It's vital to understand that Hegel's theory of truth was not based on a classical representational model, i.e., the view that a proposition is true if and only if it obtains in reality. Even logic itself is subject to change, being subject to the underlying "spirit of the age" (Zeitgeist). Ideas are therefore not merely personal states of mind, but are embedded in a historical/economic context that highly conditions their meaning. Instead, they express themselves as part of a larger "thesis" in an ongoing historical process of refinement and change. The phenomenal realm is the product of the mind, after all, and therefore it is the very thing Kant said could not be known - i.e., the noumenal.Īccording to Hegel, ideas are not static things, like rocks or tables. In other words, Hegel was an "idealist," by which is meant that he considered ideas to be the substrata of reality. Hegel (1770-1831) went on to claim that the mind itself is its own endpoint, and therefore the interplay of ideas is itself ultimate reality. Instead of accepting the limits of the human mind that Kant outlined (the "antinomies of reason"), G.W. We are left only with postulates, hypothetical constructs, models, etc., but knowledge is essentially constrained by fundamental structures of consciousness (e.g., the categories of space and time) from which we interpret any possible experience. The inner working of reality - the "noumenal" - is sealed off as essentially unknowable. There are limits or boundaries to the mind's ability to discover "things in themselves," and at best we are left with methods (or paradigms) by which we "manage appearances."Įven hard sciences, such as physics, can only deal with the phenomenal realm of life. This theory can be easily traced to the "critical philosophy" of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who taught that the human mind cannot transcend itself in order to apprehend ultimate reality. It's been said that modern politics operates on the basis of the so-called "Hegelian Dialectic," a method of social engineering based on a rather dismal theory about how precious little people can actually know. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of the dusk.
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