Immanuel Kant was a German Enlightenment philosopher.
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Is it possible to make sense of reality that is independent 'our understanding'
Kant has a famous quote;
Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind
This suggests we can't understand anything without (independently of) the use of concepts, which ...
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What (who) to read before reading Kant
I am going to be taking an undergraduate course with a prof who marks quite severely. She mentioned that the course expects a working knowledge of Early Modern Philosophy, and specifically to read the ...
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What good is it to ground morality?
What good is it to ground morality? It's a somewhat bad question. Philosophers like proving things. But, specifically, does it make me more moral if I can ground my moral values?
What generated the ...
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Categorical imperative defeating division of labor?
Suppose the following maxim.
Goal: satisfy basic needs: food, water, sleep, etc.
Method: having a specialization, getting money for work, spend money to satisfy basic needs.
Conditions: capitalism, ...
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Can “knowledge” only be synthetic according to Kant?
I have read secondary sources claiming that Kant conceives of knowledge as a strictly synthetic affair, and that analytic judgments are thus not knowledge. This is relatively consistent with what Kant ...
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Where did Kant say that “happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination”?
Can somebody tell me where this famous quote comes from?
I mean in which book and on which page. I want to find this in German. If someone can provide the quote in German the way Kant wrote it, I ...
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Would the opacity of everyday motivations seriously undermine Kantian CI?
Would the opacity of everyday motivations seriously undermine Kantian categorical imperative (CI)?
I tend not to use the CI when deciding what is moral, and partly because I'm not sure I know what my ...
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Account of Priori knowledge in Critique of Reason
As I understand, a priori statements are propositions that are conceived independently of one's experience.
However, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy states that
The sensible world, or ...
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“Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics” - any future metaphysics except Kant's?
The title to one of Kant's most famous books is "Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Present Itself as a Science", where he presents the outlines of his metaphysical theory ...
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Kant's tables, were they ever extended?
Were Kant's tables of judgements and categories ever extended beyond the 12 sub-classes by anyone?
Kant himself wrote the project would be easy so he didn't bother to extend to sub-sub-categories or -...
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Universalizability reductio ad absurdum
My 13-year-old son is attending philosophy camp and one of his homework assignments is to come up with some objections to Kantianism. In a previous conversations I suggested a ridiculous counter-...
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Are Hume's 'impressions' Kant's 'phenomena'?
Why do some philosophers like Carl Stumpf or Immanuel Kant use the word 'Phenomena', whereas British empiricist philosophers, like Locke and Hume, or even Kant, use the word 'Impressions'?
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How does Descartes' “cogito, ergo sum” affect Hume's experienced based epistemology and Kant's transcendental philosophy?
My attempts so far:
Descartes, being a rationalist, used "cogito, ergo sum" to lead to
the concept of innate ideas.
Hume, being a radical empiricist, believed in experience based
epistemology.
Kant ...
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Does Kant consider extendedness metaphysically (analytic) a priori?
In Kant's famous division between a priori vs a postriori, and synthetic vs analytic, Kant's example for a priori analytic proposition is:
All bodies are extended.
Without immediately delving ...
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The analytic a priori
Generally, the analytic a priori according to Kant is taken to be empty, tautological, unremarkable. The stock example is 'all bachelors are unmarried' or 'all triangles have three sides,' in other ...
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Is Kant's noumenon very small or very big?
I've not read any full chapters on Kant, and even less of his work. Am just familiar with the idea that, for Kant, things as they really are in themselves, noumenal reality, is unknowable. I was just ...
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The Moral Law and the Categorical Imperative in Kant
In the Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant begins his task by developing, through analysis of ordinary moral concepts, a theory of the 'supreme principle of morals,' the criteria for a ...
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Are propositions in mathematics synthetic or analytic?
I'm reading Kant's Critique of Pure Reason and I understand that he thought that "Mathematical Judgements are all synthetic". I would like to know where does this debate lies or if it is of interest ...
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What is the use of analytic propositions?
[Note: I'm using Kant's terms.]
Analytic proposition, for example "all bodies are extended", or "a=a", seems like an unhelpful type of proposition (contra to the synthetic a priori and a postriori ...
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Is Reality an intersection of Incompatible Ontologies?
Empiricists do not ask questions about the ontological status of mathematical or logical structures. Idealists don't explain how Ideas are developed, or how technological advancement in general takes ...
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Utilitarian Morality vs Kantian Morality
Does Utilitarian or Kantian Morality Approve :
1) Capital Punishment
2) Use of torture in interrogation of known terrorists
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Can a Kantian bluff in poker?
Kantians aren't allowed to lie---if it were a universal law of nature that everyone lied all the time, no communication would be possible at all, no words would have meaning, and lying itself would ...
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Is Kant's postulate of the existence of God a metaethical assumption?
Also, I would like to get some bibliographical reference about Kantian metaethics.
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How does Kant actually resolve the free will / empirical causality contradiction? [duplicate]
I'm reading through the Critique of Pure Reason and I'm stuck on the section Resolution of the cosmological idea of the totality of the derivation of occurrences in the world from their causes and ...
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What was the popular moral philosophy at the time when Kant lived?
On Wikipedia it is said:
In Section II, Kant starts from scratch and attempts to move from popular moral philosophy to a metaphysics of morals.
Therefore, there was some kind of popular moral ...
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Why didn't Kant end up in anarchy?
Let us assume the proposition: one might take leader role. Then we apply universalization: if everyone takes leader role, no one is the leader. Thus, we proved that taking leader role is useless ...
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We may say that Sartre inverts Kant’s moral philosophy. What does Sartre share with Kant, and how does he overturn some of his thinking?
Compare and contrast Kant and Sartre. We may say that Sartre inverts Kant’s moral philosophy. What does Sartre share with Kant, and how does he overturn some of his thinking?
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What are some secondary texts, in the form of online articles, to read about Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics?
What are some secondary texts, in the form of online articles, to read about Kant's Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics before I jump into the text and to ease myself into understanding it?
It ...
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What would Utilitarian and Kantian say or react to this case?
Delores Heston, age 22 and unmarried, was severely injured in an automobile accident. She was taken to the plaintiff hospital where it was determined that she would expire unless operated upon for a ...
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Applying the Mere Means principle
I am trying to understand Kant's Second Categorical Imperative:
Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an ...
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What did Kant mean by the “fountain of reason” in the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics?
What did Kant mean by the "fountain of reason?"
" … They must wait till those who endeavor to draw from the fountain of reason itself have completed their work … " — Kant, Immanuel. Prolegomena to ...
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How can Kantianism prove the existence of perfect duties?
I heard about Kant's reasoning that lying that you return money or about the leads to contradiction in conception.
But how could he even prove that lying under any circumstances leads to ...
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What are four ways in which Kant 's categories are different from Aristotle's?
What are the differences between Kant's Categories and Aristotle's?
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Would Robin Hood be ethical in Kantian ethics?
In order for an action to have moral worth, it must be done from the
motive of duty.
Would Robin Hood be ethical, assuming that he has no other intent only acted out of the duty to help others, ...
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why did Kant say the only truly “good” thing in this world “without exception” is a “good will”?
why did Kant say the only truly “good” thing in this world “without exception”?
if I understand him correctly, which I very well may not, I believe he states that good will is the only truly good ...
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What would it mean for morality not to be a consequence of rationality?
How would one manage to arrive at this morality, or when to apply it without reason?
Some might say we directly experience morality, but this is inconsistent with the different different moral ...
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Kant's argument for experience of outer things
Have I got this right?
I have empirical consciousness of my existence
a determination such as this presupposes ‘something permanent in perception’
All that I inwardly intuit is my series of ...
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Question about absoluteness
If you say: "Nothing is absolute, everything is relative". Then you make an absolute statement. How can this be?
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Was Kant a factor in forming Gauss's abstract view of mathematical objects?
Gauss argued for philosophical issues important to the development of mathematics, such as the identity of complex numbers, among others.
I wonder what philosophical currents influenced his thinking ...
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'reason for speculative purposes finds the road of natural necessity […], yet for practical purposes'
Secondary Source: What's It All About? (2007 1 ed.) p. 120 Middle.
Primary Source: Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals, Section 3, ON THE EXTREME BOUNDARY OF ALL PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY ...
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Why is Kant's Groundwork so much more popular than his other ethical works?
Kant has three main works on ethics: the Groundwork, the second Critique, and the Metaphysics of Morals, and some important short essays: "What is enlightenment?", "Toward perpetual peace", and "...
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Kant and the Categorical Imperatives
Did Immanuel Kant intend for the Categorical Imperatives to be used together, or separately, when trying to determine an actions ethicality or morality
If you answer yes, individually, then how does ...
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Why were Kant's categories used in the mathematical category theory?
I am curious exactly how mathematical categories were inspired by Kant's categories. The SEP article on category theory says:
In order to give a general definition of the [natural transformation], ...
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Why did Kant say space and time do not exist independent of us?
As far as I know, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) believed that space and time do not exist objectively, independent of us, and that they are added by our minds to our perceptions. I am eager to know what ...
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Is there anything left in contemporary epistemology and science from the German Idealism?
Kant, Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel.. Is there anything left from the Kantian movement today in the thoughts of knowledge and nature? The question is focused especially after Popper essentially "...
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By its definition, is it possible the thing-in-itself is also a phenomenon?
The transcendental philosophy seperate famously seperate between the thing-as-itself and the phenomenon the derives from it, by vague comparison, similar to Plato's ideas.
My question is, is it ...
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115 views
a priori and a posteriori
Where can I find a systematic review of the concept a priori and a posteriori and investigations on their proper distinction? Classical texts are prefered but Kant, Aristotle are excluded. Actually ...
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Does the Evolution Theory contradict Kant's Metaphysics?
I recently asked a series of questions about ET, and this is one of them :)
Intuitively, it seems to me that ET is supposed to contradict Kant's (or more generally, the German Idealism's) Metaphysics ...
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Schelling: from where, or how exactly does the a priori ideas come?
I'm reading Schelling's System of Transcendental Idealism, and in the end of the 3rd part (the end of the theoretical philosophy) schelling disproves the idea that a priori ideas are inherent in us ...
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Have anyone found a good solution to Kant's dualistic approach to consciousness?
Kant, in his studies of transcendental idealism, made the "illogical gap" between theoretical philosophy and practical philosophy, at the end of theoretical study, by requiring the contemplation of ...
