Philosophy Essay
HEGEL’S ABSOLUTE IDEALISM AND HIS DIALECTICAL PROCESS OF
UNDERSTANDINGS
Written by: Zaky Ayatillah
Idealism is a philosophical system, it is a broad category of philosophy. Idealism
couldn't be classified as what’s called as field of philosophy, but idealism could be seen as a
system within a field of Metaphysics. The main theme of idealism is the claim that reality is
dependent upon the mind rather than it is independent. Plato, the father of idealism discovered
and exposed this theory around 400 BC, the theory itself was written in his notorious book
The Republic. Plato initially said, there are two worlds that we lived in, the world of spiritual,
which is eternal, permanent and universal. The second world is the material world, the world
that we can see, the world that we experience through senses, and the world that disorderly
keep changing.
Idealism also claims that the only thing that really exist is our ideas. George Berkely’s
beliefs of idealism completely reject the material world, he said that, matter never really exists,
all reality is solely inside our mind and nothing exist but ideas. Subsequently, Immanuel Kant
developed this theory into what is known as Transcendental Idealism. Kant claimed that the
material world does exist, as well as material objects. Kant referred to this as “Noumena” the
thing that is described as in and of themselves. Kant said that we only receive and understand
the representations of the noumena, our mind creates ideas of the noumena through spatial
temporal lens or senses, what we perceive is what’s called as “Phenomena”, so we can never
see things as what they truly are, therefore what we see is only our idea of the things.
As Hegel developed Kant’s theories, Hegel was seen as an idealist. In Hegel’s book,
Phenomenology of The Spirit, he claims that “the rational alone is real”, this point of view puts
Hegel into the idealist category. What exactly does he means by the rational alone is real?
However Hegel firmly criticized Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, he mainly rejects the claim
that said we have no knowledge of the noumena, if we are so detached from the noumena, how
did we even believe in such a thing? Hegel wasn’t satisfied by this version at all, he developed
his own version of idealism which is known as Absolute Idealism. Hegel pondered ideas in a
different perspective. He considered ideas and concepts such as culture, society, traditions,
norms and values are not objects, these are not things in themselves, not only belong to our
mind like pain and taste, and yet they seem outcast and belong to everybody. These types of
ideas are what Hegel called as “The Spirit” ; he believes that these types of ideas belong to all
of us and exist in all people.
We are so finite, there is an external world that lives beyond our mind, reality is not
only ideas, however how we perceive this reality and our beings is shaped by ideas, and these
ideas are the product of The Spirits, shared understandings across all the people that shapes our
perceptions. So all the real things around us are determined by our ideas, as Hegel said the
world is a reflection of our ideas means that only the rational is real and reality is a spirit. There
was an unsettled question in one of my philosophy classes last week. One of my classmates
asked something about love, he asked “could love affect our perception of reality?” The answer
is possibly and most likely yes, because the concept of love perhaps is one of the things that
Hegel classified as the spirit, we can’t see love but love is shared by everybody, just a simple
assumption that maybe yes, love can affect our reality.
Hegel also believe that spirit is dynamic, its constantly moving and it has a purpose, a
goal. The goal is to reach what believed to be called “The Absolute”. Hegel described the
absolute as “the spirit that which present to itself in the certainty of unconditional self-
knowing”. The way the spirits keep evolving themselves to reach the absolute is what he
mention as “Dialectic”. Dialectic basically known as a conversation, someone come up with a
point or thesis, eventually this thesis will provoke a various flaws and contradictions, because
of that, at some point of the future someone will come up with an arguments or an antithesis.
Tension will occurs back and forth, and sooner or later a solutions or a synthesis will ultimately
be made. After the tension solved, the synthesis would become a new thesis, once again thesis
will have some flaws that will rise an antithesis and so on. This cycle will create something
known as a dialectic process. Dialectic process works in different human experiences such as
art, philosophy, technology, theology, astronomy, chemistry, physics, etc.. What Hegel was
looking for in this process is what mentioned as Aufheben, a german word for “to keep up” or
something being elevated to the next level, in other words Hegel was searching for
improvements. This process will constantly happening until it reaches its ultimate purpose, to
reach The Absolute, if it’s ever even reachable.
Source:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/idealism/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental-idealism/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ1BhhZZcpM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCXghtImTZw
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absolute_idealism
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/mXaNwn9WA9Y/maxresdefault.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aufheben
