german-idealism-existentialism

Historical Arc

```

KANT (1724-1804)

│

▼

GERMAN IDEALISM (1781-1831)

├── Fichte: Absolute Ego

├── Schelling: Nature Philosophy

└── Hegel: Absolute Spirit, Dialectic

│

├─────────────────────────────────────┐

▼ ▼

REACTION AGAINST HEGEL NEO-HEGELIANISM

├── Kierkegaard: Individual ├── British Idealists

├── Schopenhauer: Will └── Marxism

└── Nietzsche: Will to Power

│

▼

PHENOMENOLOGY (1900-)

├── Husserl: Intentionality

└── Heidegger: Being-in-the-world

│

▼

EXISTENTIALISM (1940-)

├── Sartre: Radical Freedom

├── Camus: The Absurd

├── Beauvoir: Situated Freedom

└── Merleau-Ponty: Embodiment

```

---

Kant's Critical Philosophy (Background)

The Problem: How is knowledge possible?

• Empiricists: From experience alone
• Rationalists: From reason alone
• Kant: Both are necessary; mind structures experience

Transcendental Idealism:

• Space and time: forms of sensibility (how we perceive)
• Categories: forms of understanding (how we think)
• We know phenomena (appearances), not noumena (things-in-themselves)

Fichte: The Absolute Ego

Key Move: Eliminate the thing-in-itself

The Three Principles:

1. The Ego posits itself (I = I)
2. The Ego posits the Non-Ego (Not-I) as opposite
3. The Ego and Non-Ego are mutually limited

Implication: Reality is the product of absolute consciousness

Schelling: Philosophy of Nature

Key Move: Overcome subject-object dualism

Nature Philosophy:

• Nature is not dead matter but living spirit
• Subject and object are identical at the absolute level
• Art reveals this identity (aesthetic intuition)

Hegel: Absolute Idealism

The System:

```

HEGEL'S PHILOSOPHY

══════════════════

LOGIC (The Idea in-itself)

├── Being, Nothing, Becoming

├── Categories of thought

└── Dialectical development

PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE (The Idea outside-itself)

├── Mechanics

├── Physics

└── Organics

PHILOSOPHY OF SPIRIT (The Idea returning to itself)

├── Subjective Spirit (individual mind)

├── Objective Spirit (social/political)

│ ├── Law

│ ├── Morality

│ └── Ethical Life (State)

└── Absolute Spirit

├── Art

├── Religion

└── Philosophy

```

The Dialectic

Structure:

```

THESIS → ANTITHESIS → SYNTHESIS (Aufhebung)

│ │ │

│ │ └── Preserves truth of both

│ │ Negates one-sidedness

│ │ Elevates to higher unity

│ │

│ └── Negation, opposition

│

└── Initial position, one-sided

```

Aufhebung: To cancel, preserve, and elevate simultaneously

• The synthesis is not compromise but transcendence
• Contains the truth of both thesis and antithesis
• Becomes new thesis for further development

Example: Being and Nothing

1. Being (pure, indeterminate) → Thesis
2. Nothing (equally indeterminate) → Antithesis
3. Becoming (unity of being and nothing) → Synthesis

Key Hegelian Concepts

| German | English | Meaning |

|--------|---------|---------|

| Geist | Spirit/Mind | The absolute subject; consciousness in its development |

| Aufhebung | Sublation | Cancel, preserve, elevate |

| An sich | In-itself | Potential, implicit, unrealized |

| Für sich | For-itself | Actual, explicit, self-conscious |

| An-und-für-sich | In-and-for-itself | Fully realized, concrete |

| Vernunft | Reason | Rational comprehension of the whole |

| Wirklichkeit | Actuality | What is rational is actual; what is actual is rational |

| Entfremdung | Alienation | Spirit estranged from itself |

| Sittlichkeit | Ethical life | Concrete social ethics (vs. abstract morality) |

Master-Slave Dialectic (*Phenomenology of Spirit*)

```

THE STRUGGLE FOR RECOGNITION

════════════════════════════

1. Two self-consciousnesses meet

└── Each seeks recognition from the other

1. Life-and-death struggle

└── Each risks life to prove freedom

1. One yields (becomes Slave); other dominates (becomes Master)

└── Master gains recognition but from unfree being

1. Reversal:

├── Master: Dependent on slave; stagnates

└── Slave: Through work, transforms world and self

1. Slave achieves true self-consciousness

└── Work = objectification of self in world

└── Fear of death = awareness of own being

1. Path to mutual recognition

└── Only free beings can truly recognize each other

```

---

Kierkegaard: The Individual

Against Hegel:

• System cannot contain existence
• Truth is subjectivity
• The individual vs. the universal
• Passion vs. reason

Three Stages of Existence:

```

KIERKEGAARD'S STAGES

════════════════════

1. AESTHETIC STAGE

└── Life of pleasure, variety, immediacy

└── Don Juan, seducer

└── Despair: Boredom, emptiness

1. ETHICAL STAGE

└── Life of duty, commitment, universality

└── Judge Wilhelm, marriage

└── Despair: Guilt, inability to fulfill duty

1. RELIGIOUS STAGE

└── Life of faith, individual relation to God

└── Abraham, leap of faith

└── "Teleological suspension of the ethical"

```

Key Concepts:

| Concept | Meaning |

|---------|---------|

| Anxiety (Angst) | Dizziness of freedom; facing infinite possibility |

| Despair | Being in sin; not willing to be oneself |

| Leap of Faith | Non-rational commitment; choosing without proof |

| Subjectivity | Truth as personal appropriation |

| Repetition | Willing the eternal in the temporal |

Schopenhauer: The Will

Metaphysics:

• Reality is will (blind, striving force)
• Representations are phenomena of will
• Will is irrational, endless desire
• Life is suffering (will can never be satisfied)

Response:

1. Aesthetic contemplation (temporary relief)
2. Ethical compassion (recognizing unity of will)
3. Ascetic denial of will (permanent liberation)

Influence: Nietzsche, Freud, Buddhism in West

Nietzsche: Will to Power

Key Moves:

• "God is dead" — Collapse of metaphysical foundations
• Critique of morality — "Slave morality" vs. "Master morality"
• Affirmation of life — Despite meaninglessness

Central Concepts:

```

NIETZSCHE'S PHILOSOPHY

══════════════════════

WILL TO POWER

├── Not political domination

├── Self-overcoming, creativity

├── Life's fundamental drive

└── Basis of all values

ETERNAL RETURN

├── "What if you had to live this life eternally?"

├── Test of affirmation

├── Heaviest thought

└── Amor fati: love of fate

ÜBERMENSCH (Overman)

├── Beyond good and evil

├── Creates own values

├── Affirms life completely

└── Not a biological type

PERSPECTIVISM

├── No "view from nowhere"

├── All interpretation, no facts

├── Multiple perspectives valuable

└── Against dogmatic truth

```

Master vs. Slave Morality:

| Master Morality | Slave Morality |

|-----------------|----------------|

| Good = noble, powerful | Good = meek, humble |

| Bad = base, common | Evil = powerful, proud |

| Creates values | Reactive, resentful |

| Affirms self | Denies life |

---

Husserl: Intentionality

Founding Insight: Consciousness is always consciousness of something

Method:

```

PHENOMENOLOGICAL METHOD

═══════════════════════

1. EPOCHÉ (Bracketing)

└── Suspend natural attitude

└── Don't assume world exists independently

└── Focus on how things appear

1. PHENOMENOLOGICAL REDUCTION

└── Reduce to pure phenomena

└── Describe structures of consciousness

└── Eidetic variation: find essences

1. TRANSCENDENTAL ANALYSIS

└── How consciousness constitutes objects

└── Noesis (act) / Noema (content)

└── Intentional structures

```

Heidegger: Being-in-the-World

Fundamental Question: What is the meaning of Being?

Dasein: Human existence as the being that questions Being

Existential Structures:

```

BEING AND TIME (Sein und Zeit)

══════════════════════════════

BEING-IN-THE-WORLD (In-der-Welt-sein)

├── We are always already in a world

├── Not subject vs. object

└── Holistic, engaged existence

THROWNNESS (Geworfenheit)

├── We find ourselves already in situations

├── Not chosen but given

└── Facticity of existence

PROJECTION (Entwurf)

├── We project possibilities

├── Future-oriented existence

└── Freedom within thrownness

FALLENNESS (Verfallenheit)

├── Absorption in "the They" (das Man)

├── Inauthenticity

└── Fleeing from oneself

ANXIETY (Angst)

├── Not fear of something specific

├── Confrontation with Being-toward-death

└── Reveals authentic existence

BEING-TOWARD-DEATH (Sein-zum-Tode)

├── Death as ownmost possibility

├── Cannot be transferred or avoided

└── Individualizes Dasein

CARE (Sorge)

├── Being-ahead-of-itself (future)

├── Already-being-in (past)

├── Being-alongside (present)

└── Unified structure of Dasein

```

Authenticity vs. Inauthenticity:

| Authentic (Eigentlich) | Inauthentic (Uneigentlich) |

|------------------------|---------------------------|

| Owns existence | Lost in "the They" |

| Faces death | Flees from death |

| Resolute | Dispersed |

| Individual choice | Follows the crowd |

The Later Heidegger:

• "The Turn" (die Kehre)
• From Dasein to Being itself
• History of Being (Seinsgeschichte)
• Technology as danger and saving power
• Dwelling, poetry, thinking

---

Sartre: Radical Freedom

Fundamental Thesis: "Existence precedes essence"

• Humans have no predetermined nature
• We create ourselves through choices
• Total freedom = total responsibility

Key Concepts:

```

SARTREAN EXISTENTIALISM

═══════════════════════

BEING-IN-ITSELF (En-soi)

├── Non-conscious being

├── Solid, complete, identical with itself

└── "Is what it is"

BEING-FOR-ITSELF (Pour-soi)

├── Conscious being (human)

├── Always beyond itself

├── "Is what it is not, is not what it is"

└── Nothingness, lack, desire

BAD FAITH (Mauvaise foi)

├── Denying freedom

├── Pretending to be a thing

├── "I had no choice"

└── Self-deception

RADICAL FREEDOM

├── We are "condemned to be free"

├── No excuses: situation doesn't determine choice

├── Anguish: awareness of freedom

└── Responsibility: we choose for all humanity

THE LOOK (Le regard)

├── Being seen by another

├── Becomes object for another consciousness

├── Conflict: each wants to possess the other's freedom

└── "Hell is other people"

```

Being and Nothingness: Consciousness is nothing but the negation of being-in-itself. Freedom is the heart of being.

Camus: The Absurd

The Absurd:

• Arises from confrontation between human desire for meaning and universe's silence
• Neither in us nor in world, but in their meeting
• "The absurd is born of this confrontation between human need and the unreasonable silence of the world"

Responses to Absurdity:

1. Suicide — Reject it (wrong answer)
2. Philosophical suicide — Leap to transcendence (bad faith)
3. Revolt — Accept and live with it (authentic response)

The Myth of Sisyphus:

• Sisyphus pushing the rock eternally
• "We must imagine Sisyphus happy"
• Revolt, freedom, passion
• Creating meaning despite meaninglessness

Beauvoir: Situated Freedom

Contribution: Freedom is always situated

• Abstract freedom vs. concrete freedom
• Social conditions constrain genuine freedom
• Ethics requires extending freedom to all

The Second Sex:

• "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman"
• Critique of woman as "Other"
• Application of existentialism to gender

Merleau-Ponty: Embodiment

Contribution: Critique of Cartesian mind-body dualism

• Body-subject: we are our bodies
• Perception is primary
• Motor intentionality
• Flesh (chair): intertwining of subject and world

---

German Terms

| Term | Meaning |

|------|---------|

| Geist | Spirit, Mind |

| Aufhebung | Sublation (cancel, preserve, elevate) |

| Angst | Anxiety, dread |

| Dasein | Being-there, human existence |

| Geworfenheit | Thrownness |

| Eigentlichkeit | Authenticity |

| Verfallenheit | Fallenness |

| Sorge | Care |

| Sein | Being |

| Seiendes | Beings, entities |

| Wille zur Macht | Will to Power |

| Übermensch | Overman |

| Ewige Wiederkehr | Eternal Return |

| Weltanschauung | Worldview |

French Terms

| Term | Meaning |

|------|---------|

| En-soi | Being-in-itself |

| Pour-soi | Being-for-itself |

| Mauvaise foi | Bad faith |

| Néant | Nothingness |

| Le regard | The Look |

| L'absurde | The Absurd |

| Révolte | Revolt |

---

Related Thinkers

• thinkers/hegel/, thinkers/nietzsche/, thinkers/heidegger/
• thinkers/sartre/, thinkers/kierkegaard/

Related Themes

• thoughts/existence/: Being, authenticity
• thoughts/free_will/: Freedom, determinism
• thoughts/consciousness/: Phenomenology
• thoughts/life_meaning/: Absurdity, meaning-creation

---

• methods.md: Dialectical, phenomenological, hermeneutic methods
• vocabulary.md: Comprehensive term glossary
• figures.md: Philosophers with key works and ideas
• debates.md: Central controversies
• sources.md: Primary texts and scholarship