I have denied knowledge therefore, in order to make room for faith.
-Kant
Kant, greatly influenced by Rousseau, created a comprehensive, systematic, technical, philosophical rationalization of his irrationalism. He starts his philosophy inside consciousness split from reality and never leaves it. Eg, he splits perception, experience, reaso…
I have denied knowledge therefore, in order to make room for faith.
-Kant
Kant, greatly influenced by Rousseau, created a comprehensive, systematic, technical, philosophical rationalization of his irrationalism. He starts his philosophy inside consciousness split from reality and never leaves it. Eg, he splits perception, experience, reason and ideas from reality. Kant is the major modern philosopher of the unfocused mind. Both Marx and Hitler agreed by explicitly basing their ideas on intuition. Kantian nihilism, the hatred of values (absolute sacrifice, duty) and their basis, reason. Kant deliberately and explicitly ended the Enlightenment to save the religious morality of sacrifice. He claimed that a sense of duty was a revelation from God. He explicitly advocated a life of suffering and made suffering the mark of morality.
Bryan differentiated Rousseau from the others in this respect: "Everyone else on the list was a genuine fan of rationalism or individual freedom. Usually both."
As you noted, Kant was an irrationalist. In that respect, he was like Rousseau. Unlike Rousseau, however, Kant was a fan of individual freedom in a qualified sense. Kant believed that an individual's action is right if it and the principle justifying it can coexist with the freedom of the will of each and all in action according to a universal law.
Regarding the state, Kant advocated a rule of law based on constitutionalism, a separation of powers, and the right of individuals to sue to enforce their individual rights. This is nothing like Rousseau's advocacy of unconstrained direct democracy imposing the "general will" on everyone.
Kant's political philosophy did compromise individual liberty in the sense that what he took to be the legitimate functions of the state went beyond the enforcement of individual rights to include enforcement of certain positive duties on its citizens. He also condemned revolution and tyrannicide as a means for dealing with illegitimate states (favoring peaceful reform instead).
This political philosophy of course was also compromised by being based on thoroughly rotten foundations. However, it still stands in sharp contrast to the overt collectivism of Rousseau's political philosophy.
Kants fundamental nihilism is the fundamental characteristic of post-Enlightenment culture. He didnt recognize the contradiction in supporting the Am. Rev, altho I dont understand how an advocate of suffering could read about the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and support it. He explicity said that happiness was the most important enemy of his morality of suffering. I dont know if he defended an alleged consistency. Perhaps the relative concreteness of the Am. Rev. was difficult for him to attack. Ie, perhaps the extreme abstractness of his unfocused mind philosophy enabled him to evade the concrete meaning of his morality of suffering. But the Am Rev made the meaning of happiness so concretely real that, perhaps, for this one time, he was unable to rationalize morally condemning it. Its important to recognize that philosophers, too, face the constant alternative of focus or evasion. Philosophers face the universe and life basically similar to everyone else. Kants evasions and rationalizations affected him basically similar to all people. Mans life is what it is. It doesnt vanish or change with evasion and rationalization. As 60s rocker, the classically educated, Marianne Faithfull, sang, "We've been trying to get high without having to pay. Check out her "Brain Drain" on YouTube. Dynamite singer.
It is also difficult to make sense of Kant denying the right of revolution, yet expressing sympathy for the American and (up to a point) French revolutionists and articulating pro-individualist political principles.
A possible explanation for all of this is that Kant started out believing that individuals needed liberty in order to be moral (even if in his system that involved a pursuit of suffering instead of a pursuit of happiness), and secretly sympathized with the American Revolution and, in the early stages, the French Revolution for that reason. However, he couldn't come out and say that openly given the repressive nature of the Prussian regime he lived under.
Once the French Revolution degenerated into a Reign of Terror and the heads started to roll, Kant started compromising his political views. Instead of attacking the illiberal deviations of the Jacobins, he began subordinating the value of defending individual liberty to conservative anti-revolutionary/anti-tyrannicidal values. He could openly express such compromised views in Prussia, which is what then made it into his later, more comprehensive works on ethics and political philosophy.
What made it so dangerous to be a philosopher in 18th century Prussia was that the Lutheran state church had a fanatically anti-reason Pietist faction that felt itself threatened by Enlightenment philosophy. Even worse, the absolutist king/warlord who ruled Prussia through much of the 18th century, Friedrich II, dabbled in Enlightenment philosophy himself (writing a three volume collection of philosophically-oriented odes on various topics in French) and was even flattered by Voltaire as being a philosopher-king. Publicly contradicting either the King or the Church on philosophical fundamentals could get you into big trouble.
Back when Friedrich II was just a Crown Prince, shortly before Kant was born, a follower of Liebniz's Rationalism, Christian Wolff, was forced into exile because he imbibed too strongly in French ideas about materialism and atheism and came under attack by the Pietists. While Friedrich II himself was more tolerant of some Enlightenment ideas, even he was careful not to antagonize Lutherans. On the other hand, the King wasn't shy about unleashing his censors against any ideas that offended him. Kant's policy, as stated in a letter to one of his friends, was to remain silent about potentially troublesome beliefs rather than express ideas he didn't believe.
These factors undoubtedly had a major impact on keeping Prussia an intellectual backwater during Kant's lifetime, and also on filtering out any philosophical innovations that weren't compromised by faith-mongering and by power-worship.
Im suspicious of historical claims that reject the basic role of ideas for political events. Censorship is a problem, of course, but a philosopher, especially those who specialize in fundamentals, like Kant, can express their ideas in ways not obvious to censors but underrstandable to competent readers. I dont recall any history of philosophy claiming that censorship was a problem in 2600 or so years of the discussion of political philosophy. Even Aristotle, who fled Athens to escape political enemies who might have killed him, has never been accused to altering his political ideas.
But historians do have Kant's correspondence, so we know that he reacted specifically to the Reign of Terror as described above. Weak-minded people sometimes do start compromising their principles in response to traumatic events; I saw a similar pattern play out among some people I know with the 9/11 attacks.
Kants didn't apply his subjective mind and selflessness to the reality-based, rational individualist Enlightenment. He contradicted his fundamentals in praising it, whether from failure to understand it, fear of Germany's severe censorship or fear of the concrete effects of his philosophy.
I think therres something in what you say but philosophy, a persons widest view of realityy and the way he uses his mind guides life more than any other cause.
Yes, but what if one's philosophy is flawed and not providing a wide view of reality, and is therefore not a reliable guide for resolving contradictions and rooting out errors among less fundamental beliefs as they become apparent?
For irrationalists detached from reality, the net result may be that their errors and contradictions only grow worse. It is their arsenal of rationalizations, not their context of knowledge, that expands in light of new experiences. It's not that the flawed fundamentals aren't an important causal factor, but an event that triggers a fresh set of evasions by an out-of-focus mind counts as a causal factor too.
Yes, philosophy is the basic cause of human action. But there are many non-basic causes. Yes, man needs a guide to the mind. Its mans tool for life. In the words of friends from the 60s, ya gotta get your shit together. See Ayn Rands philosophy of Objectivism for a concrete-based rational guide for your mind for your life. Her Atlas Shrugged is a good start
I have denied knowledge therefore, in order to make room for faith.
-Kant
Kant, greatly influenced by Rousseau, created a comprehensive, systematic, technical, philosophical rationalization of his irrationalism. He starts his philosophy inside consciousness split from reality and never leaves it. Eg, he splits perception, experience, reason and ideas from reality. Kant is the major modern philosopher of the unfocused mind. Both Marx and Hitler agreed by explicitly basing their ideas on intuition. Kantian nihilism, the hatred of values (absolute sacrifice, duty) and their basis, reason. Kant deliberately and explicitly ended the Enlightenment to save the religious morality of sacrifice. He claimed that a sense of duty was a revelation from God. He explicitly advocated a life of suffering and made suffering the mark of morality.
Bryan differentiated Rousseau from the others in this respect: "Everyone else on the list was a genuine fan of rationalism or individual freedom. Usually both."
As you noted, Kant was an irrationalist. In that respect, he was like Rousseau. Unlike Rousseau, however, Kant was a fan of individual freedom in a qualified sense. Kant believed that an individual's action is right if it and the principle justifying it can coexist with the freedom of the will of each and all in action according to a universal law.
Regarding the state, Kant advocated a rule of law based on constitutionalism, a separation of powers, and the right of individuals to sue to enforce their individual rights. This is nothing like Rousseau's advocacy of unconstrained direct democracy imposing the "general will" on everyone.
Kant's political philosophy did compromise individual liberty in the sense that what he took to be the legitimate functions of the state went beyond the enforcement of individual rights to include enforcement of certain positive duties on its citizens. He also condemned revolution and tyrannicide as a means for dealing with illegitimate states (favoring peaceful reform instead).
This political philosophy of course was also compromised by being based on thoroughly rotten foundations. However, it still stands in sharp contrast to the overt collectivism of Rousseau's political philosophy.
Kants fundamental nihilism is the fundamental characteristic of post-Enlightenment culture. He didnt recognize the contradiction in supporting the Am. Rev, altho I dont understand how an advocate of suffering could read about the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and support it. He explicity said that happiness was the most important enemy of his morality of suffering. I dont know if he defended an alleged consistency. Perhaps the relative concreteness of the Am. Rev. was difficult for him to attack. Ie, perhaps the extreme abstractness of his unfocused mind philosophy enabled him to evade the concrete meaning of his morality of suffering. But the Am Rev made the meaning of happiness so concretely real that, perhaps, for this one time, he was unable to rationalize morally condemning it. Its important to recognize that philosophers, too, face the constant alternative of focus or evasion. Philosophers face the universe and life basically similar to everyone else. Kants evasions and rationalizations affected him basically similar to all people. Mans life is what it is. It doesnt vanish or change with evasion and rationalization. As 60s rocker, the classically educated, Marianne Faithfull, sang, "We've been trying to get high without having to pay. Check out her "Brain Drain" on YouTube. Dynamite singer.
It is also difficult to make sense of Kant denying the right of revolution, yet expressing sympathy for the American and (up to a point) French revolutionists and articulating pro-individualist political principles.
A possible explanation for all of this is that Kant started out believing that individuals needed liberty in order to be moral (even if in his system that involved a pursuit of suffering instead of a pursuit of happiness), and secretly sympathized with the American Revolution and, in the early stages, the French Revolution for that reason. However, he couldn't come out and say that openly given the repressive nature of the Prussian regime he lived under.
Once the French Revolution degenerated into a Reign of Terror and the heads started to roll, Kant started compromising his political views. Instead of attacking the illiberal deviations of the Jacobins, he began subordinating the value of defending individual liberty to conservative anti-revolutionary/anti-tyrannicidal values. He could openly express such compromised views in Prussia, which is what then made it into his later, more comprehensive works on ethics and political philosophy.
What made it so dangerous to be a philosopher in 18th century Prussia was that the Lutheran state church had a fanatically anti-reason Pietist faction that felt itself threatened by Enlightenment philosophy. Even worse, the absolutist king/warlord who ruled Prussia through much of the 18th century, Friedrich II, dabbled in Enlightenment philosophy himself (writing a three volume collection of philosophically-oriented odes on various topics in French) and was even flattered by Voltaire as being a philosopher-king. Publicly contradicting either the King or the Church on philosophical fundamentals could get you into big trouble.
Back when Friedrich II was just a Crown Prince, shortly before Kant was born, a follower of Liebniz's Rationalism, Christian Wolff, was forced into exile because he imbibed too strongly in French ideas about materialism and atheism and came under attack by the Pietists. While Friedrich II himself was more tolerant of some Enlightenment ideas, even he was careful not to antagonize Lutherans. On the other hand, the King wasn't shy about unleashing his censors against any ideas that offended him. Kant's policy, as stated in a letter to one of his friends, was to remain silent about potentially troublesome beliefs rather than express ideas he didn't believe.
These factors undoubtedly had a major impact on keeping Prussia an intellectual backwater during Kant's lifetime, and also on filtering out any philosophical innovations that weren't compromised by faith-mongering and by power-worship.
Im suspicious of historical claims that reject the basic role of ideas for political events. Censorship is a problem, of course, but a philosopher, especially those who specialize in fundamentals, like Kant, can express their ideas in ways not obvious to censors but underrstandable to competent readers. I dont recall any history of philosophy claiming that censorship was a problem in 2600 or so years of the discussion of political philosophy. Even Aristotle, who fled Athens to escape political enemies who might have killed him, has never been accused to altering his political ideas.
But historians do have Kant's correspondence, so we know that he reacted specifically to the Reign of Terror as described above. Weak-minded people sometimes do start compromising their principles in response to traumatic events; I saw a similar pattern play out among some people I know with the 9/11 attacks.
Kants didn't apply his subjective mind and selflessness to the reality-based, rational individualist Enlightenment. He contradicted his fundamentals in praising it, whether from failure to understand it, fear of Germany's severe censorship or fear of the concrete effects of his philosophy.
I think therres something in what you say but philosophy, a persons widest view of realityy and the way he uses his mind guides life more than any other cause.
Yes, but what if one's philosophy is flawed and not providing a wide view of reality, and is therefore not a reliable guide for resolving contradictions and rooting out errors among less fundamental beliefs as they become apparent?
For irrationalists detached from reality, the net result may be that their errors and contradictions only grow worse. It is their arsenal of rationalizations, not their context of knowledge, that expands in light of new experiences. It's not that the flawed fundamentals aren't an important causal factor, but an event that triggers a fresh set of evasions by an out-of-focus mind counts as a causal factor too.
Yes, philosophy is the basic cause of human action. But there are many non-basic causes. Yes, man needs a guide to the mind. Its mans tool for life. In the words of friends from the 60s, ya gotta get your shit together. See Ayn Rands philosophy of Objectivism for a concrete-based rational guide for your mind for your life. Her Atlas Shrugged is a good start