Comments (8)

• jon

• haha, this is way easier to read than prolegomena.

• Published: December 2, 2008 5:36 PM

• John Tate

• "The man who . . . closed the door of philosophy to reason, was Immanuel Kant . . . .

  Kant’s expressly stated purpose was to save the morality of self-abnegation and self-sacrifice. He knew that it could not survive without a mystic base—and what it had to be saved from was reason.

  Attila’s share of Kant’s universe includes this earth, physical reality, man’s senses, perceptions, reason and science, all of it labeled the “phenomenal” world. The Witch Doctor’s share is another, “higher,” reality, labeled the “noumenal” world, and a special manifestation, labeled the “categorical imperative,” which dictates to man the rules of morality and which makes itself known by means of a feeling, as a special sense of duty.

  The “phenomenal” world, said Kant, is not real: reality, as perceived by man’s mind, is a distortion. The distorting mechanism is man’s conceptual faculty: man’s basic concepts (such as time, space, existence) are not derived from experience or reality, but come from an automatic system of filters in his consciousness (labeled “categories” and “forms of perception”) which impose their own design on his perception of the external world and make him incapable of perceiving it in any manner other than the one in which he does perceive it. This proves, said Kant, that man’s concepts are only a delusion, but a collective delusion which no one has the power to escape. Thus reason and science are “limited,” said Kant; they are valid only so long as they deal with this world, with a permanent, pre-determined collective delusion (and thus the criterion of reason’s validity was switched from the objective to the collective), but they are impotent to deal with the fundamental, metaphysical issues of existence, which belong to the “noumenal” world. The “noumenal” world is unknowable; it is the world of “real” reality, “superior” truth and “things in themselves” or “things as they are”—which means: things as they are not perceived by man.

  Even apart from the fact that Kant’s theory of the “categories” as the source of man’s concepts was a preposterous invention, his argument amounted to a negation, not only of man’s consciousness, but of any consciousness, of consciousness as such. His argument, in essence, ran as follows: man is limited to a consciousness of a specific nature, which perceives by specific means and no others, therefore, his consciousness is not valid; man is blind, because he has eyes—deaf, because he has ears—deluded, because he has a mind—and the things he perceives do not exist, because he perceives them." - Ayn Rand.

  And now you all know why when Kant took over the University scene - so did socialism and collectivist theories.

• Published: December 2, 2008 6:44 PM

• noob

• The more I read Kant, the more I believe in logic. In my own "perverted brain" (and almost himself explicitly), Kant actually proves logic to be absolute. For if we cant escape our perceived reality and observe the "truth", how can we base anything on the unknowable?

  Also, I do agree with some of his points. I.E.

  "Although for Newton’s findings we to Newton give the glory, Newton never could have found them if they weren’t known a priori."

  and

  "The rules for combination of its selfhood form the ground; so what we perceive tomorrow by today’s laws must be bound."

  For in these two verses, he basically validates mathematics as a system to describe the constant natural laws. Yet math, and math laws, are not an absolute truth, but are just a descriptors of what is observable through senses in a manner that can be easily relayed to other humans.

  I would suspect that as humanity develops ever better methods of observing reality, these models of natural law will get ever more developed.

  On a side note: Newtons findings were known a priori only by "existence"; and not by humans until Newton put it in terms other people could understand.

• Published: December 2, 2008 8:29 PM

• Greg Ransom

• Brilliant.

• Published: December 2, 2008 10:31 PM

• Mark Humphrey

• Many thanks to John Tate for his excellent essay describing the essentials of Kant's speculations about the nature of the world and of knowlege.

  We live in an age of nihilism that produces widespread passivity about ideas, and docile acceptance of the received dogma pertaining to the most important fundamental ideas of philosophy. Among "intellectuals", Kantian notions that attack the foundations of reason and objectivity are treated as normal, plausible, and entirely underserving of determined critcism.

  Ideas in philosophy are the most essential and important in the field of knowlege, because--whether examined or accepted uncriticially--they establish one's First Ideas about the nature of the universe, man, knowlege, and ethics. People--and ideological movements--tend unconsciously to align their less essential ideas about economics and politics with their basic view of philosophy. People do this because they need logical congruence for obvious reasons.

  Kant's claims about the alleged inefficacy of reason were self-refuting, in the sense that Kant himself relied on the use of reason to attack it.

• Published: December 3, 2008 2:57 PM

• fundamentalist

• Kant is responsible for the bisecting of knowledge into two unrelated compartments—the physical and spiritual. Physical things are easy to know and understand, but they leave us empty of meaning, morals, love, personality, etc. The spiritual is more difficult to get to know and follows no logic. It’s pure feeling, but that’s where we find meaning, morals, love, personality, etc. We can’t discuss the truth/falsehood of each individual’s ideas of the spiritual because those categories don’t exist in that realm. We can only listen and say Huh, that’s interesting. Kierkegaard made it worse by claiming that true faith is a leap into irrationality, contrary to a millennium of Church teaching. What an idiot.

  That’s why modern man is divided within himself. He can be rational on one plane and totally irrational on the other because the two have no contact. Or else he denies the existence of the spiritual and claims that life has no meaning, morals, love, personality, etc., as many atheists do.

  Traditional Christianity sees not bifurcation of existence. The spiritual is also logical and gives meaning to the physical.
  

• Published: December 3, 2008 4:18 PM

• Philemon

• Primers on Kant:

  Kant's Transcendental Idealism by Henry Allison
  http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=3761

  Kant's Theory of Freedom by Henry Allison
  http://www.amazon.com/Kants-Theory-Freedom-Henry-Allison/dp/0521387086

  Accessing Kant by Jay Rosenberg
  http://books.google.com/books?id=gayPH07YIVMC

  And philosophical humor as well:

  http://xeny.net/nominalist.things

  Nominalistically Respectable Things

• Published: December 3, 2008 8:16 PM

• Philemon

• 
  SCENE: BEDROOM IN AN AUSTRIAN MANSION, c.1937

  
  GRETEL: I don't like his manner.

  KURT: His attitude worries me.

  LISEL: I am troubled by a general air of foreboding.

  MARIA: Yes, children: my life is also, on occasion, clouded by manners, attitudes and airs of foreboding.

  BRIGITA: So what do you do about it?

  MARIA: Why, I simply think of nominalistically respectable things instead.

  VON TRAPP CHILDREN (together): Nominalistically respectable things? What are they?

  MARIA: Well, let me explain ...

• Published: December 3, 2008 8:31 PM