Conscience and Awareness

By Timo Schmitz, Philosopher

Conscience and awareness always played a role in human history, mostly through religion,
mythology, fairytales or aphorisms. A new side and especially a philosophical aspect of
modern times concerning conscience and awareness arised with Immanuel Kant who taught to
use rationality (Vernunft) and reason (Verstand). He thought that its comfortable for
human-beings not to think and not to question, but therefore being domineered is his own
fault (selbstverschuldete Unmndigkeit) as long as he does not start to think and make a
change. One of the most important German philosophers, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,
argued that Kant didnt finish his thesis and therefore modeled rationality in a new way,
creating absolute idealism (Absoluter Idealismus). He arised the question: Ist ein so
verstandener Gegenstand wirklich ein Objekt? 1 2
Hegel stated that Kants ideas is only a subjective Idealism, that does not engage with content,
denn wenn es nach einem alten Glauben der Menschen die Bestimmung des Geistes sei, die
Wahrheit zu wissen, so liege darin weiter dieses, da die Gegenstnde, die uere und innere
Natur, berhaupt das Objektive, was es an sich ist, so sei, wie es als Gedachtes ist, da also
das Denken die Wahrheit der Gegenstnde sei. 3 4
Hegel therefore analyses Thinking (Denken), Being (Sein) and Truth (Wahrheit)
and comes to the conclusion that Denken, Sein, Wahrheit ist alles identisch mit dem Geist.
Darum [] ist alles Vernnftige wirklich und alles Wirkliche vernnftig. 5 6
Hegels core statement is the Contradiction of Dialectic. This famous thesis consists of thesis
antithesis synthesis. To explain it in short, if there is a thesis, then there will also be an
antithesis. Thesis and antithesis are contradictory, but they have to find an accord to live
together which will lead to a synthesis. The synthesis is a higher state and at the same time a
new thesis. Lets imagine it like this: I make a statement, therefore I give a thesis. You also
make a statement to it, so we have an antithesis. This will lead to a higher state, since thesis
and antitheses must find a way together (the synthesis). The synthesis however is a new thesis
to which somebody else can give an antithesis. This means that the world is always renewing.
Something can exist (the thesis), as long as its not contradictory. As soon as a
contradiction appears (the antithesis), there will be the need for a change (the synthesis).
If a monarch says that his reign is absolute (the thesis), it will only work until no one
disagrees with him. As soon as his subject says we want freedom (the antithesis), the
status quo cant be preserved. A synthesis could be a constitutional monarchy, where the king

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still exists, but where he has to obey laws. Just as an example! I think the basic concept is
clear now.
Since the world always tries to get into a higher state and people always move on for harmony,
everything that is real must be reasonable. In theory this would mean, a monarchy that is real
would be reasonable, because the people accept their fate. But if the people goes on the streets
to fight for freedom, then its also reasonable, since the people realized that the old status is
not reasonable anymore and go for a change to make a new world being reality that is
reasonable.
This theory shows huge problems. If everything which is real is also reasonable, it would also
legitimate injustice and cruels in this world. How can we legitimate wars where innocent
people die? How can we legitimate hate and prosecution? How can we legitimate Islamist
terrorism? Should we tell the victims that its reasonable? No! No terror is reasonable! But
terror is real. People being gassed or burnt that was or is real in this world, but it is far not
reasonable. Reality is not reasonable! We cant accept injustice and violence and hide
ourselves by claiming that if it is not reasonable then people will change it themselves
and if no change is made then its reasonable. Although it is right of course that when
injustice appears in a place, there are also often people standing against it, but this can only
apply if the era where it appears already has an awareness of this problem. In the Middle Ages,
many people were burnt as witches and their so called crime was proved just by being
denounced and tortured. Even after the Middle Ages ended in about 1500, the burning of
assumed sorcerers and witches went on and many people believed in the existence of witches
and the right to prosecute them, until Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld anonymously published
his work Cautio Criminalis in 1631 in which he gave testimony that none of the assumed
witches he dealt with were guilty, although he did not deny that sorcerers or witches exist in
general. Nowadays, we have the knowledge that sorcerers and witches are completely nonexistent. Friedrich Spee could not make this conclusion in his period of time.
While many philosophers of Enlightment denied the existence of God in a world where
injustice and despair is tolerated by someone who is refered to as almighty, after Hegel Gott
ist es, der im Philosophen philosophiert. 7 8 , ergo God made them become atheists.
So I think, we should consider who is creating our mind. Are the things we can see just a
creation of the mind, or can we say that because we can see them they must be centered in our
mind? But if they come from our mind, which role has to play God? And are the things from
our mind really true? After Hegel, it might all be identical to the mind, but however, I think
we cannot justify reason and rationality with reality. Every human-being has its own thinking

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and therefore its own conscience and own rationality. This does not mean in conclusion that
his reality has to be reasonable. Injustice and violence probably arise because a human-being
who violates others thinks he has the right to do so, so in his subjective view its reason, so
now we have a conflict. We can say because everyone has a subjective view, his own action
based on his reality must be reasonable, because its in his subjective world. But the
outstanding world, other individuals probably see an action as unreasonable. But is there real
objectiveness? Is there a conscience unlimited of those things that restrict us, such as our
environmental morality that tries to interfere in our Complete Freedom, or the Believe in God
or a religious community that gives them the insurance that they are the ones acting right,
while the we are wrong (which in fact is an unreasonable blindness! 9)?
Conscience and awareness, rationality and reason caused a lot of conflicts in the past but
also avoided some even worse conflicts. It was due to the new thoughts that people started to
question and criticize absolutist-totalitarian systems, most notably the French Revolution, but
also in other countries such as in Great Britain, as well as in Germany 1848 and in Russia in
the beginning of the 20th century in fact everywhere in the world people started revolutions.
In the end however, modern thinking stopped in some way as it is today. Why? Why do we
accept injustice nowadays? Why do we accept state systems exploiting its people? Why do we
accept it when our governments start wars instead of kicking them away to keep peace and
stability? Such a phenomena is not that new. We know it already from early Christian church
history. There were four majour movements during the time of the pres de leglise
were regarded as heresy (les hrsies)

11

10

that

. The gnosis thought le Christianisme est une

cosmologie mystique 11 12 while after arianism le christ est cr, il nest ni eternel, ni gal au
Pre

11 13

. As a response to these views the Christian conciles took place to find a consent.

The first concile in Nice in 315 clearified le Christ est de la mme nature que le Pre

11 14

The next major disputes and splits in Christian church took place when Orthodoxy was
proclaimed (988, Vladimir I.), when Martin Luther questioned Catholicism in 1517 which led
to the split between Catholics and Protestants in Germany and the dispute between the
Reformed Orthodox Church of Russia and the Old Believers. However, these events took
place after many centuries since Christianity was institutionalized and reforms within the
church was that rare that we see Christianity being caught in a new crisis in Europe, as many
people do not only not believe in God, but also believe that churches are not working for the
ones in need and the poor anymore, but only for their own egoism. Therefore, many people
around the world regard the church being a hypocritical institution. Of course, other religions
have several problems nowadays, too, but we should face them later.

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Talking about hypocrisy and its opposite rationality, reason and awareness (the latter three
altogether I want to call la raison), I want to introduce a scene from a very well known
German play by Goethe called Faust. During the play, Faust seduces Magarete and both
plan to sleep together. As she is a dignified virgin and her mother would prevent the night,
Magarete gives her three drops of a liquid made by a devilish person, to make her mother
asleep, however, she dies from it. When her brother Valentin finds out about her night, he
denounces his sister publicly and requests a duel to reestablish the familys honour, where he
(the brother) dies. What do we learn from this scene? At first, although the devilish person
helps the both to couple each other, they are still free in their action and they are free to
decide what they do. Magarete and Faust act within Complete Freedom

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when they slept

together and therefore it is not wrong and not a shame. So when Valentin denounces Magarete,
he is suppressing her individual freedom and he even acts inappropriate, by denouncing her as
a prostitute. He, therefore can be seen as symbol for Wordly Chaos (le chaos du monde) 16,
someone who feels free to hurt another one by judging a person in a way he is not allowed to
do and by interfering in the persons freedom. But he acts even worse, by regarding his
sisters action as honorless. This is the peak of inhumanity! At first he denounces her,
interfering in her Complete Freedom, evoking Wordly Chaos and then seeing himself as a
victim! What does he think of himself? But can we convict Magarete of killing her mother
accidentally? No, in this case its an accident that was risked, because otherwise her mother
would have interfered in her Complete Freedom, so she had to give her sleeping medicine to
be free for a night. But remember, this is only a modern interpretation of a scene in a play and
not an invitation to kill others or convict violence justifying that you did it to achieve
Complete Freedom. During the time when the play was published, these concepts of society
understanding existed, but by knowing the Principle of Individualism, we can clearly judge
from a modern standpoint. This also teaches us that beyond la raison, morality and values
within society are of importance when people are judged or denounced and in most cases this
applies on an irrational level. In most cases, the judgment is justified by cultural values or
present moral values existing in that culture. So we can see that morality differs not only from
culture, but that it also changes from time to time. But since morality is arbitrary and not on a
rational level, we can say that it is constructed by a society. And if something is constructed
by society, it is constructed by man. So it is not a law of nature (loi de la nature) and even
less something that we need to follow not to harm others and therefore not part of the base de
lhumanit 17. However, people try to justify their morality with their conscience. This means
that our thinking of right and wrong can be manipulated by the society. At the same time, we

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are free to think which means we can reject the ideas and live our live in individuality. We
dont have to accept the standpoints of a society, we can live within Complete Freedom.
Therefore our conscience is subjective, and so is our judgment. Therefore, we cant say that
we judge things right or that we have found the one truth and even less we are to interfere
in Complete Freedom by justifying it with any rightness of a conscience. We have to have a
conscience to help those who live in Wordly Chaos, we have to prevent people hurting the
helpless or weak. However, within Complete Freedom we have the right to think freely. And
here comes Kant again, we should use our rationality and reason ourselves. So we shouldnt
listen to what we are told how we have to act in daily life, but instead we should use our
own rationality and be brave enough to go our own way.
At the same time we have to be aware that because except basic ethics all kind of morality
varies and changes and because it is constructed by the society, that they are not real. They are
not only constructed by the society, but when we accept them ourselves, we even construct
them in our own mind. But since they finally go on growing in our own mind they are only a
product of our own mind. This means that our role in society, the role of men and women, the
meaning of authorities, ... everything is constructed and does not really exist. In nature there is
no rule how men and women have to behave, in nature they are equal. Nature does not have
any expectation towards them! In nature, there is no authority. The reason why we have
authoritarian systems is as Nietzsche described the will of power (Wille zur Macht).
However, people want to be in power because they are egoistic. But what makes them being
egoists? Its capitalism! Those who have a lot of money also have a lot of power! We have to
deal this question later.
As result, we can say that conscience and awareness can be manipulated by the hypocrisy of a
society, a religion or other institutions (such as governments). We can avoid or restrict
manipulation by living our life within Complete Freedom and encouraging peacefully that the
enslaved can live within Complete Freedom, too. We can only use our conscience and
awareness on a rational level (la raison) when we realize that all moral rules are
constructed and that we are free not to follow them (except basic ethics). We have to
realize that no one can expect anything from us and we have no natural duties (things we
have to do because of our skin colour or sex). Capitalism teaches egoism and leads us to act
against humanity, therefore we have to find ways out of Capitalism, since it steals our
rationality! The dissatisfaction of Capitalism and the impact of injustice such as terror and
exploitation that is caused or financed by Capitalism leads either to Utopism 18 or to a vacuum
which causes dispair and a nihilistic worldview.

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Notes:
1. Hirschberger, Johannes: Geschichte der Philosophie, Band 2: Neuzeit und Gegenwart,
9. Auflage, Freiburg im Breisgau 1976, S. 410
2. passage translated in English by the author : Is a such-understood item really an
object?
3. Hirschberger, S. 410 f.
4. passage translated in English by the author : because if after an old believe of
human-beings its the determination of the mind to know the truth, so lies in it [the
awareness], that the items, [of] outer and inner nature, the objective in general, what it
is in itself, so to be, as it is something that is thought, so that Thinking [itself] is the
Truth of all items
5. Hirschberger, S. 411
6. passage translated in English by the author : Thinking, Being and truth all are
identical with the mind. Therefore, everything that is reasonable is also real, and
everthing that is real is also reasonable.
7. Hirschberger, S. 411
8. passage translated in English by the author : It is God, philosophizing in the
philosopher
9. Religion itself is not a problem, but legitimizing ones own action with a religious
view or legitimizing violence by refering to God, so to say all kind of fanatism, is a
huge problem. However, not all kind of fanatism is extremism, but all kind of fanatism
is blindness and dazzlement!
10. French meaning the Church Fathers
11. Cours dhistoire de la philosophie africaine, Notes de cours Facult de philosophie
Saint Pierre Canisins, Kimwenza (RDC), indit
12. passage translated in English by the author : Christianity is a mystical cosmology
13. passage translated in English by the author: Christ is created, he is neither eternal nor
equal with the Father.
14. passage translated in English by the author: Christ is of the same nature than the
Father
15. For the Concept of Complete Freedom see Part 2 Problems of Individualism
16. For the Concept of Worldly Chaos see Part 2 Problems of Individualism
17. French meaning basics of humanity; also see Part 2 Problems of Individualism

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18. Concerning Utopism, you might also see my article What is Utopia? (24.11.2014)

Timo Schmitz, 07 February 2015

This article is Part 3 of the series Individualism between Moral and Virtues, Government and
Religion. Reprinting for ones own personal non-commercial use is allowed.
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