The Concept of Uncompromising Humanism - Hans Widmer

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humans have not developed further over the timeframe of human history. This was the starting point, for example, of Jacob Burckhardt’s description in “Reflections on History” of “humans, who remain unique, ... enduring, striving, acting, as they are, have always been and always will be”. On the other hand, the religious, political and economic organisation of societies does evolve, defining the framework within which individuals, their consciousness and aspirations develop. Moreover, the 20th century saw substantial development of this framework with regard to human rights, democracy, education, health and welfare—despite all the century’s retrograde barbarism. Nevertheless there is still a very, very long way to go before we achieve a culture worthy of human nature, that of “Uncompromising Humanism”.

      Humanism, to summarise, represents the striving for a way of life and social conditions that are worthy of our species. Humanism has been celebrated in thought and verse from Horace to the German Idealists of the 18th and 19th centuries, only to be most tragically defeated by reality: rather than high ideals, it was wars, genocide, communism, national socialism that prevailed. The celebration of the ideal subsided gradually, and more dramatically after the Second World War. The ideal of humanism was not a false one, but it is not enough merely to desire the desirable. “In matters of peace, talent and instinct play a more significant role than good intentions, which are of themselves totally characterless.”Robert Walser

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      Horace, 65–8 BC

      Uncompromising Humanism is the kind of idealism that begins with knowledge, the defining quality of humankind. Only that which has its basis in reality is viable—the idea of the world endorsed by the world. Proceeding from a priori intuitions to hyperstases, the Concept of Uncompromising Humanism inevitably results in the following: individual happiness need not fail any more than bold dreams, provided that human beings are enabled, know what there is to be known, and set their sights beyond the short term. Societies are enabling when individuals decide for themselves what is possible for them to decide; the same applies to the community, province, state; and states thus exist to serve the development of their citizens.

      Since the Concept strictly follows reason, do its arguments not then lose sight of the “innermost being”, the “divine”, in each human being? Absolutely not, because reason

      –provides a navigational instrument to help the innocent innermost being through the world created by human beings—the more viable the knowledge, the safer the path;

      –teaches individuals not only how to find their way in the world but also to recognise and awaken the innermost being in its purity, wisdom and affirmation of life;

      –in so doing reveals the divine in humans;

      –shows the way, despite all the pressures and barriers that exist in the mind and in the world, towards the real, unfathomable, inalienable possession of a wise, stable, affirmative personality.

      The difficulty here is that knowledge has to be acquired. If the love of knowledge in the world were as great as the love of God is in religious declaration, humanity would have progressed much further. In the words of Horace: sapere aude (dare to know).

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       Unshakeable foundations of all knowledge:

       a priori intuitions

      Reality and representation

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      Johann Wolfgang von

       Goethe, 1749–1832

      Ideas in the human brain are actively produced and are not mere reflections of the outside world. Visual images, for example, result from the processing of incident electromagnetic radiation. Just how synthetic the picture is can be illustrated by an operation in which the optic nerves of a chameleon are switched: afterwards, it directs its tongue in precisely the opposite direction from its prey. The illusion is perfect: the subject considers itself an impartial witness of the presence of objects and demonstrates, as a matter of course, total reliance on the constructed picture. Goethe, on the other hand, in observing nature, constantly asked himself the question, “Is it the object or is it myself that is being expressed here?”

      A photograph requires photographic paper, the molecules of which react specifically to wavelengths of incident electromagnetic radiation, for example to 400 nanometres for the reflection of violet light. However, the Mona Lisa can also be represented by the appropriate planting of grass in a field, or the course of a road can be drawn in the sand using the big toe. A substrate is required for a picture, and it is irrelevant what this is in itself; but in the picture there has to be order among the pixels. In a photograph, for example, there are no spatial relationships, but only two-dimensional ones, which the eye reconstructs into objects in space based on the laws of perspective. A drawing in the sand (“here is Rome and here is Paris”) implies scale and a north-south axis; the sequence of images in a film requires the addition of a temporal order.

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      Thomas Aquinas,

       1225–1274

      This is true not only for visual images, but for all ideas—however the human brain constructs its pictures, they have to offer reliable help in our perception of the world. Thomas Aquinas sums it up perfectly: “An object in the mind is adopted according to the mind—and not according to the object.”

      If it is understood that

      –space can only be experienced through movement—and therefore in time; time similarly only through movement— and therefore in space;

      –only bodies can have such “experiences”,

      –bodies are characterised by the fact that they are permanent (in time) and impenetrable (in space),

      this is no circular argument in which the hypothesis already contains that which is to be proved, but rather an expression of the nature of the process of representation which is only concerned with the correspondence of relations. Bodies, space and time are not reality, but the phylogenetically-provided means of producing an idea of reality.

      The fundamental and literal impossibility of grasping time and space led Kant in 1781 to introduce the concept of “a priori intuitions” to philosophy: “Space is not experience, for all spatial experience assumes the idea of space.” And “Time is nothing other than the subjective condition under which all intuitions can take place within us.”

      Kant had trouble with “matter”, or “substance” as he called it. He did put forward a “principle of the permanence of substance”: “All appearances are in time ... In [them] the substrate must be found ... [which] is permanence ... Therefore in all appearances, permanence is the object itself ...” He did not, however, establish the link between substance and space (impenetrability) that is analogous to this sub-stance-time relationship (permanence). He lacked the concept of atomism which sees all matter as made up of the smallest units, and was therefore unable to classify substance in its “multiplicity of appearance” as an a priori intuition, although he wrote about it as if it were possible.

      It is not surprising that Kant had difficulty with the concept of substance, for physics is equally unable to define what substance in the sense of “mass” is. One knows how “heavy” a mass is, in the material sense, from the pull the Earth exerts on it—mass multiplied by gravity—and how “inert” it is by its resistance to acceleration—mass multiplied by acceleration. When equating the two, mass is removed so that acceleration is equal to gravity, which is the same for all objects of any mass, from goose feathers to lead bullets. This only establishes the gravitational field of the Earth, that is the interaction of masses—not what mass actually is.

      Physics simply treats mass as a given and uses its behaviour to derive force

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