HIST 1202H Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: German Idealism, Categorical Imperative, Johann Gottfried Herder
6 Feb 2018
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Document Summary
Idealism is an epistemology: branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge; how we know and how we know it. Ideas compared to other ideas; reality check unnecessary. Idealists find empirical approach weak due to uncertainty. Situation where each approach is consistent within itself but cannot be reconciled with the other: you can be idealist or empiricist, but not both. Idealism is a form of knowledge that says we can find the truth by rational exercise: things like truth, goodness exist in and of themselves. Idealism dominant in german universities through 19th century: becomes associated with metaphysics of snobbery later on. Immanuel kent one of the most important western philosophers. Fichte"s addresses demand that a new state should be a cultural and moral authority. Idea of nation in modern sense comes partially from herder: wrote earlier than kant, fichte, contemporary of goethe, cosmopolitan in outlook.
