any specific empirical
object” (Van De Pitte, 1024).

1.2. THE STRUCTURE OF THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON

The centrality of the first Critique for Kant is achieved in the architectonic plan of his work
where the triad of the Aesthetic-Analytic-Dialectic attempts to unveil the nature and function of
different faculties in acquiring knowledge, each, in turn, addressing the contributions of
sensibility, understanding, and reason, respectively. Stated in general, while the Aesthetic
answers the question “How are synthetic a priori judgments possible in mathematics?” the
Analytic takes up the question “How are these judgments possible in natural science?” Finally,
the Dialectic addresses the issue of the impossibility of synthetic a priori judgments in
metaphysics.

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 The Transcendental Aesthetic, as concerned with sensibility or intuition, and identified
by Kant as the faculty of sensing objects, provides the primary data for knowledge. In this
section he addresses the issue of the determination of space and time, the only a priori intuitions
we possess, which provide the sensible form of experience. Space and time are the pure forms of
sensibility, which are imposed by the human mind on to the world of experience, as the elements
of our subjective cognitive constitution. The nature of space and time, for Kant, is very much
Euclidean. In the Aesthetic Kant assumes that Euclidean geometry is a body of a priori
knowledge, although the regressive method that he has adopted in this section does not attempt
to prove its validity.
In the second section, Transcendental Analytic, Kant goes one step further by showing
that any meaningful claim to theoretical knowledge requires not only sensibility, but the
spontaneous faculty of understanding too. In order to show that synthetic a priori judgments are
possible, it is necessary that apart from the contribution of intuition, there must be the element of
conception, whereby the mind contributes its vital share. Kant asserts that there are three
subjective sources of knowledge, such as sense, imagination, and apperception, on which the
process of synthesis is grounded. Hence, Kant undertakes an explication of the generation of the
categories in the knowing process, and attempts to deduce their validity. The finding that the
categories of the understanding are a priori implies that they do not depend on the nature of the
things, but on the nature of our thought, though, at the same time, they are meaningless and
empty apart from their application to spatial and temporal things given in intuition.
Proceeding further, and applying the results of the Transcendental Aesthetic and
Analytic, Kant identifies in the Transcendental Dialectic the excesses in the employment of
reason, which tends to apply its own ideas in the realms that lie beyond the reach of sensibility
and understanding. The intellectual capacities, namely, the capacity of referring to objects by
experiencing them within a spatio-temporal framework, and the capacity of bringing objects
under general concepts set the limits of our valid knowledge. When these limits are
transgressed, it results in transcendental illusion, and the basic source of this illusion is reason’s
illegitimate pursuit for completeness and unity, i.e., advancing “towards completeness by an
ascent to ever higher conditions and so to give our knowledge the greatest possible unity of
reason” (CPR A309/B365). Thus, in the Dialectic, he establishes that purely rational knowledge
is impossible, which explicitly denies that the aim of the rationalist philosophy, and the content
of dogmatic metaphysics are attainable. However, it must be borne in mind that Kant does not
prove that the dogmas of the rationalist metaphysics are false, but only that they cannot be
known to be true in the mental framework adopted in the Transcendental Aesthetic and Analytic.
In short, according to the Transcendental Dialectic, although reason can conceive of the
unconditioned and employ it (only as an ideal) for some of its own purposes, it can have no
theoretical knowledge of it.
Thus, the perspective of the critical philosophy, which shapes the argument of the
Critique, holds that the ideas of reason are necessary, though they have only a regulative
purpose. Their constitutive function is rejected outright, saying that they cannot be given in
objective experience according to the yardsticks of the Transcendental Aesthetic and Analytic.
Later, in the critical endeavour, we find Kant taking this conclusion to new heights both in the
second and third Critiques, i.e., in the moral, and aesthetic and teleological realms, through
which he attempts to pave the way for an integrated philosophy of the theoretical and the
practical.

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Check Your Progress I
Note: a) Use the space provided for your answer

b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit

1) What does Kant mean by transcendental?

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1. 3. CHALLENGE TO METAPHYSICS

Kant proposes a “change in point of view” (CPR Bxxii note) to reform metaphysics from the
shackles of dogmatism and scepticism. While dogmatism, according to Kant, trusts in the
principles of metaphysics “without a previous critique of the faculty of reason itself, merely with
a view to their success,” scepticism holds a “general mistrust in pure reason,” again, “without a
previous critique, merely with a view to the failure of its assertions” (Kant, On a Discovery, 159
[Ak VIII, 226-27]). In the second edition Preface of the first Critique, he holds that
“metaphysics is a completely isolated speculative science of reason, which soars far above the
teachings of experience, and in which reason is indeed meant to be its own pupil. Metaphysics
has hitherto been a merely random groping ..., a groping among mere concepts” (CPR Bxv).
In spite of his strictures on the traditional metaphysics, he is ready to admit that “the idea
of [metaphysics] is as old as speculative human reason,” and is “what rational being does not
speculate either in scholastic or in popular fashion?” (CPR A842/B871). Interestingly, Kant
opens the first Critique with a statement of the inevitability of metaphysics, indicating that it is
“prescribed by the very nature of reason itself” (CPR Avii). Articulating this problem further,
later in the Critique, he compares it to a constantly repeated act of ever returning “to a beloved
one with whom we have had a quarrel” (CPR A850/B878), and in the Prolegomena to a
“favourite child” (Prolegomena §57, Ak. IV, 353). He considers the human tendency towards
metaphysics as quite natural or inherent to the faculty of reason, and holds that it is impossible to
conceive of reason to be devoid of the same, despite the illusion resulting from it.
Dogmatic metaphysics attempts to have a priori knowledge of reality independent of
sensibility and experience. The pure intellectual method through which metaphysicians arrive at
indisputable knowledge of the ultimate nature of objects, however, is radically mistaken and
empty, as Kant shows in the Critique. This, as Kemp Smith puts it, “transgresses the limits of
possible experience, and contains only pretended knowledge” (Smith, 70), and Kant refutes it in
the Transcendental Aesthetic, Analytic, and Dialectic of the Critique.
The new metaphysics, which, for Kant, is only worthy of the name, is metaphysics as a
science, “a system of a priori knowledge from mere concepts” (Metaphysic of Morals, Ak. VI,
216), “the inventory of all our possessions through pure reason, systematically arranged” (CPR
Axx). This science adopts a constructive procedure, or Schematism, and fuses the empirical and
the formal. As it is impossible to give any of the ideas of reason in sensible intuition to which no
application of categories is admissible, Kant rejects the possibility of having any knowledge of

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them, whereby, from the perspective of theoretical reason, also rejecting their reality altogether.
However, he has been able to show that “one kind of metaphysics is possible, which is enough to
save the conception of cognition as a rational phenomenon, and of ourselves, correlatively, as
rational beings” (Gardner, 307). Though the thrust of Kant is more about the limits of our
knowledge, he positively maintains that the Critique lays the foundation for the metaphysics of
nature and morality – of physics with respect to the material order (phenomenal realm), and of
morality with respect to the intelligible order (noumenal realm).
Assuming that the quest of human reason for metaphysics is inherent to human nature
(“natural disposition”), he looks for a justification of its ideas in the practical realm.
Metaphysics of morals is indirectly a concession Kant gives to fulfil the natural quest of human
reason for the realization of its ultimate ideals, which he rejects as untenable on the basis of the
principles enshrined in the Critique itself. The primacy of the practical, which is the hallmark of
transcendental philosophy, however, indicates that this move is not only justifiable, but
warranted for developing the complete system of critical philosophy. Kant tailors human natural
disposition for metaphysics into the new metaphysics.

1.4. FACULTIES AND NATURE OF KNOWLEDGE

It is at the foundation of Kant’s transcendental programme to identify and examine the nature of
the powers of human knowing; only then can we be equipped to determine the extent of our
knowledge “that is absolutely objective” (CPR A249). His philosophical thrust to limit the
extent of the application of the intellectual faculties is central to his metaphysical thesis, and
accordingly, he holds that the human intellect lacks the power of intellectual intuition. This
limitation leads Kant to conclude that knowledge of objects is possible only if they are given
through a faculty distinct from the intellect itself. Assigning a legitimate role to sensibility, he
identifies three closely interrelated faculties of the human mind. They are (i) sensibility
(Sinnlichkeit) which conforms our perceptions to human forms of intuition, viz., space and time;
(ii) understanding (Verstand) which conforms our individual judgments regarding objects to the
categories of thought; and (iii) reason (Vernunft) which conforms the collective totality of our
judgments regarding objects to certain structural requirements of systematic unity, by regulating
the use of the concepts and rules of the understanding, and thus organizing coherent experiences.
At the initial level, sensibility is equipped with receptivity and the understanding with
spontaneity. Or, it can be expressed in terms of givenness and the consciousness of the given:
“the aspect of having something given to one, and the aspect of making the given intelligible to
oneself” (Cassirer, 53). Kant holds that all order and system in nature are due to the mind, and
they are classified into two types of concepts. The first kind, space and time, originate in
sensibility, and, the other, the categories originate in the understanding. Throughout the Critique
Kant insists that these concepts are not derived from experience, but experience to be experience
at all, it presupposes them: objects must be spatial and temporal, and must possess categorial
features. This leads Kant to show that these concepts are pure in nature and a priori in origin.
In the case of sensibility and understanding we find them balancing the operation and
validation of each other: experience validating categories, and, in their turn, the categories
making experience possible. However, in the case of reason, although it acts on the results of the
understanding, it creates no objects, but only postulates theoretical unities. This is an
unacceptable procedure according to the Aesthetic and the Analytic. If applied, it is difficult to
find anything ‘objective’ within these ideas of reason, which makes Buchdahl claim that the

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autonomy of reason “is purchased at a price” (Buchdahl, 171). The stress on the spontaneity and
autonomy of reason (and also of understanding, in this case), and the source of the ideas being
the same reason indicate that nature is constrained by reason’s own determining operation, which
is restricted to the parameters of reason itself. The claim that reason has insight only into what it
produces can also be looked at from a different, but an a posteriori perspective, where it may be
said that, perhaps, we gradually learn by postulation and hypotheses to tune our reason according
to the inherent structure of nature that is not obvious at all, but is being progressively revealed to
us.
The unity of apperception which is so central to the Critique is not a unity for its own
sake, but a unity that leads to a synthesis of representations, and thus to a unity in experience.
All faculties work together with a goal of producing synthetic knowledge, which, for Kant, is a
priori in origin. He shows that the content of sensible intuition by itself is individual in nature,
and the formation of any combination cannot ensue from sensibility itself, but from the activity
of the intellect. In transcendental logic, he names this process synthesis, which is so central to
give rise to any valid knowledge a priori. The spontaneous process of this synthesis is
characterized by Kant as one of literally laying hold of, or grasping or gripping together
(begreifen) all elementary representations of our experience.
Kant’s dictum, “thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are
blind” (CPR A51/B75), indicates that left to each of them, they cannot give rise to coherent
experience or knowledge. Synthesis is the central and fundamental process that is operative in
the activities of experiencing and knowing, starting with perception in which appearances are
combined together. Kant chiefly speaks in terms of two different kinds of synthesis: empirical
synthesis and transcendental synthesis. Transcendental synthesis is performed by productive
imagination through a manifold of pure intuition, while empirical synthesis is performed through
perception or representations by reproductive imagination, where the activity of imagination is
identified as understanding: the former results in the objective phenomenal world through the
application of categories, and the latter in our knowledge of this phenomenal world.
The upward moving synthesis of various components of knowledge reaches a new level
of cohesion and systematic unity in the synthetic activity of the final and ultimate intellectual
faculty called reason (Vernunft). Armed with transcendental ideas, and the quest for the
completion of the systematic knowledge, reason aims at the ultimate level of knowledge possible
for us as human beings. Moreover, this positive approach of explicating the nature and functions
of reason is overshadowed by the major task of the Dialectic to analyse the transcendental
illusions to which reason naturally leads.
Lack of absolute unity in understanding paves the way for necessity of the ideas of pure
reason, which are “not arbitrarily invented,” but “are imposed by the very nature of reason itself”
(CPR A327/B384). Pure reason operates with its pure concepts, which are otherwise known as
“transcendental ideas.” These are derived “from the nature of our reason” (CPR A336/B393);
they are “not merely reflected but inferred concepts.” Concepts of the understanding result from
a ‘reflection’ on the manifold of appearances, leading to conceptualisation; they are pure or a
priori because “they contain nothing more than the unity of reflection upon appearances, insofar
as these appearances must necessarily belong to a possible empirical consciousness” (CPR
A310/B367). Reason, on the other hand, through its pure concepts or ideas, does not merely
reflect on the given, rather extends beyond anything that could be given in an act of assembling
or inferring on which it has to operate. This obviates the fundamental nature of these concepts:
their origin itself is in aloofness, and indirectness (through the lack of mediation with intuition)

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exists in their relation to objects of experience. The concepts of reason, according to Kant,
“have, in fact, no relation to any object that could be given as coinciding with them” (CPR
A336/B393), whereby Kant brings to the fore their transcendental nature, and calls them
“transcendental ideas” (CPR A321/B378).
The transcendental ideas of reason are regulative because they direct or regulate the
operation of the understanding by leading it to systematic and absolute unity which it cannot
achieve by employing its own categories. Three characteristics of regulative principles, which
are integral to Kantian employment, are as follows: (i) they lack constitutive force; (ii) they have
only a methodological function; and, finally, (iii) they possess a transcendental status. Kant
considers the regulative employment of reason to be transcendentally valid because it leads both
the receptive and spontaneous faculties to their completion in postulating the ideas of totality and
the unconditioned unity.
The system of thought developed in the Critique is known as transcendental philosophy,
and it deals with the system of necessary conditions of experience. For Kant, those conditions
constitute knowledge of what is logically prior to experience, or of “what goes before all
experience,” i.e., a priori. The characteristic transcendental twist, is reflected in his crucial move
from the question “What is something?” to “What do we know about something without
primarily appealing to experience?” Or, in other words, instead of bringing reality into
consideration, the purpose of the Critique is to explain how knowledge about reality is possible.
In his attempt to initiate a transcendental inquiry, Kant’s first concern is “to investigate the
possibility of concepts a priori” (CPR A65-66/B90-91), by way of determining the sources of
knowledge, and their valid application. With regard to these sources, the a priori concepts and
ideas, it may be said that their transcendental use is possible as long as they are employed as
regulative principles in the pursuit of knowledge, while a constitutive application of the same in
pursuit of representing absolute realities is transcendent, and, hence, dialectical in nature.
When an inference is made “from transcendental concept of the subject, which contains
nothing manifold, to the absolute unity of this subject itself...” (CPR A340/B397-98) it gives rise
to transcendental paralogism. In formal logic paralogism is used to designate a formally
fallacious syllogism with which one deceives oneself. Along this line Kant defines
transcendental syllogism as “one in which there is a transcendental ground, constraining us to
draw a formally invalid conclusion” (CPR A341/B399). It is an inevitable illusion, or a self-
deception transcendentally motivated having its ground in the nature of human reason itself. A
paralogism arises when the regulative idea of the self is illegitimately treated as constituting a
self-subsistent entity. The indirect, but primary motive involved in the move of rational
psychology is to prove the immortality of the soul, by misapplying the categories to the ‘I’ that is
given only in inner intuition. Transcendental analysis of the paralogism shows that the
fundamental aim of rational psychology cannot be achieved as the pure concept of the self –
being completely indeterminate (in apperception) – onto which the categories are applied is
empty of content, and, hence, beyond the application of schematised categories. This calls for a
disciplining of the theoretical application of reason in the realms which are beyond the access of
our human intellectual capabilities.
Further, an antinomy is a pair of mutually contradictory statements, both of which can be
supported by formally valid, though transcendentally inconsistent, arguments. The lack of
absolute synthetic unity in the operations of sensibility and understanding motivates reason to
demand a totality of all conditions. On the part of the understanding, however, it is impossible to
go beyond the phenomenal series as it is intrinsically bound to the data of sensibility and its own

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forms in the categories; hence, in its search for absolute unity reason speculates beyond any
possible experience, and finds the unconditioned by negating its categorial restrictions. This
standpoint of reason, which may be equated to “God’s point of view” with regard to the
phenomenal world, acts in such a way that the complete series of conditions for every
conditioned is at hand in the unconditioned. This is termed as a cosmological idea in the
Critique, in which the totality of the phenomenally given is assumed and accepted by reason to
press forward to the absolute unity of the phenomenal world. Such a conflict is caused by the
fact that reason seeks a unity which transcends the understanding, and which nevertheless is
meant to conform to the conditions of the understanding. In this process reason attempts to
employ its ideas which transcend understanding, i.e., beyond the legitimate reaches of categories,
which, in turn, results in the generation of the antinomies of reason. Kant identifies four
categories the employment of which generates cosmological ideas, and with them antinomies.
They are quantity, reality, causality, and necessity. These antinomies express the underlying
conflict of reason with itself, the ideas of which are generated by an illicit extension of the
categories.
Kant attempts in the Critique to solve this – to grant reason its legitimate rule over
understanding, by appealing to the transcendental perspective of distinguishing appearance and
the thing-in-itself. Taking all the four antinomies together, what Kant has in mind in their
resolution is to show the role of transcendental philosophy in attaining the final synthesis of the
conflicting positions of rationalism and empiricism in pure reason. Strictly speaking, the
principles of the Aesthetic and Analytic are transcended in the Dialectic by introducing the
distinction between appearance and thing-in-itself, although the resolution of the antinomies is
made possible only by maintaining this distinction. This also indicates the importance of the
ideas of reason in critical philosophy, and paves the way for introducing the primacy of practical
reason in it. Although antinomies result from the speculative flights of theoretical reason and its
conflict with itself and the understanding, their resolution in transcendental philosophy
guarantees a continued mutual criticism, which should constantly aid us in furthering our
knowledge of the world.

Check Your Progress II

Note: a) Use the space provided for your answer

b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit

1) What do you understand by antinomy?

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1.5. TRANSCENDENTAL FREEDOM

Reason being the autonomous faculty, it “admits of no conditions antecedent to itself” (CPR
A554/B582) whereby the conceivability of an intelligible causality of freedom opens its avenues
for “the absolute spontaneity of an action” (CPR A448/B476). Theoretical philosophy as

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enshrined in the Aesthetic and the Analytic considers man as part of the phenomenal world,
subjected to the causal sequence of events in space and time. Yet, as an intelligible being, whose
self-consciousness makes him aware of his noumenal existence, he can intervene in the causal
system of natural events by an act of freedom and begin an original new series, thus initiating a
new causality through freedom. It features a spontaneous and intelligent causality of freedom as
opposed to receptivity.
This facilitates belief in the freedom of the will, laying the foundation of morality,
establishing the subject’s independence (i.e., freedom from) and power to legislate for itself (i.e.,
freedom to). However, it must be borne in mind that Kant’s intention “has not been to establish
the reality of freedom” (CPR A558/B586), but only to show that there involves no contradiction
in thinking about freedom in the case of man who is a noumenal agent. Owing to his conviction
that yielding to transcendental realism would save “neither nature nor freedom” (CPR
A543/B571), Kant’s resolution of the conflict between freedom and determinism is to see the
entire domain of natural events as determined by efficient causes, but the formal presupposition
of free acts as determined by intelligent causes. In this sense we are able to conceive the
intelligible character as an explanation of the empirical, but ourselves being unable to conceive
an explanation for the same, that is, how does this intelligible operate in relation to the empirical.
Our intelligible faculties are such that we can conceive only spatial and temporal relations, and
any determinate concept of a non-temporal agency, as called for here by Kant’s explanation, is
beyond us, or, in other words, at least, we have no understanding as to how noumenal causality
operates with its transcendental freedom.

1.6. THE TRANSCENDENTAL IDEAL FOR SYSTEMATIC UNITY

Reason’s search for the unconditioned, the dialectical inference from contingent existence to the
existence of a necessary being is an effective drive to advance beyond experience to the
transcendental ideal. Reason does not suppose that the ideal, ens realissimum, actually exists,
but only posits it as the archetype for the complete determination of all other beings. This may
be appropriately called the primordial being (Urwesen) or ens originarium, and having nothing
above or beyond it may also be called the highest being, ens summum. It is also the ens entium,
the being of all beings, or the ground of all beings, which in the transcendental sense is God, and
the ideal of pure reason. Being the highest and the most perfect being of beings, its nature is
further posited: “[This Divine Being] must be omnipotent, in order that the whole of nature and
its relation to morality … may be subject to his will; omniscient, that he may know our
innermost sentiments and their moral worth; omnipresent, that he may be immediately present
for the satisfying of every need which the highest good demands; eternal, that this harmony of
nature and freedom may never fail, etc.” (CPR A815/B843). Here it must be borne in mind that
what is being considered by Kant is the objective reality of the concept of God, and not the
objective reality of God, as it is beyond the critical philosophy to consider it, as God cannot be
given in intuition. It is also not necessary to presuppose the existence of a being to correspond to
the ideal, but requires only the idea of such a being, so that at one stroke both the limits of reason
and the purpose of ultimate unity can be achieved.
Kant insists that the transcendental ideal, or the concept of God can have the valid
employment only as a regulative principle of reason; any attempt to employ the same to be
constitutive of the existence of God would be dialectical and detrimental to the nature of human
reason itself. The only possible proof for the existence of God, for Kant, must use moral

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premises; his insistence to rule out speculative theology gives way to the possibility of moral
theology, and an initial attempt is made in this regard in the “Canon of Pure Reason” (CPR
A795/B823ff), which is elaborated in his later ethical works. Kant’s analysis of speculative
theology, seen positively, consistently protests against a metaphysic which claims to determine
the necessary characteristics of the ultimate reality only by the exercise of pure reason, while at
the same time, it must be said that his attempt to deny any reality beyond the employment of
categories, and a synthesizing activity of sensibility and understanding, is intrinsically
questionable.
The schema of God is only a human way of conceiving the ground of nature, for the
purpose of employing our cognitive faculties, in order to arrive at the unified understanding of
the world of sensibility and understanding. Therefore, theoretical philosophy, in fact, does not
address the question of the belief in the existence of God (it being set apart for moral theology),
but deals only about thinking of the world as if it were created by God, with a view to purposive
unity of nature. Thus, for Kant, God seems to be a mere device to superimpose transcendental
unity on nature and, thus, to make it systematic, purposive, and intelligible.

1. 7. PHENOMENON VS. NOUMENON

Transcendental philosophy is said to have at its basis a perspective on reality that, by necessity,
has to oscillate between phenomena and noumena. In his fight against rationalism and
empiricism, Kant does squarely meet their fundamental opposition and formulates the
transcendental vision of reality in his famous statement “Thoughts without content are empty,
intuitions without concepts are blind” (CPR A51/B75). The articulation and application of this
vision to the varied realms of experience makes it necessary for Kant to distinguish between
approaching reality from two fundamentally different viewpoints of phenomena and noumena.
The world of experience or the object of experience given through sensibility and understanding
is phenomena, i.e., objects of actual and possible sense experience, the knowledge of which is
made possible through the application of the categories. Although Kant denies throughout the
Critique any knowledge beyond the application of the categories, i.e., any metaphysical
knowledge in the dogmatic sense, he does hold that that which appears has something beyond
appearance, which he calls noumenon.

Check Your Progress III

Note: a) Use the space provided for your answer

b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit

1) What is the difference between phenomenon and noumenon?

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1. 8. SYNTHETIC A PRIORI CHARACTER OF KNOWLEDGE

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Assuming that empirical experience is contingent and non-pure in nature, Kant concludes that
pure a priori principles are indispensable in the process of knowing. If, for example, causality is
a concept that we use, not because our experience has a certain character, but because it makes
objects of a certain sort, and their relations possible for us, then it has necessity for us; it is what
we use to constitute an objective world, and so necessarily relative to our standpoint. It is this
necessity and universality, and the objective sufficiency ensuing from them that constitute the
certainty associated with a priori in the Critique. All synthetic a priori propositions for Kant rest
on the structure of the human mind, which, as he believes, has the basic function of synthesising
what is given in sense experience; this is a process of ordering the given according to the forms
of perception (space and time) and the categories of thinking, both of them being the
contributions of the mind. Given this structure of the mind, it can formulate concepts and
statements, which are synthetic (ampliative) and a priori (in advance to sense experience) in
relation to the forms of thought. Kant’s thrust on the synthetic a priori is motivated by his
ultimate aim of transcendental philosophy, namely, establishing the a priori and unchanging
elements of morality.

1.9. LET US SUM UP

Thus, Kant’s search for absolute certainty, in terms of necessity and universality of the a priori
knowledge that the Critique aims at achieving, results from a perspective which is ultimately
possible only for God, the reality of which itself is an unknowable according to the critical
philosophy. It is, then, either contradictory, or simply impossible. In spite of the validating
reference to possible experience, it is a perspective of gaining unbounded knowledge of reality,
which is beyond the prowess of human beings. Transcendental claim of having a priori
principles in order to make experience possible is to put the cart before the horse; the claim of
purity and certainty being necessarily and universally part of the synthetic a priori is to begin
philosophising upon something that which is not present at all. Finally, to quote from the
Critique itself, “transcendental ... is ... necessarily unknown to me” (CPR A496/B524). Hence,
there is a need to look further among the Kantian Critiques, especially in the Critique of
Practical Reason, how the critical philosophy conceives an answer to its unresolved issues from
the perspective of practical philosophy and into the Critique of Judgment to see how the most
fundamental process of synthesis is effected in the human processes of knowing.

1.10. KEY WORDS

A Posteriori and Priori: The terms a priori ("prior to") and a posteriori ("subsequent to") are
used to distinguish two types of knowledge, justifications or arguments. A priori knowledge or
justification is independent of experience (for example 'All bachelors are unmarried'); a
posteriori knowledge or justification is dependent on experience or empirical evidence (for
example 'Some bachelors are very happy').

1.11. FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES

Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Judgement [Kritik der Urtheilskraft 1790], trans. J. H. Bernard. 2nd
ed., London: Macmillan, 1914; New York: Hafner Press, 1951.

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Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason [Kritik der praktischen Vernunft 1788], trans. and
Intro. Lewis White Beck. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril Educational Publishing, 1956.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Pure Reason [Kritik der reinen Vernunft 1781 and 1787], trans.
Norman Kemp Smith, as Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. London: Macmillan,
1929.
Kant, Immanuel. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics [Prolegomena zu einer jeden
Künftigen Metaphysik, die als Wissenschaft wird auftreten können 1783], ed. Lewis
White Beck. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merril Company Inc., 1950.

Beck, Lewis White. A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1966.
Buchdahl, Gerd. Kant and the Dynamics of Reason: Essays on the Structure of Kant’s
Philosophy. Oxford: Blackwell, 1992.
Cassierer, H. W. Kant’s First Critique: An Appraisal of the Permanent Significance of Kant’s
Critique of Pure Reason, 2nd ed. London: Allen and Unwin, 1968.
Gardner, Sebastian. Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason. London: Routledge, 1999.
Palmquist, Stephen R. Kant’s System of Perspectives: An Architectonic Interpretation of the
Critical Philosophy. Lanham: University Press of America, 1993.
Paton, Herbert J. Kant’s Metaphysics of Experience: A Commentary on the First Half of the
Kritik der reinen Vernunft. London: Allen and Unwin, 1970.
Smith, Norman Kemp. A Commentary to Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason”. 2nd rev. and
enlarged ed., New York: Humanities Press, 1923; reprint 1962.
Van de Pitte, F. P. “How ‘Pure’ is Kant’s Critique of Reason?” in Kleinschnieder, et al., eds.,
Proceedings of the V Kant Congress. Bonn: Bouvier Verlag Herbert Grundmann, 1981,
1022-28.
Wolff, Robert Paul. Kant’s Theory of Mental Activity: A Commentary on the Transcendental
Analytic of the Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press,
1969.

1.12. ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Answers to Check Your Progress I

1 Kant claims that “the word ‘transcendental’ ... does not signify something passing beyond all
experience but something that indeed precedes it a priori, but that is intended to make cognition
of experience possible” (Prolegomena, Appendix, Ak. 4:373n). It is in this sense that he calls his
philosophy transcendental.

Answers to Check Your Progress II

1. An antinomy is a pair of mutually contradictory statements, both of which can be supported by

formally valid, though transcendentally inconsistent, arguments. The lack of absolute synthetic
unity in the operations of sensibility and understanding motivates reason to demand a totality of
all conditions.

Answers to Check Your Progress III

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1. The world of experience or the object of experience given through sensibility and
understanding is phenomena, i.e., objects of actual and possible sense experience, the
knowledge of which is made possible through the application of the categories. Although
Kant denies throughout the Critique any knowledge beyond the application of the categories,
i.e., any metaphysical knowledge in the dogmatic sense, he does hold that that which appears
has something beyond appearance, which he calls noumenon.

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UNIT 2 KANT-2

Contents
2.0. Objectives
2.1. Introduction
2.2. The Concept of Imperatives
2.3. The Concept of Moral Law
2.4. The Postulates of Morality
2.5. Let Us Sum Up
2.6. Key Words
2.7. Further Readings and References
2.8. Answers to Check Your Progress

2.0. OBJECTIVES

This unit of study aims at exposing Kant’s practical philosophy in the light of his two major
ethical works, namely Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (GM) and Critique of Practical
Reason (CPrR). After a brief and general introduction to Kant’s practical philosophy, the study
presents two kinds of imperatives in Kant’s ethical works, namely hypothetical and categorical
imperatives. The categorical imperative is identified as Kant’s concept of moral law for all
empirical rational beings. The exposition proceeds to show that a priori moral law poses
freedom, God and immortality as postulates of morality.

2.1. INTRODUCTION

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), a philosopher of enlightenment, though famous mainly for his
epistemology and metaphysics, is outstanding and influential in the field of ethics too till the
present era. In every field of human enquiry Kant believes that the human reason has the
responsibility of determining the source, extent and bounds of its own principles. Living in an
era when the emergence of science and secular society and the bloody religious conflicts of the
reformation affected human life alarmingly, he suggested a critical approach to every sphere of
human thought and submitted everything to the “test of criticism”. In the field of morality, he
was looking for a secure basis that would be independent of the specific religious creeds and
traditions that had divided society and culture throughout the modern era, and could limit the
control of religious and political powers on our moral lives. Thus, of his two major ethical
works, GM (1785) would attempt to give a precise and strong foundation to morals, and CPrR
(1788) would take up the task of investigating the nature of human reason employed in morality
and highlighting the moral aspects that touched the human conduct. He believed that human
reason has the capacity to determine a priori and independently of sensibility the realm of
freedom and of what ought to be, and therefore our moral determinations are a priori, i.e., their
justifications do not depend on any particular course of experience.

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2.2. THE CONCEPT OF IMPERATIVES

Imperatives are understood as rules that we impose in matters of conduct upon our active powers
(Critique of Pure Reason (hereafter CPR), A 547/B 575, 472). They are the conclusions of a
practical reasoning which state that one has reason to act in a certain way. They necessitate the
will to do or to refrain from something. In GM Kant says: “The representation of an objective
principle in so far as it necessitates the will is called a command (of reason), and the formula of
the command is called an imperative.” (GM, Ak 4: 413, 24). “All imperatives are expressed by
an ought.” (GM, Ak 4: 413, 24). The imperatives express the oughtness of an action either for its
own sake or for some other end, for example, one ought to do physical exercises for the sake of
health, or one ought to keep one’s agreements. A finite rational being is ought to obey only those
commands which are presented to the will as practically good by means of a representation of
reason and not by the subjective causes or sensuous inclinations (GM, Ak 4: 413, 24). The
necessitation of reason does not guarantee that the right actions will necessarily take place in
those beings, but only that the reason gives laws which are imperatives in the form of
necessitation and which can only tell what ought to take place in a rational being in moral
determinations.

Kant identifies two kinds of imperatives that are commonly held to be applied in human conduct
(GM, Ak 4: 414-419, 25-29). He says that all imperatives command either hypothetically or
categorically. These two kinds of imperatives, namely the hypothetical and categorical
imperatives, stand for two aspects of practical reason, namely empirical and pure respectively.
A hypothetical imperative represents an action as good or necessary as a means to some desired
end or interest (GM, Ak 4: 414, 25). It says that one ought to perform some action, if one wants
to fulfill a particular interest. For example, ‘if you want to maintain your good reputation, you
should be honest’. Here we may note two parts: the ‘if’ part which expresses the particular desire
of an agent and the part which expresses the means that is required of him to acquire the desired
goal. The means are the required actions that take a person to the desired goal. They are required
to be carried out only by those who have an interest in the said-goal. If a person is not interested
in maintaining a good reputation, then he is exempted, or at least is not obliged by this
imperative to be honest. Therefore the hypothetical imperatives are held to be imperatives and
are relevant only for those who have an interest in the goal. In hypothetical imperatives, a
relevant question is: why should a person be obliged, if there is no reason to perform an action or
to follow a means? The validity of a hypothetical imperative is conditioned by having certain
ends or interests that are rationally optional. In other words, a hypothetical imperative has only a
conditional validity.

What makes an imperative hypothetical is not the appearance of the ‘if’ clause in its formulation.
For example, “Eat whenever you are hungry”, where there is no ‘if’ clause, yet which provides
an obligation to an agent, who, whenever has a desire for satisfying the hunger, should oblige
himself for a particular action, namely eating. Therefore the sole determining feature of a
hypothetical imperative is that it obliges the agent to an action only on condition that the agent
has a desire for something that the action could bring about. You ought to do a certain act if you

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will a certain end. Kant puts it: “whoever wills the end wills also the means that are
indispensably necessary to his actions and that lie in his power.” (GM, Ak 4: 417, 27).

One can hold a hypothetical imperative either by performing the prescribed action or by giving
up the end. In the example stated above, when a person has the interest of maintaining his good
reputation he follows the means prescribed by the imperative and thus satisfies the hypothetical
imperative. On the other hand, a person who has no interest in maintaining his good reputation –
non-interestedness of a person for the end can be either due to his incapacity of being honest or
because of the mere disinterestedness in the end itself – need not follow the demands of the
hypothetical imperative, because he is not obliged by this imperative as he has no reason to
follow the means. Nevertheless such a person does not necessarily neglect the hypothetical
imperative. The giving up of the action that is prescribed by a hypothetical imperative is not in
itself a case of the negligence of that imperative. However, the hypothetical imperative so
expressed has nothing to do with those hypothetical imperatives where one does the same action
with another motive/end in view, or where one uses some other means for the same end. For
example, those cases, where a person who practices honesty with the intention of becoming a
holy person, or a person who aims a good reputation through unjust means, etc., do not come
under the same hypothetical imperative.

A hypothetical imperative does not necessarily imply a sure or absolute means for the desired
end. There is no necessary connection between the means proposed and the desire expressed in a
hypothetical imperative. In the example given above, being honest need not necessarily secure a
person with good reputation, but only suggests that the means given is at least good or necessary,
though it cannot absolutely guarantee one with good reputation. The hypothetical imperative, ‘if
you want to maintain your good reputation, you should be honest’ is not the same as a
conditional proposition which states, ‘if you are honest, you will be reputed’; in the latter there is
a necessary consequence from the antecedent clause which expresses the condition. One of the
rules of logic states: in a true conditional proposition, if the antecedent part is affirmed, the
consequent part should also be affirmed, even though the affirmation of the consequent part need
not necessarily imply the affirmation of the given antecedent part. Now what we are assured by a
hypothetical imperative is that the proposed means is in anyway congenial to the realization of
the end. In other words, the means suggested in a hypothetical imperative is both not inimical
and good and expresses some relation, in which some may express necessary relations while
some others may not be so necessary, but express at least some form of validity or usefulness for
the end or ends to be achieved.

Kant distinguishes two kinds of hypothetical imperatives: rules of skill and counsels of
prudence. (GM, Ak 4: 415-417, 25-27). In the rules of skill, there is no question at all of
whether the end is reasonable or good. The point of interest is what must be done to attain the
end or whether the prescribed means is efficacious to carry out the end. Kant gives the example
of a doctor who uses his own prescriptions to cure a patient, and a prisoner who uses his own
means to kill a victim. From the point of view of the rules of skill, both these actions are of equal
value in so far as each serves to bring about its purpose perfectly. Moreover, a significant factor
about the rules of skill is that these rules are not always relevant for all because one may or may
not have occasions to use those rules and to accomplish the things that one has learned. Let us
take the hypothetical imperative, ‘if you want to be a good music teacher, learn music properly.’

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In this example, even if one learns music properly, he may not get an opportunity to teach or to
conduct music. Later due to some reasons, he may be engaged not in the field of music but in
some other field, for example, medicine. Whether a person uses his skills that he has learned
depends on what he chooses to do. Sometimes some of our choices are arbitrary also. Therefore
the imperatives involved in the rules of skill, Kant calls, ‘problematic’, because the ends they
propose to secure are ends that one may or may not pursue (GM, Ak 4: 415, 25). In short the
means and the ends that the rules of skill propose concern only some people, some times and the
value of the action depends mainly on the effectiveness of the proposed means to bring about the
end.

Counsels of prudence are different from the rules of skill. There is no uncertainty of usefulness
in the counsels of prudence as is the case with the rules of skill. Kant gives the example of
happiness. Though there are many ways in which a person can find his happiness, and that the
means chosen and the interests of the people may also vary in the course of time and place and
also from person to person, the proposition that ‘every one wants to be happy’ remains valid; and
everyone pursues the end that one is fitted to secure. Prudence, for Kant, is the skill in the choice
of means to one’s own greatest well being. The word ‘prudence’ is used in a double sense:
worldly wisdom and private wisdom. The former is the skill to influence others so as to use them
for one’s own purpose[s], and the latter is the sagacity to combine these purposes for one’s own
lasting advantage. The value of the former is reduced to the value of the latter. If one has the
former and lacks the latter, then he is called clever and cunning but on the whole imprudent. The
counsels of prudence, as opposed to the ‘problematic’ nature of the rules of skill, are expressed
in principles that are assertoric, and are pursued by all (GM, Ak 4: 414-416, 25-26).

Having seen the nature and kinds of hypotheical imperatives, let us now look at another type of
imperative, namely categorical imperaitve. Categorical imperatives are clearily distinguished
from hyothetical imperatives. A categorical imperative “declares an action to be of itself
objectively necessary without any reference to any purpose (Absicht), i.e., without any end
(Zweck).” (GM, Ak 4: 415, 25). Unlike the hypothetical imperatives, the basic features of a
categorical imperative are its absolute, unconditional and universal nature. The categorical
imperative affirms an action to be rationally necessary and inescapable regardless of the specific
interest of the agent. It commands absolutely even without presupposing empirical ends, which
in turn is the case with the hypothetical imperatives. A few examples of categorical imperative
are: one ought to help a certain person in need; one ought not to press one’s advantage; one
should not withhold the information; one ought to make amends for what one has done. Let us
analyze the first categorical imperative. The reason for helping a person in need does not
presuppose a prior interest in helping or in some further end outside one’s action. It comes from
the fact that as a rational agent one necessarily wills the relevant principle of benevolence. If a
person acts because of his prior interest in helping a person, then in the absence of that interest
he will not be finding a reason for helping the other and so can refrain from the benevolent act of
helping the other, and hence becomes a hypothetical imperative, and not a moral imperative.
Thus the moral imperatives are pure morals, which command actions from a sense of duty alone,
and are different from the hypothetical imperatives that recommend actions from inclinations or
for particular ends.

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Kant identifies his concept of moral law with categorical imperative. The basic factor of moral
law is not the matter or the object of action but only the form of the law, namely universality.
The moral worth of the action is to be found “in the principle of the will, with no regard to the
ends that can be brought about through such an action.” (GM, Ak 4: 400, 13). The moral law
holds an action as good or necessary in itself, without reference to any end outside the action.
The interest of the agent is in the performance of the action itself. One ought to perform an action
for its own sake, regardless of one’s desires and interests which stay outside the action. The
value of the moral action is unconditional. That is to say, the moral law as categorical imperative
places an unconditional inviolable requirement of action on an empirical rational agent.

According to Kant, means-ends relation in a hypothetical imperative is not only inadequate but
inimical to the demands of the principles of morality. A hypothetical imperative can only show
some reason for some action which in some way may be related to morality but not to the moral
principles as such. It shows only that the means suggested and the ends intended are two
different aspects of a system of law and that the ends can be achieved or at least aimed at through
the means proposed. Kant does not allow these kinds of means-end differences to be present in
the determination of the moral imperatives. He believes that the supreme principle of morality
should be universal, necessary, unconditional and absolute and is expressed as ‘categorical
imperative.’

Check Your Progress I

Note: a) Use the space provided for your answer.

b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit.

1) Explain the difference between Categorical and Hypothetical Imperatives

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2.3. THE CONCEPT OF MORAL LAW

From infancy Kant was always been struck by ‘the starry heavens above and the moral law
within’, the two orders, the physical and the moral. In the moral order, his interest was to find out
“What should be the nature of morality?” for all empirical rational beings including human
beings. In his search, he finds the nature of morality or the moral law as categorical imperative.
In the history of philosophy we ascribe the term ‘categorical imperative’ in moral philosophy to
Kant. One cannot understand Kant’s practical philosophy apart from this well articulated central
term of his moral theory called categorical imperative. Kant argues in GM that any moral
argument for finite rational beings must be understood as an argument based on the categorical
imperative (GM, Ak 4: 420, 29). Behind every sound moral judgment should there be the

5
principle of categorical imperative. For, reason demands that the moral law for every empirical
rational agent be categorical and imperative.

Moral law for Kant is a synthetic a priori proposition. A proposition is synthetic if its predicate
is not already contained in the concept of the subject; otherwise it is analytic. A proposition is a
priori if it can be known independently of experience and is a posteriori if it can be known only
through experience. Now the problem that Kant places before us is that the moral principles are
synthetic a priori propositions. Kant formulates the question in this way: “How are synthetic a
priori judgments possible?” (Kant CPR, B 73, 91).

Kant believes that a moral law for all empirical rational beings can be derived only when it is
rooted in the autonomous freedom of the agent. The source of morality should be traced in the
rational agent’s capacity of freedom to legislate himself without any determination of the
empirical factors in which he may be found. Such a moral law alone could be objective, holding
absolute and necessary obligations on all rational beings. Any conjunction with the empirical
nature of the agent for the determination of the moral law affects its purity. The moral law must
be foundationally rational, i.e., a priori and should have the form of universality. The general
formula of the moral law is called the formula of universal law, which reads as, “Act only
according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal
law.” (GM, Ak 4: 421, 30). Kant’s a priori moral law has universal application. He calls a
rational moral being universal law-giver as well. The obliging universal validity of a maxim is a
sufficient ground to determine the morality of an action. Whatever maxims are permissible or
impermissible or obligatory for one person must likewise be for any another rational agent in
similar circumstances. The deliberations of a moral agent have to be based on pure practical
reason. They do not admit partiality. In practical principles, our canon is, “we must be able to
will that a maxim of our action become a universal law.” (Kant, GM, Ak 4: 424, 32) The precise
work of pure practical reason is to assume the basic universal nature of the freedom of rational
beings for self-legislation and to present it in the form of a categorical imperative. The moral law
asserts the universal nature of rational beings and the consequent rational obligation of a will that
expresses itself as free yet morally obliged. All empirical rational beings who are affected by
sensual impulses have to be obliged by the moral law and should act from duty, allowing no
sensual impulse to take control over them. To Kant, a rational being is the author of his moral
principles and so if he acts according to them, he obeys the laws of his own autonomous reason.

Kant does not admit any empirical factor to be the determining basis of moral duty. Only pure
practical reason has the capacity to provide universal, objective and absolute morals for rational
beings. The empirical factors of human nature are contingent, and any dependence would affect
the reason’s power of being practical by itself. Therefore, they should not be the basis of the
moral law of rational beings. The empirical and sensible features of human being are unable to
state what should be for a rational being. From what is of human being does not come out what
should be of rational being. The moral principles should have the pure practical reason as their
determining basis. The moral law as categorical imperative must be the duty-bound a priori
general principle of action and therefore the law of action for all situations. In human situations,
when the will stands in conflict between the choice of moral duty and the appealing sensible
good, the pure reason presents the a priori rational possibility of an objective and absolute moral
law, that is valid for everyone, everywhere and at all times.

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A good will, for Kant, is nothing but a will determined by the pure practical power of reason. It
is good in itself. It demands action from duty alone and all other factors are irrelevant in matters
of moral determination. The concept of duty does not come under the concept of good of human
sensibility. If one forsakes duty for the sake of an empirical good, then it is, for Kant, a deviation
from one’s autonomy of reason. Any inalienable dependence on empirical factors brings forth
only heteronomous and conditional laws of action (Kant, CPrR, Ak 5: 33, 48). Kant says, “If we
assume, prior to the moral law, any object-under the name of a good-as the determining basis of
the will and then to derive the supreme practical principle from it, this would always bring about
heteronomy and displace the moral principle.” (Kant, CPrR, Ak 5: 109, p. 140). Kant is not for a
stupid good will. A good considered without a reference to reason is not acceptable to him. It
does not at the same time mean that a good will is the only good thing in Kant’s practical
philosophy. Kant says in GM that intelligence, wit, judgement, gifts of fortune, power, riches,
honour, even health, etc., are good, but only if the will, that corrects their influence on the mind,
is good (Kant, GM, Ak 4: 393, 7). Kant suggests that we judge our pleasure and sorrow by a
higher satisfaction or dissatisfaction within ourselves namely, the moral. The moral law has to
decide whether we ought to indulge or refrain from actions in the conflicting situations of the
will. As an ethicist, Kant is interested mainly in cases where one’s inclinations and duty are at
conflict. In the conflicts between duty and inclinations, reason has to determine the will so that
the will may seek not the sensual pleasure but act according to duty.

Kant believes that, whereas the moral law as such, as an idea of reason, is valid for God, angels,
human beings and all other rational beings, if there are any elsewhere, the imperative nature of
the moral law is valid only for those rational beings which are finites, with reason and sensibility.
To such empirical rational beings, moral law is an imperative, for they experience constraints in
the observation of the moral law. The categorical imperative specifies the nature of moral law for
them. To a perfect rational being, the moral law is not an imperative but ‘the law of holiness’,
because they possess unlimited reason. Kant writes, “… for the will of a maximally perfect
being, the moral law is a law of holiness, but for the will of every finite rational being it is a law
of duty, of moral necessitation, and of the determination of his actions through respect for that
law and from reverence for his duty.” (Kant, CPrR, Ak 5: 82, 106). As different from a pure will,
the human will does not necessarily identify with the moral law. We finite beings do not have a
holy will so fully determined by its inner lawful constitution that it acts spontaneously and
without struggle. The human will is not independent of sensuous affections. As empirical beings
we are pathologically affected by our sensible features. We are affected ‘through the moving-
causes of sensibility’. We have a tendency to pursue what we have found in our sense experience
as pleasure giving. An independence from such sensuous affections or tendency would be
impossible for all empirical beings including human beings. We, however, have the freedom of
will to determine ourselves independently of the influence of those sensuous affections. Moral
law is the expression of this autonomy of the human will, the freedom to determine oneself
independently of sensuous influences. The moral law, thus, is categorical imperative for those
rational beings that are affected by sensual impulses.

2.4. THE POSTULATES OF MORALITY

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By reflecting on the implications of moral duty, for example on issues like: ‘What is the real
outcome of moral action?’, ‘What is the destiny of moral life?’ ‘How can the conditions of being
good be fulfilled?’, ‘What is the possibility of a finite being like human being to the complete
fulfilment of moral demands?’, etc., Kant arrives at certain postulates of pure practical reason.
These postulates are, besides freedom which is the only necessary basis as far as the pure
reason’s determination of moral law is concerned, immortality of the soul and existence of God.
Kant discusses these postulates in CPrR’s ‘dialectic of pure practical reason’. He says, “These
postulates are not theoretical dogmas but presuppositions from a necessary practical point of
view.” (Kant, CPrR, Ak 5: 132, 167). In the postulates of pure practical reason, human beings
find certain answers to the issues of moral duty to which the speculative reason has no access.
The postulates are justified through the moral law and for its sake, and do not make any
expansion of theoretical cognition (Kant, CPrR, Ak 5: 138, 175). Let us proceed to expose these
postulates to see their significance in Kant’s practical philosophy.

According to Kant a theoretical proof that a rational being is free is impossible for the human
reason. We cannot collect any empirical data about freedom for cognitive knowledge, since
freedom transcends anything that the senses can reveal. The impossibility of an experience of
freedom as an object present in the external empirical world does not negate, for Kant, the very
possibility of freedom. He asserts that the freedom of the will and our membership of the
intelligible world are legitimate assumptions from the practical point of view (Kant, GM, Ak 4:
447, 452, 49, 53). Freedom can be proved only a priori by methods of pure practical reason. It is
established on an insight of reason into its own necessary activity. Kant claims, “We must
necessarily attribute to every rational being who has a will also the idea of freedom, under which
only can such a being act…. We cannot possibly think of a reason that consciously lets itself be
directed from outside as regards its judgments…. Reason must regard itself as the author of its
principles independent of foreign influences.” (Kant, GM, Ak 4: 448, 50). The significance of
the concept of freedom for the moral law and moral action necessitates him to postulate freedom
from the pure practical use of reason. The pure practical postulate of freedom is acceptable to
theoretical reason as well, since the latter is unable to disprove the possibility of freedom and the
pure reason’s assuming of freedom from a practical point of view is neither self-contradictory
nor negation of our world of sensible experience.

The knowledge about the possibility of freedom is to be derived from moral law. It is the moral
law which offers us the notion of freedom. Kant says that our knowledge of morality precedes
the knowledge of freedom (Kant, CPrR, Ak 5: 29, 43). Our moral consciousness may be
regarded as ‘the ground of our knowledge of freedom’. The freedom is to be understood as ‘the
reason for the being’ (ratio essendi) of moral law, while the moral law is seen as ‘the reason for
the cognition’ (ratio cognoscendi) of this freedom (Kant, CPrR, Ak 5: 4, 5). Freedom may be
also considered further as the third term that Kant introduces to synthesize the rational agent and
the moral action, the will and the object of the will. That is, besides the presupposition of the
freedom as the ratio essendi of moral law, freedom is presupposed also in moral action where the
free will, obliged by the moral law, chooses to act morally (Kant, Lectures on Ethics, notes
prepared by Johann Friedrich Vigilantius, 1793, Ak 27: 506-508, 272-273) One could trace the
source of moral law and the moral action in the subject’s freedom which expresses itself in moral
law as autonomy and obligation, which, in turn, demands moral action from the subject. Thus the
freedom of the will is justified on morality.

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The ideas of God and immortality are the other two pure practical postulates besides the
postulate of freedom that Kant gives in CPrR. Having postulated freedom as the only foundation
or the reason for the being of moral law, Kant assumes or justifies one’s beliefs in immortality
and God on the foundation of morality. Like the concept of freedom, the ideas of God and
immortality cannot be proved or disproved by the speculative reason. They lack theoretical
grounds to substantiate their objective realities. According to Kant, the only possible way to deal
with them is to take them as postulates of pure practical reason. It is morality that leads one to
have beliefs in God and immortality. The moral law as such does not need the postulates of
immortality and God. These ideas are postulated by the pure practical reason because of their
relevance in moral life. They ensure the possibility of one’s reverence for the moral law. The
moral endeavors receive vitality and efficacy through these necessary presuppositions. The
beliefs in God and immortality provide an empirical agent with a supreme head and a required
time respectively to live his virtuous dispositions fully and to work for the establishment of a
moral world. An empirical rational being necessarily assumes that there exists a supreme being
to guarantee the totality of all objects of his permissible desires (Kant, CPrR, Ak 5: 132-133,
168), as well as an everlasting state of reward for the moral dispositions. It does not at the same
time mean that one pursues the moral law because of one’s desire for complete good, i.e., the
highest possible combination of morality and happiness, which otherwise would destroy the
purity of the moral law. The idea of complete good is a practical necessity for human beings. As
the possibility for such a totality or the highest unity of virtues and happiness is not empirically
evident, or at least remains as a contingent factor in this world, it is practically necessary that we
convince ourselves that our moral endeavours somehow are not in vain but lead to the complete
good. Such reflections on practical grounds help us to make progress in our moral duties. At the
same time, God cannot be thought of in moral theory as a law-giver or as a power that forces
moral law on anyone with the threat of punishment because any external compulsion would
destroy the moral autonomy of the agent. For Kant, the moral law is the law of autonomy and so
it should be a self-legislative law. Kant’s position would be that a rational being like human
being should obey the commands of moral law, and a moral life would be the best way to please
God. Kant does not believe that we can please God in any other way than a good moral
disposition. “Apart from a good life-conduct, anything which the human being supposes that he
can do to become pleasing to God is a mere religious delusion and counterfeit service of God.”
(Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, Ak 6: 170, 166). Kant, however, agrees
with the concept of a supreme being whose will is a law for all, without his being thought of as
the author of the law (Kant, Metaphysics of Morals, Ak 6: 227, 19). In other words, the moral
law may be considered as the will of God, but the rational agent should be obliged by the moral
law not because it is the will of God, but because it is founded on the autonomy of pure reason.
What Kant advocates in morality is a practical theism. His idea of God agrees also with the idea
of a creator who has so ordered the universe that there be unity, interconnectedness and purpose
for this world. The idea of such a supreme being is also an impetus for the advancement of
knowledge. The ideas of unity, interconnectedness and purpose of this world, together with the
above stated conceptions about God would provide impetus and fervour for leading a moral life.

Kant believes that our beliefs are bound up with our acceptance of the moral law. He has not
opposed one’s belief in God or immortality but only denied the theoretical possibility for proving
the existence of God and the attempts to found morality on religious beliefs. Actually, Kant’s

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argument for belief in God and immortality is so powerfully made that one cannot overlook them
in the daily life. Kant might claim that he could strengthen the beliefs in God and immortality by
separating them from metaphysical illusions and by re-introducing them on their practical
necessity. He would regard religious beliefs as possible components of morality. For him,
morality does not rest on religion, but religious faith is founded on morality. The requirements of
morality necessitate the postulation of the religious beliefs such as the immortality of the soul
and the existence of God for human beings. These postulates are necessary ideas that make the
reception of moral law possible, and are reasonable beliefs arising from moral dispositions. The
freedom poses nothing contradictory but favours them so that the moral law may continue to
exist as the law of all empirical rational beings. Kant thus shows that morality, which is
fundamentally independent of religious belief, leads to religion. In short, the ideas of God and
immortality are postulated by pure reason for our practical purposes. Kant says that ‘it is morally
necessary’ to assume their existence. (Kant, CPrR, Ak 5: 124-125, 157-159.). They are the
necessary practical presuppositions for establishing the reverence for the moral law or for
assuring morality in the empirical rational beings. In the absence of such postulates one might
land up in absurdities causing one’s forsaking of moral duty. Even though Kant speaks of the
different practical usefulness of the beliefs in God and immortality, his primary interest with the
postulates seems to be to find the truth of morality. At the same time the ideas of God and
immortality as necessary practical postulates could support the possibility of an autonomous
moral law.

2.5. LET US SUM UP

Kant’s practical philosophy tries to present the nature of morality for all empirical rational
beings. Here Kant highlights the capacity of rational agents for self-legislation. The autonomous
freedom of the rational agent is the reason for the being of moral law. Moral law is shown to be a
synthetic a priori proposition. The moral law, so conceived, is nothing but a categorical
imperative. It gives unconditional, universal and absolute principles, applicable to every one,
everywhere and always. Unlike the hypothetical imperative, which commands an action for the
sake of an end in view, the moral imperatives demand action for its own sake without any
interest in its end. The reflections on morality include not only its a priori foundation but also the
implications for empirical rational beings. Thus morality takes us to the postulates of pure
practical reason, namely freedom, on which alone the moral law is founded, God and
immortality. These are necessary practical presuppositions for the sake of moral agents who are
not only rational but empirical as well.

Check Your Progress II

Note: a) Use the space provided for your answer.

b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit.

1) Explain the difference between synthetic and analytic propositions.

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………………………………………………………………………………………………………
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2.6. KEY WORDS

Imperatives: Imperatives are understood as rules that we impose in matters of conduct upon our
active powers.
Categorical Imperative: A categorical imperative declares an action to be of itself objectively
necessary without any reference to any purpose, i.e., without any end.
Synthetic A priori: That which is not contained in the very concept of subject but at the same
time is known independently of experience.
Postulates: Postulates are the presuppositions of reason from a pure practical point of view. In
Kant’s practical philosophy, they are freedom, God and immortality.

2.7. FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES

Allison, Henry E. Kant's Theory of Freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Beck, Lewis White. A Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1960.
Copleston, Frederick. A History of Philosophy. Vol. VI. New York: Image Books, 1994.
Grayling, A.C., ed. Philosophy 2: Further through the Subject. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1999.
Guyer, Paul, ed. Kant and Modern Philosophy. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Kant, Immanuel. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Tr. Ellington James W. Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing Company, 1993.
Kant, Immanuel. Critique of Practical Reason. Tr. Pluhar Werner S. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Publishing Company, Inc., , 2002.
Kant, Immanuel. The Metaphysics of Morals. Tr. Gregor Mary. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000.
Sullivan, Roger J. Immanuel Kant’s Moral Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2000.

2.8. ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Answers to Check Your Progress I
1. Kant identifies two kinds of imperatives that are commonly held to be applied in human
conduct (GM, Ak 4: 414-419, 25-29). He says that all imperatives command either
hypothetically or categorically. These two kinds of imperatives, namely the hypothetical and
categorical imperatives, stand for two aspects of practical reason, namely empirical and pure

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respectively. A hypothetical imperative represents an action as good or necessary as a means to
some desired end or interest (GM, Ak 4: 414, 25).

Answers to Check Your Progress II

1. Moral law for Kant is a synthetic a priori proposition. A proposition is synthetic if its
predicate is not already contained in the concept of the subject; otherwise it is analytic. A
proposition is a priori if it can be known independently of experience and is a posteriori if it can
be known only through experience. Now the problem that Kant places before us is that the moral
principles are synthetic a priori propositions.

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UNIT 3 HEGEL

CONTENTS
3.0 Objectives
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Concept of the Absolute
3.3 Organic Theory
3.4 Dialectic Method
3.5 Hegel’s Idealism
3.6 Let Us Sum Up
3.7 Key Words
3.8 Further Readings and References
3.9 Answers to Check Your Progress

3.0. OBJECTIVES

In this Unit you are expected to know:

• Explanation of the Absolute Idea of Hegel
• Evolution of reality – Organic theory
• Dialectic method
• Hegel, an idealist

3.1 INTRODUCTION

Hegel is a German thinker who devoted his life wholly to academic purists. His science of logic,
dialectical reasoning, encyclopaedia of philosophical sciences, philosophy of Right – all provide
an intellectual foundation for modern nationalism. Hegel was an idealist who methodically
constructed a comprehensive system of thought about the world. He took a much more
systematic approach than Kant by making absolute consciousness as the key source of ultimate
connections among all other things. Hegel held that Reality must be Rational and that its ultimate
structure is revealed in the structure of our thought. He attempts to give an elaborate,
comprehensive and systematic ontology from a logical standpoint.
As Kant has noted in antinomies that one general description of the world commonly
leads us into a contemplation of the opposite, Hegel made a further supposition that the two
concepts so held in opposition can always be united by a shift to some higher level of thought.
Thus, the human mind invariably moves from thesis to anti-thesis and then to synthesis,
employing each synthesis as the thesis for a new opposition to be transcended by yet a higher
level continuing, in a perpetual walk of intellectual achievement.
Compared to other philosophers, it is rather very difficult and harder to understand Hegel.
He differs from Parmenides and Spinoza in conceiving the whole, not as a simple substance, but
as as complex system like an organism. In Hegel’s view, world is not an illusion. The apparently
separate things of the world have a greater or a lesser degree of reality and their reality exists in
the aspect of the whole. Hegel calls, ‘The Whole’, in all its complexity as ‘The Absolute’.

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3.2 CONCEPT OF THE ABSOLUTE

This Absolute is not a Being separate from the world, nature or even individual persons, thus not
making a sharp distinction between appearance and reality as in Plato’s philosophy. In Hegel’s
view, nothing is unrelated and whatever we experience as separate things, will upon careful
reflection, lead us to the other things to which they are related, until at last, the process of
dialectical thought will end in the knowledge of the Absolute. Still, the Absolute is not a unity of
separate things. He never accepted Spinoza’s view that, everything is one, a single substance,
with various modes and attributes. But, Hegel describes the Absolute as a dynamic process, as an
organism having parts but nevertheless, unified into a complex system. Therefore, the Absolute
is not an entity which is separate from the world as Kant’s Noumena, but it is in the world in a
special way.

3.3 ORGANIC THEORY

The relation of the Absolute, the Whole to its parts like an organism – is the basic conception of
Hegel’s philosophy. The conception of the relation between the parts and the whole in an
organism is extended by Hegel to all truth and reality. Every truth or fact is dependent on and in
turn helps to determine every other truth or fact. Since, everything is internally determined by its
relation to every other thing, as opposed to Locke’s doctrine of externality of relations, this
theory is called, ‘Organic theory of Truth and Reality’
Hegel explains this organic theory of Truth and Reality with an example of a work of art.
The meaning of a painting can be understood not by analysing the chemical constitution of the
canvas, though the painting cannot exist without it. Nor, can we appreciate it by studying its each
part, though each part has an artistic relation to the rest. It is part of a whole and the true
significance of this whole is more than the addition of these different parts. The whole logically
determines the character of each of the parts and in turn each part contributes to the whole. In the
same way, the personality of man is determined not by what he is at present, but by the
biologically inherited traits of his parents, influences of his relatives, teachers, playmates,
associates, other individuals and human race itself. Not only that, even the planets on which he
lives, which in turn is conditioned by the other heavenly bodies in the universe. Life as a whole
is conditioned by human society, which in turn is related to the entire universe. Thus Hegel
concluded that universe becomes conscious of itself in the individual and considers the Absolute
as the world in its unity and completeness. Hence, he opines that this Absolute is not beyond
space and time, but it is in space and time, in its infinite, all embracing thought.
Hegel’s uniqueness is exhibited in the use of the terms – ‘Abstract’ and ‘Concrete’. He
explains that understanding the functioning of a leaf in its relation to the tree or viewing the
individual’s experiences as a member of the society is more ‘concrete’, while getting knowledge
of a leaf by examining it under a microscope or regarding individual’s experiences depending on
separate instances as ‘abstract’. That means, if we look at anything by itself apart from its
relationship, we are looking at it ‘abstractly’ and on the contrary, if we consider it in its organic
relationship, we view it ‘concretely’. Hegel claims that the absolute is wholly concrete Reality
comprehended within a whole and not something apart from other things.
This reality is Absolute, Divine and Abstract, but it is Concretized through different types
of expressions in nature and humans. It is ‘thought - thinking’ itself, ‘a unity of the subjective
and objective Idea’. According to Hegel, there is no truth except the whole truth. So, Absolute is

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the synthesis of Subjective Spirit and Objective Spirit because, Reality is Rationality. Man’s
knowledge of the Absolute is actually the Absolute, knowing itself through the finite spirit of
man.
Hegel believes that this Absolute is the ultimate reality, which passes through the
different stages of development in time and becomes conscious of itself in human reason. Yet,
this absolute is timeless, eternal, all embracing, self completed whole.
By his logical method called Dialectic, he shows how everything is connected in
principal with everything else and helps to constitute this whole. His method of reasoning is not
linear like that of Descartes because, he does not start with some undoubted simple proposition
and then proving each successive step in a mathematical way. Rather, he adopts an implicative
system where in each phase of argument is shown to imply the rest. This mutual interdependence
of all details and the comprehensiveness without ambiguities and inconsistencies prove the truth
of the system as a whole. Thus, a system in which all is explained in a clear and consistent
manner must be true. For, ‘the truth is the whole’. Everything of it is internally systematically
related having reason for its existence at its basement.
The basic theme of Hegel’s metaphysics is to demonstrate the unity of the opposites like,
one and many, nature and culture, individual and society. The sense of fragmentation and
discreteness is alien to the spirit of Hegel’s philosophy. The self positing and self negating spirit
of wholeness is the very nature of Hegelian reality.
In his metaphysical system, he wants to achieve two objectives:
a. Man’s unity with nature
b. Man’s unity with his own self and other selves
According to Hegel world is intelligible, reason being at the heart of things. Man can
understand this truth through its faculty of reason. Hegel directly throws out a challenge to Hume
and insists that there are things beyond our sense experiences which have equally real existence
and one can know them through reason, even going beyond one’s senses. Pure reason, as
opposed to practical reason has formal existence, as opposed to material existence. Pure reason
though is beyond space and time, it exists in the abstract sense with as much reality as the
existence as the other concrete things. For example, the proposition ‘two’ and ‘two’ equals ‘four’
has a formal existence and remains true though we have never seen the abstract quantity ‘two’
through our senses. Without the existence of an abstract measure of quantity, we would never be
able to distinguish between the concrete quantities of things in experience.
It is Hume’s view that, we can never discover a first cause for the world or indeed a cause
for anything, while Hegel argues that even if we cannot find a cause, we can at least find a
reason for it. A cause is an active force that produces an effect in time. A reason is a logical
necessity which has nothing to do with time. The reason for the world has a logical temporal
priority to the world, just as a mathematical problem has a logical non-temporal priority for its
solution. The ‘logical’ exists as truly as the ‘physical’. Therefore, he argues that ‘the Real is the
Rational’. For Hegel, ‘the Real’ does not mean the real in an empiricist’s sense. He means by it
that, every thing that is, is knowable and this view gave a new basis for thinking about the very
structure of reality and about it’s manifestation in morality, law, religion, art, history and above
all thought itself.
Hegel calls this Absolute – ‘The Idea’, ‘The Spirit’, ‘The Mind’ etc. Here, the word
‘Idea’ should always be spelled with an initial capital letter ‘I’ and prefixed by ‘the’. In his
opinion, ‘Idea’ means not the subjective creation of one’s mind or an idea of this mind or that
mind, a resultant or a faded out image. It has a special meaning. Nothing is so real for him as

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‘The Idea’. This view may be compared with Plato’s conception of ‘Idea’ to the extent that, ideas
are realities that human mind may discover, but do not create. In other respects, Hegel differs
from Plato. In his opinion, Idea exists by itself and is independent of its being expressed in
different particular forms. ‘The Idea’ is not static and self subsistent. But, has in it a force or
power which makes its expression not only possible but also necessary. It’s self expressive
power which is natural to it, is inherent in it. In and through, all forms of dialectical
development, progress as well as regress, ‘The Idea’ preserves its organic and purposive
character.
Hegel laid great stress upon logic believing that knowing and being coincide. His view is
that we can know the essence of reality by moving logically step by step, avoiding all self
contradictions along the way. Since the rationality and actuality are identified by him, he agrees
that, thought must follow the inner logic of reality itself. That means, logical connections must
be discovered in the actual and not in some ‘Empty Ratiocination’. Logic then is a process by
which we deduce from our experience of the actual, the categories that describe the Absolute.
This process of deduction is at the very heart of Hegel’s dialectic philosophy.

Check Your Progress I

Note: a) Use the space provided for the answer.
b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit.
1. Explain Hegel’s concept of Absolute

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3.4 DIALECTIC METHOD

Existence is all inclusive, it comprises within it the state of ‘not being’ as well as ‘being’.
Everything contains within itself, its own opposite. It is impossible to conceive of anything
without conceiving at the same time its opposite. We cannot think of finiteness without thinking
of the infinity, or the time without thinking of the timelessness. Every thesis for an argument has
its anti thesis as life and death, love and hate, day and night, youth and old age.
Whole nature is a reconciliation of opposites and Hegel’s dialectic shows that any thesis
implies its anti thesis and that the two are united in a higher synthesis in which the opposition
between the two is reconciled and overcome in a lager unity. The Absolute Idea passes through a
dialectic of many triads – each of which has its own Thesis, Anti Thesis and Synthesis. In the
thesis, a certain aspect of reality is revealed and in the anti thesis, a contrasting aspect appears
and the two are synthesised in a higher synthesis. The synthesis again gives rise to a new triad
and that too another in turn. Thus, there are triads within triads and still other triads within there.
Hegel tries to prove this by a logical deduction. Hence, the order of the dialectic is considered to
be purely logical.
Hegelian dialectic, usually presented in a threefold manner comprising of three stages of
development – A thesis giving rise to its reaction, anti thesis which contradicts or negates the
thesis and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis. Hegel uses the
term Abstract or Immediate to thesis and Negative or Mediate to anti thesis and Concrete to
synthesis. If a particular moment of thought or what it is about is regarded as a position, time and

4
reflection show that it is incomplete and has its opposition. In due logical course, this opposition
emerges further reflection and time and again shows that it is incomplete. In spite of their
incompleteness and negative features, i.e. what they lack, both position and opposition have in
them some positive promising and complementary features. These features and expressions in a
higher composition in which position (thesis) and opposition (anti thesis) are sublimated and
creatively reproduced is called synthesis. Thus, Hegel’s dialectic method exhibits a systematic
tri-rhythmic process until it culminates in the Absolute Idea.
The first basic triad of this logic is Being Nothing and Becoming. Hegel observes that our
mind always moves from the more general and abstract to the specific and concrete. The most
general concept that we can form about things is that – ‘They are’. Although various things have
specific and different qualities, they all have one thing in common. i.e their Being. So, Being is
the most general concept that our mind can formulate. For, being must be logically prior to any
specific thing, for things represent determinations or the shaping of what is originally without
features. Hegel’s concept begins with the concept of being and this is the thesis. ‘Absolute is
pure Being’, which means that ‘it just is’, without assigning any qualities to it. But, ‘pure Being’
without any qualities is Nothing. Thus pure being alone suggests its own opposite, Nothing.
Therefore Nothing is the anti thesis and we are lead to say that Absolute is Nothing.
But, both being and nothing are incomplete as they are opposed to each other. Therefore,
this opposition must be reconciled in a higher concept called becoming. Hence, we can say that
the ‘Absolute is Becoming’. Thus, the higher concept ‘Becoming’ is a union of ‘Being’ and
‘Nothing’. These three stages must be present at every stage of development in reality. The
nature of reasoning must therefore be the same as the nature of reality. Reasoning and reality are
never passive and static, but always dynamic. Thus both the method and nature of reasoning are
applicable to reality which means that what is true of thought is true of reality, without any
dualism between them.
Hegel believed that the inner essence of the absolute could be reached by human reason
because the Absolute is disclosed in nature as well as in the working of the human mind. What
connects these three – the Absolute, nature and man’s mind is thought itself. Nature is the
objective self, as opposed to the conscious self. If we wish to obtain the truth, we must not only
view the world from the stand point of our inner selves, but we must view our inner selves from
the stand point of the world. This is the supreme test we must pass, if we have to follow the
highest law of reason. We must regard ourselves with complete objectivity as our own opposite,
anti-thesis and then we are ready for the synthesis known to human experience. By withdrawing
from our imperfect and fragile consciousness, we will achieve a far greater, sublime, perfect
consciousness of self. It is only then that we will be able to realise that this self is completely
aware of its own organic unity in all its inclusiveness. In this way, nature rises to self
consciousness in man and man rises to self consciousness in freedom. Thus the Absolute Idea in
itself as pure reason (logic) acts a the thesis and the nature becomes the anti thesis and the grand
synthesis of the two is the spirit or the mind, the self knowing.
The second basic triad of nature is matter, life and mind. In matter, the thesis we do find
that parts are related mechanically and in life, the anti thesis, they are united organically.
Therefore, every living being is an organism and every part in it is controlled by the central life
principle. That means, a living organism is not only mechanical and physical in its constitution,
but something more. That is, it has life in it. The higher concept, mind is a union of matter and
life. Mind or the subjective spirit is the synthesis of the evolution of matter and life. Therefore,
the presence of a well developed mind or ego constitutes the distinguishing feature of human

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existence, which cannot be found at the lower level of nature. This mind in man is capable of
controlling both the material body and the principle of life in man. In fact, the mind is the union
of both matter and life in man who can reason with self-consciousness. Hegel calls this self
consciousness – mind or spirit. So, the Absolute mind which is in a world external to itself in
nature, returns to itself in finite individuals which participate in its own rational thought. In this
way, the opposition between matter (thesis) and life (anti-thesis) is overcome at a higher level
called, the subjective mind (synthesis). This brings him to the third part of the system called the
philosophy of mind.
In this third part, the philosophy of mind, Hegel deals with the cultural experiences of
mankind which sets forth the elements of his dialectic in a clear exquisite manner. The basic
triad of this part are subjective spirit (thesis), which refer to the inner working of the human mind
and the objective spirit which represents the mind in its external embodiment in the social and
political institutions become the anti-thesis and at the apex of knowledge stands the absolute as
its synthesis.
Hegel has pointed out that there are triads within triads, even in the understanding of the
subjective spirit. We can try to understand this subjective spirit through different branches of
knowledge. Anthropology, which deals with the structure of human body and the cultural
developments through generation, provides the thesis, while phenomenology which deals with
ego, which is opposite to body and other objects of the world provide the anti thesis. This
opposition can be overcome by the higher consciousness of mind which is the subject matter of
psychology as synthesis. Thus, in this triad, we are having Anthropology as thesis,
Phenomenology as anti-thesis and Psychology as its synthesis.
The objective spirit is explained by Hegel with reference to the social consciousness or
the society in general. The society in which man lives is not a mere collection of people, but has
got a consciousness of its own called social consciousness which is characterised by a set of
psychological attitudes, traditions, beliefs, cultural patterns etc. This doctrine of objective spirit
can be analysed in three sub parts, called the concept of right, the concept of morality and the
concept of social morality.
Right means that which gives security and protection of life to everyone who lives in that
society. This concept of right has three implications – Right to property (Thesis), Right to
contract (Anti-Thesis) and Right to punish (Synthesis) respectively. Right to property promises
everyman the right to possess some property for the sustenance of his own life and his family. At
the same time, everyman should recognise that the other persons also should have the same right
like him. So, he enters into a contract with which other’s right is recognised. Thus the right to
contract becomes the anti-thesis of his right triad. To unite the above thesis and anti-thesis, a
higher level of concept called, right to punish arrives as a synthesis. When a person’s property is
encroached upon by others, it becomes necessary to punish them. To restore the right to property
of each individual against its laws finds an important place in social life and thus emerges the
right of punishment.
If, claiming certain rights from the society called the concept of right becomes the thesis,
then discharging certain duties to the society with duty consciousness called the concept of
morality becomes the anti-thesis. Man being conscious of his rights and duties becomes aware of
the fact that his own happiness is tied up with social happiness. If the society as a whole
prospers, then the individual in that society also prospers. Therefore, must work for the progress
of the society as a whole which may be termed, the concept of social morality as the synthesis.
The principle triad of the objective spirit consists of law in the sense of abstract right which

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Hegel defines as ‘Be a person and respect others as persons’ which is similar to Kant’s second
“Categorical Imperative’ – ‘Treat every human being, including yourself as an end in himself
and not a means to the advantage of anyone else’. In other words, ‘Respect yourself and respect
others impartially and exploit no one’.
Though, there is an apparent distinction between man and society, Hegel tries to show
that man finds his fullness of being in and through individuals and the relations obtaining
between them. The unity of reality finds richest expression at the man-society level. Society is
not a mere construct for Hegel, but has an organic character since it expresses and fulfils itself
through the lives of the individuals. Man being a self-conscious person has some moral
capacities and the corresponding obligations to his fellow humans. When the subjective rights
and inward conscience becomes objectified in social institutions like family and state, social
ethics emerges. The whole sphere of human behaviour – both individual and collective is
described by him as a part of the actual and therefore is essentially rational. Hegel looks upon
the social institutions not as the creation of man, but as the product of the dialectical movement
of history, of the objective manifestation of rational reality.
Our consciousness of the absolute, says Hegel is achieved progressively as the mind
moves from art to philosophy through religion. Art provides a conscious semblance of the Idea
by providing the mind, with an object of statue, building, music or poetry. In the object of art,
mind apprehends the absolute as beauty. In other words, man sees through these sensuous
medium the manifestation of the divine beauty. Art thus becomes the thesis of his dialectic
method.
Since no sensuous form can convey adequately the profound spiritual truth, the dialectic
passes from art to its anti-thesis in religion. Religion occupies an intermediate position between
art and philosophy. The content of religion is representation of pure thought clothed in imagery
of some kind that is God. So, Hegel does not reject the representation of religion as mere
delusions, but sees in them the actual revelations of the absolute which expresses the truth as
adequately as the popular mind has been able to grasp it.
Man feels the presence of divine within himself in his internal consciousness and he
expresses beauty seen through the sense organs and felt religious content by means of well
cultivated expression through which the highest truth comes to be expressed called philosophy.
Religion and philosophy having basically the same subject matter represent the knowledge of
‘That’, which is eternal, of what God is and what flows out of nature. But, philosophy leaves
behind the pictorial form of religion and rises to the level of pure thought.
In philosophy, the Absolute thinks about itself through the medium of philosopher’s
mind. At this level, there will be no distinction between the finite and the infinite, as finite
becomes one with the infinite, which is the highest level of development that an individual can
attain. Ultimately, in philosophy, according to Hegel – the thinker is the Absolute, the subject
matter of thinking is the Absolute and the medium through which the absolute thinks is also the
absolute. Thus Hegel places philosophy as the highest point of development of human
knowledge. Hence, it is often said that western philosophical thinking which started from Plato
passed through several stages, reached its culmination in Hegel’s philosophy.
According to Hegel, philosophy does not offer man the knowledge of the Absolute, at
any particular moment, because, that knowledge is the product of the dialectical process. The
history of philosophy is for him, the development of the absolute self consciousness in the mind
of man. The philosophical mind discovers the absolute in all stages of the dialectic and in so

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doing man becomes rational. Self conscious and appreciates his position in the universe, which is
organic and rational.
Dialectic, according to Hegel means no longer the art of argumentation. Rather it is the method
of overcoming the limitations and rising to the level of the absolute. Each stage of the dialectic
occupies an important position which has a proper place as a moment in the whole. It is possible
to reach the truth only by going through all the steps in the dialectic. In this specific sense, logic
becomes metaphysics and thus the fulfilment of all knowledge.

3.5 HEGEL’S IDEALISM

Hegel gave the world a more plausible and comprehensive system of idealism. His sole concern
was to understand the world as it is and to explain everything logically. He explains adequately,
the rational constitution of the universe. Even God as has been remarked, does not seem to be
permitted any secrets which Hegel’s reason is unable to disclose.
Like Berkeley, though Hegel is an idealist, his idealism differs very much from Berkeley.
Berkeley being an empirical theistic idealist believes that, God created this world and has His
own existence, independent of His creation. While, Hegel being a rationalistic pantheistic idealist
opines that Absolute is the world in its organic unity and not the creator of it. For Hegel, world is
real although its various parts are dependent upon the unity of the whole. The whole is not a
blank, unknowable unity, but it is rational and knowable in its organic interrelatedness.

3.6 LET US SUM UP

Hegel points out that the Absolute first manifests itself in the categories of logic and then
externalised in the physical nature, subjective mind and objective mind. Final culmination is
reached in the absolute mind in which the whole reality is apprehended in its organic unity and
completeness. In art, this is done through the medium of sensuous form, in religion through
worship and in philosophy the absolute is disclosed in the conception of pure thought. Hegel
criticises the traditional epistemological distinction of the objective from the subjective and
offers his own dialectical account of the development of consciousness from individual sensation
through social concern with ethics and politics to the pure consciousness, the spirit. The result is
a comprehensive world view that encompasses the historical development of civilization in all its
sources.

Check Your Progress II

Note: a) Use the space provided for the answer.
b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit.

1. Give an account of dialectic method

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3.7. KEY WORDS

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Absolute: Etymology: Middle English absolut, from Anglo-French, from Latin absolutus, from
past participle of absolvere to set free, absolve. The following are some of its developed
meanings: free from imperfection (PERFECT); free or relatively free from mixture (PURE); being,
governed by, or characteristic of a ruler or authority completely free from constitutional or other
restraint (absolute power).
Absolute Mind (Hegel): Absolute mind is the state in which mind rises above all the limitations
of nature and institutions, and is subjected to itself alone in art, religion, and philosophy. For the
essence of mind is freedom, and its development must consist in breaking away from the
restrictions imposed on it by nature and human institutions.

3.8. FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES

Runes, D.D. Living Schools of Philosophy. Iowa: Little Field Adoms and Company, 1958.
Russell, Bertrand. History of Western Philosophy. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1957.
S. E, Stumpf. Socrates to Sartre. New York: McHill Book Company, 1966.
Wright, W.K. A History of Modern Philosophy. New York: The Mac Millan Company, 1966.
3.9. ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS
Answers to Check Your Progress I
Absolute, according to Hegel is the idea, the spirit or the mind which is infinite, timeless, eternal,
all embracing ultimate reality – union of a self positing and a self negating spirit, which is a
self completed whole – Exists by itself and independently of its being expressed in different
particular forms - Dynamic and having parts unified into a complex system, like an organism
– Unity of opposites expressing in a dialectical method –realised by human reason and the
highest point of development of human knowledge – ultimately, it is the thinker thinking
subject and the medium of thinking

Explanation of the relation of the absolute – the whole to its parts – that is nature, humans,
subjective spirit and objective spirit like an organism having an internal inseparable
relationship like a piece of work of art and its part – Explanation of the relation of the
absolute and the world following the dialectic method

Reality is rational means its ultimate structure is revealed in the structure of our thought –
Concretised in nature and humans and a synthesis of subjective spirit and objective spirit –
Becomes conscious of itself in human reason – Pure reason having formal existence, exists in
the abstract sense with as much reality as the existence of concrete things – The logical exists
as truly as physical. Therefore, real is rational – Reality is knowable through different
manifestations – Knowledge of it can be attained through dialectical process – Explanation of
how rationality and actuality are identified.

Answer to Check Your Progress II

Triadic structure of dialectic method having thesis , anti thesis and synthesis – Explanation of the
triads – Being, Nothing and Becoming – Matter, Life and Mind – Subjective Spirit ,
Objective Spirit and the Absolute – Anthropology, Phenomenology and Psychology –
Concept of right, morality and social morality – Right to property, contract and of
punishment – Art, religion and philosophy – Philosophy being the culmination of all thought.

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10
UNIT 4 POSITIVISM

Contents

4.0 Objectives
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Comte’s Life and Works
4.3 Comte’s Concern and Aim.
4.4 Philosophy of Comte
4.5 The Classification of the Sciences
4.6 Sociology of Comte
4.7 Religion of Humanity
4.8 Later Developments of Positivism
4.9 Logical Positivism
4.10 Let Us Sum Up
4.11 Key Words
4.12 Further Readings and References
4.13 Answers to Check Your Progress

4.0 OBJECTIVES

One of the important philosophical movements which originated in the nineteenth century and
shaped the thinking of scientists and scholars in the 20th century also is positivism. The aim of
this paper is to make the students acquaint with the background, origin and development of
Positivism, especially the contribution of Auguste Comte, the later development of positivism
and its continued relevance to the understanding of natural and social sciences today.

4.1. INRTRODUCTION

Positivism means the doctrine and movement founded by the French philosopher Auguste
Comte in the nineteenth century and also the general philosophical view of knowledge
proposed by Francis Bacon, John Locke, Isaac Newton and contemporary thinkers life Mortiz
Schlick, Ernst Mach, Rudolf Carnap and others which assert that genuine knowledge should be
based on observation and advanced by experiment. In the social sciences positivism is
associated with three assumptions; first that knowledge should be founded on experience
alone; secondly the belief that the methods of natural sciences are directly applicable to the
social world and on the basis of it laws about social phenomena can be established; and thirdly
the axiological principle that normative statements do not have the status of knowledge and
maintains a rigid separation between facts and values. Bacon believed that philosophers should
not attempt to wander beyond the ‘limits of nature’. He held that there are ultimate facts that
should be accepted on the basis of experience, and he applied the adjective ‘positive’ to these
inexplicable facts and to the doctrine based on them. Gradually the method of natural sciences
which relied on observation and experience came to be termed positive. Saint–Simon applied
the term positive in his Essay on the Science of Man to the sciences which were based on facts
which have been observed and analyzed. Comte believed that the function of theories in
science is to co-ordinate observed facts rather than to explain them in terms of causes and to

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emphasize this view he used the term positive. His Positive Philosophy later cane to be called
Positivism. In the following sections we shall concentrate on the positivism of Comte

4.2. LIFE AND WORKS OF AUGESTE COMTE

Isidore Auguste Marie Francois Xavier Comte, the founder of Positivism was born at
Montpellier, France in 1798 to a devout Catholic family with royalist sympathies. However,
when he was fourteen he had ceased to believe in God and also abandoned the royalist
sympathies of the family. He studied in the Ecole Polytechnique of Paris and later became a
teacher there. In 1817 Comte became secretary to the French utopian socialist Saint-Simon,
from whom Comte got certain radical ideas of social reform which animated his entire life. In
April 1826, Comte began teaching a Course of Positive Philosophy. About this time he had a
temporary mental breakdown. After recovering, he was appointed instructor and examiner in
mathematics at the Ecole polytechnique. He resumed the Course of Positive Philosophy in 1829.
Comte also published an Elementary Treatise on Analytic Geometry (1843), the Philosophical
Treatise on Popular Astronomy (1844) and The Discourse on the Positive Spirit. In 1845,
Comte met Clothilde de Vaux and fell madly in love with her and married her, but within a
short time she died. Following Clothilde’s death, an event which brought him close to insanity,
Comte began to idolize her. The next year, Comte chose the Evolution of Humanity as the new
topic for his public discourse; this was an occasion to lay down the premises of what would
become the new Religion of Humanity. In 1848 he founded the Positivist Society, and published
the General View of Positivism, as well as the Positivist Calendar. In 1849, he founded the
Religion of Humanity. Between the years 1851and 1854 he published the four-volume System of
Positive Polity, and the Catechism of Positive Religion. On Sept 5, 1857, worn out from his
intellectual labors and personal tragedies Comte died surrounded by his followers. He was
buried in the Père-Lachaise cemetery, where his Brazilian followers erected a statue of Humanity
in 1983. The inscription on his tombstone reads ‘Love as the Principle, Order as the Means,
Progress as the Goal’.

4.3. COMTE’S CONCERN AND AIM

The point of departure for Comte’s thought was the experience of the internal contradictions of
the society of his age. The French revolution had fractured the unity that existed in the French
Society. So Comte’s main concern throughout his life was resolving the political social and
moral problems caused by the French Revolution. He believed that many of the contradictions
were because of the transition that was taking place from the theological-military past in its
Catholic feudal form towards an inevitable scientific-industrial type of society. So far the
scientific mode of thought has not completely triumphed over its main rivals and so there was
intellectual anarchy, which in turn produces social anarchy. Comte believed that the only way
to put an end to the crisis was to bring together the ‘positive ideas’ of the time that are
scientific, free from the bonds of traditional theology and metaphysics. He believed that a
system of scientific ideas should govern the new social order which will provide unity and
cohesion to modern society just as the system of theological ideas governed the social order of
the past.
Comte’s ambition was to found a naturalistic science of society capable of explaining the past
of humankind and to predict its future by applying the same methods of enquiry which had

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proved successful in the study of nature, namely observation, experimentation and comparison.
Comte coined the term ‘sociology’ to designate the science which would synthesize all positive
knowledge, explain the dynamics of society, and guide the formation of the positivist society.

Check Your Progress 1

Note: a) Use the space provided for your answer

b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit

1) What is the meaning of positivism?

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2) What are the important works of Auguste Comte?
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3) What was the main concern and goal of Comte’s thinking?
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4.4. PHILOSOPHY OF COMTE

According to Comte in order to understand the true value and character of the positive
philosophy, we must take a general view of the progress that human history has made so far.
This development has followed a definite pattern and a fundamental law. The law is that each
branch of knowledge progresses successively through three different theoretical conditions: the
theological, or fictitious; the metaphysical or abstract; and the scientific or positive. These three
methods of philosophizing, that is making reality comprehensible are incompatible1.

The necessary starting-point of the development of human understanding is the theological stage.
It searches for first and final causes and absolute knowledge. Phenomena are explained by
reference to the acts of supernatural agencies. The highest point of development of the
theological stage is reached when all phenomena are conceived as the effect of a single deity.
Comte divides the theological stage into three:
(a) Animism- in which everyday objects were turned into items of religious purpose and
worship, with godlike qualities.

1
Ted Benton, Philosophical Foundations of the Three sociologist .London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,1978,pp.28-
36.

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(b). Polytheism - Explanation of things through the use of many gods.
(c). Monotheism - Attributing all to a single, supreme deity.
This period started with the beginning of human history and was dominated by priests and the
military and the dominant social unit was the family.
In the metaphysical stage the supernatural beings are replaced by abstract forces and underlying
entities to which all phenomena are referred. The highest form of development of this stage was
when all phenomena were referred to one single entity: Nature. It is a speculative doctrine on the
‘essences’ and ‘causes’ of phenomena. The middle ages were predominantly metaphysical; the
basic social unit was the state and was dominated by churchmen and lawyers.
At the third stage, the positive stage, the human mind recognizes the impossibility of acquiring
absolute knowledge concerning the origin and purpose of the universe, and applies itself to the
study of the laws of the invariable relations of succession and resemblance of phenomena. This
science takes reasoning and observation as the means of knowledge. What is now meant by an
explanation of facts is simply the establishment of a connection. This is the modern industrial
society and the social unit is the whole of humanity and should be guided by industrial
administrators and scientists.

4.5. THE CLASSIFICATION OF THE SCIENCES AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE

In The Positive Philosophy Comte examines the different sciences and their logical relations to
one another. His position is that the most general and inclusive sciences were required first, as
the logically necessary preparation for the more particular ones. Mathematics, as the abstract or
fundamental study of the forms of existence common to all things, is presupposed for the
successful study of astronomy and physics, and physics is needed for the development of
chemistry. Biology, in like manner, depends upon chemistry for its emergence as a lawful
science. Biology, though logically depending upon chemistry, has laws of its own because living
beings behave very differently from nonliving chemical entities. In the same way, human society
is far less general than the biological realm as a whole, though society clearly presupposes and
depends on the biological laws. Thus Comte rejected methodological reductionism of higher
sciences to the lower, despite the fact that the former presuppose the latter. This means that
despite the complete grounding of sociology in biology, the laws of human society will
inevitably have their own autonomy. The positive scientific study of society is what he calls
"sociology,” which he believed would be the "final science." Each higher level science adds to
the knowledge content of the science or sciences on the levels below, thus enriching this content
by successive specialization. This ordering provides first of all for the unity of the sciences, as
successive branches from a common stem, and secondly for the recognition of the historical
emergence of the distinctive methods of different empirical subjects. According to Comte’s
classification of the sciences sociology had to wait for the maturing of all prior disciplines to
emerge as an independent science. The crowning science, the most complex and consequently
the last to emerge as an empirical domain of invariant lawfulness, is sociology. Sociology and
positive philosophy finally will provide the much needed reorganization of politics, ethics, and
religion.
Comte, because of the classification of sciences he makes, could also be considered the founder
of philosophy of science in the modern sense. Comte's philosophy of science is based on a
systematic difference between method and doctrine. Method is superior to doctrine: scientific
doctrines change but the value of science lies in its methods. The positive method of different

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sciences depends on the nature of the sciences to which it is applied: in astronomy it is
observation, in physics experimentation, in biology comparison. Finally, his classification also
holds the key to a theory of technology. According to Comte there is a systematic connection
between complexity and modifiability: the more complex a phenomenon is, the more modifiable
it is. The order of nature is a modifiable order. Human action takes place within the limits fixed
by nature and consists in replacing the natural order by an artificial one. Comte's education as an
engineer had made him quite aware of the links between science and its applications, which he
summarized in an oft-quoted slogan: ‘From science comes prevision, from prevision comes
action’.
“There will be few students of the social sciences now who have even read Comte or know much
about him. But the number of those who have absorbed most of the important elements of his
system through the intermediation of a few very influential representatives of his tradition is very
high indeed.”2

4.6. SOCIOLOGY OF COMTE

The goal of Comte’s intellectual endeavor was to develop a science of society that could explain
the past, organize the present and predict the future. Initially, he called this new science social
physics, and later, 'sociology.' Comte stressed the necessity of separating facts from values
during the course of scientific inquiry and dreamed about the ideal society ruled by scientists
with decisions made on the basis of scientific evidence. Comte wanted his new science,
sociology, not only be of academic interest, but also something that should benefit society and
contribute to the improvement of the quality of life. Comte saw unity of humanity as the
fundamental necessity of the time. And the first condition for this unity is the subordination of
the intellect to the heart. The desired and required unity requires an objective basis, existing
independently in the external world. This basis consists according to him is in the laws or order
of the phenomena by which humanity is regulated. As soon as the human intellect is capable of
grasping these laws, it becomes possible for the feeling of love to exercise a controlling influence
over our discordant tendencies. The order existing in the external world is objective in that it is
not an order we can choose; it exists independently of ourselves. In short, realizing the existence
of this order as a pre-condition is what enables us to overcome our "discordant tendencies". A
purely subjective unity, without any objective basis, would be simply impossible. Self-love is
deeply implanted in our nature, and when left to itself is far stronger than feeling for fellow
human beings. The social instincts can gain mastery over selfishness only by the factors that
exist independently of us in the external world. They exert an influence which at the same time
checks the power of the selfish instincts.
Comte wanted sociology to be the integrating science of all other sciences that deal with the
external nature of human life in society. The possibility of moral unity of individuals and society
depends upon the necessity of recognizing our subjection to an external power which can
discipline our instincts. The recognition of an external power that limits our possibilities is what
makes a society possible. Absolute freedom is anarchy, and it is unworkable. The true path of
human progress lies in diminishing the vacillation, inconsistency, and discordance of our designs
by furnishing external motives for our intellectual, moral and practical powers. An important

2
F.A. Hayek, The Counter Revolution of Science: Studies in the Abuse reason. New York The Free Pr3ess of
Glencol, 1964. p.188 quoted in Gertrud Lenzer, ed., Auguste Comte and Positivism: The Essential Writings (New
York: Harper, 1975) .p. xi.

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function of philosophy is to criticize nature in a positive spirit which would help in our struggle
to become more perfect.

Check Your Progress II

Note: a) Use the space provided for your answer

b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit

1) Describe Comte’s law of three stages

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4.7. THE RELIGION OF HUMANITY

At the heart of Auguste Comte's program for resolving the 'crisis' of

industrial society was a project for 'positivising' religion by instituting a religion of humanity.
There was an urgent need for a fundamental consensus in the post revolutionary industrial
society for a new form of spiritual power with a new ideal as an object of devotion to bind the
society together. In other words there was a need for a new religion. Comte believed that the
positive religion would provide the scientific-humanist equivalent to the systematic theology of
the Middle Ages and could serve as the intellectually unifying basis of the new industrial order.
During what he termed as his second career Comte the historian and philosopher of positivism
became the high priest of the ‘Religion of Humanity’. His passionate love for Clothilde de Vaux
and her death had profound influence on his life and gave an insight into the true source of
happiness and changed his whole conception of life. The change in his personal life
manifested in his desire to transform his philosophy into a new religion. The function of
religion is to gather up and organize human life. So it must deal equally with all parts of human
nature; namely, thought activity and feeling. Thus religion requires first of all a scheme or
synthesis as a basis of belief, i.e. a creed, secondly a set of institutions and principles to
discipline and guide one’s action, a code of conduct; and thirdly a set of habits to cultivate the
emotions and educate the heart, a cult. A creed is a set of beliefs dealing with the meaning,
purpose and destiny of human life. The code of conduct obligates the believers to behave in a

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certain manner because of what they believe. There must be an object of devotion and duty
capable of being invoked and worshiped, which can bring forth in the believer feelings of
security and providence. The human race itself, real and ideal at the same time, including the
past, present and future was Comte’s object of worship and devotion. This grand existence,
“Grand Etre’ as he termed it is capable of invoking devotion. Now if the object of one’s
worship is humanity itself, Comte believes that this ideal can impel the believer to love and
sacrifice for the sake of humanity. Humanity as the great ideal and object of worship needs our
help unlike the ideal beings/Being of traditional religions which are omnipotent and thus does
not need human beings.
We in the present live in close proximity with the great minds of the dead who served
humanity and in the company of the great human beings to come whom we shall never meet.
When we honor those who have served humankind in extraordinary ways in the past, we
realize that we too are working for the same ideals for which they devoted and gave their lives.
The grand conception, that the whole of humanity lives in communion with all the great human
beings who have died and yet to come, has great ennobling power. Comte regards the Grand
Etre, Humanity or Mankind as composed solely of those who, in every age and in variety of
position have played their part worthily in life. The Grand Etre in its completeness includes
not only great human beings but also all sentient beings which have helped and contributed to
humanity.
For Comte the good of human race is the ultimate standard of right and wrong and moral
discipline consists in avoiding all conduct injurious to the general good. In every religion there
must be cult, prayer and ritual. Comte advocates ‘prayer’ as a mere outpouring of feeling; it is
not addressed to the Grand Etre or collective humanity. The honor to collective Humanity is
reserved for the public celebrations. The objects of private adoration are the mother the wife
and the daughter, representing the past, the present and the future and calling to exercise the
social sentiments, veneration, attachment, and kindness. The public cult that Comte advocates
is meant to honor and glorify Humanity itself; to celebrate the various ties among human
beings, and the various stages in the evolution of humankind. He named the months in his
calendar after the great benefactors of humanity like Moses, Homer, Aristotle, Archimedes, and
Caesar. He also prescribes nine sacraments to mark the different transitions in life like
Presentation, initiation, admission, destination, marriage, transformation and incorporation.
Death he considers to be a transformation a passage from objective existence on this earth to
living in the memory of our fellow humans. The last incorporation into the Grand Etre would
come after death following a favorable judgment for those worthy of remembrance. He also
envisaged a clergy for the positivist religion who will exercise spiritual power in the positive
society.
All philosophy and science, all human activity in general should help human beings to live in
harmony with the true nature and real conditions of humanity. Hence Religion simply means
development on the true lines of the real facts; in other words, Progress on the basis of Order.
This is the meaning of Auguste Comte's profound aphorism: "Man grows more and more
religious."

Check Your Progress III

Note: a) Use the space provided for your answer

b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit

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1) What is the meaning and function of religion according to Comte?
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2) Describe the salient features of Comte’s religion of Humanity
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4.8. LATER DEVELOPMENTS OF POSITIVISM

Historically speaking Comte's philosophy failed to reform society the way he envisaged because
it was too idealistic, and his dream of merging science, morality and government was unrealistic.
However positivist ideas continued to influence thinking. The later development of positivism
in France is best exemplified in the sociology of Emile Durkheim. Durkheim which extended
scientific rationalism to human conduct and proposed a set of methodological principles
encapsulated by the famous injunction to ‘treat social facts as things’; reject common
preconceptions in favor of objective definitions, explain a social fact by another social fact
only another social fact, distinguish efficient cause from function and normal from
pathological social states, etc.
John Stuart Mill, the 19th-century English philosopher could be considered as one of the
outstanding Positivists of his century. In his System of Logic he developed a thoroughly
empiricist theory of knowledge and of scientific reasoning. British philosopher and sociologist
Herbert Spencer is considered the systematizer of Positivism according to the principles of
evolution.

4.9. LOGICAL POSITIVISM

Positivism later made its reappearance under the title 'logical positivism', which arose during the
1920's mainly in the universities of Vienna in Austria in a group called the Vienna Circle. The
Vienna Circle consisted of philosophers, mathematicians and scientists like Mortiz Schlick,
Ernst Mach, Rudolf Carnap, Carl Hempel and Otto Neurah. The Logical positivists and
Logical Empiricists tried a synthesis of Humean empiricism, Comtean positivism and logical
analysis in an effort to get rid of metaphysics for ever. The logical positivists wanted to unify
all science under a framework of physical laws and scientific method for analyzing the world and
gaining knowledge. They incorporated David Hume’s argument that there are only two types of
meaningful propositions which are either about “relations of ideas” or "matters of fact". This
along with Ludwig Wittgenstein’s claim in Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus that a proposition is
a picture of reality gave rise to the verifiability principle. According to Positivists the
verifiability test would determine whether statements were meaningful or not by judging whether
they were factual.

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The dominance of positivism met with oppositions of two kinds, antipositivisit and post-
positivist. Anti-positivists argue that the natural and the human senesces are ontologically and
logically incompatible and so the very idea of an explanatory science of society is impossible.
Proponents of hermeneutics, interpretative sociology, postmodernism, deconstruction and
Feminism maintain that human practices, institutions and belief are inherently meaningful,
meanings constituted by the understandings that participants have of them so causal accounts
social behavior cannot be constructed. The task of human studies therefore cannot be to specify
universal laws of human behavior but to make the behavior intelligible by interpreting in
relation to subjective intentions.

Check Your Progress IV

Note: a) Use the space provided for your answer

b) Check your answers with those provided at the end of the unit

1) What were the drawbacks of Comte’s sociological project?

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2) Explain the later development of Positivism.
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4.10. LET US SUM UP

Today there are not many proponents of the positivism of Comte or who share in his belief that
society can be improved through positive science or that all sciences can be unified under the
umbrella of what he called sociology. However the methodology of positivism, its reliance on
facts and the attempt to explain the how rather than the why are still the guiding principles of
contemporary science. In spite of the drawbacks his ideal of the well being of humanity and
commitment to altruism is worth preserving today when people seem to be forgetting human
solidarity because of sectarian manipulations and private agenda. According to Isaiah Berlin
Comte is worthy of commemoration and praise because of the fact that …he has done his work
too well. For Comte’s views have affected the categories of our thought more deeply than is
commonly supposed. Our view of the natural sciences, of the material basis of cultural
evolution, of all that we call progressive, rational, enlightened, Western; our view of the
relationship of intuitions and of public symbolism and ceremonial to the emotional life of the
individual and societies are consequently our views of history itself, owes a good deal to his
teaching and his influence.

4.11. KEY WORDS

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Deconstruction is an approach which rigorously pursues the meaning of a text to the point of
undoing the oppositions on which it is apparently founded, and to the point of showing that those
foundations are irreducibly complex, unstable or impossible. The term was introduced by French
philosopher Jacques Derrida.

Feminism: Feminism describes a political, cultural or economic movement aimed at establishing

equal rights and legal protection for women.

4.12. FURTHER READINGS AND REFERENCES

Aron, Raymond. Main Currents in Sociological Thought. Vol, I. Trans. Richard Howard and
Helen Weaver. New York: Anchor Books, 1967.
Benton, Ted. Philosophical Foundations of the Three Sociologists. London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1977.
Comte, Aguste. A general View of Positivism [1844] London: 1856 Google books
Craig, Edward. Rutledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 2. London: Routledge, 1998.
Lenzer, Gertrud, ed. Auguste Comte and Positivism: The Essential Writings. New York: Harper
and Raw Publications, 1975.
Mill, John Stuart. Auguste Comte and Positivism London: N. Trubner &Co, 1865.
Outhwhite, William. ed. The Blackwell Dictionary of Modern Social Thought. 2nd ed. Oxford,
Blackwell Publishing, 2005.
Pickering, Mary. Auguste Comte: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, Paperback, 2006.
Richardson, Alan and Thomas Uebal, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Logical Empiricism,
New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Wernik, Andrew. Auguste Comte and the Religion of Humanity: The Post-Theistic Program of
French Social Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001

Websites:
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/comte/1856/general-view.htm10-7-09
The Positive Philosophy, (translated and edited by Harriet Martineau) Volume One; Volume
Two; Volume Three Batoche Books, Kitchner, 2000.
http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/comte/Philosophy1.pdf
Auguste Comte Archive | Philosophy Archive @ marxists.org
Historical Positivism, http://everything2.com/node/1304639
http://www.radicalacademy.com/philpositivists.htm

4.13. ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS

Answers to Check Your Progress 1

1. Positivism means the doctrine and movement founded in the nineteenth century by the
French philosopher Auguste Comte and also the general philosophical view of knowledge
proposed by Francis Bacon, John Locke, Isaac Newton and other empirical philosophers which
assert that genuine knowledge should be based on observation and advanced by experiment.

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2.The Positive Philosophy (6 vols.)
The System of Positive Polity (4 vols.)
The Catechism of Positive Religion

3. Comte’s main concern throughout his life was resolving the political social and moral
problems caused by the French Revolution. He believed that many of the contradictions were
because of the transition from the theological-military past in its Catholic feudal form towards
an inevitable scientific-industrial type of society. Comte believed that the only way to put an
end to the crisis was to bring together the ‘positive ideas’ of the time that are scientific, free
from the bonds of traditional theology and metaphysics.

Answers to Check Your Progress II

The key to understanding Comte's ideas is the law of the three stages.
1. The theological stage. The necessary starting-point of the development of human
understanding is the theological stage. During this stage phenomena are explained by reference
to the acts of supernatural agencies.
2. The metaphysical stage. In the metaphysical stage the supernatural beings are replaced by
abstract forces and underlying entities to which all phenomena are referred.
3. The Positive stage. At the third stage the human mind recognizes the impossibility of
acquiring absolute knowledge concerning the origin and purpose of the universe, and applies
itself to the study of the laws of the invariable relations of succession and resemblance of
phenomena. This science takes reasoning and observation as the means of knowledge.

Answers to Check Your Progress III

1. In his Positive Philosophy, Comte examines the different sciences and their logical relations to
one another. His position is that the most general and inclusive sciences were required first, as
the logically necessary preparation for the more particular ones. Mathematics, as the abstract or
fundamental study of the forms of existence common to all things, is presupposed for the
successful study of astronomy and physics, and physics is needed for the development of
chemistry. Biology, in like manner, depends upon chemistry for its emergence as a lawful
science. The positive scientific study of society is what he calls "sociology,” which he believed
would be the "final science."

2. The goal of Comte’s intellectual endeavor was to develop a science of society that could
explain the past and predict the future. Initially, he called this new science social physics, and,
later, 'sociology.' Comte stressed the necessity of separating facts and values during the course
of scientific inquiry and dreamed about the ideal society ruled by scientists who would make
decisions on the basis of scientific evidence. Comte wanted his new science, sociology, not only
be of academic interest, but also something that should benefit society and contribute to the
improvement of the quality of life. Comte wanted sociology to be the integrating science of all
other sciences that deal with the external nature of human life in society. Following the law of
the three stages and his classification of sciences Sociology was the last science to emerge. This
crowning science is the most complex and the last to emerge. This will usher in an era of social,
political and moral regeneration.

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Answers to Check Your Progress IV

1) The function of religion is to gather up and organize human life. So it must deal equally with
all parts of human nature; namely, thought activity and feeling. Thus religion requires first of all
a scheme or synthesis as a basis of belief, i.e. a creed, secondly a set of institutions and principles
to discipline and guide one’s action, a code of conduct; and thirdly a set of habits to cultivate the
emotions and educate the heart, a cult. A creed is a set of beliefs dealing with the meaning,
purpose and destiny of human life. The code of conduct obligates the believers to behave in a
certain manner because of what they believe. There must be an object of devotion capable of
being invoked and worshiped, which can bring forth in the believer feelings of security and
providence.

2. For Comte the human race, real and ideal at the same time, including the past, present and
future is the object of worship and devotion. This grand existence, “Grand Etre’ as he termed
it is capable of invoking devotion. The Grand Etre in its completeness includes not only great
human beings but also all sentient beings which have helped and contributed to humanity. To
honor collective Humanity he advocated public celebrations. The objects of private adoration
are the mother, the wife and the daughter, calling into active exercise the three social
sentiments, veneration, attachment, and kindness. He also prescribes nine sacraments to mark
the different transitions in life and also envisaged a priesthood consisting of scientists sand
scholars.

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