Introduction B.
Relation of Philosophy to Other Departments
of Knowledge.
The History of Philosophy has to represent
this science in that form of time and
individualities
from which its outward form has resulted.
Such a representation has, however,
to shut
out from itself the external history
of the
time, and to take into account only
the general
character of the people and time, and
likewise
their circumstances as a whole. But
as a
matter of fact, the history of Philosophy
does present this character, and that
indeed
in the highest possible degree; its
connection
with it is of the closest kind, and
the particular
appearance presented by a philosophy
belonging
to one special period, is only a particular
aspect or element in the character.
Because
of this inward correspondence we have
partly
to consider more closely the particular
relation
borne by a philosophy to its historical
surroundings,
and partly, but pre-eminently, what
is proper
to itself, from which alone, after
separating
everything related however closely,
we can
fix our standpoint. This connection,
which
is not merely external but essential,
has
thus two sides, which we must consider.
The
first is the distinctly historical
side,
the second is the connection with other
matters
- the connection of Philosophy with
Religion,
for instance, by which we at once obtain
a deeper conception of Philosophy itself.
1. The Historical Side of This Connection.
It is usually said that political affairs
and such matters as Religion are to
be taken
into consideration because they have
exercised
a great influence on the Philosophy
of the
time, and similarly it exerts an influence
upon them. But when people are content
with
such a category as "great influence"
they place the two in an external relationship,
and start from the point of view that
both
sides are for themselves independent.
Here,
however, we must think of this relationship
in another category, and not according
to
the influence or effect of one upon
the other.
The true category is the unity of all
these
different forms, so that it is one
Mind which
manifests itself in, and impresses
itself
upon these different elements.
a. Outward and historical conditions
imposed
upon Philosophy.
It must be remarked in the first place,
that a certain stage is requisite in
the
intellectual culture of a people in
order
that it may have a Philosophy at all.
Aristotle
says, "Man first begins to philosophize
when the necessities of life are supplied"
(Metaphysics, I. 2); because since
Philosophy
is a free and not self-seeking activity,
cravings of want must have disappeared,
a
strength, elevation and inward fortitude
of mind must have appeared, passions
must
be subdued and consciousness set far
advanced,
before what is universal can be thought
of.
Philosophy may thus be called a kind
of luxury,
in so far as luxury signifies those
enjoyments
and pursuits which do not belong to
external
necessity as such. Philosophy in this
respect
seems more capable of being dispensed
with
than anything else; but that depends
on what
is called indispensable. From the point
of
view of mind, Philosophy may even be
said
to be that which is most essential.
b. The commencement in History of an
intellectual
necessity for Philosophy.
However much Philosophy, as the thought
and conception of the Mind of a particular
time, is a priori, it is at the same
time
just as really a result, since the
thought
produced and, indeed, the life and
action
are produced to produce themselves.
This
activity contains the essential element
of
a negation, because to produce is also
to
destroy; Philosophy in producing itself,
has the natural as its starting point
in
order to abrogate it again. Philosophy
thus
makes its appearance at a time when
the Mind
of a people has worked its way out
of the
indifference and stolidity of the first
life
of nature, as it has also done from
the standpoint
of the emotional, so that the individual
aim has blotted itself out. But as
Mind passes
on from its natural form, it also proceeds
from its exact code of morals and the
robustness
of life to reflection and conception.
The
result of this is that it lays hold
of and
troubles this real, substantial kind
of existence,
this morality and faith, and thus the
period
of destruction commences. Further progress
is then made through the gathering
up of
thought within itself. It may be said
that
Philosophy first commences when a race
for
the most part has left its concrete
life,
when separation and change of class
have
begun, and the people approach toward
their
fall; when a gulf has arisen between
inward
strivings and external reality, and
the old
forms of Religion, &c., are no
longer
satisfying; when Mind manifests indifference
to its living existence or rests unsatisfied
therein, and moral life becomes dissolved.
Then it is that Mind takes refuge in
the
clear space of thought to create for
itself
a kingdom of thought in opposition
to the
world of actuality, and Philosophy
is the
reconciliation following upon the destruction
of that real world which thought has
begun.
When Philosophy with its abstractions
paints
grey in grey, the freshness and life
of youth
has gone, the reconciliation is not
a reconciliation
in the actual, but in the ideal world.
Thus
the Greek philosophers held themselves
far
removed from the business of the State
and
were called by the people idlers, because
they withdrew themselves within the
world
of thought.
This holds good throughout all the
history
of Philosophy. It was so with Ionic
Philosophy
in the decline of the Ionic States
in Asia
Minor. Socrates and Plato had no more
pleasure
in the life of the State in Athens,
which
was in the course of its decline; Plato
tried
to bring about something better with
Dionysius.
Thus in Athens, with the ruin of the
Athenian
people, the period was reached when
Philosophy
appeared. In Rome, Philosophy first
expanded
in the decline of the Republic and
of Roman
life proper, under the despotism of
the Roman
Emperors: a time of misfortune for
the world
and of decay in political life, when
earlier
religious systems tottered and everything
was in the process of struggle and
disintegration.
With the decline of the Roman Empire,
which
was so great, rich and glorious, and
yet
inwardly dead, the height and indeed
the
zenith of ancient Philosophy is associated
through the Neo-Platonists at Alexandria.
It was also in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries, when the Teutonic life of
the
Middle Ages acquired another form,
that Philosophy
first became taught, though it was
later
on that it attained to independence.
Before that, political life still existed
in unity with Religion, or if the State
fought
against the Church, the Church still
kept
the foremost place, but now the gulf
between
Church and State came into existence.
Philosophy
thus comes in at a certain epoch only
in
the development of the whole.
c. Philosophy as the thought of its
time.
But men do not at certain epochs, merely
philosophize in general, for there
is a definite
Philosophy which arises among a people,
and
the definite character of the standpoint
of thought is the same character which
permeates
all the other historical sides of the
spirit
of the people, which is most intimately
related
to them, and which constitutes their
foundation.
The particular form of a Philosophy
is thus
contemporaneous with a particular constitution
of the people amongst whom it makes
its appearance,
with their institutions and forms of
government,
their morality, their social life and
the
capabilities, customs and enjoyments
of the
same; it is so with their attempts
and achievements
in art and science, with their religions,
warfares and external relationships,
likewise
with the decadence of the States in
which
this particular principle and form
had maintained
its supremacy, and with the origination
and
progress of new States in which a higher
principle finds its manifestation and
development.
Mind in each case has elaborated and
expanded
in the whole domain of its manifold
nature
the principle of the particular stage
of
self-consciousness to which it has
attained.
Thus the Mind of a people in its richness
is an organization, and, like a Cathedral,
is divided into numerous vaults, passages,
pillars and vestibules, all of which
have
proceeded out of one whole and are
directed
to one end. Philosophy is one form
of these
many aspects. And which is it? It is
the
fullest blossom, the Notion of Mind
in its
entire form, the consciousness and
spiritual
essence of all things, the spirit of
the
time as spirit present in itself. The
multifarious
whole is reflected in it as in the
single
focus, in the Notion which knows itself.
The Philosophy which is essential within
Christianity could not be found in
Rome,
for all the various forms of the whole
are
only the expression of one and the
same determinate
character. Hence political history,
forms
of government, art and religion are
not related
to Philosophy as its causes, nor, on
the
other hand, is Philosophy the ground
of their
existence - one and all have the same
common
root, the spirit of the time. It is
one determinate
existence, one determinate character
which
permeates all sides and manifests itself
in politics and in all else as in different
elements; it is a condition which hangs
together
in all its parts, and the various parts
of
which contain nothing which is really
inconsistent,
however diverse and accidental they
may appear
to be, and however much they may seem
to
contradict one another. This particular
stage
is the product of the one preceding.
But
to show how the spirit of a particular
time
moulds its whole actuality and destiny
in
accordance with its principle, to show
this
whole edifice in its conception, is
far from
us - for that would be the object of
the
whole philosophic world-history. Those
forms
alone concern us which express the
principle
of the Mind in a spiritual element
related
to Philosophy.
This is the position of Philosophy
amongst
its varying forms, from which it follows
that it is entirely identical with
its time.
But if Philosophy does not stand above
its
time in content, it does so in form,
because,
as the thought and knowledge of that
which
is the substantial spirit of its time,
it
makes that spirit its object. In as
far as
Philosophy is in the spirit of its
time,
the latter is its determined content
in the
world, although as knowledge, Philosophy
is above it, since it places it in
the relation
of object. But this is in form alone,
for
Philosophy really has no other content.
This
knowledge itself undoubtedly is the
actuality
of Mind, the self-knowledge of Mind
which
previously was not present: thus the
formal
difference is also a real and actual
difference.
Through knowledge, Mind makes manifest
a
distinction between knowledge and that
which
is; this knowledge is thus what produces
a new form of development. The new
forms
at first are only special modes of
knowledge,
and it is thus that a new Philosophy
is produced:
yet since, it already is a wider kind
of
spirit, it is the inward birth-place
of the
spirit which will later arrive at actual
form. We shall deal further with this
in
the concrete below, and we shall then
see
that what the Greek Philosophy was,
entered,
in the Christian world, into actuality.
Notes:
2. S. Marheineke: "Lehrbuch des
Christlichen
Glaubens und Lebens." Berlin,
1823.
§ 133, 134.
3. "Meinug ist mein."
4. Cf. Hegels Werke, vol. VI § 13,
pp. 21,
22.
5. Flatt: De Theismo Thaleti Milesio
abjudicando.
Tub. 1785. 4.
6. Grundzüge des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters,
pp. 211, 212; cf. Anweisung zum Seligen
Leben,
pp. 178, 348.
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