Category: Kant
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On Anselmian or ‘Perfect Being’ Theology
Tom O. writes, I was wondering if you have time to weigh in on the following problem. I take it you subscribe to perfect being theology as a constraint on our theorizing about God’s nature. For example, you write, “God is the absolute, and no absolute worth its salt is a contingent being. No absolute just…
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How Could God be Ineffable?
The mystically inclined say that God is ineffable. The ineffable is the inexpressible, the unspeakable. Merriam-Webster: Ineffable comes from ineffābilis, which joins the prefix in-, meaning "not," with the adjective effābilis, meaning "capable of being expressed." Effābilis comes from effārī, "to speak out," which in turn comes from ex- and fārī, meaning “to speak.” But: "What we cannot speak about we must pass over in…
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The Scariest Passage in Kant
Substack latest. With Halloween upon us, it is appropriate that I should present to my esteemed readers for their delectation if not horror the scariest passage in Kant's magnum opus:
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Dem-Fems for Kamala
Miranda Devine: As polls show America’s young men are lurching rightward at a rapid pace, the Democratic brand has finally evolved into the party of scolding shrews, nagging Karens and “preachy females,” as Dem dinosaur James Carville calls them. Its image is tied to a type of unserious, self-involved, neurotic, dogmatic Dem-fem who insists on telling…
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Ayn Rand’s Misunderstanding of Kant
Substack latest. The piece ends: So I persist in my view that Rand is a hack, and that this is part of the explanation of why many professional philosophers accord her little respect. That being said, I'll take Rand over a leftist any day.
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Ultra posse nemo obligatur
Ought implies can. Not first with Kant!
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Rise and Shine
I quit the bed of sloth at two this morning. I slept in a bit. But I understand that not everyone prefers the monkish life. Kant arose at five. It's now 5:30 or so. Rise and shine with Manny! Or at least with Boston. If this '70s tune doesn't get you bangin' on all eight,…
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Back to Kant! The Aporetics of Appearance
Ed Buckner writes and I respond in blue: 1) The expression “this table” refers to something, i.e. has a referent. BV: Yes. 2) What it refers to is extended in space and persists through time. BV: No doubt. (1) and (2) are 'datanic claims' in my terminology. They simply must be accommodated by any theory…
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Kant on Suicide
Substack latest, with quotations from the forgotten Paul Ludwig Landsberg.
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Spherical Triangles as Incongruent Counterparts?
Over the last 24 hours I have been obsessing over Kant's spherical triangles. He claims that they are incongruent counterparts. Now I understand how a hand and its mirror image are incongruent counterparts. (A right hand's mirror image is a left hand.) But it is not clear to me how Kant's spherical triangles are incongruent…
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Kant, Spherical Triangles, and Incongruent Counterparts
Buckner demands an argument from incongruent counterparts to the ideality of space. But before we get to that, I am having trouble understanding how the 'spherical triangles' Kant mentions in the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, sec. 13, are incongruent counterparts. Perhaps my powers of visualization are weak. Maybe someone can help me. I understand…
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Notes on Idealism, Realism, Frege, and Prichard
Ed Buckner sent me a pdf the first couple pages of which I reproduce below. Bibliographical data here. Emphases added. My commentary is in blue. ……………………………………. Twentieth Century Oxford Realism Mark Eli Kalderon and Charles Travis 1 Introduction This is a story of roughly a century of Oxford philosophy told by two outsiders.Neither of us…
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Against H. A. Prichard and the ‘Standard Picture’ of Kant
In an earlier post, drawing on the work of Henry E. Allison, I wrote: The standard picture opens Kant to the devastating objection that by limiting knowledge to appearances construed as mental contents he makes knowledge impossible when his stated aim is to justify the objective knowledge of nature and oppose Humean skepticism. Allison reports…
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Guest Post: Buckner on Prichard on Kant
PRICHARD ON KANT: IN DEFENCE OF THE ANGLOSPHERE D.E. Buckner Bill Vallicella discusses here the ‘standard picture’ of Kant ’s transcendental idealism as a theory that affirms the unknowability of the ‘real’ (things in themselves) and relegates knowledge to the purely subjective realm of representations (appearances), adding that “P. F. Strawson and H. A. Prichard…