Any expansion on Kant would be much appreciated, I myself cannot give a reasonable interpretation of his theories as I haven’t gotten around to studying them yet, so anything to start me on my way for the future would be very welcome.[/quote]
Well since I have only read about Kant in a text book at Uni, I cant really bring much to the table of substance or book recommendations. I guess someone like Spidey22 will be a better person to ask.
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Well Kant 'The Groundwork for the Metaphysics for Morals" is a pretty good start. He has always been taught to me in rebuttal to utilitarianism, so I’ve always looked at him kind of in that light naturally.
Ethically, he basically says the only real ‘good’ is good will, doing things for the sake of them being good and a ‘duty’. It’s the act that makes something good. So you can’t really make yourself love your bitch of mother-in-law, but you can totally act with love towards her, ya know? So the worth of a good deed is based on it fulfilling a duty. And you shouldn’t be ‘striving’ for a particular outcome, just do what you’re suppose to do., your duty.
He says we all have reason, so it’s kind of obvious what duties are, and they should be things that apply to EVERYONE, so they are universals. Most are kind of in a negative context, so they are like “Never lie” or 'don’t break promises", and these are universal maxims everyone is to follow.
And they have to be absolute, because the rule “Don’t lie sometimes” wouldn’t be all that great. ANd he says you can intuitively get this anyways, because the only reason lying even works is because everyone naturally assumes that EVERYONE should be telling the truth (if people didn’t already assume that lying wouldn’t really work, ya know?)
Metaphysics for Kant is kind of just like everything we know is from experience, so discussing stuff like the beginning of time (which no one was there for) or souls/essences and all that jazz is impossible, because all of our knowledge is simply our reason/rationality + our experiences. So if there’s a philosophical question that’s about something not possible to experience, we can’t get to far with knowing anything substantial or worth discussing.
He also has writings on “Perpetual Peace” which are pretty good political theories IMO.
I hoped that helped, and if anyone is better versed in Kant and stuff and thinks I portrayed him inaccurately that’s totally fine to point that out. Not really a big advocate of the dude, so may not be doing him justice haha
[quote]Spidey22 wrote:
Yeah this is strangely similar to what I’ve already written, so you seem to think like I do to a degree haha. I appreciate you writing all that up though, because it’s always good to hear your own ideas presented through someone else’s mouth (or writings in that case).
I am especially focusing on your last paragraph, the fact Descartes kind of ‘misses the mark’ as you wrote. He kind of stumbles upon what Husserl refers to as the ‘epoche’ when Descartes is discussing the cogito, but then just moves on. To me, THAT’S where he could have REALLY done some to establish something even close to what he would call a God, or at least one that is in any way involved with this world.
Heidegger was probably one of the hardest philosophers I’ve ever read. He’s so intelligent, and so detailed, that language kind of fails him and makes his subject matter kind of hard to get, at least for me. Lines like the “being of being is simply being” really make you say WTF? lol[/quote]
Yeah I guess there’s only so much you can argue within any one given context, that obviously being the most major point in the Husserl/Descartes debate. If nothing else it might help for eloquence sake.
I agree, Descartes fumbled in areas he needed to really delve into in order to make his argument seem more reasonable as a grandiose concept, there are too many tears in the cloth as he left it.
Heidegger’s philosophies were incredibly complex for me, they largely still are. It might be worth finding a way to shape some of your argument around him and his criticism of both Descartes and Husserl. I still don’t quite understand his affiliation to the Axis powers and how that came around, even more so I don’t understand his reluctance to agree the decision may have been foolish. Alas, he remained firm in his conviction, I guess that’s a noble trait to some extent. He’s definitely worth the conversation though, he added a lot to the already heated debate.
[quote]Spidey22 wrote:
Well Kant 'The Groundwork for the Metaphysics for Morals" is a pretty good start. He has always been taught to me in rebuttal to utilitarianism, so I’ve always looked at him kind of in that light naturally.
Ethically, he basically says the only real ‘good’ is good will, doing things for the sake of them being good and a ‘duty’. It’s the act that makes something good. So you can’t really make yourself love your bitch of mother-in-law, but you can totally act with love towards her, ya know? So the worth of a good deed is based on it fulfilling a duty. And you shouldn’t be ‘striving’ for a particular outcome, just do what you’re suppose to do., your duty.
He says we all have reason, so it’s kind of obvious what duties are, and they should be things that apply to EVERYONE, so they are universals. Most are kind of in a negative context, so they are like “Never lie” or 'don’t break promises", and these are universal maxims everyone is to follow.
And they have to be absolute, because the rule “Don’t lie sometimes” wouldn’t be all that great. ANd he says you can intuitively get this anyways, because the only reason lying even works is because everyone naturally assumes that EVERYONE should be telling the truth (if people didn’t already assume that lying wouldn’t really work, ya know?)
Metaphysics for Kant is kind of just like everything we know is from experience, so discussing stuff like the beginning of time (which no one was there for) or souls/essences and all that jazz is impossible, because all of our knowledge is simply our reason/rationality + our experiences. So if there’s a philosophical question that’s about something not possible to experience, we can’t get to far with knowing anything substantial or worth discussing.
He also has writings on “Perpetual Peace” which are pretty good political theories IMO.
I hoped that helped, and if anyone is better versed in Kant and stuff and thinks I portrayed him inaccurately that’s totally fine to point that out. Not really a big advocate of the dude, so may not be doing him justice haha
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From this summary of him, I also don’t feel that I would hold much praise for his standing. I largely value the idea of individuality and I detest his reasoning that there is a code we should all need to follow, regardless of how it concerns our personal judgement. It seems like a path doomed to unfulfillment in having to ‘act’ a particular way in order to conform to the pre-conceived ethics of others, and disregard your true feelings. Maybe just being British and trying to break away from my hoity-toity polite stereotype is enough to lead me to believe “The Bitch Mother-In-Law” deserves as much shit up front as anyone. I don’t believe you should do something because somebody else believes that you should, but that you should do it out of your own self-formed morals and principles, in order to feel a sense of Eudaimonia if you will. I’m sure I could see some sense in his not hoping for a selfish response to the situation, instead focusing on being morally “good”, but I still feel it necessary to disagree overall.
It seems he’s attempting to disregard the inherent human flaws we have in an idealist notion that we have the ability to maintain a perfect and absolute righteousness in our demeanour. I would propose that humans are incapable of a perfect system of moral interaction and that we should accept where we are likely to derail from his conveyed ideal. For some reason Leibniz’s views of the world are pounding to the front of my brain on this, though I’m not sure if I could pin-point why.
At least he keeps his principles solidly set at any given time, I guess that’s commendable, even though likely over-confident.
His metaphysical prospects seem increasingly more redundant given the increasing precision of our technological advancements regarding such things. Though he was in a time where he could not by any means have predicted that this would be a possibility, so I will go easy on him on that front. Though I should think he wouldn’t have changed his mind all that much anyway. Though I guess I still hold a basic Absurdist view concerning such matters, so I should think it depends entirely on the concept and what’s available to us as a Species at any point in time, but that some things would likely remain ultimately futile.
That was very helpful in getting a basic understanding of him thank you, you summarised well and will probably help in jump starting my studies of him, however reluctant I may be to hear him out, I guess it should be a necessary evil for the betterment of my mentality to keep a fully open mind to perspectives that may not represent my own. I’ll likely give his political pondering a quick look, it sounds like it could be interesting given his personality traits.
Edit: Regarding Kant’s views on Metaphysics and the experiential aspect of knowledge, I came across this hypothesis that has forced me to refine my views more on the matter, in hindsight my criticism of Kant’s theory may have been brash and rather silly, I should need to learn far more before I could come to a reasonable input on the subject.