Bauer

Hegel and the absolute truth Bauer

Essay from the year 2005 in the subject Philosophy - Philosophy of the 17th and 18th Centuries, grade: A (1,3), University of Auckland (Department of Philosophy), course: Lecutre, 7 entries in the bibliography, language: English, comment: Critically discuss why Hegel believes that we can have knowledge of the absolute truth , abstract: "Quid est veritas?" It was not a philosopher who asked this important question. Pontius Pilatus, a roman prefect inquired one of the most important questions in philosophy. For Plato, a sentence is true if it says from whom it exists, that it exists. After Aristotle something becomes true not because we are thinking about it, we are thinking about it because it is true. For Augustine truth is, "quod ita est, ut videtur"(De vera relig. 36). The truth is eternal, timeless, non versatile and absolute. In the Scholastic, philosophers defined the truth as: adaequatio rerum et intellectuum. In the summa contra gentiles (I, 59.), Thomas Aquinas tells us : "Veritas intellectus est adaequatio intellectus et rei, secundum quod intellectus dicit esse quod est, vel non esse quod non est." For Descartes, the eternal truths of the mathematicians are given us by God, the truths are timeless and absolute but they can not exist outside our thoughts: "Aeternas veritates - nullam existentiam extra cogitationem nostram habentes" (Pr.ph. I, 48). Leibnitz tells us that the truth exists out of correspondence between the propositions with the things. The truth for Kant is a correspondence among the thoughts which correspond with the regulars of the mind. The eternal truth is turned into an a priority judgment. Now, we can not talk anymore of adaequatio rerum et intellectum, because the thing in itself can not be perceived anymore. Kant drew out the limits of our mind and because of this we can not have a knowledge of the absolute truth. Goethe now gives us a relative point of view: everyone can have his own truth: "Kenne ich mein Verhältnis zu mir selbs