Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804)
After centuries of religious rationalism and subjective empiricism, German philosopher Immanuel Kant established a new synthetic system that combined the two beliefs into one powerful, revolutionary philosophy: transcendental idealism. This became the platform for all subsequent German idealism and postulated that our mind and the world external to us share a common function, but since we cannot gain access to the latter, what ultimately matters is the experience as passing through a rationalist apparatus. Transcendental idealism is an essential part of Corruptian philosophy.
Introduction
Immanuel Kant, the great German philosopher, was born in the East Prussian seaport of Konigsberg on April 22nd, in the year of 1724. His origins were humble: the father was a modest saddle-maker, and his mother was of zero note of nobility. They both were devout pietists, Johann Georg and Anna Regina Reuter, and Immanuel was to be the second son in this family, and the sixth of a total of nine children.
In an especially rare event for those born of such low social status, Franz Albert Shulz, the family pastor and founder of the Collegium Fredericium, managed to obtain for Immanuel an oppurtunity for proper education at the Fredericium after noting signs of exceptional intelligence. Kant was taught well enough, particularly in the Latin language, to attain acceptance at the University of Konigsberg at the surprising age of sixteen.
At the University, Kant felt both his mind and spirit being suppressed by the stifling atmosphere of religious disposition, and the especially tyrannical methods of the catechism. It should be noted that Kant entered this prestigious school in the year 1740, the same of which Frederick the Great became King of Prussia. This is significant in that Frederick, the enlightened monarch that he was, ended the exile of the German thinker Christian Wolffe, a leading founder of the Aufklarueng, the Enlightenment. We will see the significance of this when we approach the topic of Kant and his role in this new system of thought.
After learning some of the sciences, including metaphysics, mathematics and the natural sciences, and after having been influenced by Martin Krutzen, the chief proponent of pietist dogmatism at the school, Kant left the University, seeking employment as a private tutor. He earned his living for the next ten years in this profession, though Kant was later to say that he was the worst private teacher Prussia had ever known.
Kant returned to the University of Prussia in 1755, obtaining the degrees of Master and Doctor of Philosophy, and was also able to attain a position as a privatdozent, which enabled him to teach at the University, albeit relying only on funds from students attendant at his lectures, and not from any regular salary. Kant soon became interested in Ethics, going beyond his current rudimentary understanding of them through past affiliation with Francis Hutcheson. This occurred after his reading of the newly published works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1762.
From 1770 to 1780, commonly referred to as the Silent Decade, Kant published very little; he is said to have been "formulating ideas." He received a proper professorship at the University in 1770, now primarily teaching logic and metaphysics. This decade was also the period when he became familiar with the works of a certain David Hume, an Englishman best known for his empiric philosophies and rank skepticism, who caused Kant to wake from his "dogmatic slumbers."
Due to his rationalistic and, therefore, unorthodox approach to religion, Kant attracted many students. The Prussian government, now under the authority of King Friedrich Wilhelm the Second, soon barred Kant's teachings on religious subjects. After a letter from the king, Kant returned it with a promise to cease his lectures on religion. Kant respected this promise, but only until the death of the king in 1797, when Kant resumed his religious lectures. However, Immanuel soon became senile at the beginning of the new century and, after his sister came to care for him, he died on February 12th, in the year of 1804, two months before his eightieth birthday. Despite his cosmopolitan teachings and many invitations from prestigious schools and people abroad, Kant never traveled thirty miles beyond his own home. His last words are reputed to be: "it is good."
Kant And The Enlightenment
"Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's understanding without guidance from another. This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in lack of understanding, but in lack of resolve and courage to use it without guidance from another." (What is Enlightenment, 1784)
The Age of Enlightenment was a time when reason took absolute control over the minds of such prominent philosophers as Voltaire, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Pascal, Diderot, et cetera, and over the face of philosophy as a whole. These thinkers were primarily interested in the progress of many various things that now form our modern world, in the negligence and critique of authority and a noted disgust for any kind of nationalism. This was largely a middle-class movement, though they claimed to struggle for all humanity. Reason soon replaced all things ethereal and percieved of the senses. An attempt to "humanize" religion was essentially made by those of the Enlightenment. Voltaire has been known as the greatest humanist of the Enlightenment, having only one absolute value: the human race.
It was with Jean-Jacques Rousseau that Kant found best relations with; he tells us that it was Rousseau who set him right. By this he meant his change in philosophy from the "I despised the rabble because they know nothing," to a belief that everyone can be free and treat everyone as an equal. Yet Rousseau says that we are born free, but we are corrupted by a society that makes us pursue useless things, establishing an arena for us to play out petty rivalries and jealousies. All health and freedom can be managed with a simple life, absent of any dependence on society. These ideas were shared by Immanuel kant.
"Give money and soon you will be in chains. The words finance is a slave's word... In a truly free state, the citizens do everything with their hands and nothing with money... Forced labour is less opposed to liberty than are taxes." (On the Social Contract, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1762)
On religion, however, Rousseau and Kant came at odds with each other in one particular aspect: determining God's existence. Rousseau tells us that anyone can see for himself the proof of God through his own reason. This is "natural religion," or deism, and it is deemed acceptable to the ways of reason. Kant, however, proclaims that God cannot be proved by examining any kind of design in the world, but that we know the possibility that God exists through "morally compelling reasons." Other than this, Rousseau and Kant share the same view of organized religion, and it is mostly negative, as they saw the Church imposing morals on the masses when they should be determined by the individual.
Immanuel Kant's writings are a distinct component of the Enlightenment. You may even say that Kant was a vague summary of the past century, as Kant's main work was published in the late eighteenth century and they drew many influences from many of the more notable philosophers of the past hundred years. And yet, Kant made his own distinction on each of the various ideas he was influenced by, thereby making him one of the most important thinkers of this progressive century.
The Ideas Of Immanuel Kant
Ethics And Society
"Religion through its sanctity, and law-giving through its majesty, may seek to exempt themselves from criticism. But they then awaken just suspicion, and cannot claim the sincere respect which reason accords only to that which has been able to sustain the test of free and open examination." (The Critique of Pure Reason, 1781)
Very much akin to the Englishman Thomas Hobbes, who wrote the incredibly influential Leviathan..., Kant recommended that we think of what life would be like in the original state of nature. This would be an anarchistic "society," where there was no governmental regulation, and where there were no constraints on how the individuals pursued the things they desired. However, in contrast to the sheer authoritarianism of Hobbes, Kant believed in a more liberal state, where both the powers of the government and the people of society should be limited in his modified social contract. He thought of citizenship as a task one should be constantly working at.
More similar to Aristotle than Hobbes now, Kant argued that the chief characteristic of a good state was one of justice, and that justice was not guaranteed by absolute power of the government. Kant proposed that the motivation for the citizens to submit to civil authority must be moral in nature. Kant's solution to the ever conflicting religions and cultures was a principle of legislation, soley based on reason, which he termed the "Universal Principle of Justice." This principle essentially demands that we behave so that our choices are most compatible with the greatest amount of external freedom for all in society. Kant professed that the only way to uphold these moral obligations of the people was in reason alone, not the church, which too oft revealed its tyranny; not the king, who usually displayed his own desires in societal matters; and not the people, as they were of many different interests and these would inevitably conflict with one another. Kant thought that the people are bound by common moral thinking, and this rationalization would allow them all to agree with his Universal Principle of Justice, and thus create a stable society without restricting the freedoms of the people.
According to Kant's theory on politics, the three main types of government are addressed and evaluated. The first one, that of the autocratic government, is seen by Kant as the most efficient, and the simplest, but it is also the most perilous, as there is great risk of the termination of the freedoms of the people. Kant ranks democracy as the lowest form of government, as it is the most complex, and thereby most inefficient. The third type of government is to be preferred, saying that whichever state adopts a republican constitution is superior, as "the law is anonymous and is not annexed to any particular person." He saw in this state a dynamic one, calling only for the right amount of governmental power according to the nation's needs.
This principle being universal, Justice must not then discriminate between various peoples of different cultural and religious backgrounds, no matter their special needs or particularities. This is in stark opposition to a view most popular today: pluralism, a view believing that the great diversity that makes up society is more important than the moral unity of the whole of society. Justice should apply to everyone with a blindfold over its eyes, says Kant, without regard for religion, race, sex or national origin. Kant argued that cultural diversity is perilous to the state, that these laws of plurality would not give equal treatment to all members of society. He warned that these will soon turn into dangerous generalities, with all sorts of exceptions made for special interests groups who think they are deserving of various advantages under the law.
"Everything in nature works in accordance with laws. Only a rational being has the power to act in accordance with his own idea of laws - that is, in accordance with principles - and only so has he a will." (Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals)
Kant created his own idea of the ultimate norm, and he called it the "Categorical Imperative." Although there can only ever be one norm, Kant offers us three different versions of it, or formulas, each with its own distinct emphasis. It is well-known that he prefers the first, for its formality, but he felt that alternate wordings of it might make his idea more easily understood by his readers. The Categorical Imperative goes as follows:
Formula 1 - The Formula of Autonomy, or of Universal Law: "I ought never to act in such a way that I could not also will that my maxim should be a universal law."
Formula 2 - The Formula of Respect for the Dignity of Persons: "Act so that you can treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of any other, always as an end and never as a means only."
Formula 3 - The Formula of Legislation for a Moral Community: "All maxims that proceed from our own making of law ought to harmonize with a possible kingdom of ends as a kingdom of nature."
Kant wrote that we usually face two problems in our moral life; the first: deciding what the right moral policies are; and the second: having the moral strength to observe them. This was the cultivation of a sufficiently good character. "Duty is plain of itself to everyone, even to those of the commonest intelligence."
Kant claimed that nothing is superior to morally good character. One supporting argument he used for this was that everything else we consider good can be used immorally; even happiness can tempt a person to act in a morally careless way, and we do not usually think of a person leading an immoral life as one who deserves his happiness. Further in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant asks three questions, and he call each of his answer to these his "propositions."
The first question: What makes a person morally good? Kant proposes that when we act, there is always a higher goal in mind. The one thing that we can do is form the goals and intentions in mind, and this makes the success or failure of these goals irrelevant to the person's moral character. Kant believes these intentions are genuine, as they involve the full might of the individual in his attempts to attain them.
The second question was: What kind of intention makes a person morally good? Kant here gives us a distinction between two very different kinds of motives: the desire for happiness and the motive of dutifulness. To maintain a morally good intention, one must act from the motive of duty. To support this, Kant wrote that people do not think that someone desiring happiness is one who also has or achieves moral goodness. Morality always shows itself in the form of duty, our obligation, what we ought or ought not to do. There were no moral philosophers before Kant who placed such heavy emphasis on the notion of duty.
The third question was: What does it mean for a person to intent to act "from duty"? Kant answers: to resolve to do whatever the moral law sets out for you to do, out of respect for the law. The primary moral motivation is not any desire to satisfy our wants, but maintaining such a strong regard for moral requirements as to be willing to suppress any desires we may have. Once again, the chief motive for moral quality is felt by one who has a law-abiding disposition of respect for, and a submissive obedience to, the Categorical Imperative.
Kant's ethics were primarily based on one's sense of duty to the community and the state, and will thusly treat everyone with proper morality in respect to this duty. Therefore, Kant saw no need for any despotic government showing force, for the people are rational, and will keep a generally moral society on their own.
Freedom
"Freedom is only an idea of reason whose objective reality is in itself questionable."
Kant refuses to believe that freedom could be proven to be something actual and objective. "We assume that we are free so that we may think of ourselves as subject to moral laws," and we "think of ourselves as subject to moral laws because we have attributed to ourselves freedom of the will." Therefore, Kant states that it is a cyclic pattern, and that it is necessary for our concepts both on morality and freedom.
Critique Of Pure Reason
"There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience."
In his introduction to the famed Critique of Pure Reason, the first edition being published in 1871, Kant makes the distinction between pure and empirical knowledge. He asserts that though all knowledge begins with experience, not all that follows comes from experience. He supports this by stating that, "even our empirical knowledge is made up of what we receive through impressions and of what our own faculty of knowledge supplies from itself." Kant calls for an answer to the question of whether there is any knowledge independent of our experiences and impressions of the senses. The sensational knowledge, that free of experience, is termed as a priori, and the empirical knowledge is termed as a posteriori. Kant proposes that a priori modes of knowledge are pure when there is no mixture with anything empirical.
Kant says that it is very possible to show that pure a priori principles are indispensable for the possibility of experience. He supports this by asking the question: From where could experience attain its certainty, if all the rules were always empirical? He then asserts that our faculty of knowledge is of pure employment, and that we should be content with this fact.
Kant ever believed that reason is that which directly connects us to those which are things in-themselves. He disallows any kind of speculative inquiry of the metaphysical variety, as practiced by the rationalists, since reason alone does not determine any positive content of knowledge. Physical sensation and the sense of moral duty are those which allow us to more greatly perceive phenomenal objects, certainly more greatly than reason ever could.
The origin of an a priori is materialized in certain concepts. Even if we take away all empirical concept of a form, every feature in it which is empirical, there still remains the space which the body formerly occupied, and this cannot be removed. Furthermore, if we strip all empirical conception from any object, no matter its corporeality, we still cannot remove the property through which the object is thought of as substance. This is because of the concept of substance; forced upon us, it mandates that we have no other option but to conclude that this is firmly a priori knowledge.
Also in this huge book of rational theory, Kant makes an attempt to demonstrate causality. Everything that happens, Kant wrote, presupposes something that follows, as a rule. Kant thought the principle of causality necessary for the mind to determine the logic of the temporal irreversibility of particular sequences of impressions. This temporal order can be seen as if an objective event, but only if the later happening is to be determined by the earlier one. Kant identified causality with the doctrines of natural law, where the causal sequences of events are the lawful sequences of events.
The Copernican Revolution - The Synthesis
Kant was extremely well-regarded for his novel theory known as the "Copernican Revolution," as found in Critique of Pure Reason. In this thought process, Kant synthesizes rationalism and empiricism, both schools of thought with very long and very imperative histories, into one theory. In order to understand Kant's fusion of these ideas, it is important to understand both rationalism and empiricism.
Rationalism was the theory that was largely initiated by Plato, and then followed long after by such thinkers as Rene Descartes, Baruch de Spinoza and Gottfried Leibniz. Rationalism holds that there are innate ideas within us all, such as the concepts of identity and self. It also teaches that we are not to trust the senses, reason alone can provide knowledge, and that moral notions are true in an objective standard outside of self; in God, for example.
Kant tends to agree with the rationalists in their assumptions of innate ideas and the moral notion truism in an objective standard, but he also directly refutes both the rationalists' ideas of distrusting the senses and their claim that reason is the sole source for knowledge.
Empiricism is the theory mostly commenced by Aristotle, and much later succeeded by John Locke, George Berkeley and David Hume. Empiricism maintains the notion that senses are the primary source for knowledge (psychological atomism); that mathematics, held so dear by the rationalists, gives no knowledge of the world; there are no innate ideas, that complex ideas are abstracted from simple ones; that no sensations support the idea of mandatory connections between causes and effects, and nor do they support the idea of a future resembling the past.
Kant is inclined to agree with the empiricists on the claim that senses are the primary source for knowledge, and with their rejection of rationalistic mathematics, but disagrees with everything else.
Kant argues his Copernican Revolution, his synthesis of these two theories, by presenting various points against each of them. Kant assures us that the human mind is more limited than Descartes or Hume will have it, telling us it can only experience and imagine only within constraints. He informs us of the necessity of the distinction between the two worlds of our reality. The first world is the phenomenal, the apparent, and the second world is the noumenal, the real.
Kant concludes that empiricism is much more applicable in relations to the phenomenal world, as this is the world that is observable, describable by the sciences and known to the senses. But if God, liberty, and values exist, they must be noumenal and thereby unknowable by conventional practise.
Transcendence
Kant's transcendental philosophy is completely free of any kind of factual evidence; it is our ordinary experiences that lead us to conclusions about the real world. Kant's idea of philosophy is to understand these things, to explain how they are possible. "All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason." Transcendental philosophy does not rely on the corporeal elements, but only on self-sufficiency.
Within Kant's transcentental philosophy, there are two positions that are possible. The first is transcendental realism, and the second is transcendental idealism.
Transcendental realism is the structure of logical space. It is easiest to think of these things as objects. There is one object that is called the fundamental one, and all others are dependent on it, and is most often definable by an eventual reference to it. However, all a transcendental realist can do by way of defining the objects is providing synonyms. Any other kind of description of an object cannot be managaed by transcendental realism.
Transcendental idealism is the structuring of logical space that inherits the idea of representation to be fundamental and, just as with the objects, every other concept is to be dependent on it. Transcendental idealism means the knowledge of objects that are dependent on one's existence, but independent of one's experience. The soul is a good example of a representation structured by transcendental idealism.
The things-in-themselves, the noumena, are impossible to realize as we can only know our sense-impressions, or phenomena, that are only ours to use through the constraints to which the human mind is subject. Since knowledge depends on the structure of the mind and not on the world, knowledge may very well not even be a correct representation of what the world really is. It is our intuitions that determine the subjectivity of the objects. However, Kant asserts that we have the ability to know about Appearances. He supports this by saying that we would have no consciousness of ourselves were it not for this ability.
Therefore, according to this Kantian philosophy, we are assured that the representations, those ideas which our thinking mind percieves and then concludes into something concrete, must be more important than the objects themselves, for the mind is eternal, yet dynamic, and the objects only exist according to our perception. In this way is our mind connected with reality, as they are both infinite and everlasting, and the objects are neither connected with reality, and therefore are not eternal but temporary. All this proves the imperative concept of parallelism.
As well as denouncing following metaphysical pursuits as illegitimate, Kant warns against making synthetic a priori judgments of things that transcend all possible experience. Furthermore, any attempts to make claims of knowledge of the non-sensible objects of metaphysics, such as God and the soul, will inevitable lead reason into illusion, and will also contradict other knowledge claims. However, although there cannot be such stark claims of knowledgable objectivity, Kant tells us that we can continue our ideas of these non-sensible objects so that our search for exceptional knowledge in theoretical pursuits, and also the complete good in our moral pursuits.
Kant's transcendental philosophy enables us to be aware of all our empirical knowledge, and thus find truth in our ideas of the representations. Transcendence is an essential tool of liberty. By clearing away the pre-concieved notions of how the world works and how we are supposed to live our lives, we may actually discover within our transcendent state something new and original and beneficial, potentially, to anyone. But, perhaps more importantly, transcendence is also significant in the act of transcendence in itself; by detaching the self from all things material and all things mortal, we accomplish the ultimate goal of any individual, that of transcendence.
Immanuel Kant - A CORRUPT Perspective
"It is not necessary that whilst I live I live happily; but it is necessary that so long as I live I should live honourably."
Immanuel Kant was an important figure of the Enlightenment, a philosophical movement that is commonly rejected by the Corrupt organization for its various humanistic and liberal trends and insecure ideas. It is for this reason that some of Kant's thoughts (his optimism for moral, rational masses, for example) come at odds with those of the organization.
However, Kant was different from others of the Enlightenment. He placed duty to society even above freedom, for example, and he was not just a another mathematically-minded rationalist like many of his peers, but a philosopher who transcended common ideas of his contemporaries and formed his own, though often influenced by others.
But what else seperated Kant from his peers of the Enlightenment? Well, you can easily spot a sort of proto-romanticism in Kant's teachings. He asserts in the very first chapter of Critique of Pure Reason, for example, the apparent importance of the transcendental aesthetic. In this does Kant strip away all human conception except that which is affected by sensibility, which is therefore isolated. Kant then seperated all that is sensation, so that we are left only with an intuition that is pure and the primitive form of appearances. This is revolutionary for its time, and connects to the romanticism in the nineteenth century through its celebration of our better perception and love of true beauty; those things which are eternal and infallible to misconception, because of their perpetuity. Instead of some of the philosophers of the Enlightenment, like Voltaire and those influenced by Descartes' and Liebniz' rationalism, Kant realised subjectivity, and this, in part, led to the romanticism of the nineteenth century.
The two obvious subsequent philosophers of Kant, while entirely revolutionary in their own way, were Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche, two Germans who are critical to the Corruptian perspective. Schopenhauer built on Kant's ideal of the "thing-in-itself," placing these objects of "reality" in alignment with those of experience. He also elaborated on Kant's aestheticism, ranking beauty even more highly than did Kant. Nietzsche took subjectivity to another level: he solidified cultural relativism. There are no genuine morals, for they are merely perceptions of human intent and not at all objective. In this way did Nietzsche erase Kant's moral fanaticism. Nevertheless, Nietzsche was indeed greatly affected by Kant's teaching on subjectivity, and we all benefit from both of their production of thought.
Transcendence is a key concept of the Corrupt organization, as it is the ultimate goal for the enlightened individual. The transcendent spirit does not bother with the common opinions, but with what is real. By removing himself from the supposed axioms of society and coming to terms with reality, the man becomes transcendent, free of any kind of social parameters that can only restrict natural essence. This is Kant's most notable idea, and he is widely celebrated for it and its influence.
As a man, Kant was widely respected and loved in his community. In his earlier years he was, contrary to common misconceptions, prone to a somewhat gregarious lifestyle, attending numerous social events on a fairly regular basis. However, later in life, when he was friends with the merchant of England, Joseph Green, Kant took on a more strict, disciplined lifestyle. Immanuel's poetry was very well admired, though handwritten manuscripts stayed with his friends and did not go beyond to any mainstream publisher during his lifetime. Peaceful and resolute, Immanuel Kant was a devoted friend and an excellent example of a good member of the community.
Finally, Kant asks us to think for ourselves and to avoid the delusional. We are to determine the truth of the matter using our reason and the senses, and then follow it to wherever it may lead us. Kant recognizes that there are many shadowy paths available for us to take, but he knows that true reason will always enable you to make the correct choice in selecting a journey that leads to transcendence, making an indelible mark on the face of timeless history. And so, my companions, take heed of your natural solidarity and utilize your mind to shatter the illusion - maybe then, when you have come to utter your last words on the throne that has become your deathbed, maybe then will those words be, "It is good."
Written by Joel Meyer