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The year 1806 was pivotal in European history, particularly in the German states, where Napoleon's army swept through with little opposition. Napoleon, recognized as a “world historical individual,” famously credited Rousseau and the French Revolution for his rise. His influence marked the transition of philosophical leadership to Germany, setting the stage for post-Kantian philosophy, which grappled with the implications of Immanuel Kant’s claim that noumenal reality—true reality—is unknowable.
Post-Kantian philosophy faced a critical choice: to follow reason and accept the limits of knowing reality, or to seek knowledge of reality beyond reason. Some philosophers pursued rigorous rationalism, emphasizing logic, analysis, and phenomenology. Others rejected rationalism, prioritizing feeling, passion, and a search for authenticity. This division marked a departure from Kant's framework and inspired poets and thinkers like Goethe, who emphasized the vitality of life over abstract theory.
Hegel’s philosophy emerged as a response to Kant, proposing a dialectical process to understand reality. He argued that history is driven by contradictions—thesis, antithesis, and synthesis—that propel humanity toward greater self-awareness. Hegel viewed history as a divine process in which God evolves from unconsciousness to self-consciousness through human activity and historical events.
Hegel rejected individualistic Enlightenment ideals, emphasizing the collective. He saw individuals as instruments of the state, which he considered the embodiment of divine reason on Earth. Historical figures like Napoleon, whom Hegel called a “world soul,” played crucial roles in advancing this divine plan, often at the expense of individual lives.
Hegel tackled the problem of evil by reframing history as the unfolding of divine providence. While history appears as a “slaughter-bench” of suffering, Hegel argued that such sacrifices serve a higher purpose: the realization of God’s self-consciousness and the advancement of humanity. The state, not the individual, becomes the primary moral unit, and morality is defined by one’s alignment with the collective will.
Karl Marx, influenced by Hegel, inverted his philosophy to emphasize materialism over spiritualism. For Marx, history is shaped by material conditions and class struggles, rather than divine providence. Marx viewed human beings as products of their social and economic environments, with their consciousness shaped by their material circumstances.
Marx’s deterministic view of history posited an inevitable progression through stages: tribalism, feudalism, capitalism, socialism, and ultimately communism. He rejected the Enlightenment’s emphasis on individual rights and freedom, advocating for revolutionary violence to overthrow oppressive systems. For Marx, class conflict was the engine of historical change, and violence was necessary to resolve irreconcilable contradictions between competing classes.
Marx dismissed religion and morality as “phantoms” created by material conditions. He argued that ideas, values, and beliefs are epiphenomena of economic realities. Concepts like individuality, free will, and private property were illusions that hindered humanity’s realization of its communal nature. Marx viewed socialism as the metaphysical truth of human existence, advocating the abolition of private property to achieve collective fulfillment.
Both Hegel and Marx introduced a pluralistic understanding of logic, rejecting the Enlightenment’s belief in universal reason. They argued that different societies produce conflicting logics based on their material conditions, and these contradictions drive historical change. For Marx, rational discourse could not resolve these conflicts; only violent revolution could bring about the necessary synthesis.
The transition from Enlightenment thinkers like Locke and Voltaire to post-Kantian philosophers like Hegel and Marx represents a profound shift in modern thought. While the Enlightenment celebrated reason, individuality, and progress, the Counter-Enlightenment emphasized collectivism, historical necessity, and the limits of rationality. This intellectual trajectory laid the groundwork for 19th-century debates on the nature of humanity, society, and historical change, setting the stage for figures like John Stuart Mill and Friedrich Nietzsche to continue the discussion.