Aenesidemus (book)
Encyclopedia
Aenesidemus was a German book published anonymously by Professor Gottlob Ernst Schulze
of Helmstedt
in 1792. It attempted to refute the principles that Karl Leonhard Reinhold
established in support of Immanuel Kant
's Critique of Pure Reason
. The title's reference is to Aenesidemus
, who was an ancient Greek skeptical philosopher. Its complete title, in English translation, was Aenesidemus or Concerning the Foundations of the Philosophy of the Elements Issued by Professor Reinhold in Jena Together with a Defense of Skepticism against the Pretensions of the Critique of Reason.
The book was supposed to be a written correspondence between Hermias (Greek
: "a follower of Hermes
"), who believes in the Kantian critical philosophy, and Aenesidemus (Greek
: "he who praises the people"), who is skeptical about that philosophy. The skepticism of David Hume
, according to this book, was not disproved by Kant. As Hume had asserted, the existence of causality
, the soul, or the thing-in-itself
cannot be proved.
cannot establish the existence
or non-existence of the thing-in-itself. By establishing general principles, we can't know the limits of our ability to know. Progressive development, however, can approach complete knowledge.
No skeptic can doubt the reality and certainty of mental representations and mental events that are immediately given through consciousness.
Skepticism does not claim that metaphysical questions cannot be answered.
Skepticism doubts the possibility of knowledge about the existence or non-existence of the thing-in-itself. Kant, however, was guilty of begging the question
in that he presupposed that the thing-in-itself exists and causally interacts with observing subjects.
Kant and Reinhold claimed that the reality of objects can be known from the representations in the mind of the observing subject. This is inferring objective reality from subjective thought. Such an inference is the fallacy
of drawing existential conclusions from logical premises.
Kant's critical philosophy is self-contradictory. He said that things-in-themselves cause sensations in an observer
's mind
. Kant applied causality
to noumena
. But, in his critique, he had claimed that causality is a category of the understanding
that can only be applied to phenomena.
Kant posited real existence to the postulates of God
, Free Will
, and Immortal
Souls. But this is more than is necessary for moral theology
, which only requires belief in them as Idea
s of Reason
.
The science
of psychology
does not require that the soul have faculties. Rather, psychology is a detailed description and systematic classification of actual mental events.
If we were to take critical philosophy seriously, we would commit ourselves to resolving experiences into two parts — a system of universal subjective forms on one side, and a mass of amorphous, meaningless objective matter on the other.
How can we be sure that Kant's obligation to be moral is the result of freedom? It might be the result of some irrational natural force.
, December 4, 1792:
Reinhold wrote that true skepticism rested on the fact that only the observing subject felt what was in its consciousness. The only truth is the subject's notion that there is an object that agrees with its internal mental representation.
Johann Fichte agreed with Reinhold's subjectivity. He based his own idealism on the observing subject's internal forms of knowledge. The absolute idealism
of Friedrich Schelling and G. W. F. Hegel tried to prove the soul's immortality and the existence of God by drawing existential conclusions regarding them from mere logical premises. Arthur Schopenhauer
's voluntarism
claimed that Kant's thing–in–itself is an irrational force that relates to morality because of its identity with the human will
.
Gottlob Ernst Schulze
Gottlob Ernst Schulze was born in Heldrungen . Schulze was a professor at Wittenberg, Helmstedt, and Göttingen...
of Helmstedt
Helmstedt
Helmstedt is a city located at the eastern edge of the German state of Lower Saxony. It is the capital of the District of Helmstedt. Helmstedt has 26,000 inhabitants . In former times the city was also called Helmstädt....
in 1792. It attempted to refute the principles that Karl Leonhard Reinhold
Karl Leonhard Reinhold
Karl Leonhard Reinhold was an Austrian philosopher. He was the father of Ernst Reinhold, also a philosopher.-Life:...
established in support of Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
's Critique of Pure Reason
Critique of Pure Reason
The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, first published in 1781, second edition 1787, is considered one of the most influential works in the history of philosophy. Also referred to as Kant's "first critique," it was followed by the Critique of Practical Reason and the Critique of Judgement...
. The title's reference is to Aenesidemus
Aenesidemus
Aenesidemus was a Greek sceptical philosopher, born in Knossos on the island of Crete. He lived in the 1st century BC, taught in Alexandria and flourished shortly after the life of Cicero...
, who was an ancient Greek skeptical philosopher. Its complete title, in English translation, was Aenesidemus or Concerning the Foundations of the Philosophy of the Elements Issued by Professor Reinhold in Jena Together with a Defense of Skepticism against the Pretensions of the Critique of Reason.
The book was supposed to be a written correspondence between Hermias (Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
: "a follower of Hermes
Hermes
Hermes is the great messenger of the gods in Greek mythology and a guide to the Underworld. Hermes was born on Mount Kyllini in Arcadia. An Olympian god, he is also the patron of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of the cunning of thieves, of orators and...
"), who believes in the Kantian critical philosophy, and Aenesidemus (Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
: "he who praises the people"), who is skeptical about that philosophy. The skepticism of David Hume
David Hume
David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...
, according to this book, was not disproved by Kant. As Hume had asserted, the existence of causality
Causality
Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....
, the soul, or the thing-in-itself
Noumenon
The noumenon is a posited object or event that is known without the use of the senses.The term is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to "phenomenon", which refers to anything that appears to, or is an object of, the senses...
cannot be proved.
Schulze's skepticism
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
cannot establish the existence
Existence
In common usage, existence is the world we are aware of through our senses, and that persists independently without them. In academic philosophy the word has a more specialized meaning, being contrasted with essence, which specifies different forms of existence as well as different identity...
or non-existence of the thing-in-itself. By establishing general principles, we can't know the limits of our ability to know. Progressive development, however, can approach complete knowledge.
No skeptic can doubt the reality and certainty of mental representations and mental events that are immediately given through consciousness.
Skepticism does not claim that metaphysical questions cannot be answered.
Skepticism doubts the possibility of knowledge about the existence or non-existence of the thing-in-itself. Kant, however, was guilty of begging the question
Begging the question
Begging the question is a type of logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proven is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise....
in that he presupposed that the thing-in-itself exists and causally interacts with observing subjects.
Kant and Reinhold claimed that the reality of objects can be known from the representations in the mind of the observing subject. This is inferring objective reality from subjective thought. Such an inference is the fallacy
Fallacy
In logic and rhetoric, a fallacy is usually an incorrect argumentation in reasoning resulting in a misconception or presumption. By accident or design, fallacies may exploit emotional triggers in the listener or interlocutor , or take advantage of social relationships between people...
of drawing existential conclusions from logical premises.
Kant's critical philosophy is self-contradictory. He said that things-in-themselves cause sensations in an observer
Observation
Observation is either an activity of a living being, such as a human, consisting of receiving knowledge of the outside world through the senses, or the recording of data using scientific instruments. The term may also refer to any data collected during this activity...
's mind
Mind
The concept of mind is understood in many different ways by many different traditions, ranging from panpsychism and animism to traditional and organized religious views, as well as secular and materialist philosophies. Most agree that minds are constituted by conscious experience and intelligent...
. Kant applied causality
Causality
Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....
to noumena
Noumenon
The noumenon is a posited object or event that is known without the use of the senses.The term is generally used in contrast with, or in relation to "phenomenon", which refers to anything that appears to, or is an object of, the senses...
. But, in his critique, he had claimed that causality is a category of the understanding
Understanding
Understanding is a psychological process related to an abstract or physical object, such as a person, situation, or message whereby one is able to think about it and use concepts to deal adequately with that object....
that can only be applied to phenomena.
Kant posited real existence to the postulates of God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, Free Will
Free will
"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
, and Immortal
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
Souls. But this is more than is necessary for moral theology
Moral theology
Moral theology is a systematic theological treatment of Christian ethics. It is usually taught on Divinity faculties as a part of the basic curriculum.- External links :*...
, which only requires belief in them as Idea
Idea
In the most narrow sense, an idea is just whatever is before the mind when one thinks. Very often, ideas are construed as representational images; i.e. images of some object. In other contexts, ideas are taken to be concepts, although abstract concepts do not necessarily appear as images...
s of Reason
Reason
Reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, language, ...
.
The science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
of psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
does not require that the soul have faculties. Rather, psychology is a detailed description and systematic classification of actual mental events.
If we were to take critical philosophy seriously, we would commit ourselves to resolving experiences into two parts — a system of universal subjective forms on one side, and a mass of amorphous, meaningless objective matter on the other.
How can we be sure that Kant's obligation to be moral is the result of freedom? It might be the result of some irrational natural force.
Reactions
Kant's response was indicated in his letter to Jakob Sigismund BeckJakob Sigismund Beck
Jakob Sigismund Beck , German philosopher, was born in the village of Ließau in the rural district of Marienburg in West Prussia in 1761, at that time belonging to the Polish-Lithuanian province of Royal Prussia....
, December 4, 1792:
- "Under the assumed name of Aenesidemus, an even wider skepticism has been advanced, namely, that we cannot know at all whether our representations correspond to anything else (as object), which is as much as to say: whether a representation is a representation (stands for anything). For 'representation' means a determination in us that we relate to something else (whose place the representation takes in us) … ."
Reinhold wrote that true skepticism rested on the fact that only the observing subject felt what was in its consciousness. The only truth is the subject's notion that there is an object that agrees with its internal mental representation.
Johann Fichte agreed with Reinhold's subjectivity. He based his own idealism on the observing subject's internal forms of knowledge. The absolute idealism
Absolute idealism
Absolute idealism is an ontologically monistic philosophy attributed to G. W. F. Hegel. It is Hegel's account of how being is ultimately comprehensible as an all-inclusive whole. Hegel asserted that in order for the thinking subject to be able to know its object at all, there must be in some...
of Friedrich Schelling and G. W. F. Hegel tried to prove the soul's immortality and the existence of God by drawing existential conclusions regarding them from mere logical premises. Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer was a German philosopher known for his pessimism and philosophical clarity. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the four separate manifestations of reason in the phenomenal...
's voluntarism
Voluntarism
Voluntarism is a descriptive term for a school of thought that regards the will as superior to the intellect and to emotion. This description has been applied to various points of view, from different cultural eras, in the areas of metaphysics, psychology, sociology, and theology.The term...
claimed that Kant's thing–in–itself is an irrational force that relates to morality because of its identity with the human will
Will (philosophy)
Will, in philosophical discussions, consonant with a common English usage, refers to a property of the mind, and an attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called "willing" or "voluntary" and sometimes pejoratively "willful"...
.