Between The Transcendental And The Empirical

In the history of Western philosophy, there are two kindsof understanding about freedom in the opposite direction of thetheory, that transcendental direction which Kant held andempirical direction which Marx held. Kant establishedtranscendental freedom which can independently start a causalsequence by antinomy of nature and freedom. Freedom is absolutespontaneity which does not depend on the experience, but it canhave an effect of experience. Kant’s freedom which was rootedin pure reason, was the highest reason and was the ultimate basisof morality, so Kant represented the transcendental directionabout research of freedom.However, Kant’s freedom was notenough transcendental, it experienced transcendental freedom,practical freedom, aesthetic freedom, political freedom. Sofreedom had more and more empirical content, it graduallytransits to empirical field from transcendental field. Kant’spolitical(empirical)freedom was rooted in a transcendental basis, transcendental morality was the basis of empiricalpolitics, so problem on how to resolve empirical freedom wasunlikely to achieve problems of empirical freedom can beresolved only through the empirical means, free will which wasestablished in the foundation of a transcendental basiseventually became weak. This view of Kant was stronglycriticized by Hegel and Marx.Hegel divided freedom into absolute freedom, capriciousfreedom, specific freedom in the Philosophy of Right. As Hegel’sconcept of freedom, the specific freedom inherently includedtwo links of absolute freedom and capricious freedom. Abstractuniversality was principle of absolute freedom which soughthomogenous and equal freedom of everyone, and rejected allregulations and particularities. So absolute freedom was onlya void form, and it did not contain any empirical content,because it considered any empirical content as a limitation onits own. But this one-sided freedom contains an essentialregulation, that the general(transcendental) nature of humanfreedom. Capricious freedom was the most common freedom, it was the freedom which all members of the civil society are able toobtain wealth to meet their desire through voluntarily theirown labor. Empirical utilitarianism was the principle ofcapricious freedom, but because of this, capricious freedomsubjected to empirical content and lost the transcendentdimension of the human. Specific freedom inherently includedabsolute freedom and capricious freedom, so it included dualfactors of transcendental and empirical. Hegel thought thatspecific freedom was the ideal of human freedom.Marx regarded achievement of freedom as valuableorientation world history, regarded necessary realm of materialproduction as foundation of free realm, and he thought thatfreedom was liberated from the state, the form of multifariousalienation, the natural necessity, economic necessity, theevolution of human history and merciless criticism of reality.So Marx represented empirical direction about research offreedom.However, Marx’s freedom implied transcendentalingredients as Kant’s freedom contains empirical ingredientsthrough my own research. I think that Marx’s community of freeman was the transcendental ideal of the Kantian sense,therefore, Marx’s freedom was not enough empirical.Specifically, this paper made some study about Marx’s theconcept of freedom from empirical perspective such as labor,free time, wealth, history and property right, to explore theconditions, the path, the obstacles of experience for achievingfreedom. These empirical factors are based on the practice. Therealization of labor liberation, the increase of free time, thecreation of material wealth and the abolition of privateproperty rights are based on the practice, whether this practiceis engaged in labor of material production or practice ofproletarian revolution. Marx believed that labor was alienationlabor in a capitalist society, alienation labor was not positiveto human essence, it just regard free labor which should be humanessence as means to meet the physiological need. Free labor isa foothold to criticize the alienation of capitalist sociallabor, free labor is the full realization of human nature, isthe true way of human labor, free labor is regarded as the valueorientation of historical development, and the human transcendental ideal. Free time is generated by the laborsavings, free time is a space of human development. A persononly transcends the limitations of economic necessity in freetime which reflects freedom essence of his personality. Marxabandoned wealth narrow bourgeois form, this form worshipmaterial which is regarded the wealth, this form sees wealthas the fundamental purpose of the people, this form completelyignores human dimension of wealth. Marx stressed to grasp thewealth in the relation between wealth and human, whichhighlighting subjective essence and emphasizing value pursuitof human behind the wealth. Marx regarded the free and overalldevelopment of man as the value orientation of wealth creation.If we want to achieve freedom, we must first sublate of privateproperty right, because the right of private property is thebasis of the capitalist system, there is no private propertyrights, there is no capitalism. There are three historical formsof freedom which are freedom of community,formal freedom ofindividual,essential freedom of each individual by historicalsurvey of freedom, the first two forms respective represent the historical and real shape of freedom, the third form as an idealrepresents the future shape of freedom and the value orientationof the freedom.In the historical process of the realization of freedom,the obstacles which have been overcome will create new obstacles,freedom can get growing space only in actual struggle with theobstacles, freedom as the ultimate(transcendental)ideal ofhuman constantly leads self-realization through realisticexperience means to overcome obstacles. Freedom constantlytranscend its own form of guarantee, and then get a new formof guarantee,human access to the meaning of life in this processof constant transcending. Freedom is an ever achievedhistorical process, and is also an idea as the presence of humanperfection. Freedom guides the direction of historicalactivities,it is a guidepost which can continually lead thehuman race forward. Freedom as a transcendental ideal of onKantian sense is based on experience, otherwise freedom can onlybe an abstract utopia. I think that Marx’s concept of freedomis the unity of experience and transcendence in this sense.