Per se

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In and for us ( for themselves ) are terms of the philosophical technical language . "In itself" is used to describe objects and facts insofar as they are independent of a person's consciousness . In contrast to this, objects form insofar as they are "for us", that is, they appear subjective to us in a certain way. Numerous theorists argue that for certain types of objects, their views “for us” and their nature “in themselves” are systematically different. This difference is explained in different ways. It is contested by some philosophers.

Colloquially, “in itself” describes an object as such or a fact as such. However, their use is mostly restrictive. The statement: “The experience was nice in itself” suggests an explanation of which aspects or framework conditions were less nice in the experience.

Concept history

The term “in itself” is a translation of the Greek kath'auto or the Latin per se and denotes what is inherent in a being by itself. Already Democritus distinguished the atoms , which only have real truth, from the sensory qualities that arise from opinion . Elaborated systematically the difference between objects is "in itself" and "for us" already in epistemology , ontology and logic of Aristotle :

"It is evident that in what is called a first and an in-itself being, the essence of the individual is one and the same with the individual himself."

- Aristotle

Many scholastic thinkers tie in with Aristotle. Thus, for example, the material being ( esse in re ) is contrasted with the thought being ( esse in intellectu ). Man can grasp the essence of things only with an intuitive knowledge ( Duns Scotus and later Spinoza ). In contrast, the ideas ( imaginatio ) formed in the human mind are only limited.

With Leibniz , the ideas conveyed through the senses are just "confused". Only the understanding of the mind leads to clear ideas. The distinction between “in itself” and appearances can be found among others. a. already with Christian Wolff and Johann Heinrich Lambert , two thinkers who influenced Immanuel Kant .

Thing in itself with Kant

For Kant, the “thing in itself” plays a central role in the critique of pure reason . With him, “in itself” is a being independent of the forms of perception , but also of the forms of thinking. The thing-in-itself (also: the things-in-themselves) is not recognizable as such and confronts the objects of understanding as appearances. Only the appearances are accessible to human knowledge .

"Idealism consists in the assertion that there is no other than thinking beings; the other things which we believe we perceive in perception are only representations in the thinking beings, to which in fact no object outside them corresponded. On the other hand, I say: things are given to us as objects of our senses that are outside of us; we only know nothing of what they may be in themselves, but only know their appearances, i.e. i. the ideas which they work in us by affecting our senses. Accordingly, I admit that there are bodies outside of us; i. Things which, although wholly unknown to us in terms of what they may be in themselves, we know through the ideas which their influence on our sensuality gives us, and to which we give the name of a body; which word, then, signifies the appearance of that unknown, but none the less real, object. Can this be called idealism? It's just the opposite of that. "

- Immanuel Kant: AA IV, 288-289

In and of itself with Hegel

In Hegel's philosophy is about the speculative overcoming the division between subject and object . If there is the idea of ​​a thing in itself (Kant), of an object independent of us, then a deficiency becomes recognizable in it. The unity of all things is broken.

If, on the other hand, people have subjectively leased the truth for themselves , a deficiency becomes recognizable in it. Again the unity of all things is broken. This split is a famous core problem in philosophy and marks the contrast between realism and idealism . In Hegel's dialectic, the speculative spirit abolishes this split. It becomes with the compilation of the opposites:

in itself and for us

in an expression “in and for itself” the unity of the world and the spirit speculatively fused as a synthesis.

Class "in itself" and "for itself" in Marx

Used by Sartre

In Jean-Paul Sartre's philosophical work, Being and Nothing , the terms in and for themselves are two important categories. That for itself is human consciousness , human reality or simply human . Sartre does not delimit these terms and uses them synonymously. The in-itself, on the other hand, is everything that is transcendent to consciousness, so are the things in the world. The central task of being and nothing is now not to succumb to a dualism of in-itself and for-itself, but to find a connection between the two.

literature

  • Dietmar Eickelschulte: Art. In itself / for itself; in and of itself. In: Joachim Ritter (Ed.): Historical Dictionary of Philosophy, Volume 1, Basel 1971, 352–355
  • Gerhard Krüger : Being in and of itself and history. In: Journal for Philosophical Research 3/4 (1949).
  • Uwe Töllner: Sartre's ontology and the question of ethics. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-631-49634-6 .

Web links

Wiktionary: per se  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Metaphysics Z 6, 1032 a 5-6
  2. Immanuel Kant, Collected Writings. Ed .: Vol. 1-22 Prussian Academy of Sciences, Vol. 23 German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, from Vol. 24 Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Berlin 1900ff., AA IV, 288–289 .
  3. Prolegomena on every future metaphysics that will be able to appear as science , A 63/64
  4. http://www.hegel.net/werkstatt/artikel/logik/an_sich.htm
  5. ^ Hegel's logic, Klaus Hartmann, Olaf L. Müller; Walter de Gruyter, 1999 ISBN 9783110137637