The Paradigm of Change

I'm not going to lie, I didn't even know what paradigm meant when this lecture started so to clear the confusion, the basic definition of paradigm is; a way of connected thinking across all fields of knowledge. After the enlightenment and Romanticism period there was a paradigm shift. Without doubt I am still confused and to my great delight it only got more confusing from there...

I always knew Philosophy would be quite a trying subject but I seem to have completely lost the plot with these three philosophers, the named and shamed being Kant, Hegel and Schopenhaeur. All of these philosophers were German Idealists who were against our beloved Hume and his empiricist approach. The recovery of metaphysics was crucial to these three German philosophers.

Kant; "If it feels right, then it probably is right"

Immanuel Kant, born in 1724 moved philosophy beyond the debate of rationalism and empiricism by believing that the most scientific observation is metaphysics. His book "A Critique of Pure Reason" was published in 1781, conveying his philosophy that all knowledge comes from experience. He sought to end an age of speculation where objects outside experience were used to support what he saw as futile theories whilst opposing the skepticism of thinkers such as Descartes, Berkeley and Hume.
Kant believes that our knowledge is based on both logic and ideas that aren't found in logic. He believed in an intrinsic instinct, a moral law inside of you separating right and wrong.

Analytic - things that are based on the idea of contradiction, for example; 'a tall man is a man' is true as saying ' a tall man isn't a man' would be contradictory.

Synthetic - anything we know by experience, for example 'yesterday it rained'. Ultimately there is no evidence to prove that it rained apart from through our own personal experiences.
Kant refused to accept the fact that all synthetic propositions are found through experience, therefore concluding two concepts;

Empirical Proposition - knowledge that is found through our senses.
A Priori Proposition - something that can be figured out without reference to experience but at the same time is not true by definition.

Kants distinctions;

The synthetic apriori proof of the reality of space and time.
Phenomena is mental and is the creation of the mind.
Noumena is the real thing, it is the un-percieved object which impacted upon the arts.

Hegel; "Real is rational and rational is real"

Hegel, born in 1770 was heavily influenced by Kant. He was one of the founders of German Idealism developing a philosophical framework of Absolute Idealism to account in an integrated and developmental way, for the relation of mind and nature, the subject and objet of knowledge, psychology, the State, history, art and philosophy. Hegel was a historian, he believed that history had a purpose and that God was working through history, moving to Euphoria.
Hegel proposed that the universal soul is the Geist, the universe must have a Geist to persist. The purpose of the Geist is to know itself.
Hegel believed that the world was similar to a large organism and that we are not viewing the world in its truest sense. He developed the system of thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis, otherwise known as the dialectic triad;

A thesis = An idea
An Anti-thesis = the opposite idea
The synthesis = A combination of both the thesis and the anti-thesis.

The whole is known as the absolute, meaning that the absolute is "pure being" as it does not have any properties other than simply existing to contain all that is within.
Hegel believed that change is the only constant, even though we cannot see the world constantly changing, he states that despite this change, everything retains it's being. For example if you slowly replaced aspects of a house such as the tiles, windows, doors and bricks, the house would still be there yet look completely different.

Schopenhauer; "A subject of cognition"

Schopenhauer, a reader of both Kant and Hegel, criticised their logical optimism and the belief that individual morality could be determined by society and reason.

He believed that humans were motivated by their own basic desires. He concluded that everything that exists has a "will".
The will is the equivalent to Kant's "thing in itself" basically becoming a humans needs and desires. He believed that the will was dictated by the Holy Ghost.
Overall Kant believed the will to be primarily evil as it represents endless suffering. once you have control of the will and the less you express your desires the less you will suffer.