From Kant’s ‘Critical Idealism’ to ‘Objective Ontological Idealism’ (Part 2)
O n one point the positivists agreed with Kant’s transcendental idealism, namely in the view that we ultimately know nothing of the outside world, with all the implications that this entails.
According to this view, we have only sensory perceptions, which are subject to our own interpretations and modifications, so that all that remains is a subjective imaginary world.
Nevertheless, attempts have been made to find clear criteria for assessing whether certain statements are ‘scientifically’ valid or not.
To this end, logical reasoning, the avoidance of irrefutable theses (ultimate justifications)¹ and the view that only what can be ‘objectively’ observed by the senses can be considered scientific were used.
This current of positivism, also known as ‘logical positivism’ or ‘neopositivism’, thus became the most influential epistemological position of the 20th century.
It was not until the 1960s that Karl Popper, probably the most famous philosopher of modern times, developed a rival position in the form of so-called ‘critical rationalism’, which criticised the recognition of the principle of verification in positivism.²
Since, in his view, verification was thus impossible, one could only rely on the principle of falsification, which is why Popper declared positivism ‘dead’.
This is widely recognised today.
All knowledge, even if it is gained through empirical procedures (observation), would therefore have at most the character of provisional theories, allowing an approximation to the objective content of the world.
But without any prospect of ever reaching the state of certain or objective knowledge.
Science, therefore, can never ‘prove’ anything, i.e. determine anything objectively, but consists only in a continuous correction of errors in order to increase the ‘probability of truth’.
In a nutshell, one is satisfied with the following attitude:
“Even if the radical doubts of the sceptic will continue to prevail, we can continue to devote ourselves unperturbed to the empirical sciences or be guided by our beliefs in everyday life; for even if these may not constitute knowledge in the epistemological sense, we have good reason to believe that they lead us to successful behavior and that the majority of our beliefs about the outside world are true.
Man’s epistemological position in the world may perhaps be that he has no knowledge; but despite the Cartesian sceptic, it would be possible to successfully pursue ‘science’ without knowledge.”³
This apparent basic attitude of modern science is, in short, nothing other than a declaration of bankruptcy.
For if it comes to the conclusion that the laws of knowledge themselves cannot be found in order to arrive at real, objective knowledge, then it will never be able to deal with the activity of knowledge in a fully conscious, critical way.
Moreover, the logical inconsistencies associated with this view in relation to the falsification principle — as already explained in “The Fallacy of Falsifiability” — in no way lead to an adequate, well-founded world view.
Nevertheless, nothing has changed to this day, insofar as there have been no significant advances or milestones in epistemological positions in academic institutions since then.
Instead, the more extreme position of ‘critical rationalism’, which completely eradicates any concept of truth or the existence of truth, is increasingly appearing today in the form of so-called ‘relativism’.
Or, for the sake of simplicity, the necessity of research into the human faculty of knowledge is summarily denied.
In so far as the questions involved are, for historical reasons, an area of philosophy that can no longer keep up with today’s advanced ‘scientificity’.
And since philosophy does not claim to be a ‘science’ anyway, it could not possibly form the basis for one.
In the past, its only justification was to ‘clarify’ basic concepts within the sciences.
In the sense that the individual sciences had not yet sufficiently emancipated themselves.
Meaning that they had not made enough progress to be sufficiently ‘clear’ about their own basic concepts.
Moreover, any explanation of epistemological positions would have to be supported by further explanations and definitions, which would go on and on, culminating in the errors of metaphysics — such as Kant’s transcendental philosophy.
In other words, it would be impossible to find a legitimate starting point (axiomatic zero point) for the study of the human process of knowledge.
This may also be the reason why, to this day, there is only a circular definition of the concept of knowledge.⁴
These adventurous views and evasive justifications as to why the necessity of epistemological considerations can be neglected should actually make the hairs stand up on the back of the neck of any impartial, logically consistent thinker.
For on what can a ‘critical’ science, i.e. a science that is aware of the laws of its own actions in order to escape its naive state, rely if not on the unbiased study of the knowledge process?
This is not intended to suppress the justified criticism or questioning of the multitude of historically developed thought constructs, such as Kant’s ‘thing-in-itself’, Hegel’s placing of the idea in first place or Fichte’s similar ‘I’ as the supreme construct.
For as ingenious, sophisticated and coherent as these various positions may be in part, they all equally lack a corresponding epistemological foundation that would give them their actual justification.
They are all preceded by the same lack or omission of an open-ended investigation of the knowledge process on the basis of observations according to a strictly scientific method.
However, the resignation to epistemological questions that is increasingly to be found today, combined with the pretext that modern science is now so ‘advanced’ that it is no longer necessary to deal with them, does not justify simply suppressing these questions for the sake of simplicity.
For this may well be the cause or the main reason, why modern science is at the greatest impasse in the history of mankind in all areas that go beyond physics and mechanics.
The following words of Karl Popper (1902–1994) on the gain of knowledge and progress in modern science are a profound insight into the alarming state of affairs today:
“Our knowledge is based for the most part on tradition, on books and stories. Knowledge does not begin with nothing, nor with pure observation, but is based on traditional truths.
The progress of our knowledge lies in critically examining these and, if necessary, overturning them. […]
We actively dictate our laws to the world and impose our interpretations on it. In the same way, our scientific theories are by no means the result of random observations, but rather inventions and conjectures. Contrary to a common misconception, the path does not lead from observation to theory, but our observations are selective and are always already guided by hypotheses and expectations regarding certain laws. In reality, nothing (outside of mathematics and logic) can be proven or justified.”
This brings us full circle and shows how the omnipresence of Kant’s spirit still prevails today.
In that Popper has brought into the world the same conclusions that deny the individual any access to objectivity or truth.
Perhaps best expressed in the sentence: According to Kant, we can never recognise ‘things in themselves’, but what we ‘recognise’ is only imagined by our mind — i.e. pure illusions .⁶
Diametrically opposed to this view are all the epistemological considerations presented in my previous articles.
I.e. not speculative-theoretical, but according to the scientific-empirical method.
They clearly show that the laws produced in thinking are of an objective, real nature.
And thus provide the epistemological basis for the foundation of a modern, empirical, objective ontological idealism.
- ‘Empirical’ in the sense that the principle of experience, rightly demanded in science, is adhered to in its strictest or most rigorous form.⁷
- Objective’ in the sense that the directly given experience has a purely subjective appearance (form) — i.e. the setting: where, when, etc. However, through the human being’s (subject’s) thinking engagement with it, its objective content (laws) — i.e. the essential, essential part of reality — can be produced or generated on an ideal level.
- ‘Ontological’ in the sense that all areas of ‘being’, i.e. all parts of reality, i.e. matter, life, soul and spirit are recognised in their own reality.
On the one hand, all realms are thus distinguished from each other, but on the other hand, they are also connected to each other in a unified scientific overall concept due to the underlying lawful nature that is common to them all.
The full reality of every thing, therefore, always consists in the unity of its appearance and the lawfulness that determines or forms this appearance.
In the history of philosophy and science, this world view is known primarily as ‘law’- or ‘universal realism’, or simply as ‘objective idealism’.
It is a position that has repeatedly emerged in various forms since Plato (427–347 BC) and Aristotle (384–322 BC).
Well-known representatives include Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Nicholas of Cusa (1401–1464) and, especially in the era of German Idealism, J. W. Goethe (1749–1832), F. Schiller (1759–1805), F. W. J. Schelling (1775–1854) and G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831).
Hegel’s ‘absolute idealism’, for example, also assumes that the concepts or ideas produced by thinking are of an objective, real nature and are therefore inherent in sense phenomena as their inner, determining essence.
There is, however, a crucial difference to the objective ontological idealism that is being proposed here.
For in contrast to Hegel’s idealism, it is not the concept or idea that is in the foreground, but thinking as an irrefutable principle or starting point that makes it possible to grasp a concept or idea in the first place.
This means that the idea already presupposes thinking, and the observations described above about the self-sustaining nature of thinking, which is not determined (predetermined) by anything, cannot simply be transferred to the idea.
This is the essential difference with Hegel, in that he places the idea, and not thinking, as the first and original.
Other modern representatives in the 20th and 21st centuries are Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), Nicolai Hartmann (1882–1950), Dieter Wandschneider (born 1938), Peter Heusser (born 1950) and the physicists Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976), Walter Heitler (1904–1981) and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker (1912–2007).
In summary, all of these thinkers — in various forms and manifestations — hold the view that laws, ideas and concepts are objective, real entities according to which the world is shaped — independently of man (subject) — but which can be made to appear in the human mind.
The ‘modernity’ of objective ontological idealism, however, lies in the fact that, unlike earlier philosophical positions, it is not just another of many more or less melodious, logically self-contained world views.
Rather, its decisive factor lies in its fundamental epistemological justifiability, as has been demonstrated in the best possible way in the previous articles.
And secondly, in its applicability to the facts of the empirical sciences, e.g. in medicine, molecular biology, evolution, etc., as will be discussed in detail in the following articles.
[1] The term ‘ultimate justification’ refers to a central problem of philosophy, namely the question of an ultimate justification of knowledge and action. Reasons are sought which, in turn, require no further justification.
[2] Read more about it here: “The Fallacy of Falsifiability”
[3] Source: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, “Naturalistische Erkenntnistheorie und das Problem der Außenweltskepsis”, Alexander Soutschek (2011)
[4] Read more about the circular definition of knowledge here: “The Way to a Critical Science”
[5] Source: “Vermutungen und Widerlegungen”, Karl Popper (Mohr Siebeck, 2009)
[6] Read more about it here: “The Fallacy of Kant’s Theory of Knowledge”
[7] Read more about it here: “The Act of Knowing”
Note: This text was originally written in German and translated into English using Deepl, because I am a native German speaker.
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