display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
10 ideas
| 22052 | Kant's nature is just a system of necessary laws [Bowie on Kant] |
| Full Idea: In the first Critique, nature is just a system of necessary laws. | |
| From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 1 | |
| A reaction: This seems to have provoked rebellion in Schiller and the early Romantics, and Kant tried to add teleology to his picture of nature. Leibniz saw nature as dimly alive, and Schiller focused on organisms. Biology is not very lawlike. |
| 8256 | Kant identifies nature with the scientific picture of it as the realm of law [Kant, by McDowell] |
| Full Idea: For Kant the idea of nature is the idea of the realm of law, the idea that came into focus with the rise of modern science. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781]) by John McDowell - Mind and World V.4 | |
| A reaction: Any doubts about the existence of laws of nature (e.g. Ideas 5470, 6781, 5474) would pull the mat out from under this view. I am inclined to view nature as the realm of natural kinds, which give rise to the regularities we call 'laws'. |
| 22053 | The Critique of Judgement aims for a principle that unities humanity and nature [Kant, by Bowie] |
| Full Idea: The Critique of Judgement aims to show how judgement functions 'according to the principle of the appropriateness of nature to our capacity for cognition'. It is meant to provide a principle of the unity of humankind and nature. | |
| From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement II: Teleological [1790]) by Andrew Bowie - German Philosophy: a very short introduction 1 | |
| A reaction: Hence this work is often overlooked as a key part of Kant's 'system'. At first he probably didn't realise he was creating a system. Kant set an agenda for the philosophy of the ensuing thirty years. |
| 5591 | Reason must assume as necessary that everything in a living organism has a proportionate purpose [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Regarding the nature of living beings in this world, reason must assume as a necessary principle that no organ, no faculty, nothing superfluous, or disproportionate to its use, hence nothing purposeless, is to be met with. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B425) | |
| A reaction: Extraordinary to treat this as an a priori truth! In fact Darwin seems to have discovered that most organs have a purpose, but sometimes they have become redundant, and certainly they can be disproportionate. Did Kant really need that massive intellect? |
| 18237 | Without men creation would be in vain, and without final purpose [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Without men the whole creation would be mere waste, in vain, and without final purpose. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Judgement II: Teleological [1790], C3 442), quoted by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Kant' | |
| A reaction: The standard early twenty-first century response to that is 'get over it'! The remark shows how deep religion runs in Kant, despite his great caution about the existence of God. His notion of 'duty' is similarly religious. |
| 13222 | The Boundless cannot exist on its own, and must have something contrary to it [Aristotle on Anaximander] |
| Full Idea: Those thinkers are in error who postulate ...a single matter, for this cannot exist without some 'perceptible contrariety': this Boundless, which they identify with the 'original real', must be either light or heavy, either hot or cold. | |
| From: comment on Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 329a10 | |
| A reaction: A dubious objection, I would say. If there has to be a contrasting cold thing to any hot thing, what happens when the cold thing is removed? |
| 404 | Things begin and end in the Unlimited, and are balanced over time according to justice [Anaximander] |
| Full Idea: The non-limited is the original material of existing things; their source is also that to which they return after destruction, according to necessity; they give justice and make reparation to each other for injustice, according to the arrangement of Time. | |
| From: Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE], B1), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 24.13- | |
| A reaction: Simplicius is quoting Theophrastus |
| 1495 | Anaximander introduced the idea that the first principle and element of things was the Boundless [Anaximander, by Simplicius] |
| Full Idea: Anaximander said that the first principle and element of existing things was the boundless; it was he who originally introduced this name for the first principle. | |
| From: report of Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE], A09) by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.24.14- | |
| A reaction: Simplicius is quoting Theophrastus |
| 405 | The essential nature, whatever it is, of the non-limited is everlasting and ageless [Anaximander] |
| Full Idea: The essential nature, whatever it is, of the non-limited is everlasting and ageless. | |
| From: Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE], B2), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 5615 | Extension and impenetrability together make the concept of matter [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Extension and impenetrability together constitute the concept of matter. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B646/A618) | |
| A reaction: Descartes had settled for extension alone. Kant's simple claim is probably now just a historical footnote, as we would now turn to physicists to define matter. Extension might survive, but impenetrability is not a key notion in quantum mechanics. |