Category Archives: History

Arts, History, Philosophy

The philosophy of Kant

ON REASON AND EXPERIENCE

“Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.” – Immanuel Kant (1724–1804)

Immanuel Kant was a German academic and philosopher who made a major contribution to the Enlightenment period of Western philosophy in eighteenth-century Europe. Born into a strict and pious religious background, Kant entered his local university at Kӧnigsberg, East Prussia, at the age of just sixteen to study philosophy, mathematics and logic and remained at the university as student, scholar and professor for the rest of his life. Stories abound of the simplicity of Kant’s life, with one apocryphal myth stating that Kant was so meticulous in his daily routine that his neighbours set their clocks according to the time he left the house for his afternoon walk. It is also believed that Kant never travelled any further than ten miles from Kӧnigsberg during his lifetime and spent an entire decade in self-imposed isolation from colleagues and associates in order to devote himself entirely to producing his most famous work, The Critique of Pure Reason (1781).

Kant’s principal project was to attempt to synthesise the differing strands of rationalism and empiricism that had dominated Western thought during the Age of the Enlightenment. Whereas a rational perspective laid claim to the notion that human knowledge is acquired through deductions based on existing ideas, the empiricist perspective promoted the view that reasoning is based on observation alone. Central to Kant’s “critique” is the concept of reason existing a priori or separate to human experience and the processes through which the human mind shapes our understanding of the world. For Kant, the human mind does not constitute an empty vessel that is filled through contact and experience of the world, but rather, the human mind actively acquires knowledge by processing the information it observes. Thus, the human world does not construct the world around us; instead our cognitive faculties reflect how the mind perceives them. In Kant’s words: “We can cognise of things a priori only what we ourselves have put into them.”

By concentrating on the primacy of human autonomy, Kant argued that human understanding is the source of the general laws of nature that structure experiences. Kant expanded this notion to posit that human reason provides the grounding for moral law, which in turn acts as the basis for belief in God, freedom and immortality. Scientific knowledge, morality and religion, he asserts, remain consistent with one another due to the pre-eminence of the human autonomy.

In terms of moral law or ethics, Kant suggested the existence of a “categorical imperative” or a supreme moral principal of universality. Moral judgements, for Kant, are determined according to the construction of what he termed “maxims”, or the principles that guide actions. In basic terms, the will to act on a maxim should take into consideration its universal implications. In Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), Kant uses the example of his borrowing money in a desire to increase his wealth. In the scenario, the money-lender subsequently dies, leaving no record of the transaction.

Should Kant then deny borrowing the money? To test his new maxim, Kant asks if it would be permissible as a universal rule for everyone to deny ever borrowing money and concludes that it would not as this would render the practice of lending money entirely obsolete and impossible, regardless of the individual circumstances. Hence, his statement: “Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law”. This proposes that, in order to act with moral freedom, the maxims or will to act should be tested as universal laws to determine if they are morally permissible.

Standard
Arts, Culture, History, Philosophy

Profile vignette: Voltaire

THE LIFE OF VOLTAIRE

FRANCOIS MARIE AROUET was born in Paris, the son of a civil servant, Francois Arouet. Voltaire was educated at the principal Jesuit college in France, which he left at the age of 17. He was intended to enter a career as a lawyer, but the idea repelled him. His father became concerned at the dissipated life he was leading and permitted him to enter the service of the French ambassador to Holland. Unfortunately, the young man misbehaved there too, conducting an undiplomatic affair with a French Protestant in The Hague, so he was sent back home again.

His return to the lawyer’s office was short-lived. He wrote a notorious satire on a rival who won the poetry competition for an Academy prize. In 1716 he was suspected of satirising the regent, the Duc d’Orleans, and he was banished from Paris for several months. The following year he wrote a savage attack on the regent accusing him of a range of crimes, and this resulted in his imprisonment in the Bastille for a year.

In the Bastille, he wrote his tragedy Oedipus and assumed the pen name “Voltaire”. The play was performed in 1718 and it was a triumph. Voltaire’s next dramas were less successful. He devoted himself to a poem about Henri IV. Because it championed Protestantism and religious toleration, the authorities refused to allow its publication. Voltaire was not that easily defeated though; he had the poem printed in Rouen and smuggled into Paris.

By now Voltaire was a well-known and popular figure at court. He was denounced by the Chevalier de Rohan-Chabot as an upstart. Voltaire inevitably responded by circulating scathing epigrams about the Chevalier, who had Voltaire physically beaten up. Voltaire challenged the Chevalier and was again imprisoned. He was freed only if he agreed to leave France. He left for England in 1726.

In England, Voltaire encountered many interesting people including Alexander Pope, the Duchess of Marlborough and John Gay. He also immersed himself and soaked up English literature: Shakespeare, Milton, Dryden, and the Restoration dramatists. He became interested in the philosophy of Locke and the science of Newton.

Allowed back into France in 1729, Voltaire behaved with more circumspection, trying not to offend courtiers and wisely investing in the government lottery, which led to his increasing wealth. The patronage of Madame de Pompadour procured him the illustrious post of official royal historian. A piece of ill-placed flattery by Pompadour made the queen jealous and Voltaire was once again forced to leave France. This time he travelled to the court of Frederick the Great. By 1750, he was in Berlin as the king’s chamberlain on a huge salary. But, once again, and in customary style, Voltaire caused offence by writing satirical criticisms and was ejected. He was stopped at Frankfurt by a representative of Frederick the Great, who demanded the return of a book. Voltaire characteristically retaliated by writing a malicious character sketch of Frederick, which was not published until Voltaire’s death.

In 1756–59, his pessimistic poem about the Lisbon earthquake appeared, Customs and the Spirit of Nations. The Lisbon earthquake was a great natural disaster in which earthquake, fire and tsunami followed one another in remorseless succession. Was this a demonstration that there was no presiding God looking after human welfare? Was the human race alone in the universe? Whatever the views expressed it was, in a sense, the dawn of humanism – and certainly a landmark in the Enlightenment. He then wrote his masterpiece, Candide, a satirical short story ridiculing the philosophy of Leibniz.

Then, in an almost natural order, the first of Voltaire’s anti-religious writings appeared. In 1762 the Protestant Jean Calas was falsely accused of murdering his son to stop him converting to Catholicism. The judicial killing roused Voltaire to establish the man’s innocence, and he made great efforts to rescue the surviving members of the Calas family from further persecution. This and similar efforts made on behalf of victims of French religious fanaticism won widespread admiration. He even set up a refuge for persecuted Protestants.

Voltaire was a friend of Rousseau – until Rousseau decided to throw his support behind the Swiss government. In 1778, when he was 83, Voltaire was given a “royal” welcome in Paris when he arrived to mount a production of his last tragedy, Irene. The excitement of this reception was too much for him, and he fell ill and died. After the Revolution, Voltaire’s body was buried in the Pantheon, recognised as one of the great figures of European culture.

RECORD: SUMMARY

Born 1694, died 1778

French author

. Propagated the view that saw the Lisbon earthquake as evidence that there was no presiding God looking after human welfare.

. Embodied the 18th century Enlightenment.

. Satirised aristocrats, kings and philosophers.

. Rebelled against religious intolerance and injustice.

. Championed and gave refuge to persecuted Protestants.

1718 – Oedipus

1723 – The League or Henry the Great

1738 – Elements of the Philosophy of Newton

1751 – The Age of Louis XIV

1759 – Candide

Standard
Arts, Culture, History, Literature

Short Essay: Shakespeare’s Plays

(1590–1612)

IT WAS VERY soon after the beginning of his acting career that William Shakespeare started writing plays of his own. Shakespeare was remarkable in many ways, but perhaps the most remarkable is that he was immediately successful. There is no surviving sign of any “apprentice work” that is substandard or unworthy of performance, which is really quite extraordinary. He wrote historical plays that were from the start finely written, immensely popular and commercially successful, the three parts of Henry VI (1592). The theatre impresario Philip Henslowe wrote in his diary that “Harey the vj” played to packed houses at the Rose Theatre between March and June 1592.

The young Shakespeare’s triumphant debut on the London stage was not universally applauded, and there must have been many who were envious of his ability. In September 1592, a frustrated writer called Robert Greene wrote a pamphlet called Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit, Bought with a Million of Repentance. This included a ranting attack on an “upstart crow”, a “Shakescene”. It must have been audaciously galling for Greene to see Shakespeare make an immediate hit with his very first play – rather like the composers Igor Stravinsky and William Walton being extremely irritated by the success of Benjamin Britten.

His first seven years in the theatre included several other successes too. He completed two more history plays, King John and Richard III, a revenge tragedy, Titus Andronicus, and three comedies, The Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona. So, by 1592, William Shakespeare had attempted to write in each of the three most popular forms of drama of his day – and succeeded. Not only that, he had extended their range, and made his own highly original contribution to each genre. The play-goers in London must have been very aware that a dazzling new talent was at work, eclipsing even Christopher Marlowe, then generally thought to be the best playwright of the era.

For two years in 1592, the London theatres were shut because of plaque. While the theatres were shut, Shakespeare turned his hand to narrative poetry, writing the long and extensive poems Venus and Adonis and The Rape of Lucrece (a dedicated letter to his patron, the Earl of Southampton, in which he promised to compose a “graver labour”. The play has a serious tone throughout). These poems were highly praised for their eloquent treatment of classical subjects. He wrote many sonnets too at this time when plays were banned, and these were in private circulation by 1598.

When the theatres re-opened in 1594, Shakespeare joined the acting company The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, and soon became its joint manager. The company had made quite a clever and shrewd choice by inviting Shakespeare in as a “sharer”. Up to this point he had been a freelance, and any theatre company could perform his plays; now, though, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men had his exclusive services. Shakespeare had his financial security; the company had his plays.

There then followed a torrent of great plays: a tragedy (Romeo and Juliet), three more histories and five more comedies.

When James I came to the throne in 1603, Shakespeare’s company became The King’s Men, and this change in status brought great benefits to the company. His later plays included tragedies such as Hamlet and Macbeth, plays that rank among the darkest ever written. Shakespeare crafted his later plays so that they could be performed in open-air theatres like The Globe, but now also indoors in the great halls of great houses, where artificial lighting and more elaborate stage effects were possible. Shakespeare was always an intensely practical man, well able to adjust to changing technical conditions – and changing fashion. Tragi-comedy (or romantics) was a form of drama now much in trend, so Shakespeare supplied it. These “last plays”, as they are known, included Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest.

Shakespeare’s prolific play writing have seen 37 of his plays surviving (while several more have not). The Tempest shows a thinly disguised Shakespeare taking his leave of the stage. He formally handed over the role of The King’s Men dramatist to John Fletcher and retired in 1612 to Stratford, where he died four years later, on 23 April 1616. In 1623, two of his closet friends in the King’s Men – John Hemminge and Henry Condell – assembled all the plays and published them in what is referred to as the First Folio. It was not just a tribute to the greatest playwright of the age, but it saved the plays from extinction. Without that timely publication, many of the surviving plays would have been lost.

Shakespeare was the outstanding playwright of the Renaissance, outshining all his contemporaries and setting new standards for all subsequent dramatists. His plays range widely in subject and tone – challenging histories loaded with political agenda, atmospheric and romantic comedies and the darkest of tragedies. His work is astonishing for the richness and beauty of its language, showing the full potential of the English language for the expression of thought and feeling, building on the weight and majesty that William Tyndale had brought to it a few decades earlier. It also shows great insight into a wide range of human predicaments. Shakespeare’s plays exemplify the questioning humanism of the Renaissance.

Standard