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Discovering the Mind Vol. I: Goethe, Kant and Hegel
Excellent Book
288 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1980
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About the author
Walter Kaufmann
111 books561 followersWalter Arnold Kaufmann was a German-American philosopher, translator, and poet. A prolific author, he wrote extensively on a broad range of subjects, such as authenticity and death, moral philosophy and existentialism, theism and atheism, Christianity and Judaism, as well as philosophy and literature. He served for over 30 years as a Professor at Princeton University.
He is renowned as a scholar and translator of Nietzsche. He also wrote a 1965 book on Hegel, and a translation of most of Goethe's Faust.
He is renowned as a scholar and translator of Nietzsche. He also wrote a 1965 book on Hegel, and a translation of most of Goethe's Faust.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
April 12, 2025
Kaufmann's Goethe and Kant are crude monochromatic mischaracterizations, and although this makes for fun reading, it isn't historically accurate and involves a lot of cherry-picking. Goethe is presented as a playful, socially outgoing conversationalist, and Kant as an overly provincial, unread tyrant of letters. Of course Goethe could be playful and social, but he was equally known from diary and memoir anecdotes for his ridiculous humorlessness, for monopolizing social attention at parties, and for bossing around guests at soirees. As for him being some kind of cosmopolitan figure because he traveled to Italy, oh good God. For most of his life he was stuck in provincial Weimar, with only a small (though highly distinguished) local following, and with the entire local aristocracy hating him and the local press ridiculing him on a regular basis. As for him being some prolific civil servant, Goethe was Director of Highway Construction and Court Councillor for Urban Pavement Construction. His greatest accomplishment was getting Weimar to repave their roads and ban spitting tobacco in public; not exactly on par with Haussmann rebuilding Paris!
Regarding Kant, Kaufmann makes a big fuss that he never read Rousseau. Kant refers to Rousseau explicitly in his anthropological writings, and Kant's concept of "productive imagination" comes directly from his reading of Rousseau's criticisms of Locke in Emile. It wasn't just an accident that the only portrait in Kant's house was of Rousseau, though this is actually how Kaufmann presents it. Kaufmann also takes a short passage from Kant's anthropological lectures, on the conventions of dinner table talk, and blows it out of proportion as if it were Kant's attempt at an authoritarian law on how to talk at dinner parties (this is really the most ridiculous point in the whole book). Kant says discussion typically begins with storytelling ("You'll never believe what happened to me today..."), progresses to more serious subjects and argumentation, then ends with jokes. To my mind that's pretty accurate. Lastly, it's entirely characteristic of Kaufmann that Kant is ridiculed as a philistine for not being more familiar with Goethe, while Goethe is given a pass for only reading a few sections of the Critiques and The Metaphysics of Morals. I suppose we're supposed to see this as an example of Goethe's discerning philosophical taste, given he typically ignored his contemporaries.
The book also includes shorter sections on Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer that are similarly bonkers. Kaufmann claims Schopenhauer's philosophy came from reading only Plato, Kant, and the Upanishads, and dismisses his philosophy as the work of a poorly read scholar. This is easy to refute since (at least in his essays) Schopenhauer either refers to or explicitly quotes from figures as various as Seneca, Cato, Augustine, Locke, Hutcheson, Hume, Rousseau, Goethe, Spinoza, Pierre Bayle, Jakob Bohme, Condillac, Schiller, Christian Wolff, Johann Meister, and Voltaire (one of Schopenhauer's favorite writers). By any standard he was a voracious reader, which is why it's all the more puzzling Kaufmann makes such a big deal of saying the otherwise.
So this is a fun, well written, and rather bitchy book, but good God don't mistake Kaufmann's authoritative tone for anything other than his own grandiloquent opinions.
Regarding Kant, Kaufmann makes a big fuss that he never read Rousseau. Kant refers to Rousseau explicitly in his anthropological writings, and Kant's concept of "productive imagination" comes directly from his reading of Rousseau's criticisms of Locke in Emile. It wasn't just an accident that the only portrait in Kant's house was of Rousseau, though this is actually how Kaufmann presents it. Kaufmann also takes a short passage from Kant's anthropological lectures, on the conventions of dinner table talk, and blows it out of proportion as if it were Kant's attempt at an authoritarian law on how to talk at dinner parties (this is really the most ridiculous point in the whole book). Kant says discussion typically begins with storytelling ("You'll never believe what happened to me today..."), progresses to more serious subjects and argumentation, then ends with jokes. To my mind that's pretty accurate. Lastly, it's entirely characteristic of Kaufmann that Kant is ridiculed as a philistine for not being more familiar with Goethe, while Goethe is given a pass for only reading a few sections of the Critiques and The Metaphysics of Morals. I suppose we're supposed to see this as an example of Goethe's discerning philosophical taste, given he typically ignored his contemporaries.
The book also includes shorter sections on Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer that are similarly bonkers. Kaufmann claims Schopenhauer's philosophy came from reading only Plato, Kant, and the Upanishads, and dismisses his philosophy as the work of a poorly read scholar. This is easy to refute since (at least in his essays) Schopenhauer either refers to or explicitly quotes from figures as various as Seneca, Cato, Augustine, Locke, Hutcheson, Hume, Rousseau, Goethe, Spinoza, Pierre Bayle, Jakob Bohme, Condillac, Schiller, Christian Wolff, Johann Meister, and Voltaire (one of Schopenhauer's favorite writers). By any standard he was a voracious reader, which is why it's all the more puzzling Kaufmann makes such a big deal of saying the otherwise.
So this is a fun, well written, and rather bitchy book, but good God don't mistake Kaufmann's authoritative tone for anything other than his own grandiloquent opinions.
July 30, 2021
I have never read anyone more carefully than Kant and nor studied any text as thoroughly as his Critique of Pure Reason. Helped in this endeavor by Norman Kemp Smith's magisterial commentary, I came to a positive, constructive appropriation of Kant's thinking, one which had enormous influence in shaping my worldview, especially as regards ethics.
Kaufmann, as much a poet, biographer, translator, historian of ideas and cultural critic as a philosopher, has a better sense of the history of philosophy than I do. This book, while acknowledging Kant's profound influence on that history, attacks Kant for having been, in part, a pernicious influence, contrasting his perceived inadequacies and pretenses to the broader wisdom of Goethe. Much of this critique is correct. Kant's Critiques do evince hurried composition and are marred by prolixity, contradiction and confusion. Still, as a whole, read sympathetically, Kant does achieve a reconciliation of ethics and natural science, both in their strongest sense, which has, in my opinion, held water up through Einstein (about the Copenhagen School of physics, I, like Einstein, have misgivings). Kant remains, for all his flaws, the narrow point in the stream through which all subsequent philosophy, in the West at least, flows. Further, as compellingly utilized by Rawls, deontological ethics retains its relevance.
My objections to Kaufmann are legion, but mostly relate to what I perceive as nitpicking, some of it clearly mistaken (such as his claim that Kant did not seriously consider non-human rational intelligences when, in fact, Kant explicitly considered the possibility of aliens--Jovian, as I recall--as well as the role of angelic intelligences in the history of ideas). In other words, while he reads Goethe sympathetically (although he was certainly not a systematic philosopher in the sense of Kant or Hegel), he does not extend that courtesy to Kant. Indeed, after defending ad hominem argumentation at the outset, he adduces questionable biographical details about Kant's life to effectively demean his thinking while not employing such arguments (how about children born out of wedlock?) to demean Goethe's.
One of Goethe's virtues, a strength also to be found in Hegel and, as such, a contribution to the foundations laid by Kant, is the weight he put on the genesis of philosophy, on the history of ideas and on their situation in life broadly considered. Thus it is appropriate to wonder how Kaufmann's experience of Kant differed from mine so as to result in his relative lack of sympathy. I don't know the answer to this but will keep my eye open for a biography of the man.
All this notwithstanding, this, the first volume of a trilogy, is worth examination by any familiar with the figures--Goethe, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Buber, Freud, Adler and Jung--discussed. However opinionated, Kaufmann's arguments are informed and his writing is clear.
Kaufmann, as much a poet, biographer, translator, historian of ideas and cultural critic as a philosopher, has a better sense of the history of philosophy than I do. This book, while acknowledging Kant's profound influence on that history, attacks Kant for having been, in part, a pernicious influence, contrasting his perceived inadequacies and pretenses to the broader wisdom of Goethe. Much of this critique is correct. Kant's Critiques do evince hurried composition and are marred by prolixity, contradiction and confusion. Still, as a whole, read sympathetically, Kant does achieve a reconciliation of ethics and natural science, both in their strongest sense, which has, in my opinion, held water up through Einstein (about the Copenhagen School of physics, I, like Einstein, have misgivings). Kant remains, for all his flaws, the narrow point in the stream through which all subsequent philosophy, in the West at least, flows. Further, as compellingly utilized by Rawls, deontological ethics retains its relevance.
My objections to Kaufmann are legion, but mostly relate to what I perceive as nitpicking, some of it clearly mistaken (such as his claim that Kant did not seriously consider non-human rational intelligences when, in fact, Kant explicitly considered the possibility of aliens--Jovian, as I recall--as well as the role of angelic intelligences in the history of ideas). In other words, while he reads Goethe sympathetically (although he was certainly not a systematic philosopher in the sense of Kant or Hegel), he does not extend that courtesy to Kant. Indeed, after defending ad hominem argumentation at the outset, he adduces questionable biographical details about Kant's life to effectively demean his thinking while not employing such arguments (how about children born out of wedlock?) to demean Goethe's.
One of Goethe's virtues, a strength also to be found in Hegel and, as such, a contribution to the foundations laid by Kant, is the weight he put on the genesis of philosophy, on the history of ideas and on their situation in life broadly considered. Thus it is appropriate to wonder how Kaufmann's experience of Kant differed from mine so as to result in his relative lack of sympathy. I don't know the answer to this but will keep my eye open for a biography of the man.
All this notwithstanding, this, the first volume of a trilogy, is worth examination by any familiar with the figures--Goethe, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Buber, Freud, Adler and Jung--discussed. However opinionated, Kaufmann's arguments are informed and his writing is clear.
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September 26, 2020Great anecdote about Kant's constipation problem.
February 15, 2021
Before beginning this book, I was desperately eager to read the philosophy greats. I eyed with envy the hefty tomes on my housemates' shelves and was impatient to garner sufficient background to truly understand a work by Hegel. I thought this introduction would be a step towards reading impressive books, instead, it has killed all my desire to do so. Five stars and a clap on the back for Walter Kaufmann!
What drew me to this book in the first place was the honesty of combining introduction with biography. Ideas do not come from pure reason alone and I find it intellectually false to attempt to separate a thought from the thinker (probably only because I can't do it but also) because a person's philosophy is directly influenced by their perspective, which is a direct result of the context of their lives. Kaufmann agrees, and presents the man alongside his verdict on Man to find, all too often, the pronouncements and laws to be nothing but a mirror. Or, as in the introduction: Flaws in one's understanding of oneself are usually obstacles to one's understand of others, that the failure of a theory about the human mind often mirrors a failure of the theorist to come to terms with himself.
But the reason why I am such a fan of this book, and why I'll go on reading the series, is for its clarity, simplicity and well-presented narrative. Kaufmann (partially, perhaps unintentionally) vindicated my personal suspicion that everything true can be communicated simply and the impossible drudge of the infamous philosophy texts presents only a cloud of genius, being really a smog of confusion. I'm not saying the ideas aren't fundamentally awesome or that they're not the foundation of our current understanding of reality, self, and other, but that they are poorly communicated. I always assumed it was a lacking in my intelligence that I become lost in their sentences, but Kaufmann tells me that the fault goes both ways and casts deep shadows of doubt onto the respectability and rigor of the authors. I took this as a green light to just read summaries and analyses instead. Nice!
I was going to write an extensive review of this wonderful little volume, but I am very tired all the time and there are more important things that need to be done so, unfortunately, I'll just have to recommend it.
What drew me to this book in the first place was the honesty of combining introduction with biography. Ideas do not come from pure reason alone and I find it intellectually false to attempt to separate a thought from the thinker (probably only because I can't do it but also) because a person's philosophy is directly influenced by their perspective, which is a direct result of the context of their lives. Kaufmann agrees, and presents the man alongside his verdict on Man to find, all too often, the pronouncements and laws to be nothing but a mirror. Or, as in the introduction: Flaws in one's understanding of oneself are usually obstacles to one's understand of others, that the failure of a theory about the human mind often mirrors a failure of the theorist to come to terms with himself.
But the reason why I am such a fan of this book, and why I'll go on reading the series, is for its clarity, simplicity and well-presented narrative. Kaufmann (partially, perhaps unintentionally) vindicated my personal suspicion that everything true can be communicated simply and the impossible drudge of the infamous philosophy texts presents only a cloud of genius, being really a smog of confusion. I'm not saying the ideas aren't fundamentally awesome or that they're not the foundation of our current understanding of reality, self, and other, but that they are poorly communicated. I always assumed it was a lacking in my intelligence that I become lost in their sentences, but Kaufmann tells me that the fault goes both ways and casts deep shadows of doubt onto the respectability and rigor of the authors. I took this as a green light to just read summaries and analyses instead. Nice!
I was going to write an extensive review of this wonderful little volume, but I am very tired all the time and there are more important things that need to be done so, unfortunately, I'll just have to recommend it.
January 2, 2016
To sum up:
Goethe was the best. Kant, for all his genius, ruined philosophy. Hegel would've been pretty great, if he hadn't been ruined by Kant.
Goethe was the best. Kant, for all his genius, ruined philosophy. Hegel would've been pretty great, if he hadn't been ruined by Kant.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 10, 2019
Goethe is God, kant is clueless, Hegel tried but still failed.
March 19, 2025
I devoured this book. I am reading it as let's say a hermeneutic approach to the reading of the Phenomenology of Spirit. I was struck by how there might be a link between Goethe and Hegel, and then I did a google search and found this book... which was perfect because I also wanted to understand in what ways Hegel was a response to Kant.
Apparently, Kaufmann sees Hegel's work as marrying Goethe and Kant: Goethe's views on the development of our identity (the bildungsroman) and Kant's unnecessarily long and difficult style of presenting arguments.
I don't think Kaufmann really appreciates Hegel, and I gather he really in way despises Kant's work. Having only heard of Kaufmann from reading his translations of Nietzsche's work, he seems to put Nietzsche as the genius of all geniuses. I don't disagree with him, as I am fond of Nietzsche myself, however, his inability to keep his own views out of the work make it a bit tiresome to read on some level. Instead of lambasting Hegel and Kant's methods, I would've preferred a more explanatory method of describing their systems. But Kaufmann seems to be comparing them to Nietzsche, which just isn't fair.
This is just one view of Hegel and Kant, and I think one needs to read others to get a more thorough view of these two.
Apparently, Kaufmann sees Hegel's work as marrying Goethe and Kant: Goethe's views on the development of our identity (the bildungsroman) and Kant's unnecessarily long and difficult style of presenting arguments.
I don't think Kaufmann really appreciates Hegel, and I gather he really in way despises Kant's work. Having only heard of Kaufmann from reading his translations of Nietzsche's work, he seems to put Nietzsche as the genius of all geniuses. I don't disagree with him, as I am fond of Nietzsche myself, however, his inability to keep his own views out of the work make it a bit tiresome to read on some level. Instead of lambasting Hegel and Kant's methods, I would've preferred a more explanatory method of describing their systems. But Kaufmann seems to be comparing them to Nietzsche, which just isn't fair.
This is just one view of Hegel and Kant, and I think one needs to read others to get a more thorough view of these two.
February 19, 2017
When I first dove into this book, I enjoyed Kaufmann's earnest dismantling of Kant and Hegel's misplaced affectations of rigour/completeness, necessity, and science in favour of the organic poetic philosophy of Goethe – I still feel motivated to steep myself in the writing of Goethe. As I read on (beyond around page 225), I found Kaufmann's reiterations of this theme somewhat less interesting. Kaufmann is very easy to read and understand while he makes points worth understanding, so the experience of a little repetition was not too unpleasant. I'm looking forward to reading the next book in his Discovering the Mind trilogy.
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August 13, 2012I have to read Goethe,Kant and Hegel to say what I think about this book. but it helps to know what I will face with in these philosophical books.
August 23, 2019
Enlightened minds, heavy read.
December 2, 2019
What a wonderfully clear work on difficult subjects. Kaufmann is supremely readable, which is definitely not usually the case with philosophical critiques!
December 3, 2023
Mr. Kaufmann's idolisation of Goethe is shameless, but his points are well received as far as critisisms and praise of the three writers in the book.
January 20, 2025
It is a nice read to have too much understanding of the philosopher's life and too little understanding of the Mind. Great job !
December 29, 2024
Belonging, Being and Becoming
Hero of Volume One: Goethe, contra Kant, contra Hegel.
When Kaufmann speaks of mind, it is as a term of art in much that same way that Socrates might speak of the soul or Pascal might speak of the heart. Kaufmann does not invoke or imply any sort of Cartesian dualism or separation of mind and body. He does not commit himself to the separate existence of minds. Mind can be thought of as a general term for the human consciousness. By mind, Kaufmann means personality, feelings, emotions, desires, thoughts, intelligence, subconsciousness and beliefs. In short, what it means to be human. The three books of this collection could have been more accurately subtitled as ’Discovering what it Means to be Human’ But such a subtitle might over-zealously claim too much.
The organic cohesion of the human traits that comprise the ‘mind’ correspond to the organic cohesiveness and interdependence that Kaufmann sees between literature, philosophy and psychology. Kaufmann thus advocates and employs an interdisciplinary and multi-subject approach to developing self-knowledge and discovering the mind. Psychology is too important to be left to the psychologists just as philosophy is too important to be left to the philosophers. Left to themselves, these disciplines tend to seek absolute certainty, necessity and completeness for the foundations for human knowledge and human existence within a narrow discipline. This is a misguided approach in that absolute certainty, necessity and completeness (the Kantian Trinity as Kaufmann puts it) which dates back through Descartes, to Plato and even back to Parmenides is not available in the human experience of existence. The quest for such certainty, necessity and completeness is what leads to obscurity in philosophical writing such as that found in the works Kant and Hegel. The requirements of necessity, certainty and completeness (eternal truths) are unrealizable and rather than realize this failure, Kant and Hegel resorted to obscurity to conceal the failing. Stylistically, obscurity became the standard for elevated or sophisticated philosophical writing and depth of thought, but this is really the use of semantics and tautologies resulting in an obfuscation over logic and clarity. Density and opaqueness are presented as rigorous thinking. That is, if it sounds profound, it must be profound. As Kaufmann poetically put it, “Kant sought security in obscurity…” Subsequently, philosophical discourse became increasingly narrow and rigid.
Belonging Goethe:
For Goethe, a universal truth that becomes a creed, one that cannot be doubted, one that may not be investigated, is the real disaster for human progress, not the lack of universal truth. While we understand this today, it was radical in its day and contra Kant and contra Hegel as well as contra certainty, contra completeness, contra necessity and contra security. Goethe saw that the encounter with the mind is an ongoing process of discovery without a final destination. What it means to be human is to always to be developing and unfolding, it is never just a matter of being. This is consistent with existential thought in that “existence precedes essence” as Sartre later expressed it, but as it originated with Goethe in the modern era. The only meaning to be found in human existence is the one that humans create for themselves. There is no universal eternal meaning to discover or essences to be obtained and protected. It is fruitless and even dangerous for human beings to search for absolute truth, necessity, completeness, universal maxims. When pushed, these concepts promote rigidity and ossification of both the individual and society. They can go further and create a militant orthodoxy that becomes authoritarian. Human autonomy does not consist of following rigid maxims, and rules that preclude development as well as the process of social and personal evolution. Such rules promote ossified rigidity. Nothing can be thought of as categorical, imperative or not.
Being Kant:
I think Kant’s ‘greatest’, most long lasting and detrimental legacy was in making the world safe for evangelical Christianity. Though Kant himself, as a rigorous agnostic, allowed no place for salvation through faith and sacraments, his influence in philosophy made it plausible to accept the existence of God, the doctrine of free will and belief in the immortality of the soul. These reside in Kant’s transcendent but ultimately unknowable Noumenal world. As Kant himself said it, he did away with knowledge to make room for faith. These are the basic tenants of modern and increasingly evangelical Christianity which, as Kaufmann points out, have more in common with Kant than with anything taught by Luther or Calvin. What Kant refers to as practical reason is attainable, but the demands are such that it can only be realized over an infinite period of development. But for Kant, this is the basis of immortality, it is necessary to perfect reason. For Goethe, all human development takes place within the human realm of material existence. Kant had an essentially religious mentality. This is how Kant makes the world safe for faith and reason, science resides in the knowable Phenomenal world of experience where science rules. The faith is in the Kant’s unobservable Noumenal world. From here, Kant builds his universal ethic based on duty since we cannot have a universal moral duty based on religion because religions do not agree both from within and between. The problem created by Kant is that the unknowable Noumenal world is real and the knowable Phenomenal world is the one of our mental creation. In another peculiar Kantian dichotomy, autonomy consists in following rigid maxims and rules that preclude development and evolution and promote ossified rigidity. This general bifurcation of existence against itself goes as far back as the ancient Orphic religions in which the human is dived against itself (physical versus spiritual). In fact, the only way certain and secure knowledge is possible for Kant is if it emanates from the human mind. That is, no matter how good our science is, knowledge of ultimate reality will always remain outside our grasp.
Becoming Hegel:
Kaufmann presents Hegel as the great reconciler, or synthesizer of Goethe and Kant, but this attempt became the source of the internal inconsistencies and conflicts within Hegel’s phenomenology. Kaufmann points out that Hegel took on an impossible task, to reconcile the irreconcilable. This was Hegel’s great error; Goethe’s legacy was independent of Kant and there was no need to reconcile him with Kant. Although Hegel was critical of Kant, in his rigidity for example, he still followed his manner of obscurity in terms of style as well as his non-rigorous spurious methodology. Hegel is like Goethe in that he saw the inevitability of development but like Kant he insisted on the existence of certainty and absolute truth so that with Hegel we get a progressive development from one general absolute and certain truth to the next general absolute and certain truth. He associated scientific knowledge with certainty, necessity and completeness in the same manner of Kant and before him Spinoza, Descartes, Aristotle and Plato at least. For Hegel, there is an absolute that continuously develops and updates itself and becomes a next stage of development, but each stage, once attained, is complete. This notion of discrete stages of development is the dialectic. Goethe’s idea of development can be better likened to a continuous process with no destination. Though Hegel never really defined the dialectic, the basic idea behind the dialectic is that understanding is not intuitive and can only come through process and meditation. This gave to Hegel the advantage of addressing many problems as part a larger whole, to highlight their relationships, rather than treating problems in philosophy as self-contained questions. For Hegel, there is a progressive development and autonomy (a’ la Goethe) but is of truth and certainty (a’ la Kant). Hegel learned that Kantian dichotomies were really stages of development in disguise. The problem with Hegel of course is that we now understand that there is no single story of development with a beginning leading to us (or to Hegel in his time) or any end of history to be found in in human experience. Hegel’s ‘scientific’ conception of philosophy is derived from Kant and his poetic conception philosophy is derived from Goethe. Kaufmann makes the point that through his many volumes and revisions, Hegel was not averse to changing his opinions like Goethe, but that he always wore a mask of absolute knowledge like Kant.
Hero of Volume One: Goethe, contra Kant, contra Hegel.
When Kaufmann speaks of mind, it is as a term of art in much that same way that Socrates might speak of the soul or Pascal might speak of the heart. Kaufmann does not invoke or imply any sort of Cartesian dualism or separation of mind and body. He does not commit himself to the separate existence of minds. Mind can be thought of as a general term for the human consciousness. By mind, Kaufmann means personality, feelings, emotions, desires, thoughts, intelligence, subconsciousness and beliefs. In short, what it means to be human. The three books of this collection could have been more accurately subtitled as ’Discovering what it Means to be Human’ But such a subtitle might over-zealously claim too much.
The organic cohesion of the human traits that comprise the ‘mind’ correspond to the organic cohesiveness and interdependence that Kaufmann sees between literature, philosophy and psychology. Kaufmann thus advocates and employs an interdisciplinary and multi-subject approach to developing self-knowledge and discovering the mind. Psychology is too important to be left to the psychologists just as philosophy is too important to be left to the philosophers. Left to themselves, these disciplines tend to seek absolute certainty, necessity and completeness for the foundations for human knowledge and human existence within a narrow discipline. This is a misguided approach in that absolute certainty, necessity and completeness (the Kantian Trinity as Kaufmann puts it) which dates back through Descartes, to Plato and even back to Parmenides is not available in the human experience of existence. The quest for such certainty, necessity and completeness is what leads to obscurity in philosophical writing such as that found in the works Kant and Hegel. The requirements of necessity, certainty and completeness (eternal truths) are unrealizable and rather than realize this failure, Kant and Hegel resorted to obscurity to conceal the failing. Stylistically, obscurity became the standard for elevated or sophisticated philosophical writing and depth of thought, but this is really the use of semantics and tautologies resulting in an obfuscation over logic and clarity. Density and opaqueness are presented as rigorous thinking. That is, if it sounds profound, it must be profound. As Kaufmann poetically put it, “Kant sought security in obscurity…” Subsequently, philosophical discourse became increasingly narrow and rigid.
Belonging Goethe:
For Goethe, a universal truth that becomes a creed, one that cannot be doubted, one that may not be investigated, is the real disaster for human progress, not the lack of universal truth. While we understand this today, it was radical in its day and contra Kant and contra Hegel as well as contra certainty, contra completeness, contra necessity and contra security. Goethe saw that the encounter with the mind is an ongoing process of discovery without a final destination. What it means to be human is to always to be developing and unfolding, it is never just a matter of being. This is consistent with existential thought in that “existence precedes essence” as Sartre later expressed it, but as it originated with Goethe in the modern era. The only meaning to be found in human existence is the one that humans create for themselves. There is no universal eternal meaning to discover or essences to be obtained and protected. It is fruitless and even dangerous for human beings to search for absolute truth, necessity, completeness, universal maxims. When pushed, these concepts promote rigidity and ossification of both the individual and society. They can go further and create a militant orthodoxy that becomes authoritarian. Human autonomy does not consist of following rigid maxims, and rules that preclude development as well as the process of social and personal evolution. Such rules promote ossified rigidity. Nothing can be thought of as categorical, imperative or not.
Being Kant:
I think Kant’s ‘greatest’, most long lasting and detrimental legacy was in making the world safe for evangelical Christianity. Though Kant himself, as a rigorous agnostic, allowed no place for salvation through faith and sacraments, his influence in philosophy made it plausible to accept the existence of God, the doctrine of free will and belief in the immortality of the soul. These reside in Kant’s transcendent but ultimately unknowable Noumenal world. As Kant himself said it, he did away with knowledge to make room for faith. These are the basic tenants of modern and increasingly evangelical Christianity which, as Kaufmann points out, have more in common with Kant than with anything taught by Luther or Calvin. What Kant refers to as practical reason is attainable, but the demands are such that it can only be realized over an infinite period of development. But for Kant, this is the basis of immortality, it is necessary to perfect reason. For Goethe, all human development takes place within the human realm of material existence. Kant had an essentially religious mentality. This is how Kant makes the world safe for faith and reason, science resides in the knowable Phenomenal world of experience where science rules. The faith is in the Kant’s unobservable Noumenal world. From here, Kant builds his universal ethic based on duty since we cannot have a universal moral duty based on religion because religions do not agree both from within and between. The problem created by Kant is that the unknowable Noumenal world is real and the knowable Phenomenal world is the one of our mental creation. In another peculiar Kantian dichotomy, autonomy consists in following rigid maxims and rules that preclude development and evolution and promote ossified rigidity. This general bifurcation of existence against itself goes as far back as the ancient Orphic religions in which the human is dived against itself (physical versus spiritual). In fact, the only way certain and secure knowledge is possible for Kant is if it emanates from the human mind. That is, no matter how good our science is, knowledge of ultimate reality will always remain outside our grasp.
Becoming Hegel:
Kaufmann presents Hegel as the great reconciler, or synthesizer of Goethe and Kant, but this attempt became the source of the internal inconsistencies and conflicts within Hegel’s phenomenology. Kaufmann points out that Hegel took on an impossible task, to reconcile the irreconcilable. This was Hegel’s great error; Goethe’s legacy was independent of Kant and there was no need to reconcile him with Kant. Although Hegel was critical of Kant, in his rigidity for example, he still followed his manner of obscurity in terms of style as well as his non-rigorous spurious methodology. Hegel is like Goethe in that he saw the inevitability of development but like Kant he insisted on the existence of certainty and absolute truth so that with Hegel we get a progressive development from one general absolute and certain truth to the next general absolute and certain truth. He associated scientific knowledge with certainty, necessity and completeness in the same manner of Kant and before him Spinoza, Descartes, Aristotle and Plato at least. For Hegel, there is an absolute that continuously develops and updates itself and becomes a next stage of development, but each stage, once attained, is complete. This notion of discrete stages of development is the dialectic. Goethe’s idea of development can be better likened to a continuous process with no destination. Though Hegel never really defined the dialectic, the basic idea behind the dialectic is that understanding is not intuitive and can only come through process and meditation. This gave to Hegel the advantage of addressing many problems as part a larger whole, to highlight their relationships, rather than treating problems in philosophy as self-contained questions. For Hegel, there is a progressive development and autonomy (a’ la Goethe) but is of truth and certainty (a’ la Kant). Hegel learned that Kantian dichotomies were really stages of development in disguise. The problem with Hegel of course is that we now understand that there is no single story of development with a beginning leading to us (or to Hegel in his time) or any end of history to be found in in human experience. Hegel’s ‘scientific’ conception of philosophy is derived from Kant and his poetic conception philosophy is derived from Goethe. Kaufmann makes the point that through his many volumes and revisions, Hegel was not averse to changing his opinions like Goethe, but that he always wore a mask of absolute knowledge like Kant.
July 31, 2021
I checked this book out of the library in hopes of understanding Kant and Hegel a bit better. The book doesn't really help with that, and certainly doesn't offer any insights on discovering the mind.
What is does most effectively is call out philosophers from Kant forward on the assumption that philosophy is supposed to have some kind of scientific rigor, but too often ends up written in an "extraoridnarily obscure style [with] spurious deductions."
What is does most effectively is call out philosophers from Kant forward on the assumption that philosophy is supposed to have some kind of scientific rigor, but too often ends up written in an "extraoridnarily obscure style [with] spurious deductions."
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