I just started reading Kant (Critique of Pure Reason), and my GOD, this guy was such a fucking high being. How many people in human history have been on this guy's level? I think he blows away the vast majority of philosophers, even though I can't agree completely with all of his claims. I think the categorical imperative is brilliant, even if it is problematic in some instances. What do you guys think about Kant? I wish I were educated enough to give more of an opinion, but anyone who has read a lot of philosophy, please share how Kant has influenced you, and how you feel his work compares with that other other modern philosophers.
A great mind, but his spirit was left twisting in the wind. You have to have balance, and until you do, you have obtained nothing. x
Obviously, xexon has read and perfectly understood everything that Kant was saying, and then, having dwelt upon the material for a suitable amount of time, carefully dismissed it for a very good reason. I believe that this very good reason is that there is no way in hell that Kant was as smart as xexon is... so he wrote 'Critique of Pure Reason', so what? Xexon is a DESTROYER OF WORLDS.
I know vat ze supreme mind iz, it iz ze rational mind. But I just kant seem to make sense of post-modernizm. damz.
The appeal of Kants Critique of Pure Reason is not lost on me. Its ingenuity and scope are fantastic. However, it was a bit much. Critique of Pure Reason was a reaction to the conclusions reached by Hume in his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Though Hume 'awoke Kant from his dogmatic slumbers', such intense and large scale reactionary writing was not necessary. Had Kant pointed out that the conclusions, that he found so repugnant in Hume's writing, were based on false premises, he may have avoided the invention of such a subtle, intricate philosophical structure which, while admirable, was not necessary to avoid Hume's conclusion.
Well, I've read all three Critiques, and, to tell you the truth, the second is my least favourite. The categorical imperative just doesn't appeal to me that much, and I never liked ethics anyway. But, as for the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Judgment, I think they're absolutely brilliant. The reason Kant blows all early modern philosophers (e.g. Hume) out of the water lies in his transcendental method. The early moderns built their systems from the ground up, from a priori principles which seemed self-evident to them. Even the notion that the exclusive source of knowledge is sensation, as innocent as it is, is such a principle. The trouble with such an approach is that the end results often contradict the claims the pure sciences (physics and math). Look at what Hume said about geometry, or Leibnitz about Newtonian physics. What Kant did that was so revolutionary was to take the claims of physics and math as given, then search for what conditions must be satisfied, what cognitive devices we need, for such claims to be true. The trouble is, of course, that he backed the wrong horse, which we know from general relativity and the discovery of non-Euclidean geometry. But, that does not show that Kant's method itself was incorrect. I don't know if you've gotten there yet, but I was always impressed by the antinomies. And you should definitely pick up the Critique of Judgment when you get a chance. Whether you like him or not, Kant was one of the most important philosophers in history, and all philosophy after Kant is in some way a response to him. P.S. He probably did have to lighten up a bit.
I've only learned of Kant through Existensialist point of view where he isn't thought of to highy. I really need to read his stuff.
Kant was a mad, angry genius. His people skills probably sucked though. Super intelligence is much like autism. Or a savant. x
I took a course on Kant and Hegel at Uni and did very badly. It's really difficult reading! I suppose this is why most people have shied away from actually talking about what he said, and are just making extremely general comments about his personality. Anyway, I really did like the notion of synthetic versus analytic judgments-- one poster already commented on the fact that he 'started over', which is true, I think. It's fascinating when someone takes the time to actually retrace the construction of experience-- and manages, in the process, to observe the differences between what we get from the experience and what we bring to it.
He made some great observations, but IMO became way too idealistic and made simple observations into vastly complicated processes and 'duties'. As far as ethics go, it's horribly misleading, though a wonderous work of 'modernity' mentality as we'll ever get.
