58

p In contrast to England, France and other countries where bourgeois revolutions destroyed or greatly undermined feudal relations and paved the way for the development of capitalism, in Germany feudal relations were still predominant in the period under discussion. Germany was a backward country broken up into numerous separate principalities. The bourgeoisie had not yet emerged as a class and was weak economically and dependent politically. Unable to wage an independent struggle for power, it was afraid of revolution and 59 willingly made compromises with feudal lords.

p This uncertain and dependent position of the German bourgeoisie inevitably influenced the philosophical systems developed and propagated by its ideologists. They concentrated mainly on various abstract problems, rather than on seeking ways to solve practical matters, in which the bourgeoisie was helpless. True, these philosophical systems were to a certain degree influenced by the French bourgeois revolution and by the advances of the natural sciences. As a result, a living and fertile dialectics-a major achievement of the classical German idealist philosophy-could be discerned through abstract, artificial and contradictory systems.

p Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was the founder of the classical German philosophy. Initially Kant studied natural science and sought solutions to its problems from a materialist standpoint. For instance, he developed a hypothesis that the solar system had emerged from a gas nebula as a result of the action of its inner natural forces.

p This Kantian hypothesis was prominent in the struggle against the metaphysical way of thinking, which held sway at that time. As Engels put it, it made the first breach in the building of metaphysics.

p In subsequent years, however, when Kant engaged in purely philosophical problems, such as the theory of knowledge, he switched from spontaneous materialism to idealism, though he was not a thoroughly consistent idealist. The essence of Kant’s philosophy was as follows.

60

p Kant did not reject the objective existence of matter, but considered it unknowable by nature, calling it a “thing-in-itself”. Alongside matter ( objective reality), there exists, Kant believed, a world of phenomena, which he called nature-the world we perceive, in which we live and act. The world of phenomena, or nature, does not exist independently of human consciousness, it emerges as a result of the “thing-in-itself” acting upon the sense organs and is nothing but the totality of men’s notions. “All bodies,” Kant wrote, “together with the space they occupy should be considered as simple notions in ourselves and do not exist anywhere except in our thought.”  [60•1 

p The world of phenomena created by man in no way resembles, according to Kant, the world of “things-in-themselves”. Yet man deals only with the world of phenomena. If this is so, the world of “things-in-themselves” is absolutely inaccessible for him. Man does not and cannot know anything about this world, because it is unknowable. All that man knows, Kant concluded, is related to the world of phenomena, i.e. to his own notions.

p The world of phenomena, Kant maintained, is orderless and chaotic; it is not regulated by any law or necessity; it exists outside of space and time. It is man who introduces, in the process of cognition, a certain measure of order into this chaos-he places all phenomena within space and time limitations, lends them necessity, regularity, and a cause-and-effect relationship. It follows then 61 that man creates both the world of phenomena (since the latter, Kant said, is only a totality of man’s sensations or notions) and the laws acting in this world. This is a clearly idealistic solution to the problem of the relationship between man’s consciousness and nature. Kant, however, is not consistent in this view. By admitting that the ob “ exists indepenct- _w___i<7 „ consciousness, he tries to combine materialist and idealist principles into one system and to reconcile materialism with idealism. Lenin pinpointed this inconsistency in Kant’s philosophy. He wrote: “The principal feature of Kant’s philosophy is the reconciliation of materialism with idealism, a compromise between the two, the combination within one system of heterogeneous and contrary philosophical trends. When Kant assumes that something outside us, a thing-in-itself, corresponds to our ideas, he is a materialist. When he declares this thing-in-itself to be unknowable, transcendental, other-sided, he is an idealist.”  [61•1 

p In Kant’s dualistic philosophy, however, the materialist and idealist trends do not hold an equal place, with idealism gaining the upper hand. It is not a mere coincidence, therefore, that Kant’s teaching was subordinated to a rather limited and reactionary objective-to justify religion. It was for this reason, Kant conceded, that he had to narrow the field of knowledge.

p Indeed, according to Kant, man deals exclusively with the world of phenomena and is unable to 62 grasp the world of “things-in-themselves”. The latter, as Kant saw it, is the realm of God, soul, free will, etc. So science is unable and has no right to judge of God, soul, etc. (to prove, for instance, that God does not exist, or that the soul is mortal), since all this is inaccessible for it. It is only religion, Kant insists, that can penetrate the world of “things-in-themselves”, break away from the observed world of phenomena and take a look at the other world, since religion unites man with God, grants him free will in the other world, and liberates him from all the hardships he constantly suffers in the sensuous world.

p The idealist philosophy was further advanced by Hegel (1770-1831), the great German idealist philosopher, the founder of idealist dialectics.

p According to Hegel, all that exists originated from pure thought or the Absolute Idea. Initially, it is “pure being”, i.e. devoid of any content and equivalent to “nothing” or non-being. Then, “pure being" and “nothing” (non-being) engage in a struggle with one another and produce a new concept-“becoming”. The latter leads to the emergence of yet another concept—“being there”, and the process goes on. The Absolute Idea is inherently contradictory, so it constantly develops, giving rise to ever new concepts, which are fuller in content. This will continue until the Absolute Idea exhausts itself, revealing all its content. Having revealed and fully expressed its content in various concepts, the Absolute Idea begets nature, assumes a material shell and henceforth exists as material objects and phenomena, i.e. Nature.

63

p Here, the Absolute Idea initially takes the form of mechanical forces, then of chemical compounds, and, finally, begets life and then man and human society. With the emergence of man, the Idea breaks through the material shell which is “alien” to it, and begins to exist in its own form, the form of men’s consciousness or thought. As human consciousness develops, the Idea liberates itself increasingly from the fetters of matter. Finally, having realised all its past experience, the Idea ends its development in Hegelian philosophy and returns, as it were, to itself, to its original state, but now not as pure being, but as the being which has revealed and apprehended its content to the full.

p As regards knowledge, the full content of the Absolute Idea-or the Absolute Spirit, as Hegel calls his Absolute Idea-should be represented at this final stage of its development by the Hegelian philosophical system. The process of cognition ends with the formulation of this system, because there remains nothing that is not cognised. Hegelian philosophy, according to Hegel, expresses the absolute knowledge, knowledge consummated once and for all, the absolute truth.

p In practice, the Absolute Spirit should have been represented by the Prussian limited monarchy which, as Engels put it, Frederick William III so vehemently and vainly promised his subjects.

p All this shows Hegelian philosophy as a vivid example of objective idealism arguing that consciousness or spirit is primary, while nature is secondary, being a derivative of consciousness. Besides, this philosophy overtly justifies and 64 theoretically substantiates the eternity of the existing order, monarchy, nobility, and the regime that suppresses the working people.

p Yet, there is another aspect to Hegelian philosophy-the dialectical method, the fundamental principles of which were set forth by Hegel within his rather conservative and artificial system.

p By developing his system and showing how the Absolute Idea engenders its content, and then the material world-nature and society-Hegel, first, gave a picture of the developing world and, second, offered a universal description of the content of the fundamental laws of dialectics. He showed, among other things, that the world developed through the struggle of opposites and that, in the course of that development, some concepts were negated by others and repeated on a higher level.

p In the dialectic of concepts and their interconnection and mutual transitions, Hegel guessed at and expressed the real dialectic-the dialectic of things. True, as often as not Hegel was inconsistent in pursuing a particular dialectical principle, especially when dealing with reality, which he had to justify because of his class affiliation. The inconsistency of the Hegelian dialectic stemmed, to a considerable extent, from the fact that it was developed within the framework of an idealist system and was tailored to its needs, which were incompatible with the revolutionary spirit of genuine dialectics and contrary to its principles. Seeking to satisfy the needs of his system, Hegel was therefore compelled to go against his own dialectical method.

65

p Letus_consider some deviations from the principles otdialectics, caused by the contradiction between the method and the system in Hegelian philosophy.  

p 1. The dialectical method sees nature, society, and knowledge in a constant state of motion and development. The system, on the other hand, calls for a limit in development. Hegel yields to the system and says that development ceases as soon as the Idea reaches its highest stage.

p 2. The dialectical method recognises that contradictions are universal. The system requires that all contradictions should be settled and an ideal, conflict-free state be established. Hegel finds himself on the side of the system and gives up his method when he declares that as soon as the Idea reaches its highest stage (the Prussian limited monarchy, on the one hand, and the Hegelian idealist philosophy, on the other) all contradictions are resolved and the absolutely true situation is established.

p 3. The method requires that thought should develop in conformity with real processes. The system, on the other hand, assumes that relations are constructed in the head if the existing relations and connections do not correspond to some provision of the system. Here, too, Hegel gives preference to the system and constructs various artificial connections instead of coordinating his philosophy with reality.

p 4. The method requires continuous changes in reality and shows how and in what direction they are to be made, whereas the system demands that 66 the existing order should be perpetuated. Hegel falls victim to his own system and deprives his method of any practical value by relating it only to the past, and by making it a method of cognition of past things and phenomena.

p Only materialism based on science and requiring the world to be taken as it is, without any outside additions, could serve as a spring-board for overcoming the above deficiences in the Hegelian method and for developing it further. The subsequent development of philosophy objectively demanded, therefore, a shift to materialism and a critical materialist reassessment of the Hegelian idealist philosophy.

p The German philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) accomplished, though only partially, this historic mission. True, he did not re-examine Hegel’s dialectical principles from the materialist standpoint. He confined his mission to revolting against Hegel’s idealism, rejecting it, and reinstating materialism. It was Marx and Engels who peeled the husk of Hegelian idealism off the Rational grain-dialectics-and developed it on the jjasis oTmaterialism!

p Feuerbach showed that the Hegelian Absolute Idea was but the human mind, separated from its bearer-man-and transformed into an independent being that created the world out of itself. He said that the role played by the Absolute Idea in Hegelian philosophy was played by God in theology. So the Absolute Idea in no way differed from God, while Hegelianism was but a variety of theology. “He who does not reject the Hegelian philosophy," 67 Feuerbach wrote, “neither rejects theology. The Hegelian teaching that nature, reality is posited by the idea is merely a rational expression of the theological precept that nature has been created by God... .”  [67•1 

p According to Feuerbach, thinking cannot exist outside or independently of man, being a property of man’s brain and its function that inherently links the spiritual and the material. Hence thinking (the ideal, spiritual) is not primary, as Hegel believed, but secondary to matter, to nature.

p In contrast to Hegel, who made abstract spirit the subject of his philosophy, Feuerbach bases his system on man and nature, regarding man as an integral part of the nature that produced him. He makes anthropology (from the Greek anthropos- man) a guiding, basic principle in developing his materialist views. “The new philosophy,” he wrote referring to his philosophical system, “makes man, including nature as the basis of man, the only, universal and supreme subject of philosophy.”  [67•2 

p While being guided by his anthropological principle and correctly stressing (in contrast to Hegel) that man is part of nature, while his consciousness (thinking) is an attribute of it, Feuerbach overlooked one important point. He did not realise that man, being part of nature, was at the same time a product of social life, and that his consciousness 68 was shaped not only by the physiological processes occurring in his body, particularly in his brain, but also by the social environment within which man lived and acted, and by the material conditions of his life. So no matter how vigorously Feuerbach insisted on man being “alive” and “ sensuous”, and inherently linked with nature, that man was abstract and isolated from the concrete conditions of life, and deprived of his social ( human) essence.

p Giving the materialist answer to the question of what is primary-matter or consciousnessFeuerbach also correctly treated the other aspect of the fundamental question of philosophy. He supported the view that the world is knowable and castigated Kant’s agnosticism.

p Feuerbach believed sensations to be the point of departure in the process of cognition, providing man with all the data related to objective reality. Yet man feels and thinks simultaneously. Thinking supplements man’s sensations, and is always present at the stage of sense knowledge, making coherent that which the senses perceive separately.

p This proves that Feuerbach realised the inherent interconnection between sensations and thinking, between the sensuous and the rational.

p It is to Feuerbach’s credit that he unflaggingly opposed religion and comprehensively criticised it. He showed that God had nothing supernatural about him and had been invented by men in their own image. According to Feuerbach, men, who are able to think and imagine in abstract terms, separated themselves from their own essence which 69 they began to imagine as a special independent and supernatural being-God.

p By demonstrating that all the features ascribed to God are human and belong to individuals or the human race as a whole, Feuerbach revealed the earthly roots of religion and brought God from heaven down to earth.

p Although Feuerbach tore the supernatural mask from God, he did not realise the class essence of religion and did not expose the social causes of the belief in God and life after death. It is not fortuitous, therefore, that he was unable to point out any effective way of combatting religion. Moreover, he was not against all religion. He opposed only the traditional religion that regarded God as a supernatural creature. At the same time, he laboriously proved the need for a new, earthly religion in which man himself would take God’s place and man’s love of man would be the guiding principle.

Irrespective of the many drawbacks inherent in Feuerbach’s philosophy, it undoubtedly deserves praise for reinstating the principles of materialism (though on the old metaphysical basis and without dialectics, which he rejected together with Hegelian idealism) and for having greatly influenced the subsequent development of philosophy. The fact that Feuerbach’s materialist teaching was one of the theoretical sources of Marxism is in itself a graphic illustration of the role it played in the advancement of philosophical thought.