| Topic: |
Science > Philosophy |
| User: |
"Malrassic Park" |
| Date: |
26 Feb 2007 11:54:17 AM |
| Object: |
Was Kant an Idealist? |
Prolegomena, §13 Remark 2.
"That without calling in question the existence of external things, it
may be said of a number of their predicates that they do not belong to
the things in themselves, but only to their phenomena, and have no
self-existence outside our [re]presentation, is what had been
generally accepted and admitted long before Locke’s time, but more
than ever since then. To these belong heat, colour, taste, &c. No one
can adduce the least ground for saying that it is inadmissible on my
part, when for important reasons I count in addition the remaining
qualities of bodies called primarias, such as extension, place, and
more especially space, together with what is dependent thereon
(impenetrability or materiality, figure, &c.) amongst the number of
these phenomena. And just as little as the man who will not admit
colours to be properties of the object in itself, but only to pertain
as modifications to the sense of sight, is on that account called an
idealist, so little can my conception be termed idealistic because I
find in addition that all properties which make up the intuition of a
body belong merely to its appearance. For the existence of a thing,
which appears, is not thereby abolished as with real idealism, but it
is only shown that we cannot cognise it, as it is in itself, through
the senses."
(Written as "presentation" in the source quoted, but various
commentators waver between interpretations, and the word
"representation" is more commonly used, in my opinion.)
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| User: "Immortalist" |
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| Title: Re: Was Kant an Idealist? |
26 Feb 2007 03:16:01 PM |
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On Feb 26, 9:54 am, Malrassic Park <Malen...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Prolegomena, =A713 Remark 2.
"That without calling in question the existence of external things, it
may be said of a number of their predicates that they do not belong to
the things in themselves, but only to their phenomena, and have no
self-existence outside our [re]presentation, is what had been
generally accepted and admitted long before Locke's time, but more
than ever since then. To these belong heat, colour, taste, &c. No one
can adduce the least ground for saying that it is inadmissible on my
part, when for important reasons I count in addition the remaining
qualities of bodies called primarias, such as extension, place, and
more especially space, together with what is dependent thereon
(impenetrability or materiality, figure, &c.) amongst the number of
these phenomena. And just as little as the man who will not admit
colours to be properties of the object in itself, but only to pertain
as modifications to the sense of sight, is on that account called an
idealist, so little can my conception be termed idealistic because I
find in addition that all properties which make up the intuition of a
body belong merely to its appearance. For the existence of a thing,
which appears, is not thereby abolished as with real idealism, but it
is only shown that we cannot cognise it, as it is in itself, through
the senses."
(Written as "presentation" in the source quoted, but various
commentators waver between interpretations, and the word
"representation" is more commonly used, in my opinion.)
Transcendental idealism is a doctrine founded by 18th-century German
philosopher Immanuel Kant. Kant presents it as the point of view which
holds that our experience of things is about how they appear to us,
not about those things as they are in and of themselves.
..=2E.Kant distinguished his view from contemporary views of realism and
idealism, but philosophers are not agreed upon what difference Kant
draws...
Transcendental idealism is occasionally identified with formalistic
idealism on the basis of passages from Kant's Prolegomena to any
Future Metaphysics, although recent research has tended to dispute
this identification. Transcendental idealism was also adopted as a
label by Fichte and Schelling and reclaimed in the 20th century in a
different manner by Husserl.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendental_idealism
http://www.london-oratory.org/philosophy/philosophies/epistemology/trancend=
ental/body_trancendental.html
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| User: "Tidings" |
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| Title: Re: Was Kant an Idealist? |
26 Feb 2007 11:02:05 PM |
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The scientific or secular idealists of the early 20th century rejected
Kant's noumena as an "empty" type of materialism, even trying to label
some Marxist materialists as "Kantians". Contemptuous of these
phenomenalists because they were trying to pass-off an old idea
(Berkeley's) as something new in philosophy of science, Lenin
described their accusations in his "Materialism and Empirio-
Criticism":
"The materialists lapse into *Kantianism* (Plekhanov, by recognising
the existence of *things-in-themselves,* i.e., things outside of our
consciousness); they *double* the world and preach "*dualism,* for the
materialists hold that beyond the appearance there is the thing-in-
itself; beyond the immediate sense data there is something else, some
fetish, an *idol,* an absolute, a source of *metaphysics,* a double of
religion (*holy matter,* as Bazarov says). Such are the arguments
levelled by the Machians against materialism, as repeated and retold
in varying keys by the afore-mentioned writers."
Kant does sound like what we might today call an "empty materialist"
in another section of the Prolegomena, "How is pure mathematics
possible?". He even mentions the influence of external bodies upon
human experience, even though he had excluded causation from the
noumenal world:
"Consequently I grant by all means that there are bodies without us,
that is, things which, though quite unknown to us as to what they are
in themselves, we yet know by the representations which their
influence on our sensibility procures us, and which we call bodies, a
term signifying merely the appearance of the thing which is unknown to
us, but not therefore less actual. Can this be termed idealism? It is
the very contrary."
He distinguishes his "idealism" from the mystical kind in the "On What
Can Be Done To Make Metaphysics As A Science Actual" section:
"Idealism proper always has a mystical tendency, and can have no
other, but mine is solely designed for the purpose of comprehending
the possibility of our cognition a priori as to objects of experience,
which is a problem never hitherto solved or even suggested. In this
way all mystical idealism falls to the ground, for (as may be seen
already in Plato) it inferred from our cognitions a priori (even from
those of geometry) another intuition different from that of the senses
(namely, an intellectual intuition), because it never occurred to any
one that the senses themselves might intuit a priori."
The whole spirit of "Prolegomena To Any Future Metaphysics" seems like
an attempt to straighten-out some of the reviewers of the early 1780s
who had erroneously regarded the "Critique of Pure Reason" as an
extension of Berkeley's philosophy. As Lenin finally pointed-out in
1908, perhaps part of the confusion resulted from Berkeley being the
one who originally coined (an English version) of "things-in-
themselves", in which he was referring to the "vulgar materialism" his
idealism was against.
Malrassic Park wrote:
Prolegomena, =A713 Remark 2.
"That without calling in question the existence of external things, it
may be said of a number of their predicates that they do not belong to
the things in themselves, but only to their phenomena, and have no
self-existence outside our [re]presentation, is what had been
generally accepted and admitted long before Locke's time, but more
than ever since then. To these belong heat, colour, taste, &c. No one
can adduce the least ground for saying that it is inadmissible on my
part, when for important reasons I count in addition the remaining
qualities of bodies called primarias, such as extension, place, and
more especially space, together with what is dependent thereon
(impenetrability or materiality, figure, &c.) amongst the number of
these phenomena. And just as little as the man who will not admit
colours to be properties of the object in itself, but only to pertain
as modifications to the sense of sight, is on that account called an
idealist, so little can my conception be termed idealistic because I
find in addition that all properties which make up the intuition of a
body belong merely to its appearance. For the existence of a thing,
which appears, is not thereby abolished as with real idealism, but it
is only shown that we cannot cognise it, as it is in itself, through
the senses."
(Written as "presentation" in the source quoted, but various
commentators waver between interpretations, and the word
"representation" is more commonly used, in my opinion.)
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| User: "Malrassic Park" |
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| Title: Re: Was Kant an Idealist? |
26 Feb 2007 11:34:59 PM |
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On 26 Feb 2007 21:02:05 -0800, "Tidings" <drksn_brbr@yahoo.com> wrote:
Kant does sound like what we might today call an "empty materialist"
in another section of the Prolegomena, "How is pure mathematics
possible?". He even mentions the influence of external bodies upon
human experience, even though he had excluded causation from the
noumenal world:
Obviously, then, he has not excluded causation from it or any world.
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| User: "Tidings" |
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| Title: Re: Was Kant an Idealist? |
26 Feb 2007 11:06:28 PM |
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The scientific or secular idealists of the early 20th century rejected
Kant's noumena as an "empty" type of materialism, even trying to label
some Marxist materialists as "Kantians". Contemptuous of these
phenomenalists because they were trying to pass-off an old idea
(Berkeley's) as something new in philosophy of science, Lenin
described their accusations in his "Materialism and Empirio-
Criticism":
"The materialists lapse into *Kantianism* (Plekhanov, by recognising
the existence of *things-in-themselves,* i.e., things outside of our
consciousness); they *double* the world and preach "*dualism,* for the
materialists hold that beyond the appearance there is the thing-in-
itself; beyond the immediate sense data there is something else, some
fetish, an *idol,* an absolute, a source of *metaphysics,* a double of
religion (*holy matter,* as Bazarov says). Such are the arguments
levelled by the Machians against materialism, as repeated and retold
in varying keys by the afore-mentioned writers."
Kant does sound like what we might today call an "empty materialist"
in another section of the Prolegomena, "How is pure mathematics
possible?". He even mentions the influence of external bodies upon
human experience, even though he had excluded causation from the
noumenal world:
"Consequently I grant by all means that there are bodies without us,
that is, things which, though quite unknown to us as to what they are
in themselves, we yet know by the representations which their
influence on our sensibility procures us, and which we call bodies, a
term signifying merely the appearance of the thing which is unknown to
us, but not therefore less actual. Can this be termed idealism? It is
the very contrary."
He distinguishes his "idealism" from the mystical kind in the "On What
Can Be Done To Make Metaphysics As A Science Actual" section:
"Idealism proper always has a mystical tendency, and can have no
other, but mine is solely designed for the purpose of comprehending
the possibility of our cognition a priori as to objects of experience,
which is a problem never hitherto solved or even suggested. In this
way all mystical idealism falls to the ground, for (as may be seen
already in Plato) it inferred from our cognitions a priori (even from
those of geometry) another intuition different from that of the senses
(namely, an intellectual intuition), because it never occurred to any
one that the senses themselves might intuit a priori."
The whole spirit of "Prolegomena To Any Future Metaphysics" seems like
an attempt to straighten-out some of the reviewers of the early 1780s
who had erroneously regarded the "Critique of Pure Reason" as an
extension of Berkeley's philosophy. As Lenin finally pointed-out in
1908, perhaps part of the confusion resulted from Berkeley being the
one who originally coined (an English version) of "things-in-
themselves", in which he was referring to the "vulgar materialism" his
idealism was against.
Malrassic Park wrote:
Prolegomena, =A713 Remark 2.
"That without calling in question the existence of external things, it
may be said of a number of their predicates that they do not belong to
the things in themselves, but only to their phenomena, and have no
self-existence outside our [re]presentation, is what had been
generally accepted and admitted long before Locke's time, but more
than ever since then. To these belong heat, colour, taste, &c. No one
can adduce the least ground for saying that it is inadmissible on my
part, when for important reasons I count in addition the remaining
qualities of bodies called primarias, such as extension, place, and
more especially space, together with what is dependent thereon
(impenetrability or materiality, figure, &c.) amongst the number of
these phenomena. And just as little as the man who will not admit
colours to be properties of the object in itself, but only to pertain
as modifications to the sense of sight, is on that account called an
idealist, so little can my conception be termed idealistic because I
find in addition that all properties which make up the intuition of a
body belong merely to its appearance. For the existence of a thing,
which appears, is not thereby abolished as with real idealism, but it
is only shown that we cannot cognise it, as it is in itself, through
the senses."
(Written as "presentation" in the source quoted, but various
commentators waver between interpretations, and the word
"representation" is more commonly used, in my opinion.)
.
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