9 ideas
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. |
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. |
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. |
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. |
4988 | Folk psychology may not be reducible, but that doesn't make it false [Kirk,R on Churchland,PM] |
Full Idea: It may well be that completed neuroscience will not include a reduction of folk psychology, but why should that be a reason to regard it as false? It would only be a reason if irreducibility entailed that they could not possibly both be true. | |
From: comment on Paul M. Churchland (Eliminative Materialism and Prop. Attitudes [1981]) by Robert Kirk - Mind and Body §3.9 | |
A reaction: If all our behaviour had been explained by a future neuro-science, this might not falsify folk psychology, but it would totally marginalise it. It is still possible that dewdrops are placed on leaves by fairies, but this is no longer a hot theory. |
4987 | Eliminative materialism says folk psychology will be replaced, not reduced [Churchland,PM] |
Full Idea: Eliminative materialism says our common-sense conception of psychological phenomena is a radically false theory, so defective that both the principles and the ontology of that theory will eventually be displaced (rather than reduced). | |
From: Paul M. Churchland (Eliminative Materialism and Prop. Attitudes [1981], Intro) | |
A reaction: It is hard to see what you could replace the idea of a 'belief' with in ordinary conversation. We may reduce beliefs to neuronal phenomena, but we can't drop the vocabulary of the macro-phenomena. The physics of weather doesn't eliminate 'storms'. |
22086 | The most important aspect of a human being is not reason, but passion [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
Full Idea: Kierkegaard insisted that the most important aspect of a human being is not reason, but passion. | |
From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (works [1845]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed Intro | |
A reaction: Hume comes to mind for a similar view, but in character Hume was far more rational than Kierkegaard. |