Kant is not clear. I refuse to accept it. Lately I've been going over his political writings, which are clearer than others, but he still often clouds what he means almost deliberately.
I propose we settle this question like men of honour: With a Kant-off to the second blood, at dawn tomorrow. The choice of passages is, of course, up to you, but I guarantee I shall be able to show that he wastes neither his breath nor his reader's time.
Awwhh, this means I'm gonna have to look through his stuff again, doesn't it? I daren't use his political writings, as (as previously mentioned) they are less obscure than the rest...but they're the only ones I have at hand. One second, I'm going to go visit the gunsmith and see if he has any new dueling guns in.
His Critique of Pure Reason is online, it seems, so I went to a random page and copied the first paragraph that didn't look like it relied too heavily on surrounding paragraphs.
The proposition "I think," or "I exist thinking," is an empirical proposition.
But such a proposition is grounded on empirical intuition, consequently
also on the object thought, as an appearance; and thus it
seems as if, according to our theory, the whole, even in thinking, is
completely transformed into appearance, and in such a way our consciousness
itself, as mere illusion, would in fact come down to nothing.o
Thinking, taken in itself,b is merely the logical function and hence
the sheer spontaneity of combining the manifold of a merely possible
intuition; and in no way does it present the subject of consciousness as
B 429 appearance, merely because it takes no account at all of the kind of intuition,
whether it is sensible or intellectual. In this way I represent myself
to myself neither as I am nor as I appear to myself, but rather I think
myself only as I do every objectd in general from whose kind of intuition
I abstract. If here I represent myself as subject of a thought or even as
ground of thinking, then these ways of representing do not signify the
categories of substance or cause, for these categories are those functions
of thinking (of judging) applied to our sensible intuition, which would
obviously be demanded if I wanted to cognize myself. But now I want
to become conscious of myself only as thinking; I put to one side how
my proper self is given in intuition, and then it could be a mere appearance
that I think, but not insofar as I think; in the consciousness of
myself in mere thinking I am the being itself, about which, however,
nothing yet is thereby given to me for thinking.
Also, I do find it interesting how Schopenhauer went for his throat:
“Because of his style which was obscure, Kant was properly understood by exceedingly few. And it is as if all the philosophical writers, who since Kant had had some success, had devoted themselves to writing still more unintelligibly than Kant.
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Topic: The small random questions thread [WAAAAAAAAAAluigi] (Read 673810 times)