Talk:Immanuel Kant/archive

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

I'm shocked at how short and incomplete this article is. If Kant is so important why is his page inferior to various other influential philosophers etc.? Why are people who do not discern between "to" and "too" submitting 5000 word submissions to this page? There aren't enough catagories on this article. How about "Kant's influence"? Are English speakers still this out of touch with Kant after all these years?

Thank God!!!!!!! This article of Kant is starting to look beautiful. Thank You to the person who put the pictures in the article.

Who changed my word "TRULY" to "TRUELY", truly is the correct spelling-go and look it up. I really don't care about correct spelling but more about substance. But when someone changes one of my words, and makes me think that I don't know how to spell it irks me. Concentrate on substance and learn how to spell, before you start criticizing on other people's work, especially little things like spelling.

This really sucked in the article, how can you guys let this go by, I edited it: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

Should be

"Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

Is this really true? Did Kant really say this? I have only read the Critique of Pure Reason, the Innagural Dissertation, the Lectures on Ethics, and the Fundamentals to the Metatphysics on Morals and Small Kantian Essays, currently examining Critique of Judgement, but I have never ever encountered proof that Kant was a racist. I have only seen him as being above racism, seeking the categorical imperative.

"Kant's moral philosophy has come under some criticism as his lectures on anthropology have become further studied. A small minority of critics have argued that statements such as "All races will die out except for that of the whites" [referring to the likely course of history] and that Africans are born for slavery [again referring to nature's plan rather than to what is moral--Cf., 'The human race is made for war'] (Reflexionen, 878) indicate that he does not consider non-whites to be persons in any meaningful ethical sense. This interpretation is by no means dominant. The standard account is that Kant's universalism is at times marred by incorrect empirical views of non-whites, rather than by a developed philosophical doctrine of white supremacy."

This paragraph stinks, as well as the article section on Anthropology and Rascism. There is no meaningful information in this section at all. Is that what this article is about? Mis-opinion? What the Anthroplogy shows is Kant's intellectualism. The phrase "meaningful ethical sense" has no meaning. An argument can be made that Kant was a pedantic intellectual, snob, but his ethics are pragmatic and intended for universal application. If you would read the Logik (Kant's lecture notes on logic, edited by his student Jasche), especially page 37 ff., his intellectualism and reference to the 'savage' is quite apparent and this same position is reiterated in the Anthropology, as well as several sections of CPR. It is all about achieving the different levels of cognition. See my note below in talk for Anthropology and Racism in regard to agnosticism. Amerindianarts 18:52, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

I. Kant believe how obvious this joke is... LOL! I. Kant see the implicit meaning here- am i missing something?! I.Kant believe how sad everybody who writes things on this site are- get a life!

Guys, we've gotta work harder on this article. I'm too drunk to edit it right now, but wow, this is a wildly unsatisfactory explanation of Kant's philosophy, particularly the first Critique. come come now guys, I.Kant accept this standard of work...


And I Kant believe how drunk you are . . . :-) Slim 12:27, Nov 26, 2004 (UTC)


Kant left one of the most influential definitions of erleuchtung, or enlightenment, in philosophy. -- I nearly fell off my chair, messieurs/dames.

I made a thorough overhaul of this article, which I cannot agree was "otherwise superb." It was (still is to some extent) poorly written and contained numerous simple errors. Any professional philosopher who judged Wikipedia by this example would think the project has very little merit. The article is still totally inadequate as an introduction to Kant, but I think I removed most of the mistakes I could find. All I can say is this: please write about what you know. Don't get me wrong here. I have no objections at all to students and other nonprofessionals writing articles about philosophy (or other subjects). What I have an objection to is the writing of articles, by anyone, that are just shot through and through with mistakes. I find that very frustrating. We can and should expect better! --LMS

Thanks for contributing, SMJenness--a distinct improvement. --LMS

In the words of Rodney King, "Kant we all just get along?"David de Paoli

In the text it says: "Kant termed his critical philosophy "transcendental idealism." While the exact interpretation of this phrase is contentious", but in my opinion it is not contentious at all! Kant defines it very precise as

"I apply the term transcendental to all knowledge which is not so much occupied with objects as with the mode of our cognition of these objects, so far as this mode of cognition is possible a priori." (Meiklejohn translation)

So he's not talking about things (as a realist would do) but about our ways to handle them, intellectually.

One more time. Wiki is not your freshman philosophy class - on either side of the podium. It is Neutral Point of View. Saying "Foobar would have done this..." is by definition POV. It is your point of view of what his point of view would have been, pure speculation. It is against the rules. If you want to say "X followed Y even though Y rejected many of the statements X made", that's NPOV, it is talking about what Y actually said or did, and about where X got ideas from - all documentable and NPOV. The philosophy articles are loaded with POV, questionable conclusions and idiosyncratic classifications which are far from the most usual. It's time to take this set of articles up a notch and stick with wiki rules. Stirling Newberry 17:42, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think you would get a lot further with this point if you did not suggest that the many people who have worked hard on these articles are writing as though it's their "freshman philosophy class" and suggesting that the philosophy articles are substandard. Philosophy is a discipline which is always debating itself, and in which the thought of past great philosophers is constantly important, as is how they can be applied to the problems of today. If we sever philosophers from contact and insight on contemporary problems, we are shortchanging the discipline dramatically. There is a substantive drive among Wikiproject philosophy right now to improve citation in articles, and to transform sections so that claims of opinion on philosophers are cited, but this is far from complete. However, deleting claims while that work is in progress is counterproductive. Yes, that section could be phrased better. It needs a citation. If you can find one, that would be great. But otherwise, deleting things like this just makes it harder to improve the articles because it slashes out a huge swath of stuff that really should be in there. Snowspinner 18:06, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)
Your statement is factually inaccurate, the reverter didn't say "it isn't good but it is the best we've got". He said it was NPOV and pretty clear. That's what the record shows. I would appreciate it if you stay closer to the facts, it makes dicussions a great deal easier. Second, "stay cool when the editing gets hot" - it is far better to leave "but I worked so hard" out of it - because, frankly, lots of trolls and poves work very hard too. It is results that matter. Third, I am not the first person to observe that the philosophy articles here are substandard. Fourth, the inclusion of the material - at the top of the article - is intensely debatable. If I had one paragraph on Kant, the ultimate end point of relativism in the early 21st century would not make the cut - the synthetic a priori and catagorical imperatives - not mentioned - would. That's because those two concepts are important to Kant, one cannot understand him without getting to those questions. One can understand Kant perfectly well without 20th century relativism. The whole sentence shouldn't be at the top, but in a section on Kant's aftermath. On the scale of important follow ons from Kant directly, relativism isn't even the most important - Hegelian Idealism is certainly more fateful in the history of philosophy.
Finally, this article is filled with similar violations of NPOV - to take one "is arguably the most important.. blah blah blah". Who says so? Why do they say it? Who disagrees? Is this important? Saying "A long list of philophers took this work as their point of departure or reacted against it..." and listing them is factual, documentable. If there is someone important who says it is the most important then it should say "Prof Thusandsuch says that this work is the most important in philosophy because..." These should be no brainer edits, they break listed rules about POV phrasing. That doesn't even get into the more important questions as to what is put where and in what order - which are also core questions to the article.
However " If we sever philosophers from contact and insight on contemporary problems, we are shortchanging the discipline dramatically." this rises to the level of offensive, arrogant and truly outside of NPOV. That's a POV statement. We aren't here to convert people to Kantian metaphysics. If people presently look back to Kant for such solutions, and have written something documentably important, then we should write "Kant's doctrine of the catagorical imperative is often invoked in discussions of ethics even in the present, for example..." Once again NPOV. It's not our job to decide what current problems are usefully solved by referencing Kant. That's original work and POV - both out of the scope of these articles. If you want to write a book "Immanuel Kant, CEO" or "Living a Critique of Pure Reason", by all means, go ahead. But not here.

Stirling Newberry 18:40, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Your tone is needlessly offensive, so I'm going to be brief. Philosophers are in dialogue with one another. Kant is, in philosophy, always in dialogue with contemporary philosophy. One cannot write a useful article on Kant without referencing his relation to contemporary philosophy. That is what I meant in the statement you have deemed offensive and arrogant. The statement you're objecting to is an important clarifier, because to bring up Kant's influence on relatavism without clarifying is going to confuse people, because a lot of people have a sense of relatavism that is in fact very different from Kant, and if they read through that and think "Oh, Kant is a relativist" then we've done a bad job.

But that's not my point right now. My point is that, as I said, lots of people are working to fix the philosophy articles. It's slow work, because there are a lot of them, and there's lots of other things to do, such as add new ones on major topics. But the work you are complaining about is in progress. However, stripping the articles of the statements so that we don't have easy lists of things that we're trying to find citations for does not help that work. It makes it much harder. Yes, that sentence needs a citation. Much of the article needs a citation. We're bloody well working on it. Feel free to help if it bothers you that much.

The issue is not that I've worked so hard on the article. I know it needs work. I'd be thrilled if someone came and provided it. The issue is that coming in and saying it and most of the philosophy articles are a load of crap is offensive and only serves to make discussion harder, not easier. Most of Wikipedia needs serious work. That doesn't need to be grandiosely pointed out while belittling the competence of the people who have worked on it so far. Go find the citation yourself, or do the reorganizing work on the article that you think is needed. Don't just make small changes while making long posts on talk pages about how everyone before you has done a crappy job and act like a bunch of first year philosophy students. If you can do better, do it. If you can't, then don't make it harder for the people who are already trying to improve the article. Snowspinner 19:39, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)

The issue is that you lied, attacked and have broken the rules, and are now back on the attack when it was pointed out. Flaming is, equally, a violation of wiki ettiquette and yet you have chunked out two heavily personal flames about how you don't like my stating facts.

Let me repeat the facts:

  1. . The original phrase was a no brainer POV violation. I removed it since it was neither vital to the sense of the article, or even to the sentence.
  2. . An individual reverted claiming that it was not a POV violation. This is laughable: saying that Kant would or would not have done something in the present is impossible to document. Kant's Dead. Everyone who knew Kant, is dead. Everyone who knew anyone who Kant knew, is dead. And if if someone did say that Kant would have disavowed something, that still would have been "X long time friend of Kant said." This is in the rules the ones we all agreed to to play here.
  3. I reverted again. Pointing out, again, that the rules. Namely no POV, no original work. Those, to be tiresome about it, are what we agreed to to play here.
  4. You lied about the reversion - claiming that it was a "not good but best" - in direct contravention to the edit record which is there for all to see - and then flamed me because you didn't like me stating the rules.
  5. I repeated that I am adhering to the rules, and reiterated an already stated criticism that the work in these sections falls below, not merely good style, but wiki NPOV.
  6. You have flamed me again, and adding insult to injury, started ordering me around.

Now, after lying, flaming, breaking the rules, and making it clear that reasonable discussion with you is impossible - I'm supposed to trust your judgement, simply because you are a locally important person? That is extremely unreasonable. Stirling Newberry 20:29, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

The issue with the sentence was a need to recast a handful of words. It was not a "NPOV violation" - it was a perfectly reasonable and necessary clarification about Kant's influence on relativism. As I have shown in subsequent edits, at most it needed a few words change. Do not delete content that is easily revisable. This is not an unreasonable request. Furthermore, when there is a large scale project to alter content, it is perfectly reasonable to ask that you not delete content that is going to be revised - it only makes the project harder, and is counterproductive to your own goals.

If I have been hostile and tense, as I have said, it is only because you have come to this page and belittled the contributions of a lot of people, which has not given me the sense that you are interested in a collaborative and cooperative effort. You have primariyl offered criticism instead of ideas, and have deleted rather than fixing. That does not improve the encyclopedia, and, furthermore, it's insulting.

If you have ideas for the article, I would love to hear them. So far, though, all you've said is that the article has unsubstantiated claims. I am aware of that, as are many other people, and work is in progress to fix that. We'd love help on the work. If not, don't worry - we're aware of the problem and working to fix it. But please don't delete things from the article entirely, as that makes it so that we can't simply scan articles and know what we've got to try to find citations for. Snowspinner 20:55, Jul 10, 2004 (UTC)

I'd like to note here that Snowspinner and I have exchanged talk page messages, cooled the temperature down, exchanged apologies, and gotten back to focusing on the article. Stirling Newberry 18:37, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I'm glad that you two managed to work it out. Still, I'd like to express support for Snowspinner -- after reviewing all of the discussion on this issue, I have to say that he conducted himself politely and coolly throughout. Furthermore, I can't see anything he wrote that could be construed as "flaming". Stirling, please remember to assume good faith in the future, and try to tone it down a little. Despite your intentions, which I'm sure were good, you came across as self-righteous and rude, particularly when you broadly characterized all the contributors to this article as ignoramuses. Language like this will only anger other contributors, and make our work harder. That being said, I again commend you for resolving the dispute quickly and effectively, and I look forward to your further work on this article. — Adam Conover † 21:34, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)

Thank you for being dishonest and rude, it just makes wiki so much more pleasant to be on. Stirling Newberry 21:47, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've moved this to archive. Stirling Newberry 21:56, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I've had this unarchived for two reasons. First, it got moved to the wrong name - archives should be Talk:Immanuel Kant/Archive X. If the name of the page does not begin with "Talk:" then Wikipedia thinks it's an article page, and not a talk page, and much confusion ensues.

Second, I don't think it's appropriate to archive a page immediately after making a personal attack on another user. If you stand by it, you shouldn't try to hide it. If you want to hide it, just remove it and apologize. Snowspinner 22:10, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)

I am very disappointed that you approve of reopening flame wars. Stirling Newberry 22:17, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I think you need to mellow on your definition of flaming. Adam's post was not flaming - it was constructive criticism to try to prevent conflicts like the previous one from occurring. And you responded to it hostilely. If you did feel that Adam's post was a flame, you should not have let yourself get baited. But if you're going to flame, you should be willing to own up to it instead of burying it. Snowspinner 22:29, Jul 11, 2004 (UTC)

I'm going to send a message you talk page, clearly this issue hasn't been resolved and it needs to be before degenerating even further. Otherwise people are going to say that they want to a philosophy meeting and a hockey game broke out. Stirling Newberry 22:40, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

submitted August 3rd, 2004 by Harry P. Holmes This discussion has gotten quite specific in nature, but perhaps it might be good to look at it from a higher vantage point. First it is hard to discuss philosophers such as Kant since in doing so you can only discuss the history of philosophy. You must argue about what he said or did not say. Or if you are very good you can delve into what he thought or did not think. So right or wrong boils down to whether one is right or not about a personal history. Second one is dealing with personal thoughts that make little sense. Oh, there are those who profess to understand philosophers such as Kant. There are those who professs to understand clinical schizophrenics. It is hard to verify either since neither can pass the reality test we use for normal people. Simply, Kant's tires never hit the road. You can not verify anything he says or whether what you think he says is what he thought. So all you can do is fall into groups that share an opinion. If you treat Kant as suggested as merely a historical figure then you can try to measure or delineate the affect he had on others. This is of interest. Perhaps when affected they misunderstood the man. This is of course true of everyone, we have trouble understanding each other most of the time. But we can not feel too bad for this misunderstood figure, since Kant does not really make any sense as I mentioned before. If you, personally, fall into a group that thinks you understand Kant and to you he makes sense then you must pass just one simple reality test: please apply his knowledge as presented in the Critique of Pure Reason to atleast one possible activity other than philosophy itself. Can its knowledge make it helpful or easier to read, think, count, write, experiment, etc. If it has no application outside of philosophy then it has no verification and so why grant it makes any sense? If it has no application why bother to argue so hard. If it has no application it can not be right or wrong. If it can not be applied it can not be verified. If A priori knowledge can not be verified then it does not exist. Knowledge arises out of verification. We learn mathematical rules by learning how to count. Those with perhaps emotional problems and have trouble learning to count will have problems with supposedly innate mathematical truths. Philosophy has many areas where its tires hit the road let's concentrate our efforts there.

I do not think that I understand what you are getting at here. Are you saying that we should stop work on the Kant article? Snowspinner 13:57, Aug 6, 2004 (UTC)


Edward G. Nilges 11/1/2004: Harry Holmes, you said "knowledge arises out of verification". This is a philosophical assertion that in fact had a rather short life time. The verificationist criterion is crude early Logical Positivism that was caused by a misreading of Wittgenstein's Tractatus. It was subsequently refuted within its own tradition (cf. Karl Popper, Conjectures and Refutations).

You seem to believe that a NPOV article on Kant would either prove him correct by a verificationist procedure, in which his work would have application outside philosophy, or discuss him as a "dead letter", a guy who as a matter of historical fact wrote a dreamy and prolix tome, which had documented effects on other guys. This isn't NPOV, it's POV on steroids.

It's news to me that philosophy's truth criterion is "practical applications, you bet", outside philosophy. Plato seems to have thought that the apprehension of the True cannot be analyzed beyond a direct intuition of the Forms. A view that for Plato was in fact the last remaining, the last sober man in a poker game, in fact the view that remained standing after the dialectical/Socratic demolition of other views (such as Thrasymachus' equation of Justice and implicitly Truth, with Power) is if baldly stated mystical and without practical application; Plato did not feel that people restricted to praxis, from Warriors to Artisans, should even learn philosophy.

Having said this, I would point out that philosophical training does have diffuse effects on other fields. The mathematical philosophy of intuitionism seems to derive from Kant and for me, the way in which the late computer scientist Dijkstra thought seems to have been influenced by an early exposure to Kant.

But, the recent set-of-views which in their reified precision, English and American analysis, seem to have practical applications turn out to follow developments in praxis from symbolic logic and physics and not lead. No mathematician or physicist seems to apply Carnap's work, for example.

No, philosophy doesn't look outside philosophy for a FINAL judgement on truth (although Martha Nussbaum, a contemporary philosopher, does question the separation of philosophical from emotional and social truth). The truth in the most memorable (best?) works seems to be a predicate of the whole such that one has to journey all the way, after which one simultaneously has a lot of questions but also, having seen the architecture, acknowledges "muss ess sein".

But the biggest error, Mr. Holmes, you make, with all due respect, is that you short-circuit the philosophical venture by means of a philosophical assertion, the verificationist critique. For Martha Nussbaum, in her work grounded on Hellenistic thought, the question as to whether philosophical truth would be comforting/ennobling outside philosophy is raised but not answered; her challenge is to philosophers who believe that it should not be.

Unfortunately this raises a problem for Wikipedia and NPOV. To illuminate what Kant thought, one has to bring the machine to life on the page by at least simulating a POV, and saying that it is obvious that our act-of-knowing from the inside is not an empirical fact at all and thereby conclude that coherence in all spheres has to be grounded upon, among many other things, acceptance of abstract propositions about cause and effect.

There's no point in thinking, or doing philosophy, if we really are what we look like to the outside at the end of the Humean analysis. Objects considered as monadic don't do philosophy, or if they do (say, they are programmed to do so in the computer language Lisp) their activity is anti-transcendental: meaningless.

Finally, let me address further your contention that philosophy should support, lead into, other fields. In fact, it does, and the factual content of Wikipedia articles on philosophy is made meatier and more livelier by describing, in a sociological fashion, how this occurs. Some of the differences in outlook between America and the European Union can be explained in part by the fact that Kant is taught on the Continent as real "knowledge" (without too much anxiety about its classification) which can ground action.

Kant teaches how to think as a human subject with rights irreducible to self-interest because his intellectual assay of the given was consistent in his ontology and ethics. He found irreducibility where Hume had found "nothing", and this irreducibility, the refusal of the transcendant to "go away" as grounding our ability to know, is I think misrepresented as "the unknowability of things-in-themselves", an overused phrase which makes Kant just another skeptical man in a boring series starting with Berkeley.

It is ironic that survey classes in philosophy classify Kant as a skeptic because Kant (like Descartes) started but did not end with skepticism. In fact, no attempt can even be made to represent him as ethically licentious (where a common Fun Game in the yellow press has been to misrepresent philosophers from Spinoza to Peter Singer as licentious) because of the fame of the categorical imperative. But in both ontology and ethics, Kant started from the fact of skepticism (his prologue to ethics being the only thing we can know to be good is a good will).

Rather than discovering the unknowability of noumena, Kant discovered that we don't need noumena to be knowable, because he discovered, literally, a new logic embedded in our apprehension of phenomena in such a way that this logic cannot be extracted as a separate set of rules.

The triumphant result was a philosophy that unlike that of the Tractatus could be both analytic and connected with human affairs...one that does not end with a confession of defeat, but starts with one.

The way to present this as NPOV is to try to make it as N as possible by numerous references not just to English and American critics of Kant but of Continental thinkers like Theodor Adorno who started with Kant, and did not encounter him as exterior to their intellectual lives.

Is there a NPOV? Perhaps not, but there is a neutral TONE in which one isn't popping off as I am afraid I do here.

--

I really want to add to the Kant article, but you guys are taking down what I put on the article. The article is to short, it needs more substance-stop taking down stuff. People need more information on Kant that is currently presented in the article.

Like this 1. Discussion about Kant's claim: The first claim is that “thoughts without content [are] empty, and intuitions without concepts [are] blind.” 2. You need to translate the mental capabilities into German 3. How many of you have read the Critque of Pure Reason or even the Lectures on Ethics and Fundamentals to the Metaphysics on Morals. 4. This article needs more substance, stop taking down stuff-or start putting more substance into the article yourself.

You can't just dump a 5000 word essay into the article. Evercat 15:05, 17 Jan 2005 (UTC)


From Edward G. Nilges spinoza1111@yahoo.com:

Well, you can, but must be ready to be publically shamed and humiliated and debased as I was yesterday.

Starting with the paragraph in Kant's Metaphysics and Epistemology that misspells truly as truely and receives as recieves (I before E, lads, except after C, boys, except for the word weird which is a weird holdover from Anglo Saxon) I inserted a droll attempt to explain that when we think about Kant, we Kant think in term of our own mental images. However, on re-reading my attempt I realized that it was so over the top droll that it wasn't high class enough for an encyclopedia. But when I returned to it, someone was already beavering away at the article, removing my somewhat less than deathless contribution.

Today, I have attempted to slim down my contribution to the following, reproduced here:

"However, calling it a representation doesn't do it justice simply because Kant intended his ontology to cover the act of representation itself. A "representation" considered as a brain event or picture on a wall is equally subject to Kant's ontological "assay" or analysis."

"When the English man of letters Samuel Johnson famously kicked a log to refute Berkeley, Kant would not deny that the log was "real". However, Kant MIGHT say that essential to any one kick is its assay into specifics. "What" log, with what booted foot, are always meaningful questions and the event's "noumenas" are necessarily surrounded by manifold penumbrae of phenomena. Any one experience, in fact, is mediated by the common man more as an artist experiences a landscape and less as a scientist analyzes into objects which seem to be noumena but are such only for convenience."

The tone is still mock Bertie Russell but at least he got paid. I welcome comments from all parties.

"Let's be serious" (Derrida, 1978). Seriously, we need to get this article ABOVE Philosophy 101 for Boneheads and think like Kant in this particular Snark Hunt.

I would most appreciate it if the chap or lass who next deletes the post adds a comment here.

Contents

Query

Can anyone tell me what this passage means: "In his "Critique of Pure Reason" Kant thrashes Leibniz philosophy, and may have even outdone Voltaire's thrashing of Leibniz in Candide (Leibniz=Pangloss character). He, at the same time, absorbed pietism as a basic part of his make up. Different scholars hold different views on the importance of each of these aspects . . ." Many thanks, SlimVirgin 03:32, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

Kant took on Leibniz in several different areas, but most importantly on the latter's idea that space and time are abstracted from particular experiences, as opposed to Kant's formulation, which is that they are aspects of pure intution, before experience, and not a result of it. He held that space and time were purely subjective. To say he thrashed Leibniz on this matter is an overstatement and POV. Not everyone would agree with Kant's formulation or that he "thrashed" Liebniz. He also disputed Leibnizian rationionalism, including the idea that we can have pure concepts of things as they really are, "ding an sich"..things in themselves. Voltaire's "thrashing" of Liebniz dealt with the proposition that this is the best of all possible worlds, which Kant also rejected, indirectly, when he attacked the ontological argument. I believe many more philosophers would agree with his argument against the ontological argument than with his formulation of space and time. By the way, the categorical imperative is not a restatement of the Golden Rule, as the article states. The GR does not require us to universalize a general maxim as thought it were a universal law, but merely to act as though our action were to apply to oneself as the victim of an act, and to take into account our own preferences if our positions were reversed. Kant believed the will must act in accordance with reason, not sentiment or personal preference, which the GR does not mandate. It also does ot take into account the second and third formulations of the categorical imperative. While not uncommon, the analogy to the GR is a complete misunderstanding of the categorical imperative. Finaly, I also believe the article also fails to point out, sufficiently, Kant's great admiration of Hume. Indeed, as his recent biographer Manfred Kuehn points out, Kant was called "the German Hume" by his contemporaries. He did not feel that he refuted Hume or that he was a philosophical adversary, but that the he built upon on his edifice. Pardon the prolix response. icut4u
I've started a copy edit of this. Will do more later. There is quite a lot of repetition, which I'm deleting and it might need to be re-arranged a bit, but I'll stick to a basic copy edit first. I deleted the sentence above as I couldn't understand what it was getting at, and it didn't seem to be in the right place. SlimVirgin 04:15, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

Hi icut4u, thanks for the reply. I understood the references to Leibniz and Voltaire, just don't agree with them, and couldn't see the point of the passage - still don't. Different scholars hold different views about the importance of which aspects of what? Anyway, as you say, the sentence is POV and arguably original research, so we can probably delete it unless anyone objects. I don't agree that citing the GR is a misunderstanding of the categorical imperative. The latter was indeed a form of the GR in my view; not identical, but a form of it, because the basis of both ideas is that they ask you to be someone you are not, and to imagine yourself to be in a position you are not, in fact, in. This is the essence of both appeals, and I felt it was important to cite an example of the GR as a moral rule that non-philosophers would have heard of. SlimVirgin 06:50, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

Respectfully, I don't think the GR quite asks one to be someone he is not, but to put onself in the postion of another, as though one were the victim onself. Also it does not say anything about taking reason into account along with the universal properties of all the relevant facts, which is a very different consideration (see Hare's Sorting out Ethics). Kant was not interested in mere empathy, the sentiment that might drive our considerations, or putting oneself in another's shoes, only that one could not will it for all situations, notwithstanding the consequences to oneself in any particular position, and not just taking into account the facts of a circumstance, but the universal properties related to that circumstance. And, again, it does not account for the other two formulations of the CI. Too many missing features, to my mind, to qualify as a version of it except in the same sense that a fish and a human are both animals. Now, if you don't believe me, take Kant's word for it: "Let it not be thought that the trite quod tibi non vis fieri, etc. can serve as a norm of principle here (note: here Kant is referrring to a preceeding example of using others as a means). For it is, though with various limitations only derived from the latter. It can be no universal law because it contains the ground neither of duties to oneself nor of duties of love to others (for many a man would gladly agree that others should not benefit him if only he might be excused from showing them beneficence), and finally, it does not contain the ground of duties owed to others; for a criminal would argue on this ground (the golden rule..my italics) against the judge punishing him, and so forth." I prefer Kant's own interpretation of Kant over others when he is clear, and it is plain he would not want the CI conflated with the GR. There are other references to the GR in his letters, as well. This particular quote is directly from the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, pg80,Cambridge edition of his works. The article makes other errors, by the way. I think the most grevious one is that the article states that Kant says we cannot know the noumenal world because our observation affects it. He never said that. We would not know if our observation affects it, according to Kant, for we can only apprehend appearance, that given in experience, filtered by the cateogries and arranged by pure intuition, not the world itself. Someone clearly confused Heisenberg with Kant, here. Kant did not say anything about observers affecting the observed object apart from the observation itself, only that that which is observed is of the mind, and not of anything external to it. icut4u The Latin translation: "What you do not want others to do to you, etc." icut4u

This page is gong to get very long if we start arguing in a detailed way about Kant. ;-) I'm familar with his work so feel free to write in shorthand as it were. I feel that GR was a good example for non-philosophers, and I don't agree with your analysis of the extent of the differences, but I won't labor the point; if you don't like it, it can go. Regarding noumena, he did say we cannot know them; did say that space and time adhere to us and are not part of the external world. He didn't say they might be part of it but we'd best not assume that. He said they were not part of it. If your fear is that I'm going to make a case for Kant being an idealist, I'm not, so don't worry on that score. Finally, Heisenberg did borrow from Kant. To be an observer is to affect the thing observed. Not the thing in itself. The thing observed. This is precisely what Kant is saying: that the world is not perceived unfiltered, and that, most importantly, it is in principle impossble for it to be so perceived. SlimVirgin 08:32, Jan 29, 2005 (UTC)

I don't feel that strongly about it, so I leave to you to decide what to do; I'm here for the fun of it. I do think think GR is an example of a useful moral rule for non-philosophers, just not of Kant, to my mind, which requires much more than role reversal, as he himself very clearly said. Yes, quite right about Heisenberg, an admirer of Kant. But, my only concern was to point out that Kant did not borrow from Heisenberg, as it were, nor did he anticipate the princple of indetermancy as the latter conceived it (a physical problem to H, not one simply of being able to step outside of one's mind or perception, by the way). Kant said absolutely nothing about observers affecting the world as it exists apart from ourselves, or that this (observers affecting objects) is the reason why we cannot observe things in themselves, either in the CofR or anywhere else...which is what the artilce said. The article was flat wrong about why Kant thought we cannot know the noumenal world. This is not the first time I've seen this analogy, either. If an article on Heisenberg were to say that he was influenced by Kant, Mach, and others, but especially Planck, Bohr, and Einstein, that would be OK; but Kant did not say anything like observers affect or alter the world, or that this is the reason why we cannot really know it as it really is. Whether we do or do not affect the world is beyond our reach, according to Kant; we are confined to appearance, to the phenomenal world. It would be more accurate to say that we cannot know the world apart from how our understanding presents it to us. The article implies we affect the world as it is, which is not what he said. Anyway, I'll get out of your hair, now. The article is already better than before, thanks to you! icut4u
I do not believe that Herr Kant was

Glossary?

Hi, this page is coming along nicely, although there is obviously much more work to be done. Would there be any interest in a glossary of Kant's philosophical vocabulary? I'm thinking it would be nice to have such a list, with brief discussion of each term and key quotations showing Kant's use of it. I would be happy to get the ball rolling if there's some interest from others... --N9b 18:08, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I think it is a good idea, but I should think one would have to limit the glossary to some of the most important terms so that the article didn't become unweildy. An alternative would be a separate page with a link to the article. Anyway, good luck. icut4u 02:57, 9 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Aesthetics

I removed the section "about" aesthetics, which said nothing about Kant's views on aesthetics and merely gave the dates of two publications which were already listed. --Andrew Norman 07:42, Apr 5, 2005 (UTC)

That picture of Kant

There's a famous portait of Kant on the Kant page. Who painted it? There's no information about it. I'm curious as to who painted it, as I said, but I also think the painter should get credit on the page.

Ideas?

Benjamin Myklebust (Central Euro Time) 17:35, 26 Apr 2005

Groundwork on the metaphysics of morals

I'm reading this book (Groundwork on the metaphysics of morals) now, but I have to turn it back to the library soon. Does anyone know where I can find it online? It's not on www.gutenberg.org.

And it's actually quite expensive to buy (10£) at play.com (considering the much more extensive Cr. of P Reason is 5£). --Benjaminmyklebust 15:41, 26 Apr 2005 (UTC)

http://www.swan.ac.uk/poli/texts/kant/kantcon.htm Enjoy --Malathion 19:14, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Anthropology & Racism

Below is the new addition to the article --some of the important points raised in the discussion can be added under this heading.

Anonymous Rex.

What about Kant's anti-Semitism? His discrimination against what he called Palestinians is discussed in the Wikipedia entry about Palestinians, but not here. Why? ~Permanently Confused

Kant, Anthropology, and Racism

Although Kant produced a huge bulk of writing on Anthropology (e.g., his book Anthropology From a Pragmatic Point of View) this is almost wholly ignored in the modern evaluation of his historical importance and philosophical attitudes. One clear reason for this "voluntary omission" is widespread embarassment over the narrow-minded racism that pervades his writing in this and related fields:

The Negroes of Africa have received from nature no intelligence that rises above the foolish. Hume invites anyone to quote a single example of a Negro who has exhibited talents. He asserts that among the hundred thousands of blacks who have been seduced away from their own countries, although very many of them have been set free, yet not a single one has ever been found that has performed anything great whether in art or science or in any other laudable subject; but among the whites, people constantly rise up from the lowest rabble and acquire esteem through their superior gifts.
Kant, Immanuel. 1764. Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime. (Kant's Gesammelte Schriften. Berlin: Reimer, 1910-1937.)

It is highly significant that many of the key terms in Kant morals (such as the definition of who qualifies as a "Rational Human Being") have explicitly racial (and racist) aspects, and were not the products of "detached investigation" into "pure reason" --but rather arose from (and catered to) imperialist attitudes of the day.

Not only is it the case that the image of Kant passed on to succeeding generations of philosophers (through introductory courses in ethics and the history of philosophy) is one excessively sanitized, but it also seems reasonable at this point to infer that this "selective memory" is simply too extensive to be the result of mere accident or chance. Rather, it appears to be the result of a tradition conveniently blind to its own racism.*[1]

I do not believe that he was an "agnostic." He wrote anenst the rationality of belief in God.

1. I think you should add a paragraph about Hume's racism to the article on Hume, it seem to be missing there.

2. Kant was an agnostic. Agnosticism is the philosophical and theological view that spiritual truth, such as the existence of God, gods or deities, is either unknown or inherently unknowable. Kant showed that all the known philosophical proofs for the existence of a supreme being (god) are flawed. He believed that the existence of god could neither be proven nor disproven. Please read the following quote from the critique of pure reason, translation by Norman Kemp Smith ;TRANSCENDENTAL DIALECTIC; BOOK II; CHAPTER III; THE IDEAL OF PURE REASON; Section 7 CRITIQUE OF ALL THEOLOGY BASED UPON SPECULATIVE PRINCIPLES OF REASON; page P 531:

"Thus, while for the merely speculative employment of reason the supreme being remains a mere ideal, it is yet an ideal without a flaw, a concept which completes and crowns the whole of human knowledge. Its objective reality cannot indeed be proved, but also cannot be disproved, by merely speculative reason." -- 84.151.132.230 20:58, 14 May 2005 (UTC)

  • 1) I think to speculate as to whether Kant was an agnostic or not is to miss the point of his philosophy and can't be argued reasonably in the Kantian spirit of argument. Belief in God is a practical measure. It has to be done whether really believed or not, and shares its essence with the spirit of faith in the scientific sense (positing the hypothetic in order to proceed). By analogy, take the synthetic a priori truth that "Every event has a cause". Did Kant actually believe this was true? Or was it simply a precept that had to be undertaken in order to understand the world of sense (the transcendental, as opposed to the transcendent). It doesn't matter whether or not "Every event has a cause". The presumption is necessary. Thus, Kant would never state "God exists" nor "There is no God". To assume he would is to do a disservice to his life work.
  • 2) Kant was not a racist. An argument that he was a pedantic, intellectual snob could be made, perhaps. His intellectualism is quite explicit in the Logik, (trans. Hartman and Schwartz) beginning on page 37 ff. and referencing the cognitive capacity of the "savage" with practical implications. Kant was little understood in his own time and like many intellectuals before him may have been seen as an "embarrassment". The conception that he was a racist is as silly as the conception that Heidegger was a Nazi.
  • 3) Kant's criticism of Leibniz, in a nutshell, centered on the Identity of Indiscernibles. Clarity of cognition for Leibniz and the Wolffian school presumed a single form of negation, that is, contradiction. It did not allow for opposition in the form of contraries which in turn allowed a fluid, but illicit, transformation from universal to particular and then as well conversely. The world just doesn't work that way and allowed all to often fallaciously reasoning by affirming the consequence. This and (1) are very explicit in "The One Possible Basis for a Demonstration for the Existence of God". The later, with the "Logic" can lend a greater understanding of CPR, with additionally the "Mistaken Subtlety of the Four Syllogistic Figures". If Kant's distinction between "transcendent" and "transcendental" cannot be extracted from CPR, reference Peter Strawson's "The Bounds of Sense". Amerindianarts 23:59, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

I changed "one's" to "ones" somewhere, but now I'm questioning if it's actually correct. Sorry if it isn't.

Least of our worries. ;-) SlimVirgin (talk) 18:00, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Kant was racist!

Why do you have a problem with this?

  • I suppose because it's merely speculation. Do you know how Kant felt about speculation?? There simply is not enough concrete evidence for it, especially to be presented in a synopsis that should be objective and without assertion of mere opinion. Anyone who would make such a bold statement as "Kant was a racist" probably has not read enough of him to understand him and has no business posting to this article. Kant's remarks towards other races were not ontological, but epistomological. This is a major distinction made in Philosophy (Kant was a first rate Philosopher) and is all the difference in the world in reference to the categorical distinction you are making. He was an elitist for certain, intellectually, but his remarks concerning e.g. savage and cognition, are not ontological in any regard. This is quite evident in the Anthropology, and reiterated in the Logic as well as presupposed in the CPR. His Metaphysics of Morals prescribe principles for all men, not just some. Treat every man as if he were an end in itself, so sayeth Kant. He did not intend for this to be interpreted that other men are a means to end, or some men are a means to end, which is a necessary requisite for racism. Amerindianarts 8 July 2005 09:30 (UTC)

Speculation? Not enough evidence? Just read what he said about Negores and Races! And btw. your argument is a fallicy. One could simply turn it around: "How Kant felt about speculation, is merely speculation!"


  • You're still missing the point. You are making a statement based upon an ontological observation that has no ground in Kant. His assertions you refer to are not ethically (axiological, as in the worth of a man) or ontologically based. They concern intellectualism or the practicalities of utility (concerning his perception of "cognition"). If I were to say,e.g., "I don't know why we should be involved in the middle east conflicts. They have been fighting and killing each other off for years and will continue to do so, and can't seem to rise above the violent rabble and work things out intelligently" you would, according to your interpretations of Kant's remarks, call me a racist, or that I was making a racist comment, when in actuality all I'm saying is that they COULD work it out, but by all accounts refuse to apply the intelligence it takes to work it out. I don't say that they don't have the wherewithal to work it out, I say that they won't apply it. Big difference, and not racist, but a point you will continue to miss by not rendering his comments within the context of the big picture. I can't explain it any better, and won't. You seem pretty set in your ways. By the way, the comment which you turned around concerning speculation is pretty inane. I want a 500 word essay on what he meant by "speculation". LOL Amerindianarts 9 July 2005 02:10 (UTC)

I understand you very well. This idea of Kant being a racist is completely ridiculous. The main reason for assuming that he is a racist is probably his german heritage. His philosophy is definitely not racist, quite the contrary!

  • Excellent! Reaction to Hitler and the Nazi regime has created many gross misconceptions about German Philosophers and their philosophies. Amerindianarts 18:18, 10 July 2005 (UTC)

Um. Kant was a racist. /shrug. Sorry. He was. I'm an avid Neo-Kantian, but racism was an area in which Kant did not transcend the social limits of his times. I have great faith that, were Kant alive in 2005, he would not be a racist. However, he is not alive, and he was a racist. Snowspinner 21:56, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

The problem is that the section was both disproportionately long, misleading about the text, and not in context, he was similar to Hume, Voltaire and others of his era. The rise of racism in Europe can be tied to the growing colonialism and the increasing domination of other people's by Europeans and the need to justify their position, and to explain how Europe had moved from being an isolated area to one which was able to project force farther than any other people of the time. All important questions, and Kants statements are worthy of a note, but not a large section, particularly not one which is misleading. Stirling Newberry 22:51, 11 July 2005 (UTC)
I can agree wholeheartedly with that. Snowspinner 23:00, July 11, 2005 (UTC)
Does someone want to take a crack at it? Stirling Newberry 23:23, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

To state that Kant was a racist can only be excerpted as a literal interpretation of a few sentences of his writings, superficial and face value at best. It completely ignores the principles of his moral philosophy as well as the most fundamental analysis of his ontology. Neo-Kantians have been notorious for misconceiving many aspects of his writings. It is a compositional fallacy to view him as a racist based upon the colonialism that was contemporaneous with his activity. He was a better man than most of what was occuring around him. Kant's jusification were his imperatives, and his raison d'etre. Every man is an end in themselves should be enough said. Amerindianarts 00:47, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

As I said - I have no doubt that, were Kant alive today, he would not be a racist. Snowspinner 00:49, July 12, 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure that a section on whether or not Kant was a racist would be appropriate in the main article. In light of all the controversy on this page it may work better as a subfolder footnoted in some manner from a section on Anthropology or from the section on his moral philosophy in the main article. It would be difficult to finish to the satisfaction of everyone, I'm afraid, and not in a short section. An analysis of racism in regard to Kant would require several citations of his work, with analysis of his ontology, moral philosophy, and his epistomology. Amerindianarts 01:21, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Instead of disputing Kant's supposed racism, we should discuss Kant's philosphy and improve the article! Anybody who preferrs to discuss the topic "racism among 18th century philosophers" should turn to the article about Hume, since the topic is missing altogether there.

  • That is a good idea. I scanned the index to the Encyclopedia of Philosophy (8 vols.) searching for any articles under Kant, Racism, etc. Although there was plenty of fodder there was nothing that conjoined the two, anywhere. Any article on "Kant's Racism" would be a new work. There was plenty of information on English colonialism and racism throughout, but Kant's name was not mentioned in conjunction. Since the articles in these volumes are written by Philosophers, and the encyclopedia set is a mainstay for teachers of Philosophy, it appears that other Philosophers cannot find die Grund for such an assertion. Amerindianarts 02:23, 31 July 2005 (UTC)

Not influence as much as Kant's self-perception plus editorializing (i.e., needs work)

I also cut this text from the Influence section. Perhaps it could go into the summary of the first critique, or not, but someone should proof it first:

In this way, Kant was correct in asserting that he had brought about a "Copernican revolution" in philosophy. According to Kant, Copernicus's revolution in the understanding of the cosmos lay in taking the position of the observer into account. This explained why it looks as though the sun revolves around the earth even though in reality the earth revolves around the sun. Taking the observer's position into account prevents the unaware projection of the observer's perception or point of view onto the picture of the universe. Kant saw his own Copernican revolution in philosophy, analogously, as consisting in taking the position of the knower into account and thereby preventing the unaware projection of the knower's way of thinking ("pure reason") onto the philosophical map of reality. According to Kant, it was philosophers unawarely doing this that had created the illusions of metaphysics that dominated the prior history of philosophy. Kant saw this revolution, in turn, as being part of "Enlightenment" (as conceived of in the Age of Enlightenment) and the creation of an enlightened citizenry and society freed from dogmatism and irrational authority.

This need for self-reflexivity generated an innovation in philosophical style and writing which for many has been unfortunate. Prior to Kant, philosophers wrote either in an engaging "dialogic" style as in Plato or Berkeley, or in breezy essay form as in Montaigne or Hume, or in a schematic form as in Spinoza, where the difficult, symbolic and "geometrical" passages are supplemented by accessible remarks. But by taking self-reflexivity into account in the Copernican revolution, Kant changed style to one which demanded that the philosopher, as writer, has to be ever-conscious about his very tools and for this reason more ready to coin terms of art and devise special purpose techniques (such as Kant's infamous antinomies) which the reader has to absorb before he, and Kant, can proceed. For this reason, Kantian heirs in 20th century French and German schools tend to have a "jargon" laden style in emulation of Kant, which makes English, American, and Australian philosophers, who have bypassed Kant in favor of Hume (and, especially in the case of Australian philosophy, the philosophers of Scotland's enlightenment) resentful of what seems to be deliberate opacity.

--Anthony Krupp 18:26, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Hey, I just proofed it and the second paragraph moved me to tears with its breadth of knowledge. A giant walks among us. Wisdom crieth out in the streets, like Falstaff, and no man pays it mind. Sorry, I am being droll. I wrote the paragraph. "Let's be serious." - Jacques Derrida, 1978 Seriously, Dr. Krupp, the second paragraph may need "cites" in an article where the Cite Monster walks and demands his pound of flesh, and in an era in which philosophy "majors" don't read the texts, one has to "cite" authority intensively even as one had to "cite" chapter and verse in the Dark Ages lest one be boiled in oil. But as to editorializing, there is none. A fact is stated as a fact. Perhaps it is just WRONG to say that Kant changed philosophical style and I am willing to listen to you on this score. Perhaps the change came with Hegel, and perhaps he was the first to emit after supper gas and call what hung in the air, philosophy. I believe that this wasn't so, and I believe that Hegel was most precise where it mattered. But I ask you, Dr. Krupp, not to insult my intelligence and your own by in a fashion which is truly flatulent, carelessly applying *le mot* most unjust. Editorializing, it is not in neither content in form. It might be bullshit, but it's not phrased as an opinion and it is not an opinion.Spinoza1111 04:13, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

We also, Dr. Krupp, need to take into your account your view that the passage is Kant's self-perception. It is. Cultivating not the false humility which prizes an academic "advisor" above one's own thought and heart, Kant did propose to make a Copernican revolution not only in the content of philosophy but also in its METHOD. But then, the only question is, did Kant succeed? The dilemma is that Kant either succeeded or failed. If he failed, Otto from the back of your Phil 101 class asks, why must we read this loser's book (that's OK, Otto, don't worry: this is America. You can major in philosophy without reading books! You can write books, like Roger Scruton! You can post to Wikipedia! How cool is that?). If Kant succeeded, then it is incumbent on the "harmless drudge", the writer of the philosophical lexicon, to say in what way he succeeded in changing the way philosophy is done. Therefore, Dr. Krupp, I respectfully request you restore the change. Thank you. I have NO time to get into the mechanics of playing games within this dubious proposition, and my goal happens only to be some truth in the article, whether or not the words are "mine".Spinoza1111 04:20, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Spinoza1111, I think you talk too much (and don't write enough). Please take the section I offset above and revise it as you see fit. Then place it below and we can discuss it. Ok?--Anthony Krupp 22:27, 14 August 2006 (UTC) Point taken, professor. Hmm, I only wrote the second paragraph. Take a look. I toned the second paragraph down and restored it, and added a shorter reference to mathematical intuitionism. I also added a paragraph about Kant in literature which I hope people will expand (was he ever in a movie? I rather doubt it). However, there are idea vandals who have been removing ideas while claiming to be literary stylists in this wiki. The entry may be vandalized, again. The author of the Copernican paragraph did a GREAT job but the reader is entitled more than a scientific analogy, because philosophy isn't natural science.Spinoza1111 14:48, 15 August 2006 (UTC)