The Post-Kantian German Idealists and Counter-Idealists just didn't get it.
You cannot -- let me repeat -- you cannot completely cross 'The Great Kantian Epistemological Divide'.
None of the immediate Post-Kantians -- Schopenhauer, Fichte, Schelling, or Hegel -- could really get this through their respective heads.
There is no such thing as 'Absolute Knowledge' -- and never will be. It is a bogus concept.
Absolute knowledge is like absolute infinite -- it can never be reached -- the further you travel, and the closer you think you are getting to 'the end', the more you realize that the 'so-called end' is only opening up to more and more 'endless vastness'...It's kind of like trying to travel across all of the world's different oceans and seas on a life raft.
'Like the sound of one hand clappin', it ain't gonna happen.' (Bob Dylan)
So after all of the main Post-Kantians are done with each of their respective 'Grand Narratives', we are still left with 'The Subjective-Objective Split'. There is absolutely no (know) way that I can step outside of the imperfection of my own particular Sensory-Perceptual-Interpretive-Evaluative (SPIE) System to completely understand the world around me -- and even inside of me -- in all of its 'objective essence glory'.
Which is not to say that we can't still die trying. Obviously, the Post-Kantians did.
They all left us -- each in their own right -- with a handful of very nice, very interesting Grand Narratives.
Each partly -- or significantly -- imperfect in their own right.
I like Hegel's Grand Narrative the best although I like parts of Schelling's (constantly changing and incomplete) Grand Narrative better than Hegel's even. I still need to study Schelling's philosophy more. I like Schopenhauer's 'realistic -- even if it is extremely bleak -- narcissistic philosophy of life'. (I think it is a very good projection of Schopenhauer's own life.) And I don't like Fichte's Grand Narrative at all. I can see connections between Fichte's philosophy and the rise of German Nationalism including its most pathological elements.
Aristotle's 'Either/Or' Logic and 'Knowledge' has a crucial Achilles Heal attached to it. It involves 'The Excluded Middlepoint of Boundary Overlap'. This becomes the starting-point of Hegel's Dialectic Logic and Dialectic 'Knowledge'.
However, Hegel was too epistemologically arrogant. Not even his Dialectic Logic -- which captures the 'Aristolean excluded middlepoints and boundary overlaps' in life (and in concepts) -- can take us to anything or anywhere close to what might be viewed as 'Absolute Knowledge'. The universe is simply too vast, too complicated, too unpredictable -- and too unknowable in all of its different and overlapping 'objective essences'.
Hegel thought that his 'dialectic logic and dialectic-integrative knowledge' was 'accumulative' in that it captured, subsumed, and/or 'sublated' all of the human knowledge that came before it.
Wrong!
Hegel left out the process of human abstraction. Integrative knowledge is generally abstracted knowledge which means that some of the knowledge that came before it -- the polar parts of the Aristolean 'A is not B' logic and knowledge which is integrated within the system of Hegel's 'dialectic-integrative knowledge' is generally 'screened out' and 'left behind'. Sometimes there may be 'important truths' in the 'discarded pieces of Aristolean A and B Either/Or Knowledge' -- that get left behind in Hegel's system of Dialectic Logic and Integrative Knowledge. In other words, Hegel's system of Dialectic Logic does not -- indeed cannot possibly -- capture all of the knowledge that preceded it without some of it being screened out and left behind. Sometimes -- if the 'discarded pieces of Aristolean Logic and Knowledge that are left behind are significant enough -- this 'oversight' could result in sighnificant human tragedy and/or death.
Thus, not even Dialectic Logic and Integrative Dialectic Knowledge is perfect -- or ever will be -- indeed, the part that we 'unknowingly leave behind because we view it as insignificant and/or unimportant' could be the part that comes back to haunt and even kill us if it is significant enough.
So much for Hegel's idea of 'Absolute Knowledge' as arrived at through the dialectic.
Hegel's dialectic logic -- just like Aristotle's 'Either/Or, A is not B' system of logic before Hegel -- is not perfect, and never will be. 'Good knowledge' will always be left behind in man's imperfect evolution of attempting to achieve better and better knowledge. Oftentimes, we regress.
The dialectic in time, and over time, still offers us a system of potential 'self-correction'. But man's narcissism and greed enters this picture and sometimes people in power don't want these 'epistemological self-corrections' to happen. Not if they are making billions or millions of dollars on the 'epistemological oversight'.
There are too many 'epistemological regressions' in man's history of evolution to say that Hegel's system of 'dialectic logic' is a perfect system.
Throw away man's narcissism and it would certainly be better. More than anything, you can't have perfect knowledge as long as certain people in power are doing their best to hide the epistemological truth.
But that is why we have journalists, opposing political parties, democracy, freedom of speech, philosophers and epistemologists.
We have to keep trying.
'Transparency' and 'accountability' are probably two of the most overused idealistic words in any politicial campaign. They tend to disappear as soon as the campaigning political party -- and the leader of this party -- get into power. Case in point: Prime Minister Harper your speeches were full of these words while you were campaigning for office. I don't hear you using them too much anymore. Welcome to the 'Politicians in Power' (PIP) Club.
That is why we have philosophers.
The ideal of 'transparency' sounds good until we are trying to protect the privacy of our own narcissistic self-interests, good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral, legal or illegal...
That's when we forget about 'Essence' and put up a 'Wall'.
And any talk about 'knowledge' or 'truth' go flying out the window...
Human narcissism subverts any kind of 'accurate human knowledge' -- at least until it is confronted with enough opposing willpower.
Accurate knowledge is very, very hard to come by when we have many, many people, probably all of us at different times -- both in and out of power -- who believe that 'ignorance is bliss' and/or that 'pseudo-ideology' is better than good ideas and real integrity, epistemology, ethics, and idealism, and/or that the 'corrupt status-quo is better than trying to swim upstream towards ethics and integrity when everyone else is swimming downstream towards corrupt narcissism'.
Knowledge -- accurate knowledge and the study of accurate knowledge (epistemology) faces many strong challenges and obstacles.
No less so today than at any other time in man's history.
Sometimes man simply does not want to know the truth -- or at least share it.
-- dgb, Nov. 10th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
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