Saturday 26 September 2020

Who's Afraid of Immanuel Kant

"The only addition, properly so called– and that only in the method of proof– which I have made in the present edition, consists of a new refutation of psychological idealism, and a strict demonstration– the only one possible, as I believe– of the objective reality of external intuition. However harmless idealism may be considered– although in reality it is not so– in regard to the essential ends of metaphysics, it must still remain a scandal to philosophy and to the general human reason to be obliged to assume, as an article of mere belief, the existence of things external to ourselves (from which, yet, we derive the whole material of cognition for the internal sense), and not to be able to oppose a satisfactory proof to any one who may call it in question. ("from introduction to 'The Critique of Pure Reason')


To do this he has to admit to an internal dualism in which a permanent self is a subject that is conscious of its representations.  Something has to be there to log the changes and to keep an eye on the shop.  The objection that arises from this the classical one.  You are only immediately aware of what is presented to your mind.  That there is a corresponding external reality is an inference based on animal faith.  Kant rejects this.  I am aware of the reality of the changes in my self over time.  It is a real intuition as real as I am myself and is therefore a type of inner representation that is connected to a reality.

"This consciousness of my existence in time is, therefore, identical with  ,the consciousness of a relation to something external to me, and it is, therefore, experience, not fiction, sense, not imagination, which inseparably connects the external with my internal sense." (from introduction to 'The Critique of Pure Reason")


To which I might demur and in doing so hobble my reading but I will resist that and enjoy the monumental ambition of a thinker who is regarded as the most important of the early modern philosophers according to a poll top of the philosophers


Kant 421/Hume:232      Kant443 / Descartes 201  (ranked)

So numero uno but here's the thing:  I have a suspicion  (a hedged conviction) that of all those that voted a good number have never read 'The Critique of Pure Reason' through.  As diligent students it would not have benefited them and when safeky graduated seem too historical.  I spent a few weeks on it in a state of genial befuddlement

4 comments:

George said...

An odd poll, and the list of competitors raises the question why you should think that the voters were unlikely to have read the Critigue. Locke does not make for easy reading, and his Essay is hardly shorter than the Critique. Berkeley's and Spinoza's major works are shorter, but require very close attention. I would say the same for Hume.

I would not play Desert Island Disks with works of philosophy standing in for musical compositions or performances. But I don't see how one can avoid acknowledging Kant's importance.

ombhurbhuva said...

George:
Here’s what the Stanford Ency. of Phil. has to say:
"The transcendental deduction is the central argument of the Critique of Pure Reason and one of the most complex and difficult texts in the history of philosophy. Given its complexity, there are naturally many different ways of interpreting the deduction.”

Hume was a master of 18th.C. prose with a flowing and perhaps a lulling style. I’ve always found Locke clear enough. I remember Kant’s Critique to have been like a tightly packed rose that as it opens reveals three petals under each outer petal and three more under each of them. The archetectonic is remarkable like a complex building with a single door and out of which you can scarcely find your way. Impressive but you wouldn’t want to live in it. My speculation about the Critique as being the great unread is simply a provocation and a beautiful thing (in itself).

George said...

Goethe told Schopenhauer that when he read a page of Kant it was like entering a well-lit room: proof, if it were needed, that Goethe did not read Kant in English translation. On the other hand, it seems to me the Schopenhauer thought poorly of the transcendental deduction, but I haven't the energy to chase down the actual words tonight.

Words that I did notice tonight: "I devoted two hours a day to the study of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason for more than three years, until I almost knew the whole book by heart, and had critically examined every section of it." Charles Saunders Peirce, "Preface to an Unwritten Book". But clearly Peirce had more energy than most readers.

ombhurbhuva said...

Hi George,
In case of an outage I will bring two torches with me - 'Accessing Kant' by Jay Rosenberg and an essay by P.F. Strawson on the critique. Thus far into the maze everything seems clear enough though obviously contestable. He appears to scout conceptual analysis as nothing more than elucidation or explanation of what was though in a confused manner. But that brings along a priori knowledge! Here he gives back what he takes away less his tax.
Michael