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Immanual Kant not nearly as smart as we thought?

GarrotTheThief

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Here's my proof...take a look at this quotation.

"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. … This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance." — Immanuel Kant, "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)

So the man is telling us on one hand not to listen to another for guidance, to use our own mind, but in the very same stroke he is breaking down his own integrity by giving us guidance which he knows we will undoubtedly take heed, some of us at least, many of us maybe not...

But do you see how he is somewhat mistaken in his logic? Perhaps reading the DAO would have been nice for him.
 

sprinkles

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Guidance and catalyst aren't the same thing.

It's like the story where a zen master slaps the floor loudly and it causes the emperor to achieve enlightenment. It some times just takes something to knock loose what you've already got so it can work. The potential is already there.
 

indra

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There's something from William James about this on the utility of philosophy

I like that ur always challenging the status quo though, cuz Kant was a king
 

GarrotTheThief

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[MENTION=16071]sprinkles[/MENTION] it's very possible that the quotation was mistranslated and is something other than guidance.

Not to be argumentative, just to express why I still stand that he committed a logical error or was not thinking through it all:
Guidance can still be a catalyst. I think Kant was committing a logical error on his part not realizing, if what you say is true, that a catalyst and guidance can be one in the same.

I don't think that an enlightened person, for example, thinks entirely on their own. No man is an island. EVen by avoiding, going in the opposite direction of guidance, or ignoring it you are still taking the guidance. Zen is about non duality. So Kant did not really do what a zen master does in being non dualistic. He became dualistic in his statement and contradicted himself, his words, by his actions...we must admit Kant was not a god and even the greatest among us is but a sliver greater than the least.
[MENTION=21883]sunyata[/MENTION]
Many people, Jung included, were influenced by Kant, but Kant was somewhat of a critic more than a philosopher. He did not provide sollutions. He was very similar to Plato's Socrates, almost a carbon copy, but he was no aristotile, to be quite frank, or pythagoras.

I Think if Kant knew more math, or was more well rounded in his studies, his ideas would have been truer to the human experience. This is not just my opinion. Kant is also the genesis of many rationals behind slavery, death, and war...so we know that someone who's ideas feed these constructs is not entirely wholesome.

But again, I'm not hear to judge Kant, maybe he was mother merry in disguise. I'm just saying the dude didn't think through what he said because he contradicted himself unintentionally so maybe he isn't as smart as we think.
 

GarrotTheThief

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There's something from William James about this on the utility of philosophy

I like that ur always challenging the status quo though, cuz Kant was a king

BTW I appreciate that you think that I like to challenge the status quo...I do sometimes.

I'm not trying to be argumentative here. Much of what I Read from Kant though seems reptillian to me, or so LOGICAL as to be an illusion.

I prefer the mammalian spin on Kant by JUNG but I am finding that even Jung did not have the deep, warm blooded sentiments of post-modern existentialists like Foucault. If that's what Foucault is called...after all, none of them were able to address slavery and how geography asserts control over people....they all lived in a bubble of luxury and ease and spoke for very few people.
 

GarrotTheThief

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[MENTION=21883]sunyata[/MENTION]

hmm I'm reading some William James now...interesting guy....I probably won't be back here for a while since I like him so far.

Thanks for the name drop.
 

GarrotTheThief

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[MENTION=21883]sunyata[/MENTION]

okay i just read james quotations and then went in to his biography...I can't take the man seriously. He was born so rich he never really had to struggle.

I can't take someone who doesn't struggle because anyone who struggles knows that we are serving those who don't struggle and I don't read slave owners no matter what because their ideas are poison.

Of course, it's my opinion that nothing good can come from the mouth of a slave owner, and I own up to that....but the fact that me and my fellow people are slaves is no mystery because our work is not our own, it belongs to master.
 

sprinkles

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[MENTION=23213]GarrotTheThief[/MENTION]

I suppose that he appears logically contradictory.

However if you were to not follow it because you think it is wrong then that is still guidance. So let's say for argument that you know he is wrong. If you don't do your own thing with this knowledge that he is wrong, in a way you'd paradoxically make him right because the inverse of a direction is still a direction.

e.g. if I say do something and you don't do it because I said do it, I'm still in a sense guiding you.
 

indra

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[MENTION=21883]sunyata[/MENTION]

hmm I'm reading some William James now...interesting guy....I probably won't be back here for a while since I like him so far.

Thanks for the name drop.

My pleasure.

I think Kant gives a kernel of reason from which great thought can blossom.
 

GarrotTheThief

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now it's kind of making sense to me...much of philosophy in the past has been written by those with money, gold, and power.

The only disenfranchised philosophers we know about are from Greece....the Greeks were very democratic, unfortunately still some what biased against women, by our standards, but not by Victorian standards.

SO that's why I cling to most modern philosophy because it talks about the pitfalls of the current slave/master system that we are all subject too where as anything written between 1300-1900 is probably from someone who lived in a castle.
 

GarrotTheThief

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well i'm in a morbid mood it seems, so I'm going to retire....and read some fiction...i guess...
 

sprinkles

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[MENTION=23213]GarrotTheThief[/MENTION]
Also something slipped my mind that I meant to write:

I don't think knowing that he is wrong is as important as what you do with the knowledge that he is wrong. I think that's where the difference between guidance and catalyst is.

Since direction is direction in some way even wrong things can help you some times.
 

SpankyMcFly

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okay i just read james quotations and then went in to his biography...I can't take the man seriously. He was born so rich he never really had to struggle.

Struggle can take various forms. An excerpt from William's wiki:

"In his early adulthood, James suffered from a variety of physical ailments, including those of the eyes, back, stomach, and skin. He was also tone deaf.[8] He was subject to a variety of psychological symptoms which were diagnosed at the time as neurasthenia, and which included periods of depression during which he contemplated suicide for months on end."

William James - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I can't take someone who doesn't struggle because anyone who struggles knows that we are serving those who don't struggle and I don't read slave owners no matter what because their ideas are poison.

Of course, it's my opinion that nothing good can come from the mouth of a slave owner, and I own up to that....but the fact that me and my fellow people are slaves is no mystery because our work is not our own, it belongs to master.

Sure he's bourgeoisie. See next.

now it's kind of making sense to me...much of philosophy in the past has been written by those with money, gold, and power.

Methinks philosophical pursuits are a Maslow thing. Which begs the question of the nature of philosophical pursuits, i.e. that we have the luxury of time and ability to pursue these matters in the first place, i.e. there aren't that many 3rd world philosphers.
 

SpankyMcFly

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well i'm in a morbid mood it seems, so I'm going to retire....and read some fiction...i guess...

:( I haven't read fiction in ages. I've been in non-fiction mode for a good 10 years+ now. Which is funny because I distinctly recall really disliking "boring" non-fiction (chuckles at younger self).
 

INTP

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Here's my proof...take a look at this quotation.

"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. … This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance." — Immanuel Kant, "What is Enlightenment?" (1784)

So the man is telling us on one hand not to listen to another for guidance, to use our own mind, but in the very same stroke he is breaking down his own integrity by giving us guidance which he knows we will undoubtedly take heed, some of us at least, many of us maybe not...

But do you see how he is somewhat mistaken in his logic? Perhaps reading the DAO would have been nice for him.

There isnt flaw in his logic as far as i can see. Basically what he says is that enlightenment comes from learning to think(and truly understand) things on your own instead of cowardly relying on other peoples guidance in thinking. He doesent say that you shouldnt listen to other peoples guidance, just that you should learn to think on your own and not blindly follow others. I think it sounds pretty good.
 

Nicodemus

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[MENTION=16071]sprinkles[/MENTION] it's very possible that the quotation was mistranslated and is something other than guidance.
The original word is 'Leitung', which, in this paragraph, can be translated as 'guidance' or 'direction'. It is altogether a good translation.

As for the logical error: It does not exist. You might call it hypocrisy, but even that is reaching a bit too far. The philosophers and writers of the Enlightenment, regarding themselves enlightened, thought it their duty to act as teachers for the masses of the unenlightened; and for a teacher to encourage his students to use their own minds is less a matter of hypocrisy than a job description.

In general, Kant made very, very few logical errors. Most of his errors lie in his premises, his assumptions.

Many people, Jung included, were influenced by Kant, but Kant was somewhat of a critic more than a philosopher. He did not provide sollutions. He was very similar to Plato's Socrates, almost a carbon copy, but he was no aristotile, to be quite frank, or pythagoras.

I Think if Kant knew more math, or was more well rounded in his studies, his ideas would have been truer to the human experience. This is not just my opinion. Kant is also the genesis of many rationals behind slavery, death, and war...so we know that someone who's ideas feed these constructs is not entirely wholesome.
It is a mistake to read his Critiques ('Kritiken') as criticism; they are analyses, the word 'Kritik' meaning 'to set apart, to differentiate' at the time. He was very much a philosopher, attempting the gigantic feat of solving the fundamental problems of philosophy as he knew it and, as far as he could see, succeeding. He also studied, taught and published about mathematics. The abuses his works have suffered, like that of Nietzsche, owe much more to the willingness of the abusers than to the disposition of the abused. Nietzsche, for instance, whose ideas have been used by the Nazis to justify the annihilation of allegedly inferior men, personally loathed anti-Semites. Obviously, neither he nor Kant produced 'entirely wholesome' works, Kant's ethos being unpractically rational and perfectionist, Nietzsche's too easily lending itself to savagery. But both would have vehemently protested such uses of their essentially philosophical works.
 

GarrotTheThief

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:( I haven't read fiction in ages. I've been in non-fiction mode for a good 10 years+ now. Which is funny because I distinctly recall really disliking "boring" non-fiction (chuckles at younger self).

I read way less fiction than non fiction but a read an astronomical amount of non-fiction so fiction is the anecdote.

- - - Updated - - -

The original word is 'Leitung', which, in this paragraph, can be translated as 'guidance' or 'direction'. It is altogether a good translation.

As for the logical error: It does not exist. You might call it hypocrisy, but even that is reaching a bit too far. The philosophers and writers of the Enlightenment, regarding themselves enlightened, thought it their duty to act as teachers for the masses of the unenlightened; and for a teacher to encourage his students to use their own minds is less a matter of hypocrisy than a job description.

In general, Kant made very, very few logical errors. Most of his errors lie in his premises, his assumptions.


It is a mistake to read his Critiques ('Kritiken') as criticism; they are analyses, the word 'Kritik' meaning 'to set apart, to differentiate' at the time. He was very much a philosopher, attempting the gigantic feat of solving the fundamental problems of philosophy as he knew it and, as far as he could see, succeeding. He also studied, taught and published about mathematics. The abuses his works have suffered, like that of Nietzsche, owe much more to the willingness of the abusers than to the disposition of the abused. Nietzsche, for instance, whose ideas have been used by the Nazis to justify the annihilation of allegedly inferior men, personally loathed anti-Semites. Obviously, neither he nor Kant produced 'entirely wholesome' works, Kant's ethos being unpractically rational and perfectionist, Nietzsche's too easily lending itself to savagery. But both would have vehemently protested such uses of their essentially philosophical works.

Thank you. I always learn from your posts.

- - - Updated - - -

There isnt flaw in his logic as far as i can see. Basically what he says is that enlightenment comes from learning to think(and truly understand) things on your own instead of cowardly relying on other peoples guidance in thinking. He doesent say that you shouldnt listen to other peoples guidance, just that you should learn to think on your own and not blindly follow others. I think it sounds pretty good.

hmmm.I wonder if he would have said in this day in age of mountain dew, heroine epidemics, and mass consumption of drugs that following guidance is in your best interest.
 

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hmmm.I wonder if he would have said in this day in age of mountain dew, heroine epidemics, and mass consumption of drugs that following guidance is in your best interest.

Dunno, but i would. Its wise to learn to think on your own whether or not you should be doing heroin, even if some of your friends would start doing it and tell you that its fun, so go ahead.
 
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