/lit/ - Literature

>>23679399
What is esoteric Kantianism?

>>23679457
Kant is not an extreme subjectivist, but an objective idealist (all is one intelligence) who presented an exoterically incomplete system as a suggestive push towards its completion by each individual student of the system. He leaves the esoteric teaching as an exercise to the reader. The subjective 'I' is an expression of an infinite objective 'I' which is one and the same in all its expressions, including each subjective 'I', and therefore the intellect of each and every subjective 'I' is commensurate with the nature of this Absolute. Consequently, transcendental philosophy in its apparent inquiry into the necessary conditions of subjective experience and what knowledge can be derived therefrom, is at once also a microcosmic investigation mirroring the necessary conditions of the one objective spirit and the objective knowledge derived therefrom. The esoteric doctrine does not stop at subjectivity, but uses subjectivity as a means for the finite intellect to understand the infinite intellect, the Absolute.

>>23679469
have you read the presocratics yet

>>23679473
yes

>>23679399
>in other words, there is ONLY ONE TRUE SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY founded upon principles
i mean this is just wrong on it's face, a child could give a counterexample

>>23679477
did you not notice that the esoteric kantism you invented is partially or entirely contained within the teachings of pythagoras, anaximander, heraclitus? why did you feel the need to appropriate it to kant?

>>23679480
there is only one true metaphysics

>>23679480
Key word here is 'true' silly anon

>The different systems which the history of philosophy presents are not irreconcilable with unity... We may either say, that it is one philosophy at different degrees of maturity: or that the particular principle, which is the groundwork of each system, is but a branch of one and the same universe of thought.

>>23679490
>why did you feel the need to appropriate it to kant?
The same could be said of the eastern sages. Why the need to appropriate it to the presocratics? I present the esoteric philosophy in the particular guise of Kantian terminology as Kant was my base upon which I developed as a philosopher. Esoteric kantianism is the scientific presentation of the hermetic philosophy purified through the gauntlet of Kantian critique and clarified through the precision of the Kantian terminology.

>>23679399
>one human Reason

>>23679561
>Foucalt
disregarded

>>23679530
Not at all and this nonsense has been proven wrong time and again with real-world data and not arbitrary thought experiments

>>23679570
>theory-laden data

Esoteric Kantianism is refuted by the leading scholars on Kant and German Idealism. Academics agree on most pertinent interpretations of Kant's works. Ignore all Kantposer posting.

>>23679399
>another shitty low effort copy paste thread
Apply yourself.

>>23680222

bump

>>23680222
>>23680230
is this real?

>>23681926
It's real. I'm also tired of pretending the troondontalids weren't the predecessors of the modern troons.

>>23679878
>Esoteric Kantianism is refuted by the leading scholars on Kant and German Idealism.
Leading scholars know about esoteric Kantianism?

>>23682659
The leading scholar Samuel Taylor Coleridge did.

>The few passages that remained obscure to me, after due efforts of thought, (as the chapter on original apperception,) and the apparent contradictions which occur, I soon found were hints and insinuations referring to ideas, which Kant either did not think it prudent to avow, or which he considered as consistently left behind in a pure analysis, not of human nature in toto, but of the speculative intellect alone. He had been in imminent danger of persecution during the reign of the late king of Prussia, that strange compound of lawless debauchery and priest-ridden superstition: and it is probable that he had little inclination, in his old age, to act over again the fortunes, and hair-breadth escapes of Wolf. The expulsion of the first among Kant’s disciples, who attempted to complete his system, from the University of Jena, with the confiscation and prohibition of the obnoxious work by the joint efforts of the courts of Saxony and Hanover, supplied experimental proof, that the venerable old man’s caution was not groundless. In spite therefore of his own declarations, I could never believe, that it was possible for him to have meant no more by his Noumenon, or Thing in itself, than his mere words express; or that in his own conception he confined the whole plastic power to the forms of the intellect, leaving for the external cause, for the materiale of our sensations, a matter without form, which is doubtless inconceivable. I entertained doubts likewise, whether, in his own mind, he even laid all the stress, which he appears to do, on the moral postulates.

>>23682669
TIL

>>23682659
Leading scholars know about Kant's relation and rejection of what he called mysticism.

>>23682669
Coleridge is not a scholar, he is a free thinker and far from being an authority on Kant. Read actual scholars respected in Academia for decades.

>>23682888
Not all authorities are free thinkers. Still, better to be a free thinker. And curious you don’t mention any current leading Kant scholars themselves, especially given the diversity of traditions he inspired.

>>23682669
How much might this characterization of Kant have stretched to Emerson and Thoreau?

>>23682888
>Leading scholars know about Kant's relation and rejection of what he called mysticism
Like this scholar?

>>23682941
>How much might this characterization of Kant have stretched to Emerson and Thoreau?
I'm curious about this too. I haven't read Emerson yet. Is he a systematic philosopher? or more of an edifying-writer type?

>>23682941
>Not all authorities are free thinkers
Where did I point to the contrary?
>curious you don’t mention any current leading Kant scholars themselves, especially given the diversity of traditions he inspired.
Oh boy, if you don't know who the leading scholars on Kant and German Idealism are at this point, the conversation should end here.

>>23682942
>this scholar
I was very clear on the leading ones I reckon.

>>23682957
>I was very clear on the leading ones I reckon
Not at all. Regardless, there are scholars like myself who see the mystical implications and the German idealists themselves were of that view as well.

>I have always said, and say again, that my system is the same as Kant’s.
-Fichte, 1st Intro to Wissenschaftslehre

>>23679399
>there is ONLY ONE TRUE SYSTEM OF PHILOSOPHY founded upon principles,
Reminds me of Republic 10 when Socrates is talking about the limitations of images. You have the divine thing-itself, the copy here, and then images of it (i.e. writing itself), which are imperfect representations of the copy of the thing-itself and can only describe it from one perspective/angle. So as far as Plato goes he didn't think it was impossible for different philosophers to say the same thing while apparently saying different things. Plato himself is a mimetic artist, all of his dialogues are openly mimetic.

>>23679570
Yes, (You) dunce, the observer changes the event. Good job.

>>23682888
>rejection of what he called mysticism.
which was not so much a rejection but rather a suggestive directive for those with eyes to see.

>>23682997
Popsci bullshit.

>>23682984
>So as far as Plato goes he didn't think it was impossible for different philosophers to say the same thing while apparently saying different things.
exactly

OP what do you think of Bertrand Russell's attacks on the idealists in his history? I know that he's a giant troll in that book and I'm sure it's unfair. Here's the critique:

"Idealists say that no thing in the world can be known except insofar as it is related to other things. But this is a basic logical error since a thing can be something in its own right apart from its relations. It would be like insisting that you do not know who Smith is unless you knew his brother, his brother's wife, his brother's wife's cousin, his brother's wife's cousin's grandfather, etc."

>>23683032
Russell was filtered.

>>23683008
Navel gazer. Puns intended.

>>23683037

>>23683037
More than filtered, he was an outright wanker. I was reading through that book last night - the last section where he talks about how great Fregean logic is and how it's blown out everything that came before it. He talks about how "before Frege" supposedly no one had realized that the number 3 is a plurality of pluralities. Top kek, that's exactly how both Plato and Aristotle understood number. That's why Plato thought there were 'intermediate mathematicals' below the forms, because '3' is really an infinite number of threes. Any section that's on a philosopher I know at first hand, I know to be complete bullshit. It has to be one of the most destructive and harmful philosophical works ever written.

>>23683073
>Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them.

>In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

>That is the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect. I'd point out it does not operate in other arenas of life. In ordinary life, if somebody consistently exaggerates or lies to you, you soon discount everything they say. In court, there is the legal doctrine of falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus, which means untruthful in one part, untruthful in all. But when it comes to the media, we believe against evidence that it is probably worth our time to read other parts of the paper. When, in fact, it almost certainly isn't. The only possible explanation for our behavior is amnesia.
The same goes for philosophy.

>>23683073
Moore was even worse. Never forget:

> Here is one hand,
>And here is another.
>There are at least two external objects in the world.
>Therefore, an external world exists.
wow. such intellectual prowess. such subtle reasoning.

>>23683099
Who can forget Quine?
>The number of planets is 9
>9 is necessarily greater than 7
>therefore, the number of planets is necessarily greater than 7
>but this isn't true, therefore necessity isn't le real
Professional sophists.

>>23683105
And let's not forget the absolute retardation that is kripke's necessary a posteriori. If they are not sophists, they are literal retards committing retard-tier equivocations previous generations of philosophers had already made explicit, but fuck the history of philosophy amir?

>>23683120
I'm theoretically sympathetic to his position but his logic is retarded. I'm of the school that would say 'the a priori/a posteriori dichotomy doesn't make sense to begin with'. To me, facts on the ground can only be understood by means of concepts, and concepts can only be understood as referring, ultimately, to things on the ground.

>>23683134
>'the a priori/a posteriori dichotomy doesn't make sense to begin with'
you have to think of it in terms of knowledge gained through non-sensuous means (a priori) and knowledge gained through the senses (a posteriori). If you deny the distinction it is probably because you deny the actually of the first type of knowledge and suppose like an empiricist that all knowledge is ultimately derived from the senses, but Kant easily shows this need not be the case with his famous line:

> though all our knowledge begins with experience, it by no means follows that all arises out of experience.

>>23682947
He is anti-systematic but also has clear pretty clear logo-metaphysical beliefs. I like his speeches more than his essays and especially his poetry. And Thoreau was indeed the better essayist, on the rhetorical front.

>>23682957
Imagine misinterpreting what I was saying and then dodging a perfectly relevant issue about who counts as a leading Kant scholar, given (as I made clear) the man was a catalyst for a number of diverse philosophical traditions.

bump

>>23682976
Again, I was clear that not any scholar is worth it, but the leading ones, who are acclaimed in the Academy and have been for decades.

>>23683000
It was a deviation from mystical conceptions. I say based on the leading scholars who are highly esteemed by many others and the Academy. You on the other hand just resort to freestyle chicanerie.

>>23683496
>in 1818, [Hegel] was offered and took up the chair of philosophy at the University of Berlin, the most prestigious position in the German philosophical world.

>The EXOTERIC teaching of the Kantian philosophy — that the understanding ought not to go beyond experience, else the cognitive faculty will become a theoretical reason which by itself generates nothing but fantasies of the brain — this was a justification from a philosophical quarter for the renunciation of speculative thought.
-Section 3 Science of Logic

The greatest philosopher in the German speaking world believed in esoteric kantianism. I'll take his authority over these "leading" (according to who? you? lol) scholars.

>>23683183
>the man was a catalyst for a number of diverse philosophical traditions.
What does this have to do with the work and research on Kant's own philosophy? It's like saying that Carneades, Alcinous had no extraneous intention and influence in their reading of Plato because they claimed they studied and were influenced by Plato.

>>23679399
Kant was just as much of a mysticist retard as Hegel. They and Rousseau are responsible for all of the ills of society today. Every single one of our problems currently is because of those 3 retards. I wish I could go back in time and wallop them relentlessly for all the misery they've inflicted on humanity.

>>23683526
First, Hegel is not the greatest philosopher from Germany. Now, he is far from being an authority on Kant since his sources were all outdated and we have unearthed many documents that have helped in forming a more accurate view of what Kant thought, how he thought, how he lived, etc. This is one of the reasons the Academia exists. Are you by any chance thinking it is possible to self-''teach'' philosophy?

>>23683526
Hegel is talking about people who were reputed to be Kantian thinkers but couldn’t live up to the standards of Kantian philosophy because of the limitations of Kant’s own value-judgments themselves. He’s moralizing more so than positing the existence of a true esoteric ‘Kantian’ tradition.

>>23683546
>Every single one of our problems currently is because of those 3 retards.
>The West is lost to Liberalism and Materialism
Empiricists and Positivists are the one you should be blaming. The world hasn't reached the Kantian and Hegelian stage.

>>23683538
You’ve not studied philosophy in your entire life.

>>23683551
Hegel was definitely authority on Kant even if he was wrong about key concepts.

>>23683551
>Hegel is not the greatest philosopher from Germany.
Name a greater one.

>Now, he is far from being an authority on Kant since his sources were all outdated and we have unearthed many documents that have helped in forming a more accurate view of what Kant thought, how he thought, how he lived.
He knew people who knew Kant first hand, and the best biographies were written by those who knew Kant directly which he also had access to. He was closer culturally, spacially, and temporally to Kant and his aftermath than any contemporary scholar can ever be. I'll take Hegel's authority over them anyday.

>The characteristics of the dead matter which fills the universe are stability and inertia; it further possesses solidity, expansion, and form, and its manifestations, resulting from all these three causes, admit of physical explanations, which, at the same time, are mathematical, and, collectively, are called mechanical. But let us direct our attention to the kind of beings which contain the cause of life in the universe—those which therefore neither add to the mass and extent of lifeless matter, nor are influenced by it according to the laws of contact and collision, but which rather, by inner activity, move themselves and dead matter as well—and we shall find ourselves convinced, if not with the distinctness of demonstration, still with the presentiment of well applied reason, that immaterial beings exist.
Brehs....

>>23683556
>Hegel is talking about people who were reputed to be Kantian thinkers but couldn’t live up to the standards of Kantian philosophy because of the limitations of Kant’s own value-judgments themselves
Except that that was literally the exoteric teaching; only by seeing beyond the letter and into the Spirit of the Kantian philosophy is that exoteric teaching recognized for what it truly is: the exoteric blind of the esoteric truth.

>when we compare the thoughts that an author expresses about a subject, in ordinary speech as well as in writing, it is not at all unusual to find that we understand him even better than he understood himself, since he may not have determined his concept sufficiently and hence sometimes spoke, or even thought, contrary to his own intention”
-KrV A 314/B 370, tr. 396

>>23683580
>Name a greater one.
Schopenhauer (pbuh)

>>23683567
>You've not studied philosophy
More than you, since you barely know who the most respected scholars on your favorite philosopher are. You aren't acquainted with the established academic consensus on your philosopher. This is shameful.
>Hegel was...
Was...

>>23683636
lol no Schope is good but not the greatest

>>23683640
>consensus
I couldn't care less. None of them are esoteric Kantians. Not Guyer, not Longuenesse, not Allison, etc.

>>23683645
who else but a poet-philsopher bring down from mt. parnassus the rational edict of apollo with the nod of the muses except he who is the most bright-eyed of all of Europa's sons, Immanuel Kant? A thousand generations pass and not one yields the same as Kant's seed.

>>23683645
> And he himself, in the vehement pressure of will which is his origin and his nature, seizes upon the pleasures and enjoyments of life, firmly embraces them, and knows not that by this very act of his will he seizes and hugs all those pains and sorrows at the sight of which he shudders. He sees the ills and he sees the wickedness in the world, but far from knowing that both of these are but different sides of the manifestation of the one will to live, he regards them as very different, and indeed quite opposed, and often seeks to escape by wickedness, i.e., by causing the suffering of another, from ills, from the suffering of his own individuality, for he is involved in the principium individuationis, deluded by the veil of Mâyâ. Just as a sailor sits in a boat trusting to his frail barque in a stormy sea, unbounded in every direction, rising and falling with the howling mountainous waves; so in the midst of a world of sorrows the individual man sits quietly, supported by and trusting to the principium individuationis, or the way in which the individual knows things as phenomena. The boundless world, everywhere full of suffering in the infinite past, in the infinite future, is strange to him, indeed is to him but a fable; his ephemeral person, his extensionless present, his momentary satisfaction, this alone has reality for him; and he does all to maintain this, so long as his eyes are not opened by a better knowledge.
the poet-philsopher has no equal

>>23683671
I like Schopenhauer, he was my first German philosophy read; ironically it was his seething at the German idealists that peaked my curiosity. But if you think Schopenhauer is the greatest it's because you fell for his meme and didn't read Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.

>>23683687
>Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel.
wholly devoid of Orpheus, next.

>>23683701
>t. doesn't know

>>23683710
all i see are 4 smiling autists

>>23679469
Fichte was a good Plotinus to Kant as his Plato, but he had the misfortune of living at the same time as Kant was still alive, so Kant was able to deny that Fichte's reading of him was accurate. There is no secret Kantian doctrine, unless you want to take his Opus Postumum stuff seriously which shows the aging later Kant was obsolete as fuck. Fichte's misreading of him genuinely improves on Kant and makes his thought more internally consistent and interesting. If it weren't for Fichte, the rest of German Idealism could never have spawned. Anyway people need to move on from Kant and Hegel. Their thought has since been developed much more. If you fancy a non-Hegelian Kantianism+, you should study the neo-Kantians, the French historical epistemologists, Diltheyan hermeneutics, Husserlian and Heideggerian phenomenology, logical positivism, and the post-positivist American neo-pragmatist analytics. Whereas if you fancy a Hegelianism+ continue your studies after Heidegger with existential phenomenology, Marx and Western Marxism, post-structuralism, especially Deleuze, and pay some attention to the British Idealists, Kyoto school, Bergson, and Whitehead as well, and also study the Pittsburgh quietists and Graham Priest. Oh also, if you really care about "esoteric Kantianism" maybe read Hume in more detail, because if there's any esoteric Kantianism it's actually in Hume. Hume was the first Kantian but you have to look deeply into his work to see it. But Hume/Kant scholars agree about it.

>>23683653
That's the point. None of the people who actually matter in other to have a deeper understanding of Kant's philosophy go along with you fanciful obsessions.

>>23683580
>Name a greater one
Heidegger

>>23683796
>unless you want to take his Opus Postumum stuff seriously which shows the aging later Kant was obsolete as fuck.
Not obsolete, just went in the obviously necessary direction.

>>23683947
>None of the people who actually matter
kek in a century no one will read them anymore

Hegel was a nauseating charlatan and a miserable excuse of a philosopher who made philosophy fall into contempt from the general public.

>>23684788
>the general public.
doesn't matter

>Philosophy is, by its very nature, something esoteric, neither made for the vulgar as it stands [für sich], nor capable of being got up to suit the vulgar taste
Philosophy is elitist by nature.

>>23684803
I have nothing intelligent to say to that, as there is nothing intelligent to reply to.
sage

>>23684803
the more intelligent you are, the more your senses remove yourself from the one and the more intellectual effort you have to expend to return to it. it's a tautological and self-defeating point

>>23682888
>>23683000
witnessed

>>23684776
They have been the main references for decades.

>>23683151
I'm not an empiricist I'm an Aristotelian. This happens every time I talk to you bro, you act like philosophy started in 1600. We have an innate capacity to judge things like 'being', 'not-being', 'same', 'different', to syllogize, etc, and this is a priori, or to be more precise something that develops in us as we grow. But we do learn from objects of sense - not by images, like the empiricists would say, the objects of sense are really intelligible and have a structure that we can grasp with our minds. Saying "oh well how can you come to know x if you don't already know it?" is a sophism, as I said we have a capacity, and the capacity acts on things that we grasp imperfectly, whether by sense or thought. A capacity is not an actuality. And saying "well if we have a capacity we have a priori concepts" is missing the point entirely. I have a capacity to know 'man' or 'number', this does not mean that I actually do know 'man' or 'number'. If I learn calculus this does not mean that I already knew calculus a priori. And so for all supposedly 'innate ideas', besides the capacity itself, which isn't really a concept anyway but a precondition of conception.