Concept
Absolute (philosophy)
Overview
In philosophy (often specifically metaphysics), the absolute, in most common usage, is an absolute perfect, self-sufficient reality that depends upon nothing external to itself. In theology, the term is also used to designate the supreme being or God. While the notion of the absolute varies across traditions and thinkers, it generally signifies something that transcends all forms of limitation, relativity, and contingency.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Absolute (philosophy) is discussed.
For the philosophy stands or falls with the conception of an Absolute. Whether a philosophy of absolutes is theoretically sound or unsound is none of my present concern.
John Dewey, German philosophy and politics
names the idea; opens on it
To speak of the absolute idea may suggest the conception that we are at length reaching the right thing and the sum of the whole matter. It is certainly possible to indulge in a vast amount of senseless declamation about the idea absolute. But its true content is only the whole system of which we have been hitherto studying the development.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
Observe that all the irrationalities and puzzles which the absolute gives rise to, and from which the finite God remains free, are due to the fact that the absolute has nothing, absolutely nothing, outside of itself. The finite God whom I contrast with it may conceivably have _almost_ nothing outside of himself; he may already have triumphed over and absorbed all but the minutest fraction of the universe; but that…
William James, A Pluralistic Universe
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
So that when the scale is moved over the line by any continuous series of shiftings of one kind, there are two points which no numbers on the scale can ever reach, except the numbers fixed there. This pair of points, thus unattainable in measurement, is called the Absolute. These two points may be distinct and real, or they may coincide, or they may be both imaginary.
Charles S. Peirce, Chance, Love, and Logic
names the idea; states what it is
In this enlarged signification, then, shall I employ the word absolute, in opposition to that which is valid only in some particular respect; for the latter is restricted by conditions, the former is valid without any restriction whatever. Now the transcendental conception of reason has for its object nothing else than absolute totality in the synthesis of conditions and does not rest satisfied till it has attained…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Absolute (philosophy)
- Je Tsongkhapa
- Mircea Eliade
- John Stuart Mill
- Jürgen Habermas
- Anekantavada
- J. M. E. McTaggart
- Ludwig Feuerbach
- Brand Blanshard
- J. N. Findlay
- Eduard von Hartmann
- Philipp Mainländer
- Albert of Saxony (philosopher)
- Raya Dunayevskaya
- J. L. Schellenberg
- Immanuel Hermann Fichte
- Thomas Davidson (philosopher)
- Drew Dalton
- Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison
Related ideas
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Absolute idealism
- Frederick Copleston
- Johann Gottlieb Fichte
- Philosophy
- Indian religions
- Samadhi
- Japanese language
- Contingency (philosophy)
- Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
- Adi Shankara
- Metaphysics
- Ibn Arabi
- Meister Eckhart
- Brahman
- Nagarjuna
- Postmodernism
- Process theology
- Søren Kierkegaard
- Sanskrit
- Sufism
- Nicholas of Cusa
- Mysticism
- Yajnavalkya
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of Acosmism.