tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post4914715087348092401..comments2024-03-29T03:19:09.227-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: READING THE CRITIQUE PART THIRTEENRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-35206995398900169742011-08-12T15:05:14.841-04:002011-08-12T15:05:14.841-04:00"Serious" might be too generous. I'v..."Serious" might be too generous. I've read the entire First Critique, which I suppose is more than can be said for a lot of people. But I'm hardly an expert on it. And when it comes to his ethics, I'm even weaker, so I'm looking forward to that part of the tutorial.<br /><br />I've been thinking for a while that a thread running through most of the history of philosophy involves trying to say what can't (almost wrote "kan't") be said. <br /><br />You see it in Plato when he describes the Good as "beyond being," it comes up in medieval negative theology (in all three monotheistic traditions), you see it in Kant, and it shows up again in the 20th Century in a few places:<br />(1) the early Wittgenstein, particularly near the end of the <i>Tractatus</i>,<br /><br />(2) the classical criticism of the verificationist criterion of meaning, viz., that by its own lights the criterion is meaningless, and<br /><br />(3) in mathematics, via Gödel's incompleteness results, Tarski's proof that arithmetic truth can't be defined within arithmetic, etc. (This one would require some technical clarification if it were to be spelled out in detail.)Michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12922719871297540449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-3341658447222055382011-08-12T14:16:28.383-04:002011-08-12T14:16:28.383-04:00You are obviously a serious student of Kant. When...You are obviously a serious student of Kant. When I finally get to talk about kant's ethical theory, I will go into greater detail about the problems of trying to talk about things in themselves while also saying one cannot. There is a curious parallel here with medieval struggles with trying to talk about God while saying that because He is compeletely unlike created things, none of our terms truly apply to him. There was some fascinating stuff about "infinite" as meaning "unlike the finite" as opposed to "like the finite only limitless" and so forth.Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-45850546103901692612011-08-12T12:52:46.642-04:002011-08-12T12:52:46.642-04:00Wow! Lots of good stuff here.
1) I've always ...Wow! Lots of good stuff here.<br /><br />1) I've always thought the quasi-causal way Kant talks about things-in-themselves affecting our sensibility is a real problem for him (for exactly the reason you describe, viz., that cause/effect is a category that applies only to experience). Indeed, talk about thing<b>s</b>-in-themselves is itself problematic, since plurality is also one of the categories. If I'm not mistaken, this is one of the worries that led the later German idealists to try to do away with the notion of a thing-in-itself.<br /><br />2) I've always liked Kant's reason for not including examples in the First Critique. To paraphrase, "Examples would only make this already too-long book longer."<br /><br />3) It's amazing how influential Kant was with mathematicians in the late 19th Century. Cantor characterizes a set as something like "A multiplicity held together as a unity in the mind." (Again, I'm paraphrasing from memory.) I may have to look into this some more.Michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12922719871297540449noreply@blogger.com