/lit/ - Literature

Kant was a dork

>u mus never tell a lie

I think he's won so far in the argument of objectivity vs. subjectivity, basically outshowing Hume and Nietzsche that things can be determined rationally.

>>3671792
>He basically proves objectivity and reason to exist.

How does he do this?

(spoilers: I know how he does it, I just want to hear your explanation of it)

(double spoilers: I actually don't)

>>3671827
He basically says that reason is a dependable resource by which to judge the "external" world only because reason is the fundamental "judgment" which makes something called a world legible. Reason is foundation-less if it's not understood that there is no understanding of objects without its ordering. Reason is not something that comes along after an object has already been grasped, but rather the "always already" which makes things which are objects graspable as such.

Hm. Wittgenstein is pretty great. I don't think you'll cover him in your course though, which is a real shame. I've also been going through a Baudrillard phase, but I'm not 100% on him.

>>3671827

Well for me it was easiest to understand in relation to Hume. As far as I could tell from Enquiry of Human Understanding, Hume explains that we view reality through a lens of cause and effect. But we never actually witness cause and effect itself, it really is a concept in our minds. He says there's no actual "necessary connection" that we observe.
We observe moments in time, and assume that they are connected. Thus one might say cause and effect is simply one perspective of reality, and could potentially be a false one at that. Maybe time doesn't really exist and the universe doesnt work that way. Hume ultimately argues that there is no objective definition to anything, the universe is simply every individual's perception of it. We collectively build a more unified perception when we communicate with eachother, and agree on how to define things through our experiences.

i.e. there's no such thing as an "apple", only qualities we each individually define to be an apple.


Kant claims that reason is the necessary connection. Whereas Hume would argue that reason is just our presupposed interpretation on reality, Kant points out that experience is by definition the causal interpretation of events. We can only intelligibly understand, only "experience" through cause and effect. Thus for experience to actually exist, reason must exist as well.

But how do we know that experience exists? Because of all the things we can't be certain of, the one thing we do know is that we experience. Even if our experience is a lie, there is some agent being acted upon (explained by Descartes). i.e. even if we're just brains in a vat with a matrix like experience, that brain is still an agent being acted upon, and still experiencing.
Thus even if neither our experiences nor reason do not accurately portray reality, we know experience exists, and thus so does reason.

deal with it

oh hey guys.

>>3671866

Thus even if reason does not accurately portray the reality of things, the rules of reason exist within its own world. Because the definition of reason is a set of rules independent of experience. Thus things within the intelligible realm can at least be objectively determined within that world. Although Kant admits it is impossible to absolutely determine things in the physical world.

My additional take (not expressed by Kant) is that also, if you admit that reason is the wrong way to interpret reality, then you are in-inadvertently admitting there is a correct reality to interpret. Nietzsche says no, there's just different ways of looking at things. But if there is no level of objectivity, and thus no level of determination, then isn't there nothing? Meaning has no meaning.

>>3671864

Thanks, I've heard of him before. I'll definitely look into his works.

Hannah Arendt. Not the most systematic philosopher, and not the most historically influential, but certainly the most influential on me, and I think there's a lot to appreciate about the way she thinks through philosophical questions, about her analyses of the history of philosophy, and in the way she brings philosophical thought to bear on history and politics (without reducing them purely to philosophy).

Descartes. He broke fucking ground.

>>3671877
Hume's skepticism is a reasonable one. Hume's not making the assertion that what we can or can't know is beyond us. He just (correctly) identified that all of our inquiries regarding reality rest on some simple, un-provable assumptions (such as learning via a posteriori).

Nietzche is a hack, so I'm with you there.

But Kant makes a rather silly notion that "reason" is as real a notion (and an a prori) as "apples are red". That the rules of logic are, and therefore nature must follow.

That's not entirely true.

>non-mathematics based philosophy
>laughinggirls.png

>>3671927

I'll admit, Descartes was my favorite until I read Kant. And Plato before him.

>>3671997
Meh, math is just a construct that we can infer from the consistency of the universe we observe.

>inb4 some faggotry about not knowing what set theory is

>>3672005
Plato<<<<< Aristotle.

Now, I get that people shouldn't have treated his shit like gospel (holding back the natural sciences for... centuries?), but goddamn he was on the right track.

>>3672008
is this what english majors consider good reasoning?

>>3671993

I dont think he's saying that nature must follow, only that the rules of logic are. They way I interpreted his writing, regardless of how nature operates, the world of logic will operate by rational laws. In fact, he says that it is impossible to determine nature, and that the only thing we can know are rules of logic.

>>3672017

Is this what passes for good ad hominem these days? Truly we are in the last days.

>>3672026
Meh everything is cleaner with evidentialism.
Here are the two assumptions:
1. I exist
2. My senses are sometimes accurate.

There ya go. There's a working epistemology that's outstandingly more reasonable than the majority of philosophers you slog through in class.

(this is coming from a guy who graduated with a degree in philosophy)

>>3671997

Math is simply logic. Are you implying the likes of Kant and Hume don't use logic? The whole argument is whether or not the underlying principles of math, i.e. reason, are valid in determining reality.

>>3672011

Really? How so? I found The Republic to be much more groundbreaking than Nicomachean Ethics or Politics.

>>3672041

Why are you assuming your senses are ever accurate?

>>3672048
Well what's the alternative?

>>3672056

...that they're not accurate? Are you arguing for what is best in determining truth? Or best for getting by in life? Because just going about your day will obviously be more advantageous for the latter case.

>>3672073
I'm not making the assertion that they are always accurate. Just that there is some basic reliability in our senses and this is as much something that we can take for granted as the assertion that we are, indeed, ourselves (or, the Cogito, which is actually an assumption).

The alternatives to the statement "our senses are sometimes accurate" are:
1. our senses are always accurate- which I don't advance

or

2. Our senses are never accurate. Which, if you advance this argument you are met at a remarkable dead end, and probably practicing a great deal of intellectual dishonesty every time you live your day-to-day life.

Do you understand now?

>>3671792
Kant doesn't prove anything, what? He just said we might as well treat reality like we are experiencing it objectively, because we can't experience it any other way.

>>3672092

No I dont. Its fully plausible that our senses are never accurate. It is impossible to confirm a posteriori knowledge.

But you could live your day-to-day life accepting that you'll never know for sure if apples are red, stars shine, etc. You can simply settle for living within the limits that reason allows you to? For the sake of getting by, I'll assume that things are as they seem, whilest knowing that I'll never know for sure.

>>3672102

Yes he said that. But he also proved the intelligible world exists, even if it doesn't accurately reflect nature.

>>3672121
>No I dont. Its fully plausible that our senses are never accurate.

Is it now? Do you honestly advance this case? That our senses are never accurate?

If that's the case, how would one explain external validity?

I'm not advancing an absolute case of knowledge here. I'm not really stepping on Hume's toes. What I'm suggesting is simply that there are some conclusions that can be drawn using these basic assumptions to understand reality.

I mean, you could also make the argument that you don't exist, that you are simply a computer simulation, brain in a jar.

Congratulations, you are at a philosophical dead end.

>But you could live your day-to-day life accepting that you'll never know for sure if apples are red, stars shine, etc.

Except you don't. And you have no concept of what it would be like to live a day-to-day life not trusting your senses. Of course, it is well established that our senses sometimes fail us. But the alternative to our senses being "sometimes" accurate is our senses NEVER being accurate.

Nothing you have described comes close to explaining what a world in which our senses are never accurate might look like. Making any claim whatsoever, including "I think" is a reference to your senses.

>>3672129
>But he also proved the intelligible world exists
Wut.

>>3672129
The intelligible world only exists as an abstraction of nature, it still doesn't prove objectivity, it just proves that we can operate in the same fashion as if it did.

>>3672146
And even then in only specific instances.

>>3672141

>how would one explain external validity?

That there is none?

>brain in a jar

I already addressed this. Even if you are a brain in a jar, there is an agent being acted upon, proving experience. If experience exists, so does reason, because experience must be intelligibly interpreted by definition.

>including "I think" is a reference to your sense

Im not saying not to use your senses, Im saying one must understand that there is no way to be absolutely confident in the nature of one's external world.

For the purposes of living day-by-day, obviously one can only go about assuming things work to the best of his knowledge. But he can still accept that he doesn't know for certain.

The same way you can go about your day are fully aware that you don't know how the universe began, or how the human brain fully functions. Knowing that you wont know for sure doesn't really hinder your every-day-life.

>Wut.

This is in response to other philosophers arguing that there is no point in objectively determining concepts, whereas Kant argues you can. Unlike many philosophers who argue that no concept can be independent of experience (Hume), Kant proves otherwise (my 2nd and 3rd posts).

>>3672146

It proves objectivity within the intelligible world, yes. And because the intelligible world is a part of the nature, objectivity does exist as a concept at the very least. Again, applicable to the intelligible world only. And yes, the only use of this is that we can operate in the same fashion as if it did.

I mostly agree with you, all I'm adding is that because the intelligible world does exist as a part of nature, and objectivity existing within that world, there is a portion of nature in which objectivity exists.

The same way that the parts of a car may not be assembled correctly, but still constitute the parts of a car. Reason may not accurately portray reality, but still exists as a part of it. Thus objectivity to a degree, exists.

Yeah, and only in specific instances. But it seems better than going about assuming no degree of objectivity exists, and nothing is determined.

I have to go to bed, so I wont be able to respond from here on out.

>>3672244
you clearly have a horrible understanding of kant qua kant and you're an idiot more generally

go back and study that stanford encyclopedia page a bit longer pleb

>>3672230
>That there is none?
This is demonstrably false, though.
I'm browsing 4chan.org. Which website are you browsing?

These independent, but consistent conclusions lead us to one of three possibilities:
1. We're both wrong in our experience of the world. Which becomes less and less likely as multiple, independent confirmations pop up.

2. I Don't exist. Your whole experience is an illusion. Philosophical dead end. It is a statement that can be neither proven nor disproven.

3. Our senses are sometimes accurate.

>If experience exists, so does reason, because experience must be intelligibly interpreted by definition.

The problem is, your perception of your experience *is* a sensory experience. It's not any less a posteriori than your visual interpretation of the world around you.

This is where Kant, your second and third posts, and even Descarte blunder.

Our perception of the world, our perception of our own agency *is* a perception. It is a sense. And, if you concede what we know about science, it's a later development than other, basic senses (that is, there's no reason to believe the sponge or bacteria has a sense of "self").

>But he can still accept that he doesn't know for certain.

You keep mis-intepreting what I'm telling you. The alternative to "our senses are never accurate" is not "our senses are always accurate".

Confidence in our senses is necessarily reliant upon consistency, both internally and externally (providing objectivity by removing ourselves as the only "subject").

I'm perfectly content in declaring that there are no "absolute" truths regarding my epistemology (and the two foundational assumptions are, just like every philosopher makes whether they admit it or not, assumptions).

I think the veracity of the assumptions are plausible because the alternatives are dead ends of reason.

The problem with Kant's a priori knowledge is that it is *an assumption*.

Back for just a bit. Pic unrelated.

>>3672262

Then enlighten me? Yes I've only done one reading, as this course covers many philosophers rather than just two or three. You're just an asshole?

>>3672271

>These independent, but consistent conclusions lead us to one of three possibilities:

1. Even with multiple, independent confirmations, isn't it still possible they're all wrong? If we believe in statistics then sure, but if everyone is being deceived then more accounts doesn't really prove anything?

2. Agreed, but either way doesn't reason still necessarily exist?

>Our perception of the world, our perception of our own agency *is* a perception.

I suppose perhaps I haven't been clear. It is necessary to have *a* perception to come to these conclusions, it is impossible to arrive to any conclusion without having senses to perceive in the first place.

What I am saying is, yes *assuming* that we exist, then we can conclude reason follows. Even if agency is a perception, for there to be a perception there must be an existence. Even if the perception isnt our own (brain in the vat), there is still perception. Because things exist, and we perceive reason, then reason exists at least conceptually.

In this area Im not sure where we disagree? I believe we can at least reasonably trust the sense that "we exist", or at the very least "there is existence". If there is nothing, then we wouldn't perceive at all.

>I'm perfectly content in declaring that there are no "absolute" truths regarding my epistemology

>The problem with Kant's a priori knowledge is that it is *an assumption*.

Well I think we agree more so than disagree then. We have to *assume* that our act of experiencing is real, even if the experience itself isn't.

Unless you're saying that the assumption is the consistency we experience, allowing for us to reason.

>>3671792

Fellow Kant here.

But out of curiosity OP, what did you read *if any* from Machiavelli.

If you only read one, I am guessing it was the Prince. If it was 2, did you read his discourses on the Roman Republic ? I find that a lot of philosophy courses skim over Machiavelli and don't do him justice.

>>3672312
>1.
I already address this. Yes it's a possibility. If everyone is wrong, then only option 2 is plausible.

>2. Agreed, but either way doesn't reason still necessarily exist?

Why? Because of the consistency in paradigms? The notion of consistency and logical law (x is x and not y) is an abstraction from our observation of consistencies in the universe. What would the laws of reason be like if the world weren't consistent? And I mean fundamentally so. What if our perceptions were utterly inconsistent, including our very perception of ourselves? How would we be able to derive even the most fundamental philosophical assertions?

>it is impossible to arrive to any conclusion without having senses to perceive in the first place.

Ding ding ding. That's sort of my point.

>Even if agency is a perception, for there to be a perception there must be an existence.

Except you lock yourself into a fallacy of circular reasoning. How can you say that there must be existence *without* perception of it? I guess what I'm getting at is I think existence is a reasonable conclusion to draw *from* perception.

>reason exists at least conceptually.

It's entirely conceptual. This doesn't make it untrue (much like math).

>Unless you're saying that the assumption is the consistency we experience, allowing for us to reason.

The assumption is that our sensory perception of this consistency allows us to abstract things like logic and mathematics because our senses have, overwhelmingly, suggested that the universe *does* act in some consistent fashion. In fact, the best, most robust evidence suggests this; which is why I accept it as the most plausible explanation for reality.

Thoughts?

>>3672333

We read the Prince and Discourses, although I only barely skimmed the Prince because that was a busy week. I'm more fascinated by philosophers who at least seriously delve into epistemology.

>>3672333

Why? Because of the consistency in paradigms? What if our perceptions were utterly inconsistent, including our very perception of ourselves? How would we be able to derive even the most fundamental philosophical assertions?

Okay there's a little confusion here. Let me be clear. I am not saying that the world works according to reason. Hume and Nietzsche are correct in asserting that viewing the world causally is *merely* a perspective. I am not saying that the world works functionally, that any x necessarily leads to y.

What I (and I believe Kant) is saying, is that the only thing we *are* certain of is existence itself. Because we can perceive reason, it at least *exists* even if the world doesn't operate according to it.

Its sort of like breaking the universe into two worlds, the larger world of nature in which everything is as is. The smaller world is reason, which is a part of the larger world but doesn't necessarily capture the whole picture or even reveal any of it, except for that portion.

Imagine looking at a map. All you can see is water and the rest is shaded black, so you think the world consists only of water. Even if the shaded portion is land, and the water ends up only being a small pond, the pond is still a part of the map. Although the portion you see doesn't accurately reflect the map as a whole (i.e. the true nature of reality), the pond still exists.

Even if reason doesn't accurately portray anything in the real world, its laws still exist within its own intelligible realm, and we can operate accordingly to its rules, even if those rules dont in any way whatsoever reflect reality.

>Ding ding ding. That's sort of my point.

I got that, just wanted to make sure.

>>3672333

>I guess what I'm getting at is I think existence is a reasonable conclusion to draw *from* perception.

That's exactly what I'm getting at, which is the linchpin of the entire argument actually.

>It's entirely conceptual. This doesn't make it untrue (much like math).

The point isn't whether or not it is true or untrue with regards to reality, but that it is a form of perception that *does* exist because there is existence (conclusion drawn from perception). Thus because reason exists, so does its objectivity at least within the confines of the intelligible realm.

>The assumption is that our sensory perception of this consistency allows us to abstract things like logic and mathematics

My point was that although our recognition of reason is itself a result of sensory perception, we can recognize that we are perceiving, or at the very least there *is* perception and thus existence.

At this point I think we've been almost entirely agreeing the whole time, and just misunderstanding one another (or I just you).

Yes we can assume that some of our senses are correct. What I'm saying is that we can at the very least trust that our sense of there being an existence itself is correct.

>>3672366
You are less Kantian than you think.

And it's like you didn't even read my post.

>Even if reason doesn't accurately portray anything in the real world, its laws still exist within its own intelligible realm, and we can operate accordingly to its rules, even if those rules dont in any way whatsoever reflect reality.

How could you even begin to suggest a method of reasonable operation without first demonstrating that this concept has some reference to reality?

Kant's (and your) notion that reason exists separate from reality is an unjustified assumption.

>That's exactly what I'm getting at, which is the linchpin of the entire argument actually.

It's my second basic assumption (or premise, if you prefer). Or rather, it follows from the assumption that our senses (or perception, if you prefer) are sometimes accurate.

If this is the case, then existence, reality as we and others observe it, can be understood (to a degree).

If you agree with this, you aren't agreeing with Kant anymore. You're agreeing with Hume, really.

Your arguments are sounding less like Kant's and more like a strange blend of "almost Kant" and otherwise reasonable non Kantian conclusions.

>My point was that although our recognition of reason is itself a result of sensory perception, we can recognize that we are perceiving, or at the very least there *is* perception and thus existence.

Here's what you're saying in a nutshell:

P1: We perceive things.
P2: We perceive of our perception
P3: Something that doesn't exist couldn't perceive things.
Therefore we exist.

Now, this *ain't* what Kant says, and we could get into why that's the case, but I think it'll just be a distractor because here's the jiffy to your jelly:
You're an evidentialist just like me, ya just didn't know it yet.

Read your last line.
Now read my first post: >>3672041

Welcome to the fold, I guess.

>>3672394

Of course I read your post, I directly responded to its various segments.

>How could you even begin to suggest a method of reasonable operation without first demonstrating that this concept has some reference to reality?

Because I can perceive it? Even if addition is not applicable to reality, I can still perceive addition. Obviously this mathematical concept is a posteriori, and all logical concepts must come from experience. But the point is that the experience couldn't exist without a notion of reason. And the experience does exist, therefor so does at least our "perception" of reason, whether applicable to reality or not.

>Kant's (and your) notion that reason exists separate from reality is an unjustified assumption.

No no. I am not saying it exists separately per say, but that it is at the very least a part of reality, even if it doesn't accurately reflect true nature.

Remember the pond and the map? The point is that the laws of reason exist within the the rational realm. And because the rational realm does exist within reality, the laws of reason (logic) exists as well. Even if these laws do not accurately portray reality. It is a system WITHIN a system.
>Here's what you're saying in a nutshell:

Yes that's exactly it, and from there we derive that reason exists as at the very least a subset of reality.

>Now read my first post: >>3672041

Well I'll be damned. So yes, we basically agree. Although the extent of "Our senses are sometimes accurate", I would say the only thing that we can verify as accurate are the perception of perception. But you've already addressed this.

>>3672394

>Now, this *ain't* what Kant says, and we could get into why that's the case

Could we actually? I am curious.

I thought that I had agreed with Kant, who believes that it is impossible to determine anything objective about nature. But instead, that there is an objective rationality, subset to reality as a whole. Because the car exists (evidently reality exists), the motor (reason) exists inside it, even if the motor isn't the car itself.

Whereas Hume believes there is no objective reality whatsoever, and only the independent perceptions of it.

By the way, here is the passage I'm drawing from in chapter III of Groundworks. Does Kant not briefly subscribe to evidentialism after the semi-colon and in the last sentence?

"But this conception of a system of nature is
confirmed by experience; and it must even be inevitably presupposed if experience itself is to be possible, that is, a connected knowledge of the objects of sense resting on general laws. Therefore freedom is only an idea of reason, and its objective reality in itself is doubtful; while nature is a concept of the understanding which proves,and must necessarily prove, its reality in examples of experience."

>>3671792
The Groundwork? Really?

I personally think his argument is dated. I mean the metaethical argument he makes is just...wrong. Evolution hasnt been understood yet and he personifies nature. Honestly as soon as he started the Aristotelian "were special because we have reason so-" argument, I knew there would be blood.

>>3672435

I don't take Hume for a subjective idealist, like Berkeley. He clearly believes knowledge about the world originates as sensory experience, but I see no indication he doesn't consider it to be knowledge of a mind-independent reality. You would think he must, in fact, as unlike Berkeley, he can't use the "tree stays in the quad in the mind of God" dodge of solipsism, being a naturalist and all.

>>3672017
I think that most mathematicians would agree with him. By the way what is mathematics based philosophy?

>>3672728
>By the way what is mathematics based philosophy?

Mathematical philosophy or m-phi as the cool kids call it. There is also the philosophy of mathematics, which addresses it as opposed to necessarily using it. Though, I may have misunderstood your question.

Spinoza, by far - he is the most consistent, relevant, independent and noble philosopher in thought and action. (In my opinion of course.)

>>3671792
>He basically proves objectivity and reason to exist.

>>3671862
>He basically says that reason is a dependable resource by which to judge the "external" world only because reason is the fundamental "judgment" which makes something called a world legible. Reason is foundation-less if it's not understood that there is no understanding of objects without its ordering. Reason is not something that comes along after an object has already been grasped, but rather the "always already" which makes things which are objects graspable as such.

That is basically saying that reason is a tool that works within the framework of reason... amazing. Not only am I unconvinced that reason is the sole or even primary method of how we fundamentally grasp the world, but the problem is this: If there are different ways of approaching the world, reason and unreason, it needs to be demonstrated in how far reason is superior to unreason (and this demonstration has to occur in a framework which contains both reason and unreason, as opposed to a demonstration that is based on the principles of reason and thus fundamentally biased towards reason from the outset - so good luck with that). If however there is only one way of engaging with the world, or if one way of engaging with the world is fundamental to all nuances of approach, and this is called 'reason', we now have not shown reason to 'exist', but we have merely defined reason as the way we actually engage with the world. This basically means that the referent of the label 'reason' is now something distinct from what we normally understand by reason (that is one very specific way of engaging with the world that is different from others - emotive decision making, etc.), and it has to be demonstrated that the attributes commonly associated with that normal understanding of reason (which is a more or less implausible hybrid of logic and common sense for the most part) still holds true for our new referent.

>>3671866
>Thus for experience to actually exist, reason must exist as well.

I don't buy this. Because:

>>3671866
>We can only intelligibly understand, only "experience" through cause and effect.

Experience is not the same thing as understanding.

>>3672008
>math is just a construct that we can infer from the consistency of the universe we observe

FUCKING WRONG RIGHT THERE

>>3672045
>Math is simply logic. Are you implying the likes of Kant and Hume don't use logic?

I'm not that anon, but fucking yes. Kant and Hume use the kind of 'logic' that is an argumentative standard used in human language. The kind of 'logic' that math is made of is 'formal logic', and it operates exclusively on abstract symbolic systems. One way of telling these apart is this: Can the language in question refer to things outside itself? If so, it is not math, and formal logic cannot operate on it.

>>3672783
>Can the language in question refer to things outside itself?
I thought that what all languages are for.

empirecism for life
hume for emperor

>>3671800
This made me laugh way harder than it should have.

Epicurus. Great style, very serious, no bullshit, only talking abou the most important things (how to become happy).

>>3672783
formal logic is a coding system. it's not a separate realm of logic

Oh man, you guys. Formal logic includes propositional calculus and syllogistic reasoning, among other things. It certainly does operate on natural language propositions. Informal logic is more along the lines of a list of fallacies.

Formal Logic:
1. Socrates is a man.
2. All men are mortal.
3. Socrates is a mortal.

Informal Logic:
"That's an ad hominem."

Most profound is probably Pyrrho.

That said, I've gotten more use out of the rest of the Hellenistic gang and a few edgy Germans.

>>3672869
>1. Socrates is a man.
>2. All men are mortal.
>3. Socrates is a mortal.
that's syllogistic or aristotelian logic, pal

formal logic, as i see it, is propositional+quantificational, where the latter builds on the former; then comes modal, deontic and whatnot

>>3672880
>that's syllogistic or aristotelian logic, pal

Which is formal logic. Your thinking of some variety of symbolic logic. Formal logic != symbolic logic. Though, it does include it. Or, we can put it: S→F, where S is symbolic logic and F is formal logic.

Just look it up, for serious.

>>3672884

Or *you're. Grammar fail.

Doesn't anyone feels like arguing about philosophy really looks like talking about religion?

>both parties have their arguments ready against classic ideas from the other team
>both parties proceed to exchange arguments mechanically, paying minimum attention to the other
>when running out of things to say, circle around till' other is finished
>they then decide to either agree to disagree and smile
or
>loads of heat they end up angry
followed by
>personally re examine your ideas thinking the other is critically wrong, smilling & thinking he'll see in a few years

jesus christ. I never change my pov mid-argument, I only do it when reading a new author. I'd say the best way to consolidate a certain view is to defend it.
What's up with that? How do you feel about that, I really feel shitty about that right now, to the point I don't even want to invest more time thinking about philosophy, religion or politics.
I feel like if I were to channel all that effort toward learning to play the piano or learn more about the human body or cook, it'll be more rewarding in the end...

>>3672772
this a legit post
more like this, less shopping lists of "oh, i've been reading a bit of x, y, and z, they're alright I guess but they've got nothing on w"

>>3672869
>>3672861
>>3672884
>>3672880

I am relatively sure that neither Kant nor Hume can make any argument that is even remotely interesting without including movements of thought that cannot be backup up by formal logic.

Me!

>>3672932
Thanks! These kinds of posts happen when I drink too much coffee and this particular argument might not be very effective in relation to actual Kant, because I haven't read him and am only replying to this thread, but it's good to know someone reads my shit.

>ctrl+f Parmenides
>0 results

You're killin me here, /lit/! Parmenides will solve all your sense-related problems, OP.

Why did you guys stop at 19th century?

Probably him, Nietzsche or Foucault. And on law literature, Warat.

>>3672854
>only talking abou the most important things
>(how to become happy)

pleb

>>3672962

> Heidegger
>Foucault

>>3672949
is parmezan a le thing now on lit?

>>3672772

>That is basically saying that reason is a tool that works within the framework of reason... amazing. Not only am I unconvinced that reason is the sole or even primary method of how we fundamentally grasp the world

But it is the sole way in which we grasp the world. We comprehend through cause and effect. That is reason. We may use faulty logic, but it is still within the framework of cause and effect, within time. Do you observe your reality as mere unconnected moments? The question is, is there any point in valuing the way in which we grasp the world when it is fully possible that reason isn't the only way to grasp the world, but is simply our limit?

>>3672776

>Experience is not the same thing as understanding.

You need some degree of understanding to experience the way we do, no? At the very least a some degree of cause and effect. Otherwise you would be a fish that only experiences moments.

>>3672962

Honestly, we're still trying to account for the nineteenth century and the early 20th century. Things started moving way too fast for us to account for. Has anyone yet been able to offer a sober analysis of ww2 and the holocuast, the capitalization and industrialization of the war/death machine? I don't think so. We have either retreated into nostalgia and history (Foucault) or pushed forward into a non-existent present/future (hooks, fourth wave feminism, Agemben, etc.).

>>3671862
The topic of this thread seems unfeasibly broad but I have to say that I admire its general civility and intelligence, and the post I am replying to here is particularly exemplary as a concise, accurate answer to a specific question.
I feel the excellent Kant discussion kind of loses its way further down the thread, though, so this is an attempt to "reboot" it.
I am not really a Kant scholar. I have read his major works but I freely admit that I was always deeply sceptical that it was even possible to prove all that he aspires to prove, read many of the more detailed arguments of the first Critique with impatience and credulity, and have therefore forgotten their exact details.
I do have the advantage of having read him in German, though, so let me chip in my ten cents' worth in that light.
One weakness of the discussion up to now seems to have been that people have used the English term "reason" to refer to what Kant calls "Vernunft" AND what he calls "Verstand". The main thing I have retained from ALL of Kant's work is that a distinction must be made between the two.
As the poster says, Kant dealt with the crisis that he felt to have been induced by Hume's arguments about the possible subjectivity of "cause and effect" - arguments which he was entirely convinced by, on their own terms - by a so-called "Copernican shift" which involved accepting such "categories" as "cause and effect" as indeed subjective, but as UNIVERSALLY subjective, that is to say, as for all practical intents and purposes OBJECTIVE, since no "phenomenal" - i.e. "appearing-to-an-intelligent-being"<wbr> - world was conceivable EXCEPT through the filter of these categories.
I think it is important to note, however, that Kant designated these categories specifically as "Kategorien des VERSTANDS", usually translated as "categories of the UNDERSTANDING". "VERNUNFT" - usually translated as "Reason" - in fact plays quite another role in his system.
I think I'll have to make a second post, though.

>>3673000
>You need some degree of understanding to experience the way we do, no? At the very least a some degree of cause and effect. Otherwise you would be a fish that only experiences moments.

Well now you are only saying 'you need reason in order to experience in accordance with reason'. Cause and effect are a way of mapping or representing the world, and as such are already abstractions from experience. The ability to interact with the world in such a way that a cause-effect relationship is taken into account also does not hinge upon the ability to represent cause-effect linguistically (which seems to be what reason is all about), various animals show this in their behaviour.

>>3673027
Foucault's genealogical method(which he got from Nietzsche) offers a great way to see the society, imo. And the Frankfurt School/Arendt/post-structuralists did a good analysis of the 20th century.

>>3673042
So, to continue (sorry, there's a length-limit).
It seems to me that the real role of "Reason" in Kant's system - that is, "Vernunft" - is to deal with the serious problems that his philosophy of "Verstand" - that is, reason as those "categories of the Understanding" that he opposed to Hume - was causing him.
Kant felt that there was an urgent moral need to assert against Hume"s scepticism and radical empiricism some world-view that would provide more certainty and more sense of the Absolute.
But no sooner had he done that, to his own satisfaction, in the first edition of the first Critique, than he realized that Hume was the Scylla of an 18th Century Scylla and Charybdis. By making a category like "cause and effect" a universal and necessary category, if not of reality, then at least of all EXPERIENCE, Kant found he was playing into the hands of radically mechanist and necessitarian contemporaries like Helvetius and La Mettrie, who saw experience to be so entirely governed by cause and effect that there was no place left in the world for "the human factor", i.e. free will.
Hume had had no problem with free will, because he didn't accept the universal necessity of natural causality anyway - but by refounding this universal necessity at the level of the "Understanding" Kant drew dangerously close to becoming a mechanistic necessitarian, who could not explain "humanity" at all.
"Vernunft" - reason in the strong sense that sets it off from "understanding" - enters his system as a means to solving THIS problem, first in the radically revised second edition of the first Critique and then in the second Critique (Critique of Practical Reason)

>>3672026
This. Kant doesn't say "nature must follow the rules of logic" but, "nature is what we know through experience, on which we make assumptions with the powers of our mind, and what we call knowledge is precisely the product of experience being ordered through the rules created by the mind. Thus knowledge of nature must follow the rules of the mind to some extent." That doesn't mean the rules of logic are "real" (and one should be careful about the use of this word while discussing Kant) but simply that the only thing we can reliably call knowledge of our reality is something we get in part through the rules of our logic. Nature doesn't really follow the rules of reason, it is the product of experience being processed by the rules of reason.

>>3673073
Thanks for your post. I was indeed worried that nobody bothered to make the distinction between reason and understanding, which is quite central in the building of (at least) the first Critic.

Also, confirmed for best frontpage thread in /lit in days. We need more of those where actual reasoning is involved and outweights the baseless statements and name-calling.

>>3672893
I feel you man. This has been bothering me for years. If it can make you feel better, it seems that Socrates as described by Plato often had the same problem (starting to engage in a philosophical debate with a friend, and in the end being only able to agree that they don't know shit about what they're talking about).

A few month ago I had an argument with a Chrtisitanliterature and philosophy student. I talked for about half an hour, barely stopping at moment to hear her answers, and minding the quality of my argumentation and my references. By the end the only thing I could convince her of is that I could argue well.

The best thing you can do in this kind of debate is actually questioning the limit of your ability to discuss and the why you wuold decide to defend your particular thesis rather than another.

>>3673197
Wow! Ass-kissing other posters much?

What I"m UNDERSTANDING about the REASON your slobbering all over this windbag muthafucka's pretentius dick is he must be fucking you in the ass or you him, probly BOTH lolol fuckin losers...

Exegetical aid: I'm really just trying to push on the very broad discussion here a few decades so as to draw in also Kierkegaard's brilliant early work on "The Concept of Irony"

>>3673051

>Well now you are only saying 'you need reason in order to experience in accordance with reason'

Yes, but I am saying that we as human beings ONLY grasp the world through reason. I think both Hume and Kant would agree to this. The alternative is experiencing the world as the most basic life does, as individual moments in time.

>Cause and effect are a way of mapping or representing the world, and as such are already abstractions from experience.

But we don't abstract cause and effect from experience, our experience IS cause and effect. It isn't one following the other.

The way I view it, we know of two ways of experience. That of momentary existence (probably how fish and insects percieve), and that of connected events through time (causality). Even if children must develop a sense of causality, that simply means they are in a state of momentary experience until they reach a degree of causal understanding.

>The ability to interact with the world in such a way that a cause-effect relationship is taken into account also does not hinge upon the ability to represent cause-effect linguistically (which seems to be what reason is all about), various animals show this in their behaviour.

Well I dont disagree with you there, but im not sure I ever brought that up. Im not an expert on mammal and reptilian behavior, but it wouldn't be hard for me to imagine that such animals have a (lesser) degree of causal understanding. Not that they can control their thoughts, but that they can at least understand cause and effect.


>>3673042
>>3673073

Thanks for the clarification/context. So would VERSTANDS be the faculty of understanding with which we perceive the world, and Vernunft would be the actual realm of a priori/synthetic a priori application of understanding?

>>3673219
>>3672893

It depends on on the honesty of the people in the discussion. I basically ended up mostly agreeing with this guy, and even conceded to parts of his argument:

>>3672041
>>3671993
>>3672394

If there's an actual intention of learning for the sake of it rather than boosting one's ego, a discussion actually ends up going somewhere. Of course, this is rarely the case though.

>pleb
>>3672983 needs to read more epicur. qed

Julius Evola's pretty interesting, but I don't know if I'd agree with all his ideas.

>>3673314
>The way I view it, we know of two ways of experience. That of momentary existence (probably how fish and insects percieve), and that of connected events through time (causality).

But even the second one is not necessarily tied to reason. Experiencing events are causally connected is one thing, representing this causality linguistically is another, and the latter is necessary in order to talk about reason.

>>3673391

I suppose I should have said "understanding" instead, which a poster above was kind enough to clarify a distinction of. Understanding is necessary for the intelligible experience. I presume Kant's point was that understanding is governed by laws of reason? And thus because of that, our intelligible experience cannot exist without reason. Correct me if my interpretation of his argument from Groundworks is mistaken.

>>3673434
>Correct me if my interpretation of his argument from Groundworks is mistaken.

It's probably correct, but I still don't buy into the idea that our experience has to be intelligible in the sense of linguaform thought. If by 'making sense' we mean that it is necessarily mediated through language, we have thereby required reason per definition, not shown it to be necessary through argument. On the other hand, I think a cat lives in a world that 'makes sense', although it would not necessarily make sense to call that world 'intelligible' in a way that refers to language.

>>3672949
Parmenides got me into philosophy and I admire his ideas, but GOAT philosopher?

Nigga please

>>3673446

I dont think Kant is referring to "intelligible" in a way that refers to language, but merely as the cat would "make sense" of the world causally. Certainly thats how I think of it. I believe this is where "understanding" and "reason" might be distinguished.

But the world of understanding is governed by the laws of reason, which is why intelligible experience inherently requires reason.

>>3673434
I was the poster who raised the whole Understanding / Reason distinction - but, as I freely admitted, my knowledge of Kant is sketchy and rusty. I've read through the entire text of the first two Critiques, in the original German, but honestly did not feel able to take such two-hundred-year-old texts seriously enough as living arguments to really probe and meditate upon all the details of the "apperceptive synthesis of the categories of the pure understanding" or whatever.
Roughly, though, I think the general picture is this:
Kant tends to use "Vernunft" (usually translated as Reason) as an overarching term for all human cognitive faculties, which - as has been said - he also sees as "world-making" faculties. His main work is, after all, entitled the Kritik der Reinen Vernunft. There is certainly, however, a more specialized use of Vernunft in all his works in which it is contrasted and even opposed to Verstand (Understanding).

I think your remark about "understanding being governed by the laws of reason" only expresses Kant's view if we focus on the less specific use of "Reason" in his writing. Where he uses "Reason" in the narrower, stronger, more contrastive sense the relation between Understanding and Reason is much more antagonistic.
As I said, the "making of a world" out of the Categories of the Understanding - causality, time, space etc - tends to mean the making of an absolutely deterministic world, where free will, morality, moral choice etc are necessarily meaningless. In the second "Practical" Critique Kant actually talks about the logic of moral action "breaking into the natural logic of cause and effect without interrupting it" - a very odd, contradictory, almost MYSTICAL image. To this "breaking in without interruption" he also gives the name Vernunft.
So to say that understanding is GOVERNED by reason in Kant is not entirely accurate. Sometimes it is "mystically" BROKEN and SUBJUGATED by it.

Where "Rea

>>3673473
Oh and just by way of clarification of terminology again, wherever the term "intelligible" is used by Kant, it ALWAYS refers to the "realm of Reason" in a sense which sharply distinguishes it from and contrasts it with the "realm of the Understanding".

For Kant, human freedom, for example - or any sort of derogation from the strict mechanical unfolding of cause and effect - is not COMPREHENSIBLE - that is to say, it is not explicable in terms of those "categories of the understanding" with which any possible experienceable world must be constructed.

Freedom is rather an INTELLIGIBLE thing, something which belongs to and follows from the necessary "Ideas of Reason" which exist and operate on another plane than the "Categories of the Understanding".

This is actually the great 'open wound" in Kant"s philosophical system. From the Second Critique on - and in the second edition of the First - he pretty much works himself into a DIRECT CONTRADICTION of the basic claims of his original answer to Hume.

The 'intelligible self" that is the source and subject of free moral choice really can't be anything else but the NOUMENAL "self" - the "thing-in-itself" within the phenomenal human being.

But it was a basic tenet of the philosophy that he originally developed in answer to Hume that NOTHING CAN BE KNOWN OR SAID about the "thing-in-itself".

Morality and freedom really bring Kant's whole system crashing down.

>>3673704

>Oh and just by way of clarification of terminology again, wherever the term "intelligible" is used by Kant, it ALWAYS refers to the "realm of Reason" in a sense which sharply distinguishes it from and contrasts it with the "realm of the Understanding".

I didn't know there is a realm of understanding. I thought understanding was simply a faculty, and the only two realms he was concerned was the intelligible (reason) and of the sensual/everything else.

>Freedom is rather an INTELLIGIBLE thing, something which belongs to and follows from the necessary "Ideas of Reason" which exist and operate on another plane than the "Categories of the Understanding".

From what I understood, freedom was only possible because the intelligible and sensual worlds are separate. The sensual world isn't bound by the moral imperatives of the reasonable world. In the intelligible world alone there is no morality because there is only the right choice, there is no will. Morality is the application, or choice of rational conclusion in a physical world that isn't bound by rational "musts", thus creating "oughts".

>The 'intelligible self" that is the source and subject of free moral choice really can't be anything else but the NOUMENAL "self" - the "thing-in-itself" within the phenomenal human being.

Can't the intelligible self be the rational self? The self of choice in a rationally perceived world?

>>3674289
Well, as we've established, the "sensual world", for Kant, is basically synonymous with a human "faculty". No "sensual" world can take form without passing through this "faculty", which consists of the categories of the understanding: time, space, causality etc.

The problem, as I see it, is that this was Kant's way of saving "the sensual world" from slipping into the radical-empiricist near-chaos that Hume suggested it to be: a contingent jumble of sense-perceptions without laws or absolutes. But he found after writing the First Critique that he had saved it "too well". He had moved "the necessary and absolute laws of Nature" out of the way of Hume's radical empiricist critique by re-establishing them as the necessary forms of our KNOWLEDGE of any possible world. But now his problem became how to "loosen up" this re-established necessity so as to leave room for human free will and the ethical, moral realm altogether.

When you read Kant, you really do have to be aware of how strong a temptation absolute determinism is for the serious philosopher, and of the kind of consequences accepting it can have. One of the main sources of Nietzsche's laughing at the whole discourse of ethics and morality about a hundred years later was his firm conviction that there can be no such thing as free will. Kant wasn't stupid and he would have taken that seriously.

So the whole construction of what he called very specifically "Ideas of Reason" - "Ideen der Vernunft" - in a sense that set them off from any "Concept of the Understanding" - "Begriffe des Verstands" - was aimed at avoiding falling into that pit.

I don't think one can plausibly argue that Kant was being consistent there. As recent writers have pointed out, there is an undeniable big chunk of medieval mysticism at the core of the thought of this most famous of 18th-Century "Enlighteners".

>>3673473
tfw Rousseau plagiarizes Lucretius / Hobbes and gets all the credit

>>3671867

Gross.

only because I'm a casual

Can't irk-e the Kierk-e.