Over at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, a new entry on "Kant and Hume on Causality" was just posted. It is written by Graciela De Pierris and Michael Friedman, who is well known for his work on Kant and the sciences.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Everything depends on what Kant meant by the name "Category" and the name "Pure Concept of the Understanding." It seems to me that these words are misunderstood, as is much else regarding Kant's Idealism.
Dear Anon,
Not sure what you are getting at or what you mean by "everything", but I grant that those are important concepts in Kant that should properly be understood.
Causality is, for Kant, a Category. But what is a Category? Is it a way that the mind organizes sensations? Is it a mental "principle" that results in perception? If so, then it is associated with intuitive perception. Is it merely a predicate of an object in general? If so, then it is associated with language.
Kant's Idealism is misunderstood by many readers because they can't seem to comprehend that the objects we experience, according to Kant, are only appearances and phenomena. Other than being such, we cannot know anything about what is appearing to a spectator.
Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel rejected Kant's doctrine because they could not tolerate Kant's dismissal of the concept of God. Therefore they created (posited) their versions of the Absolute Spirit. In so doing, they distorted Kant's teachings regarding Understanding and Reason. As a result, Kant's doctrine has not been comprehended by subsequent generations of readers.
Hume considers Newton's second law of motion (F = ma) in the Enquiry, section 4, part 1 (EHU 4.13; SBN 31): “Thus, it is a law of motion, discovered by experience, that the moment or force of any body in motion is in the compound ratio or proportion of its solid contents and its velocity … . Geometry assists us in the application of this law … ; but still the discovery of the law itself is owing merely to experience, and all the abstract reasonings in the world could never lead us one step towards the knowledge of it.”
Serious check, Herr Doktor Kant
Post a Comment