/lit/ - Literature

Where were you when you realised most of /lit/ is stupid as all fuck? Yes, that means you, dumbass. You, specifically, are unintelligent.

Is modern Western society the least accommodating circumstance for a genius in millenia?

How many Schopenhauers and Kants remain shades beyond the horizon of our culture because of the system they were absorbed within?

Or do you think genius wills out, regardless of the circumstances?

this motherfucking kant

Hey /lit/
what do you think of Immanuel Kant's philosophy?
Do you agree with his agnosticism?

How do you know anything is real?

Are there actually books that can break your brain like the fine doctor Dornald Anderson mentions here? Thank you for your time, /lit/!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SirZDHQu7M

>implying anything exists

>>4454578

>orwell
>camus
>flowers for algernon


nigger I read 9/10 of those books on that list before I was in the 10th grade


you must live somewhere with low public school funding

Who was the greatest philospher?

>>4343988

Oh Kant seems really cool and makes a lot of sense, wow ethics grounded in reason and rationalism, wow categorical imperative
>no masturbation
>no sex for pleasure

fuck this

Also, why is it not immoral to hurt a dog if you have ill motives? i thought that was the whole point

>be with group of friends, mostly STEM majors
>subject of German culture comes up
>friends are circle-jerking over the relevance of everything German (many of them took four years of German in high school)
>bring up Kant, Hegel, Marx, and regard them as "some of the most influential thinkers" from Germany
>one of them, who has no idea who either Kant, Hegel, or Marx are, stops and snaps at me
>"Uh, what about Einstein?"
>They all agree with him (immediately)
>Immediately they begin to talk about the thousands of people slaughtered by the regimes of Stalin, Pal Pot, Mao and in contrast how Einstein's work has had such a positive impact on society etc


>mfw

I am: this eventual certainty, even when assumed to be unshakable, even when set up as the first principle by metaphysics, which envisages nothing higher, is nonetheless worthless if it does not go to the point of assuring me against vanity by assuring me that I am loved. For I can always and more often than not completely make fun of being, to the point of becoming indifferent to my fact of being, or avoid dealing with it, or , indeed, even hate it. It is not enough that I know myself to be, certainly and without restriction, in order to put up with, accept, and love being. The certainty of being can even on the contrary suffocate me like a yoke, bog me down like mud, and imprison me like a jail cell. For every ego, to be or not to be can become the stake in a free choice, without the positive response necessarily assumed. And the question here is not necessarily that of suicide, but first and always that of the empire of vanity; for under the rule of vanity, I can very certainly recognize "I think, therefore I am" - only immediately to annul this certainty by asking myself, "What's the use?" The certainty of my existence is never enough to make it just, or good, or beautiful or desirable-- in short, it is never enough to assure it. The certainty of my existence simply demonstrates my solitary effort to establish myself in being by my own decision and on my own account; of course a certainty produced by my own act of thinking remains my initiative, my work, and my business -- the autistic certainty and narcissistic assurance of a mirror always mirroring only another mirror, a repeated void. I only obtain an existence, and the most barren one at that -- the pure product of hyperbolic doubt, without intuition, without concept and without a name: a desert, the poorest phenomenon, which only delivers its own inanity. I am -- a doubtless certainty, but at the price of the absence of every given. I am -- less first truth than the final fruit of doubt itself. I doubt, and this doubt at least is certain. Yes, I am certain, but with a certainty such that it appears immediately impossible that it matters to me and does not collapse in front of vanity, which asks, "What's the use?" As the minimalist mime of the self-cause, certainty nails the ego to just enough existence to receive, without any defense, the shock of vanity. It is thus necessary, in order for me to be and otherwise than what I can guarantee to myself, that is to say, be with a being that assures me from elsewhere than from me. I can of course produce and reproduce for myself my certainty of being, but I cannot assure it against vanity. Only another than me could assure me of it, like a guide in the mountains assures his client. For assurance is not to be confused with certainty.

Yo folks, Kant's here. My morality is right and any other is wrong.
Try to disprove me if you can.

I would like to find someone smart enough to discuss my philosophy, but i Kant

However Emmanuel Kant is passing by and intervenes. He hears the complaints of the lady and tells her that if she were to have sex with the pool boy and if this were to become a universal law, pool attendants would become much happier and therefore productivity would increase worldwide. The female is convinced by this explanation and the pool boy then starts his afternoon working out his hard rod.

"I have knowledge a priori that centuries from now every debate that takes place will be confused by the terms objectivity and subjectivity."

>>3518293

Don't be a faggot. Secondary literature is for people who just wanna be able to talk about something they haven't experienced themselves, and therefore don't truly understand. Most of what you can get out of a work as a person can't be found through commentaries.

Hey /lit/
How do I get started with Philosophy? Not that lame degree shit, strictly books. The Greeks? or..
>the guy in the pic

Sup /lit/

How do I into German literature? Apart from few obvious authors I know next to nothing. Recommendations would be appreciated!

How can we KNOW that everything has a cause?

Please, stop using the word 'cunt'.
Your insolence keeps distracting my ever-working mind.

Hello /lit/. I want to read Kant. Which book to start?

Correct me if I am wrong /lit/, but does Kantian ethics not say anything about on choosing between what particular duties one ought to do? I think that Kant makes a distinction between choosing perfect duties over imperfect ones if one can only do one in particular, but nothing is said of choosing to prioritize between perfect duties or between imperfect duties, at least within Groundwork (which is the extent of my experience on the topic).