display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
24 ideas
| 5604 | In reason things can only begin if they are voluntary [Kant] |
| Full Idea: In reason itself nothing begins, but as the unconditioned condition of very voluntary action. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B582/A554) | |
| A reaction: Kant's way of saying that free will is essential for pure reason. I can't quite digest 'pure' reason, but it is undeniable that rational processes seem to have rules of their own, and to arise entirely from the world of ideas, and not from the physical. |
| 5623 | If I know the earth is a sphere, and I am on it, I can work out its area from a small part [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If I know that the earth is a sphere, and its surface the surface of a sphere, then from a small part of the latter I can know the diameter, and hence the complete boundary, and in accordance with a priori principles. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B787/A757) | |
| A reaction: A nice example, though it may be optimistic in its assumption that you can know you are on a sphere rather than an egg-shape. I agree with Kant, but speculative metaphysics should always be accompanied by humility and health warnings. |
| 21416 | Philosophers should not offer multiple proofs - suggesting the weakness of each of them [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It is a highly unphilosophic expedient to resort to a number of proofs for one and the same proposition, consoling oneself that the multitude of reasons makes up for the inadequacy of any one of them taken by itself. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Metaphysics of Morals II:Doctrine of Virtue [1797], 403 Intro XIII) | |
| A reaction: This makes philosophical proofs sound very mathematical in character, whereas I think most reasons for a proposition given in philosophy are more like evidence, which can clearly accumulate in a rational way. Some maths proofs are better than others. |
| 5622 | The boundaries of reason can only be determined a priori [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The determination of the boundaries of our reason can only take place in accordance with a priori grounds | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B786/A758) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that this is right, and is a truth of huge importance for philosophy. If we experience limitations in our reason (a not unusual experience!) this could never show that the boundary was necessary. This supports a minimal rationalism. |
| 5578 | Pure reason deals with concepts in the understanding, not with objects [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Pure reason is never related directly to objects, but instead to concepts of them given by the understanding. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B392/A335) | |
| A reaction: Hence the keen interest of McDowell and others in the way in which concepts connect us into reality. Clearly a primrose path to anti-realism beckons here. I agree with Kant. Reason needs tokens to manipulate. |
| 5628 | Reason hates to be limited in its speculations [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Reason does not gladly suffer constraint in the paroxysms of its lust for speculative expansion. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B814/A786) | |
| A reaction: This uncharacteristic outburst shows Kant's great commitment to the limitations of reason, despite his constant assertions that it is 'pure', and that it is the basis of all value. |
| 5603 | Pure reason exists outside of time [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Pure reason, as a merely intelligible faculty, is not subject to the form of time, and hence not subject to the conditions of the temporal sequence. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B579/A551) | |
| A reaction: A strong assertion of the notion of 'pure' reason. If it is outside time, it is presumably outside space-time, and so outside space. If I believed in it (and you can't really, can you?), I think I would go the whole hog, and add Platonism. |
| 5616 | Pure reason is only concerned with itself because it deals with understandings, not objects [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Pure reason is concerned with nothing but itself, and it can have no other concern, because what is given to it is not objects to be unified for the concept of experience, but cognitions of understanding to be unified for the concept of reason. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B708/A680) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to accept this sharp division between 'understanding', which gets involved in experience, and this very "pure" reason, which seems in danger of solipsism, and is playing a private game. I think purity comes in degrees. |
| 21054 | Reason enables the unbounded extension of our rules and intentions [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Reason, in a creature, is a faculty which enables that creature to extend far beyond the limits of natural instinct the rules and intentions it follows in using its various powers, and the range of its project is unbounded. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Idea for a Universal History [1784], 2nd) | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to identify the mind's creation of universals as the source of this power, rather than reason. Generalisations are infinitely extensible. Cantor's infinities are a nice example. Can't ideas be extended irrationally? |
| 3738 | The hallmark of rationality is setting itself an end [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Rational nature separates itself out from all other things by the fact that it sets itself an end. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals [1785], 437.82) |
| 21439 | Religion and legislation can only be respected if they accept free and public examination [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Religion and legislation ...excite a just suspicion against themselves, and cannot claim that unfeigned respect that reason grants only to that which has been able to withstand free and public examination. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], A Pref xi n) | |
| A reaction: A wonderful statement of a core principle of the liberal enlightenment. I can't really relate to anyone who would reject this idea (in general). Legislation might have special circumstances (such as wartime). |
| 5584 | All objections are dogmatic (against propositions), or critical (against proofs), or sceptical [Kant] |
| Full Idea: All objections are dogmatic, critical or sceptical. A dogmatic objection is directed against a proposition, but a critical one is directed against a proof. ..The sceptical objection puts the proposition and its opposite over against one another as equals. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B406-/A388) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice distinction, and I would think that the hallmark of a philosophical person is that they are always looking for critical objections, because they want beliefs to be supported by good reasons, not prejudices. |
| 18236 | Reason keeps asking why until explanation is complete [Kant, by Korsgaard] |
| Full Idea: For Kant, theoretical reason, like practical reason, seeks the unconditioned: it keeps asking why until explanation is complete. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]) by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Kant' | |
| A reaction: I love this idea. It is so important in philosophy of science, because some theorists say we should give up before our explanations are complete. |
| 5563 | The principle of sufficient reason is the ground of possible experience in time [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The principle of sufficient reason is the ground of possible experience, namely the objective cognition of appearances with regard to their relation in the successive series of time. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B246/A201) | |
| A reaction: The argument to this claim from the necessity of succession in time looks unconvincing to me, but the principle of sufficient reason is deeply imbedded in the human mind. However, philosophers seem to feel it more strongly than other people. |
| 5565 | Proof of the principle of sufficient reason cannot be found [Kant] |
| Full Idea: A proof of the principle of sufficient reason has often been sought, but always in vain. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B265/A217) | |
| A reaction: This might, of course, be because the principle is false. However it is quite a good candidate for an a priori, or even innate, principle of thought in rational beings. Gödel's Theorem suggests why the enterprise of proof would be doomed. |
| 5602 | The free dialectic opposition of arguments is an invaluable part of the sceptical method [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The sceptical method can point to the dialectic as an example of the great utility of letting the arguments of reason confront one another in the most complete freedom | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B535/A507) | |
| A reaction: An interesting link, between dialectic and the sceptical method. I would say it runs deeper, and that scepticism and the free opposition of arguments are both basic to the whole notion of reason. Reason requires freedom (though not free will). |
| 5618 | Definitions exhibit the exhaustive concept of a thing within its boundaries [Kant] |
| Full Idea: To define properly means just to exhibit originally the exhaustive concept of a thing within its boundaries | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B755/A727) | |
| A reaction: There is nothing in the concept of a 'definition' that requires it to be exhaustive, because some things are too vague. Define the 'south' of England. What are the 'boundaries', if the concept could shift in its extension? |
| 18261 | A simplification which is complete constitutes a definition [Kant] |
| Full Idea: By dissection I can make the concept distinct only by making the marks it contains clear. That is what analysis does. If this analysis is complete ...and in addition there are not so many marks, then it is precise and so constitutes a definition. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Wiener Logik [1795], p.455), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 1 'Conc' | |
| A reaction: I think Aristotle would approve of this. We need to grasp that a philosophical definition is quite different from a lexicographical definition. 'Completeness' may involve quite a lot. |
| 18861 | Maybe number statements can be paraphrased into quantifications plus identities [Tallant] |
| Full Idea: One strategy is whenever we are presented with a sentence that might appear to entail the existence of numbers, all that we have to do is paraphrase it using a quantified logic, plus identity. | |
| From: Jonathan Tallant (Metaphysics: an introduction [2011], 03.5) | |
| A reaction: This nominalist strategy seems fine for manageable numbers, but gets in trouble with numbers too big to count (e.g. grains of sand in the world) , or genuine infinities. |
| 5619 | No a priori concept can be defined [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Strictly speaking no concept given a priori can be defined, e.g. substance, cause, right, equity, etc. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B756/A728) | |
| A reaction: A passing remark with large and interesting implications. A huge amount of ink has been spilled over whether to take concepts such as identity, truth, goodness and substance as 'basic', or reduce them to something else. |
| 22274 | 'Transcendent' is beyond experience, and 'transcendental' is concealed within experience [Kant, by Potter] |
| Full Idea: Kant distinguished between the 'transcendent', which is wholly beyond experience, and the 'transcendental', which, although not strictly part of experience, is a structural feature imminent in it. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B353/A296) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 02 'Trans' | |
| A reaction: This may be the most disastrous idea in western philosophy since Plato's theory of Forms. How can he claim special insight into the imminent structural features of his own experience, while admitting that he has no experience of these features? |
| 5577 | Transcendental ideas require unity of the subject, conditions of appearance, and objects of thought [Kant] |
| Full Idea: All transcendental ideas fall under three classes: the first contains the absolute unity of the thinking subject, the second the unity of conditions of appearance, the third the unity of the condition of all objects of thought in general. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B391/A334) | |
| A reaction: This kind of claim makes me search the attic for my logical positivist shotgun. How does he KNOW these things? However we must grant him that experience 'binds' together in some way, and we think of persons and ideas as atomic. |
| 23696 | Transcendental cognition is that a priori thought which shows how the a priori is applicable or possible [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Not every a priori cognition must be called transcendental, but only that by means of which we cognize that, and how certain representations (intuitions or concepts) are applied entirely a priori, or are possible. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B80/A56) | |
| A reaction: Kant really wasn't good at expressing himself. I would describe this as either explanation, or as meta-thought. |
| 5555 | Philosophical examples rarely fit rules properly, and lead to inflexibility [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Giving examples most commonly damages the insight of the understanding, since they only seldom fulfil the condition of the rule under consideration, ..and in the end accustom us to use those rules more like formulas than like principles. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B173/A134) | |
| A reaction: This is directly contrary to the belief of most people who study or teach philosophy in the English-speaking world, but it is an interesting challenge. Philosophy is mainly concerned with abstract ideas. Maybe we need many examples, or none. |