Immanuel Kant thread

[existential yellow snow]

This thread is devoted to interpreting and outlining Kant's philosophy. I am starting with five sources:

Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Kant and The Critique of Pure Reason
by Sebastian Gardner
ISBN: 041511909X
Kant: A Very Short Introduction
by Roger Scruton
ISBN: 0192801996
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics
transl. by James W. Ellington
ISBN: 0872205932
Critique of Pure Reason
transl. by Werner S. Pluhar
ISBN: 0872202577
Lecture Series by Dr. G. J. Mattey

The last website will serve as my general guideline*

Since Kant was responding to Hume's skepticism and Lebniz's idea that reality is only accessible to pure reason, you may only speak of those two in relation to Kant; elaborate, expound, or quote their passages that influenced Kant.

If I make a fallacy, please correct me. We are a community, so do not be rude to anyone unless they digress from this thread's purpose.

I will frequently ask questions, quote passages from texts, and summarize key points in succinct & simple english. If I am too ambiguous or dense, please PM me with your recommendations.

This is a long project. I believe the end will come in 4-6 months. My blog will serve as a back-up.

[Belinda]

It would help me if you could answer questions about Kant's philosophy. Answering questions may help you, because when you set out to teach someone else you are faced with the challenge of meaning what you say.

Your'tomorrrow' topic is of great interest and I look forward to reading it, especially if you remain as concise as your style today.

[existential yellow snow]

After surfing a college website devoted to Kant, I realized that I should approach my study differently. First notes will be posted soon.

[first post edited]
[this post last edited on Sept. 13, 2009]

[existential yellow snow]

Required reading:
Kant's letter to Marcus Herz
Mattey's Lecture 1

Lecture 1: Intro to Kant

Download the Notes I created with several simple diagrams. Last edited: Sept. 18

[Belinda]

Sensuous presentations as opposed to intuitions or concepts:
Presentations of specific objects are called "intuitions, " while presentations of a number of objects through some common characteristics they share are called "concepts." We have noted that the fundamental problem in metaphysics is to discover how pure or a priori concepts generated by the understanding without recourse to sensuous presentation apply to intuitions which are, for human beings, sensuous presentations.

presentation:� [Vorstellung, or �representation�]� The manner in which the mind apprehends something (e.g. my concept of a �horse� is a presentation of the general quality of being a horse; my intuition of �Desert Orchid� is my immediate presentation of that particular horse). There are some contexts, however, in which Kant evidently restricts the meaning of 'presentation' to sensible presentations.


archetype: the ¡¥idea¡¦ of perfect humanity that resides within each person. Calling Jesus the Christ signifies that his life fully realized this idea.

This is a glossary of terms in Kant from a reputable academic source http://www.staffs.ac.uk/schools/humanities_and_soc_sciences/philosophy/.resource/modules/Level%20Two/HS689-2/glossary.htm

[existential yellow snow]

Yes, it seems my notes were pretty accurate. However, I made one mistake of putting archetypal below sensuous perception. Granted, your terms coincide with the ones Mattey named (i.g., intuition, sensibility, concept, understanding, and so forth). I will also follow the schedule, so I don't want to discuss the a priori/a posteriori and analytic/synthetic distinctions just yet

Both intuitions (AKA singularly) and concepts (AKA generally) refer to all forms of knowledge.

[existential yellow snow]

Okay, I am done covering Lecture 1. It's time for discussion. You may discuss or ask questions on any of these:

I. Extypal (AKA “sensuous”) Presentations
II. Archetypal Presentations
III. Different kinds of Presentations
A. Singularly
1. Intuition
2. Sensibility
B. Generally
1. Concept
2. Understanding
IV. Fundamental Question of Metaphysics: How do pure concepts secure reference to objects?
V. Pure concepts have their reference in phenomena
VI. Phenomena vs. Noumena distinction, in relevance to Kant

Notes were last updated Sept. 18.***

NEXT LECTURE
"Leibniz-Wolff" Metaphysics
Required Reading
Critique of Pure Reason = pages 5-40, 323-343, 755-774
Prolegomena = pages 1-8
Will consult Scruton and Gardener's texts as secondary sources periodically.

Expected entry:
1-2 weeks

[Belinda]

Did Kant intend these definitions to be ad hoc? So far 'intuition' definition is in line with modern neuroscience,but may not continue so.Other definitions may be embedded in Kant's time and place for all I know. Should we be forewarned about this possibility?

Point taken about postponing synthetic a priori. Order is more comfortable for studying, also post modern disruption had not yet been invented in Kant's time.

Routledge page 30 extract could do with fleshing out with real life examples. Is Kant's position similarly to Chomsky's regarding language?
Is Kant's position also rationalist with regard to mathematical or logical truths? Is Kant's position on ethics 'top-down' because certain ethical truths are embeddeed in pure reason?

What if anything stops Kant's stance on the noumenal being the same as Plato's stance on the Forms? quote:Intellectual Representations are beyond the capacity of the mind.
I suggest that Plato's Forms are, for Plato,actually accessible to the philosopher who is freed from cultural conventions but Kant's noumenal world is by its nature absolutely inaccessible. So Kant is more metaphysical than Plato who shows the cool Greek trust in the liberating power of reason.

Please, Yellow Snow,tell what academic level this series is at. I suggest that it looks like year 3 undergraduate .

[existential yellow snow]

[Felix]

"Noumena: [bersinnliche] (Similar: thing-in-itself, supersensible, intelligible) That realm of objects, unexperiencable in principle, which is purported to be the ground of all objects of experience."

What is the "realm of objects" that this passage refers to? If it is "unexperiencable in principle,"
why is it defined as a realm of objects?
_________________
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly. - Buckminster Fuller

[existential yellow snow]

[Belinda]

"Thus the possibility of both an intellectus [ARCHETYPAL] (on whose intuitions the things themselves would be grounded) and an intellectus [ECTYPAL] (which would derive the data for its logical procedure from the sensuous intuitions of things) is at least intelligible. However, our understanding, through its representations, is not the cause of the object (save in the case of moral ends), nor is the object the cause of the intellectual representations in the mind (in sensu reali).

This sounds to me as if Kant follows Plato in his claim that the Forms are accessible to everyone because every person intuits the Forms.I note that " nor is the object the cause of the representations in the mind",however, Plato did not claim that intuition is the whole of the cause; for Plato reason also was a cause of the representations.


What I am asking is : are Platonic Forms and Kant's noumena the same or different?


I am trying to understand the scope of rationalism(as opposed to empiricism) rationalism which may for all I know contain different explanations regarding how we can know something, beyond the general explanation of rationalism that a sort of knowledge objectively and absolutely exists and that we can access this knowledge.

[existential yellow snow]

[Felix]

As I understand it, Kant distinguished between two types of phenomena: sensuous (apprehended via our senses) and nonsensuous (apprehended intuitively), and he called the latter noumena. He said that to distinguish between the two, I quote: "In order that a noumenon may signify a real object, that can be distinguished from all phenomena, it is not enough that I should free my thought of all conditions of sensuous intuition, but I must besides have some reason for admitting another kind of intuition besides the sensuous, in which an object can be given, otherwise my thought would be empty, however free it may be from contradictions." (Boy, he really was expert at writing short, succinct sentences, wasn't it?).

Therefore we can apprehend noumena through intuitive introspection (but not through sensuous reason).
_________________
There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly. - Buckminster Fuller

[existential yellow snow]