6200
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Wisdom is knowing the highest good, and conforming the will to it [Kant]
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Full Idea:
Wisdom, theoretically regarded, means the knowledge of the highest good and, practically, the conformability of the will to the highest good.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V)
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A reaction:
This seems a narrow account of wisdom, focusing entirely on goodness rather than truth. A mind that valued nothing but understood everything would have a considerable degree of wisdom, in the normal use of that word.
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14664
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Necessary beings (numbers, properties, sets, propositions, states of affairs, God) exist in all possible worlds [Plantinga]
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Full Idea:
A 'necessary being' is one that exists in every possible world; and only some objects - numbers, properties, pure sets, propositions, states of affairs, God - have this distinction.
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From:
Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976], 2)
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A reaction:
This a very odd list, though it is fairly orthodox among philosophers trained in modern modal logic. At the very least it looks rather parochial to me.
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14666
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Socrates is a contingent being, but his essence is not; without Socrates, his essence is unexemplified [Plantinga]
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Full Idea:
Socrates is a contingent being; his essence, however, is not. Properties, like propositions and possible worlds, are necessary beings. If Socrates had not existed, his essence would have been unexemplified, but not non-existent.
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From:
Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976], 4)
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A reaction:
This is a distinctive Plantinga view, of which I can make little sense. I take it that Socrates used to have an essence. Being dead, the essence no longer exists, but when we talk about Socrates it is largely this essence to which we refer. OK?
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14662
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Possible worlds clarify possibility, propositions, properties, sets, counterfacts, time, determinism etc. [Plantinga]
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Full Idea:
The idea of possible worlds has delivered insights on logical possibility (de dicto and de re), propositions, properties and sets, counterfactuals, time and temporal relations, causal determinism, the ontological argument, and the problem of evil.
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From:
Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976], Intro)
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A reaction:
This date (1976) seems to be the high-water mark for enthusiasm about possible worlds. I suppose if we just stick to 'insights' rather than 'answers' then the big claim might still be acceptable. Which problems are created by possible worlds?
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16472
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Plantinga's actualism is nominal, because he fills actuality with possibilia [Stalnaker on Plantinga]
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Full Idea:
Plantinga's critics worry that the metaphysics is actualist in name only, since it is achieved only by populating the actual world with entities whose nature is explained in terms of merely possible things that would exemplify them if anything did.
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From:
comment on Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 4.4
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A reaction:
Plantinga seems a long way from the usual motivation for actualism, which is probably sceptical empiricism, and building a system on what is smack in front of you. Possibilities have to be true, though. That's why you need dispositions in actuality.
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16469
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Plantinga has domains of sets of essences, variables denoting essences, and predicates as functions [Plantinga, by Stalnaker]
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Full Idea:
The domains in Plantinga's interpretation of Kripke's semantics are sets of essences, and the values of variables are essences. The values of predicates have to be functions from possible worlds to essences.
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From:
report of Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 4.4
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A reaction:
I begin to think this is quite nice, as long as one doesn't take the commitment to the essences too seriously. For 'essence' read 'minimal identity'? But I take essences to be more than minimal, so use identities (which Kripke does?).
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16470
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Plantinga's essences have their own properties - so will have essences, giving a hierarchy [Stalnaker on Plantinga]
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Full Idea:
For Plantinga, essences are entities in their own right and will have properties different from what instantiates them. Hence he will need individual essences of individual essences, distinct from the essences. I see no way to avoid a hierarchy of them.
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From:
comment on Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 4.4
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A reaction:
This sounds devastating for Plantinga, but it is a challenge for traditional Aristotelians. Only a logician suffers from a hierarchy, but a scientist might have to live with an essence, which contains a super-essence.
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14663
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Are propositions and states of affairs two separate things, or only one? I incline to say one [Plantinga]
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Full Idea:
Are there two sorts of thing, propositions and states of affairs, or only one? I am inclined to the former view on the ground that propositions have a property, truth or falsehood, not had by states of affairs.
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From:
Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976], 1)
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A reaction:
Might a proposition be nothing more than an assertion that a state of affairs obtains? It would then pass his test. The idea that a proposition is a complex of facts in the external world ('Russellian' propositions?) quite baffles me.
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6196
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People cannot come to morality through feeling, because morality must not be sensuous [Kant]
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Full Idea:
In the subject there is no antecedent feeling tending to morality; that is impossible, because all feeling is sensuous, and the drives of the moral disposition must be free from every sensuous condition.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.III)
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A reaction:
I'm not quite clear (even after reading Kant) why moral drives 'must' be free of sensuousness. Aristotle gives a much better account, when he tells us that the sensuous drives must be trained in the right way, and must be in harmony with the reason.
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22007
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An autonomous agent has dignity [Würde], which has absolute worth [Kant, by Pinkard]
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Full Idea:
For Kant, there is something about beings that can act autonomously that is itself of 'absolute worth', which Kant calls the 'dignity' [Würde] of each such agent.
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From:
report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 02
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A reaction:
This answers my puzzle about where Kant's fundamental values come from. Surely wicked actions can be autonomous? Autonomous actions aren't thereby good actions. A 'good' will, course, whatever that is. Rational? My problem with existentialist ethics.
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6192
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Good or evil cannot be a thing, but only a maxim of action, making the person good or evil [Kant]
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Full Idea:
If something is held to be absolutely good or evil in all respects and without qualification, it could not be a thing but only the manner of acting, i.e., it could only be the maxim of the will, and consequently the acting person himself is good or evil.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.II)
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A reaction:
It goes on to deny that pain is intrinsically evil, but his reason for the claim is not clear. Nevetheless, I think he is right. This remark is an important bridge between Enlightenment concerns with law and Greek concerns with character.
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6193
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Our happiness is all that matters, not as a sensation, but as satisfaction with our whole existence [Kant]
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Full Idea:
Our happiness is the only thing of importance, provided this is judged, as reason requires, not according to transitory sensation but according to the influence which this contingency has on our whole existence and our satisfaction with it.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.II)
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A reaction:
This is closer to the Greek eudaimonia than to the modern conception of happiness, which is largely just a feeling. Kant's view seems more like a private judgement on your whole life, where the Greek idea seems more public and objective.
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6185
|
No one would lend money unless a universal law made it secure, even after death [Kant]
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Full Idea:
If my maxim is 'augment my property by all safe means', I can't make that a law allowing me to keep a dead man's loan, because no one would make a loan if that were the moral law.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§4)
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A reaction:
This is a simple illustration of Kant's strategy and it shows clearly how, for all his talk of 'pure reason', his moral law is strongly guided by consequences, and that these can only judged by prior values - for example, that loans are a good thing.
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6187
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Universality determines the will, and hence extends self-love into altruism [Kant]
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Full Idea:
The form of universality is itself the determining ground of the will, …and from this limitation alone, and not from the addition of any exernal drive, the concept of obligation arises to extend the maxim of self-love also to the happiness of others.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§8)
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A reaction:
This is the heroic and optimistic part of Kant's philosophy, the attempt to derive altruism from pure reason. The claim seems to be that maxims don't motivate until they have been universalised. I fear that only altruism could add such motivation.
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6201
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Everyone (even God) must treat rational beings as ends in themselves, and not just as means [Kant]
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Full Idea:
In the order of ends, man (and every rational being) is an end in himself, i.e., he is never to be used merely as a means for someone (even for God) without at the same time being himself an end.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V)
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A reaction:
The worry here is that Kant has set up an exam that you have to pass before you can be treated as a moral end. Animals and the ecosystem will fail the exam, and even some human beings will be borderline cases. We should respect everything.
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1455
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Belief in justice requires belief in a place for justice (heaven), a time (eternity), and a cause (God) [Kant, by PG]
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Full Idea:
To believe in justice in an unjust world, you have to believe in a place of perfect justice (heaven), a time for perfect justice (eternity), and a cause of perfect justice (God).
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From:
report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V) by PG - Db (ideas)
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A reaction:
Compare Boethius in Idea 5765. I can see that we might need to grasp the ideals of eternal justice in order to understand morality, but belief in their genuine possibility, or even actuality, doesn't seem to follow.
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6205
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To know if this world must have been created by God, we would need to know all other possible worlds [Kant]
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Full Idea:
We can't infer the existence of God from knowledge of this world, because we should have to know all possible worlds in order to compare them - in short, we should have to be omniscient - in order to say that it is possible only through a God.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI)
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A reaction:
A nice remark, but not wholly convincing. This argument would block all attempts to work out necessities a priori, such as those of maths and logic. Must we know all possible worlds intimately to know that 2+2 is always 4?
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6204
|
Using God to explain nature is referring to something inconceivable to explain what is in front of you [Kant]
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Full Idea:
To have recourse to God in explaining the arrangements of nature is not a physical explanation but a confession that one has come to the end of philosophy, since one assumes something of which one has no concept to conceive what is before one's eyes.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI)
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A reaction:
Hume had many objections to the design argument, some of them positively sarcastic, but none as ruthless as this, since Kant (here) seems to find God to be a totally empty concept, and hence a complete non-starter as explanation for anything.
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6206
|
From our limited knowledge we can infer great virtues in God, but not ultimate ones [Kant]
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Full Idea:
Since we know only a small part of the world, and cannot compare it with all possible worlds, we can infer from the order, design and magnitude to a wise, beneficent and powerful Author, but not that He is all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI)
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A reaction:
This is very much in the spirit of David Hume, who inferred from the flaws in the world that God did not seem to be entirely competent. Hume is also more imaginative, in seeing that God might be a committee, or a hired workman.
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6202
|
In all naturalistic concepts of God, if you remove the human qualities there is nothing left [Kant]
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Full Idea:
One can confidently challenge all pretended natural theologians to cite one single definitive attribute of their object, of which one could not irrefutably show that, when everything anthropomorphic is removed, only the word remains.
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From:
Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI)
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A reaction:
This idea derives from Hume's very empiricist view of our understanding of God (Idea 2185), but Kant is (remarkably) more hostile than Hume, because he actually implies that most people's concept of God is totally vacuous.
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