10 ideas
| 21459 | Kant halted rationalism, and forced empiricists to worry about foundations [Gardner] |
| Full Idea: Kant's Critique swiftly brought rationalism to a halt, and after Kant empiricism has displayed a nervousness regarding its foundations, and been forced to assume more sophisticated forms. | |
| From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 10 Intro) | |
| A reaction: See the ideas of Laurence Bonjour for a modern revival of rationalism. After Kant philosophers either went existential, or stared gloomily into the obscure depths. Formal logic was seen as a possible rope ladder down. |
| 21463 | Hamann, Herder and Jacobi were key opponents of the Enlightenment [Gardner] |
| Full Idea: Hamann, Herder and Jacobi are central figues in the reaction against Enlightenment. | |
| From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 10 'immediate') | |
| A reaction: From a British perspective I would see Hume as the leading such figure. Hamann emphasised the neglect of the role of language. Jacobi was a Christian. |
| 21460 | Only Kant and Hegel have united nature, morals, politics, aesthetics and religion [Gardner] |
| Full Idea: Apart from Hegel, no later philosophical system equals in stature Kant's attempt to weld together the diverse fields of natural science, morality, politics, aesthetics and religion into a systematic overarching epistemological and metaphysical unity. | |
| From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 10) | |
| A reaction: Earlier candidate are Plato and Aristotle. Earlier Enlightenment figures say little about morality or aesthetics. Hobbes ranges widely. Aquinas covered most things. |
| 18241 | Sufficient reason is implied by contradiction, of an insufficient possible which exists [Wolff, by Korsgaard] |
| Full Idea: Wolff believed that the principle of sufficient reason could be derived from the principle of contradiction, for there would be a contradiction in the insufficiently determined existence of a merely possible thing. | |
| From: report of Christian Wolff (works [1730]) by Christine M. Korsgaard - Intro to Ethics, Politics, Religion in Kant 'A child' | |
| A reaction: Sounds as if he might be begging to question. You would only protest against the insufficient determination of something if you already believed in the principle of sufficient reason. Nice try. |
| 21443 | Transcendental proofs derive necessities from possibilities (e.g. possibility of experiencing objects) [Gardner] |
| Full Idea: A transcendental proof converts a possibility into a necessity: by saying under what conditions experience of objects is possible, transcendental proofs show those conditions to be necessary for us to the extent that we have any experience of objects. | |
| From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 02 'Transc') | |
| A reaction: They appear to be hypothetical necessities, rather than true metaphysical necessities. Gardner is discussing Kant, but seems to be generalising. Hypothetical necessities are easy: if it is flying, it is necessarily above the ground. |
| 21444 | Modern geoemtry is either 'pure' (and formal), or 'applied' (and a posteriori) [Gardner] |
| Full Idea: There is now 'pure' geometry, consisting of formal systems based on axioms for which truth is not claimed, and which are consequently not synthetic; and 'applied', a branch of physics, the truth of which is empirical, and therefore not a priori. | |
| From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 03 'Maths') | |
| A reaction: His point is that there is no longer any room for a priori geometry. Might the same division be asserted of arithmetic, or analysis, or set theory? |
| 21453 | Leibnizian monads qualify as Kantian noumena [Gardner] |
| Full Idea: Leibnizian monads clearly satisfy Kant's definition of noumena. | |
| From: Sebastian Gardner (Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason [1999], 06 'Noumena') | |
| A reaction: This needs qualifying, because Leibniz clearly specifies the main attributes of monads, where Kant is adamant that we can saying virtually nothing about noumena. |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |
| 18242 | Confucius shows that ethics can rest on reason, rather than on revelation [Wolff, by Korsgaard] |
| Full Idea: Wolff claimed that the moral philosophy of Confucius shows that ethics is accessible to natural reason and independent of revelation. | |
| From: report of Christian Wolff (works [1730]) by Christine M. Korsgaard - Intro to Ethics, Politics, Religion in Kant 'A child' | |
| A reaction: Wolff was banished for proposing this idea. |