Friends
the time has come
I'm doing it https://twitter.com/sargoth/status/1241602326625947649
it's 22 hours and 40 minutes long
*buckles up*
it thus falls into confusions and misconceptions
I stan the Queen of Metaphysics
when I write forewords, I will also include an extended passage proclaiming that I have solved metaphysics
'while this introduction might sound boastful, compare me to these other, albeit unnamed, dogmatists whomst are even more boastful'
yes
good
'what I've said thus far might be misconstrued as an opinion. it is, however, a fact'
what even is happening in this foreword
a system of speculative cognition
'this is an obstruse book. it will require the cooperation of the reader to divulge its secrets'
philosophers
always saying the quiet part out loud
smdh
when in doubt, include a second foreword detailing the history of logic and natural philosophy
'how do we know for sure that we have surpassed our ancestors? what are the signs?"
to paraphrase the popular movie franchise, Star Wars, it is the duty and destiny of pupils to surpass their teachers
how, do you ask, does an audiobook deal with a source material heavy on the footnotes?
friends
the narrator merely says "footnote", and then continues to read said footnote
as you undoubtedly do whilst reading with your eyes
'can a metaphysics of thought account for itself and the totality of the potential thought possible within said metaphysics?'
hello fellow human
it slowly dawns on me that the title, which posits that the work is a critique of pure reason, has some relevance to what goes on in the main text
me am smart
'I can't ascribe attributes to myself, since that would be to make the assumption that I exist'
whoa whoa whoa
that would indeed be too hasty
'the critique of pure reason has little prospect of becoming popular, and less reason to become so'
you don't say
the destruction of cobwebs of which the public has never taken notice
the Wolf, the greatest of dogmatic philosophers
'I conclude this second foreword by noting I have made very few alterations to the second edition, by virtue of this perfectly cohering interlocking system of propositions not being possible to change without things falling into contradiction'
'tis an even more perfect union
'But how can I conclude, after all this, that I have in fact written a book?'
the exposition of how he can indeed be certain of this goes on for quite some time
'In this second edition, I removed some parts which were sideways to the overall project, but which some readers might miss upon a second read. However, such readers would do well to seek out the first edition'
Immanuel Kant, shrewd businessman
and thus we move from the foreword
to the introduction
'humans have a tendency to launch themselves into big questions without first examining their capacity for dealing with such questions'
aye
that we do
a suspicion sneaks up on me that the difference between analytic and synthetic propositions has mobilized millions of gallons of ink, the existence of most can only be inferred through the judicious application of analytic propositions, by virtue of a lack of direct experience
'but how, by understanding the numbers of five and seven, do we arrive at an understanding of the number twelve?'
I often find myself asking this very same thing
Chapter heading: the universal problem of pure reason
I sense we're making progress with regards to the overall theme established in the title of the book
'how is math possible? we must assume that it is possible, seeing how it goes about actually existing'
that's a very synthetic thing to say
'the bosom of reason'
reason is a woman, for some reason
many questions are being answered at me right now, at high volume, prime among them being "why are philosophers this way?"
book: transcendental philosophy
my thought process: transcendental meditation
'by means of an ever continuing abstractions, we have now reached the two most abstract things there are: time and space'
can't argue with this line of reasoning, tbh
'the concept of space must exist, since we can't experience space without it'
I sense this might become important later on
'if we mess with the representation of space, thought itself starts to glitch out'
computer graphics designers take note
"the concept of time must exist a priori, since we can't experience the world without it"
there is a theme here, a movement, a trajectory
'it would be a very heavy cognitive burden indeed if we had to consciously apprehend the movement of time'
go team intuition
'time, no doubt, is something real'
Kant concedes during a preemptive repudiation of an imaginary objector to the presentation of time and space as a priori existing categories
he then goes on to reiterate that time is, in fact, not "real"
'we must assume the existence of time and space as they appear to us, since we are wired to perceive them that way, and then use the experiences following from our being wired this way to determine whatever reality is'
or, rephrased:
are we human, or are we dancer?
'we will not come any closer to knowing the thing-in-itself by clearly enunciating how our experiential apparatus works'
now there's a scary thought
there are twenty hours left
I wonder how strange things will manage to get further in, if this is where we're at after only two hours
'but Kant', asks an imaginary reader, 'how can we arrive at these thoughts about time and space?'
Kant then proceeds to proclaim that it must necessarily be an intuitive process, since humans are wired to perceive a certain way, and then have to bootstrap from this initial state
facts and logic
and intuition
'but where does intuition come from?'
and thus, Kant asks the reader to concede one singular point:
that we accept that this is a question in common to all theories, in the broadest sense of the word, and that we move on to the important stuff, as said stuff appears to us
then follows a wry observation that God must appear to have some dimensions in time and space, since these aspects are inherent to how humans experience the world

I imagine the he could not resist including this observation, once it occurred to him
friends
I reached the one Kant quote we all know from Alpha Centauri
I have now attained enlightenment
"twitter user sargoth, are you making any allowances for the fact that you are experiencing this as an audiobook, whilst the work in itself is a philosophical treatise where every word has a very specific definition that has to be understood in context?"
none whatsoever. onwards!
'but what of thoughts that are not about objects in time and/or space, but are instead about things of pure thought?'
here, transcendental logic makes a triumphant return, since it transcends - bear with me - time and space
'no one, be means of logic alone, can determine the truth of things'
this statement might, I suspect, be relevant to the project of critiquing pure reason
'projects based on logic alone are able to give the impression of great philosophical depth, seeing as they only require the author to keep up the sophistry for an extended period of time'
this
might be bad news for the discipline of philosophy as we know it
"practitioners of metaphysical jugglings"
y'know
I'm just gonna come out and say it
the way he keeps repeating the words 'transcendental logic' makes it sound like one of those self-help books that wants to make it very sure the brand name is firmly imprinted into your mind
'conceptions are grounded in other conceptions which are in turn grounded in other conceptions'
this has the potential to become a very iterative process
the infinite sphere of immortal beings
'but how does logic, the conceptions we ambiently carry around, and the sense perceptions following from the a priori notions of space and time fit together?'
well, you see, there are these very specific categories,
it amuses me that he namedrops Aristotle, a famous user of extensive lists of categories, before launching into an extensive list of categories
'categories are important. however, to avoid becoming bogged down in specific examples, I will not enumerate the specifics of the list I just ran through'
a wise rhetorical move
'the categories relate to each other dialectically, reciprocally, and at times unilaterally'
it's never simple and straightforward, is it
'I will now turn to a thought that is very wrong, but which has been around for so long that one simply cannot avoid it'
a big mood
'but how does such nebulous and abstract conceptions like justice, truth and suchlike relate to experiences of the empirical world?'
in a surprisingly pedagogical move, Kant returns to our two friends Time and Space, who also a priori shape our experience of the world
you know it when you see it
also
you see it because you know it
'but if we cannot perceive the thing in itself, how can we be certain of anything at all?'
here, Kant doubles back and reminds us of the universal a priori configuration of humans makes some impressions follow from other impressions, and thus there is a predictability to things
I do rather suspect that the whole Universal Human A Priori Human Configuration (tm) is ever so slightly problematic, given
*gestures at the wide range of human variability*
"the following will make this plain"
dear reader
the following did not make it plain
"the transcendental unity of self-consciousness"
if I ever write a shameless self-help book, I will ruthlessly datamine this book for appropriate catchphrases
this unwieldy phrase refers to being able to hold two thoughts in one's head at the same time
it's apparently a very important thing to be able to do, seeing as it gets a very lengthy treatment
"a blunder from which many evil consequences have followed (see footnote)"
four and a half hours in, I have determined that the prudent course of action is to take a (1) break
fear not, dear fellow quarantiners, for there are still eighteen more hours to go
it's time for the quickest of recaps. here's where we're at at 4:35:59:
the Queen of Metaphysics has an unclear line of succession
Reason is a woman
Time and Space are a priori categories which necessarily inform our intuitive perception of the world
Transcendental Logic (tm)
will things get stranger from here? let's find out as I press the unpause button on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
'I can not here demonstrate why there are only the specified number of cognitive functions of judgment demonstrated above'
experienced gamers will immediately recognize that we are dealing with a game world defined by an extensive series of Nouns
'categories only serve to make experience possible'
this, too, seems relevant to the overall project of critiquing pure reason
'fantasy is the capacity to experience an object in the absence of its empirical presence'
this is good to know, in general
'but now that we have extensively discussed how we perceive the world outside, I imagine that readers are now eagerly wanting to know how we perceive the internal world'
Immanuel Kant, the master of smooth segues
'but how can the I that think be the same as the I as object whomst I think about?'
he asks, and then turns around to say that this was laid out perfectly clear in previous statements
phenomenologists, take note
'I do not understand why it causes so much difficulty that our internal thought processes are affected by our physical selves, and vice versa'
so many methodology sections of so many student and phd papers in social science could have been simplified by recourse to Kant
who knew?
'the proposition "I think, therefore I am", is a function of perception of Time, which is an a priori existing category'
we did it
we solved Cartesian doubt
we can now breathe easily again, confident in our actually being in the world
'but how can the a priori categories determining our modes of thinking conform to the external natural world?'
aka
how do we know that what we think actually relates to the world as it is
turns out human understanding of the world can only grasp a very narrowly defined subset of the natural universe, and that the natural universe is in no way obliged to make sense to the accidental configuration of the thinking self-manifold

wild
'I imagine there will be plenty of readers who feel themselves exempt from the aforementioned limitations of human reason, and thus fully in touch with the universe. they are, however, wrong'
sick burn
'it is possible to find persons who are very learned indeed, but who in the application of their learned wit find themselves lacking'
Kant keeps hurling insults at theologians and academics. he can't help himself
first: 'it's impossible to imagine a triangle in general'
then: 'it's impossible to imagine a dog in general'
this raises the question of triangular doggos, in general
in which Kant scolds the principle of non-contradiction at great length
We have now entered into a section of clarification and elaboration, and also a non-zero amount of repetition

needless to say, we cannot arrive at the number 12 by envisioning the number 5 and 7 as standalone objects
"Apprehension (see footnote)"
'every sensation has a quantity. the intensity of a sensation can always be differentiated in stages numbering somewhere between something and nothing, something and zero'
this seems to me a clarification that is very important to philosophers, but a sideshow for everyone else
'there is no smallest quantity of red'
'this principle can be proven by mathematics. however, this is not a book on math, so we will skip this step'
I wonder what effect this omission has had compounded over the centuries
how many careers that have in some small fashion been made from this one singular non-effort
"every reality has its degree of resistance"
Foucault says hi
'anticipation works thus: we can only expect that an object, which is represented in our mind on the basis of our categories, has a quantity. the exact degree is a matter of experience'
it's good that we solved this. wouldn't do to go around having real objects in mind
"the substratum of all reality"
'permanence is just another expression for Time'
Time Abides
this long passage on Being and Time seems to echo the future in some, unspecified manner
'change is but a mode of existence that follows from another mode of existence'
as the noble philosopher of motion, Worf, once exclaimed:
IT HAS MOVED!
this translation uses the phrase "in the sequel" to refer to passages later on in the book. however, I cannot but think of it in the ever so slightly anachronistic manner of Marvel superhero movies, of which there are an infinite number of sequels
likewise, Kant's many repetitions of the statement that one cannot perceive Time in itself seems a very probable basis for heroic superpowers
'we can only make sense of the world through the temporary snapshots in time our sense apparatus supplies us with, and the subtle differentiations of quantities contained therein'
empiricism, as far as it is allowed by the categories, are us
'Time works in this manner: one thing happens after another, but the thing that happens after does not happen before'
this seems an important aspect to iron out, yes
'when something happens, we automatically assume that something else happened before'
this has the potential to become a very long line of thought, if we continue to posit that the thing that happened before happened, and thus has an antecedent happening
called it
'sometimes, things have effects that are simultaneous with their cause. a fire, for instance, causes heat at the same time as it is lit. however, things are still ordered in a temporal sequence, if we but imagine that there was a time when the fire was not lit'
this book is lit
turns out that conceptually working out how change is possible is a very elaborate prospect
'when a thing in motion moves, its motion does not constitute change; a change would be if it slowed down or sped up'
it has been said that books are slow-acting drugs that have somehow remained legal, and, y'know, I'm coming around to this line of thinking
"there is no smallest degree of reality"
it's infinite chains of being all the way down
'things can be said to exist at the same time if we can look at one thing, and then at the other thing, and then at the first thing again, and we can do this in any order we want, without any of the things being changed by the order of operation'
come at me, object permanence
"the word 'community' has, in our language (footnote: German)"
'if we construct an elaborate system of concepts, with the characteristic of every concept being perfectly interlocked with every other concept, then what results from this system has no ground to rest upon unless it is also informed by experience'
this is it
this is the Critique
I say this to sociologists only:
f Parsons
'this brings forth a number of objections from Idealism. this is thus the proper place to refute these objections'
pretty sure those objections arose several hours ago, tbh
'the existence of me as a subject heavily implies the existence of things that are not me, which is supported by experience'
I'll reserve judgment on the 'not me' part of *gestures towards the universe in general* for now
'the apperception of external perceptions does not automatically convey actual existence to external objects perceived'
that is the crux, isn't it
'"nothing happens by blind chance" is an a priori natural principle'
this needs to be thus if we are to be able to make sense of the world, lest everything becomes unstructured sense perceptions which may or may not reflect accurate states of the external world
'I could give an example of this, but I am sure the practiced reader will already have done so for himself'
y'know
here, in the smack dab middle of the book
this is probably a reasonable assumption to make, seeing how unpracticed readers give up at the glorious foreword
'that which is not possible is impossible'
I keep marveling. every time I think it cannot possibly become more granular, it becomes more granular
Kant then makes an analogy (small a) that just as how the geometrical shape follows from the definition of said shape, so our perception of the world follows from the definitions given by our categories
just in case we forgot
'if a thing is contingent, we can thus assume that said thing has a cause'
Aristotle still lingers amongst us
a new chapter abounds, and now we are caught up in a great nautical simile
I take from this that something new and even wilder is afoot
in which Kant understatingly yells at the notion that any investigatory endeavor, be it philosophical or scientific, should clearly delineate exactly what utility said endeavor will end up uncovering at its preordained conclusion
'without being guilty of manifest tautology'
the Critique of the titular pure reason intensifies, in a passage with less laying out of definitions and more scold
Kant warns us to not mistake noumena - things as they appear - with the things in themselves, and launches into an extended discourse on the dangers of such mistaken identities
the dangers include, but are not limited to, "endless verbal quibbling"
a note to future readers: take a sip every time the example of straight lines is invoked
small sips
Four additional hours in, at 9:04:51, my scrambled brain processing units categorically decrees it is time for a (1) break
also
I now realize why it is called the categorical imperative. cause it arises from the categories, see
To recap:
Reason is a woman
Our innate understanding of the world is shaped by categories present in us a priori
Our present understanding of the world is shaped by our experiences of it
Pure reason can't do the trick, since it's based on nothing
We stan the Queen of Metaphysics
In which Kant dunks on Leibniz for assuming that we have perceptual access to the thing in itself
An advantage of pure reason is that we can have a lot of fun comparing logical constructions with each other, seeing at length how they are similar and different
A disadvantage is that it does not tell us anything about the world, and thus finds itself stuck in a rhetorical rut
'the complaint that we do not understand things in themselves by merely thinking about them is a silly one, since that means we'd be able to comprehend things without ever having observed them'
the sick burns, they keep coming
'the real in things cannot be in opposition to itself, like it can in our conceptions of them'
or, as Mulder said: the truth is out there
it is ever so slightly amusing that the whole possibility of 'being in opposition' is a characteristic of the mind thinking about things in relation to each other, rather than the things themselves
the universe does not care about your idle speculations about it
'but how then can we think about nothing, as a concept?'
turns out the answer to this chapter-concluding question goes on for quite some time, which sure is something
'but what about optical illusions and other failures of the human perceptual apparatus?'
Kant contends that these have been addressed in the overall project, and then proceeds to the next stage of this project: illusions in the human conceptual apparatus
'as we constantly apply this mode of thought, we have become quite used to it'
he says, after having invoked the same geometrical example for the twentieth time
"it does so not immediately, but mediately"
in which Kant launches into an extended soliloquy on the importance of not making up new words, and of adhering to the original meanings of ancient (presumably latin and greek) words rather than to use them willy-nilly for sophist flourishing
I must admit I did not expect this sudden outburst about linguistic clarity being a fundamental condition of moral and ethical thinking, but here we are
'it is an inescapable aspect of freedom that it always oversteps the bounds placed on it, and thus we should abstain from placing such bounds'
ok liberal
we now return to the distinction between conceptions and ideas, a firmly familiar and slightly incomprehensible stomping ground
I was beginning to worry for a moment that they put another book into this book, just to see if anyone'd notice
'the word absolute used to mean a very specific, and accurate thing. however, recently, people have started to use it wrongly'
absolutely, a total unit
it is crucial to at all times remember that this is a critique of pure reason. in the case of people using the word 'absolute' wrongly, it manifests itself as a reminder that pure reason can not arrive at absolute anythings, other than logical self-coherency
'there are three big ideas: god, freedom and immortality'
those sure are big alright
"The paralogisms of pure reason"
eleven hours in, and I'm not afraid to admit that I'm beginning to lose the plot somewhat
'the problem with a science of the soul is that it falls apart when people demand empirical indications one way or another'
now this, I reckon, we all have direct experience of
'the move from "I think" to "everyone thinks" is not as unproblematic as adherents of pure reason sometimes puts forth'
other people, what a concept
it dawns on me that the whole book might just be the biggest straw man argument ever presented in book form
whomst even are these unnamed people who go around reasoning purely without recourse to experience?
except contemporary Kant scholars, obv
'the answer to this question I just posed would be simple, if this one thing were the case. however, it is not. therefore, [things go on for quite some time after this]'
'if the soul has a substance, then it has a quantity. if it has a quantity, then it has a degree, which can be either increased or decreased. if it can be decreased, then it can be thus until there is nothing left of it. therefore, souls can cease to exist'
that's good to know
I can't help but think the topic of souls was ever so slightly more socially and philosophically relevant back in the days than it is now
this line of reasoning does demonstrate rather effectively that any science of souls falls apart when empirical inquiry is applied to it
it's the dark souls of philosophical demonstrations
'the Schools' - I take this to mean theologians and scholastic academics - 'have managed to keep this question from falling apart only by endlessly discussing it, thus preventing it from ever reaching its logical conclusion'

big mood
'but how can a subject also consider itself as an object, and how does this play out in the conceptual apparatus laid out in previous chapters?'
it should not come as a surprise that pure reason does not turn out well after this treatment
"cosmical conceptions"
'but if everything that happens has a cause, and every cause has a cause, and every cause of a cause has a cause, and'
this goes on for quite some time
there was a short break. the time stamp is now at 11:53:12. with ten hours of book left, we march on towards the ability to flip cars with our mind, an ability which is absolutely conveyed by this book
'if we envision space, we also envision a space adjacent to that space, and a space adjacent to that space, and'
this, too, occupies a large volume of discursive space
'we deal not with ideas themselves, but the conditions under which ideas can arise'
I apperceive with the conditioned cognition of my personality manifold that this formula will become important later on
much, much later on
'by "world", I mean the totality of all existing things'
if anything would fit the intuitively implied definition of the term "cosmical conception", this would be it
'a necessary and unavoidable illusion, which even once discovered as such keeps persisting in mocking us'
mood
'scepticism, an endeavor to destroy the ground upon which we base our knowledge,'
Kant keeps throwing shade, as is his wont
'moral principles can always be judged one way or another depending on their practical outcomes; transcendental ideas, however, by virtue of not being based on anything, can not be so judged'
just in case we forgot the whole project of critiquing pure reason
'there must have been a time when there was no world, a void time'
lemme tell you
as a flood of words that envelop you and bring you into contact with sentences you've never thought before, this sure is a wild ride
'the world consists of simple beings, or combinations of simple beings, called composites'
either something or nothing is happening in this extended passage on the exact relationship between the general notions of something and nothing
"the dialectical principle of monadology"
what even are words at this point
"no part of space is simple"
you can say that again
when it becomes my turn to write a magnum opus, I too will include a lengthy passage on whether the universe is possible or not, touching upon every point of impossibility that there might possibly be
'every state of things has a cause, and every cause has a cause, and so on. this poses something of a challenge when pondering the beginning of the universe'
Kant sure likes to make this move. I wonder what caused it
'but what if, here me out, we posit that there was always time, but that causality started at some point? something kicked off the series of events we're in, but time itself did not start with it'
this is either a headache or a very roundabout way of finding God. possibly both
'the cause of the necessary cause must at some point have not existed, and thus necessarily must have a cause'
I question whether this whole chapter is absolutely necessary to the overall project
I am in eternal awe that the voice actor manages to keep the philosophical flow of words flowing at all times, even when the causes of causes that cause causes are casually causing cascading a priori concatenating tounge twisters
'secure from being contradicted by facts, since they have not been called as witnesses'
aha
we finally arrive at the point of this chapter, which is to tell people engaging in pure reason that they are wrong
'but if empiricism becomes too dogmatic, and insists only on what we can see, then it too fails the Queen of Metaphysics and the Spirit of Philosophy'
we wouldn't want that
'wandering around in ideas about which one can always be very eloquent, since we know nothing about them'
add one to the subtle sick burn count
'can a system of self-reflective philosophical investigation pose itself a question so big that it cannot be answered by and within this self-same system?'
one must imagine Sisyphus happy
alternatively, the Chemical Brothers song Block Rockin' Beat starts playing
but philosophically
on a slightly less sardonic note, the question of whether questions can be answered within a given framework is acutely relevant to academics of all fields; there is ever a temptation to reorganize the universe in such a way that all questions can indeed be answered forthwith
'you exist in a world, and thus you will never find yourself with an answer such that there will be no more questions. not even if you adhere strictly to this or that dogmatic line of thought'
I concede that we do exist in a world
'if a ball cannot pass though a hole, shall we say that the ball is too large, or the hole too small?'
or, rephrased
how much of a difference should we allow it to make how we phrase a philosophical inquiry?
'if no one can experience a given object, then we can not know anything about it, even if we can conceptually conceive that such an object must be there according to the rules of logic'
helo theoretical physics
what up?
'in this, I have proved both parties wrong. however, neither of them are wont to give up their squabble because of this'
Immanuel Kant, expert conflict solver
'when considering the statement, "some bodies are not good smelling",'
truly
one can not at any point predict what manner of philosophical twist and/or turn will come up next
'this apparent paradox can be solved by simply not assuming that the world, in its totality, exists as a thing in itself'
as later philosophers would go on to say: the world is an assemblage of a great many things. a composite of simple independent things, as Kant would have it
and so, at 14:07:45, I must admit that my head is a mush of concepts running to and fro, making themselves big and small, seeking causes behind causes, and generally having slowed down to a crawl
it is time for a (1) break
To recap:
Reason is a woman
We stan the queen of Metaphysics
We do not have access to the thing-in-itself, only our impressions of it
We are saved from relativism and philosophical mayhem by a shared Common Sense
I do not know what the next eight hours will bring, but I'm ready
We have paused in the middle of a clarification that the rules we set up for empirically examining the things in themselves according to previously established understanding of said things, cannot ever be final or absolute, since it's always possible to discover new things
'We can consider a father and a son, and a series of future fathers and sons that go on for a long time, without naming each father and son in turn; this series is not infinite, just of indefinite length"
ah yes
how to deal with infinite series given to regression
'The importance of this line of reasoning will be explained in the next section'
this is, we have to give him, a good way to end a section
"Now I have a conception of the universe, but not an intuition"
it's big; it's infinitely big. and, since every state of things follows from a previous state of things, it's also an indefinite series of previous states. which, to be sure, is big
'Everything that has a beginning has an end'
my many watchings of the Matrix has prepared me for this philosophical moment
I rather begin to suspect this is a very extended version of Zeno's paradox, and how to deal with everything's divisibility to ever smaller parts without doing a philosophical shrug and just moving on, resolutely taking a complete step just to spite the Ancients
Me: I'm not sure I understand why this philosophical explication exists
Kant: here's why it exists
Me: that was rhetorically astute. however, I still don't understand why this philosophical explication exists
'I included this section to demonstrate why Zeno's paradox cannot be refuted by resolutely taking a single, completed, undeniable step'
as you do
'But if every state of things spring from an earlier state of things, in an indefinitely long series of previous states of things, what about freedom and free will?'
one wonders if the classical problems of philosophy were all included in this book, or if they stem from it
"twitter user sargoth, are you livetweeting the book or your impressions of the book?"
correct
'asking what ought to be the attributes of a circle is as absurd as asking what ought to be in nature'
Kant, noted opponent to terraforming
'I shall exemplify this with a question: why do people lie?'
he then proceeds to distinguish between understanding the lie as a spontaneous act of the moment, free of causes, or as arising from previously existing conditions
aka
just how indefinite should our investigation be?
'do not mistake, dear reader, the previous as an argument for the existence of freedom'
we nevertheless need the idea of freedom to navigate the world, and employ it with wild abandon
'this whole thing is, I am happy to report, a mere contradiction of the representations of the mind, and does not exist in the real world'
dude
you can't have it both ways
either you solve Zeno's paradox, or you don't
I now imagine generations of philosophers going
Dude,
We now move into a new chapter, whose title leads me to believe Kant will now critique the modern practice of demanding that research projects outline in extensive detail the results they will inevitably and without fail arrive at
aka
a further critique of pure reason
'a complete representation of a thing will by necessity be limited by our capacity of representation, and necessarily be an act of exclusion as much as inclusion; the thing represented is by definition not all other things'
I sense this passage has had Some Impact on philosophy
'in order to think a single thing, we must first think the total universe within which this thing exists'
something something from scratch
'if we admit the existence of any one thing, we must also admit that there are other things, that made this one thing possible and necessary'
give an inch and pure reason will indefinitely take a mile
'here are the conditions under which we can admit the existence of God'
I suspect this passage might have aroused some movements of the sensibilities in its time
it's a bit of a spoiler to name a chapter 'on the impossibility of the aforementioned conditions', tbh
'we must resist the temptation to leap from a conception that is logical, to a thing that is real'
now there is a statement that might spark uproar even in these enlightened times
'positing that something exists does not confer existence to the thing; it merely adds a relation to the proposition which I am making at the moment'
friends
we have arrived at the inevitable point where we define what "is" is
Kant here goes on at great length to show how the existence of God, in many interesting and elaborate ways, begs the question in the traditional sense. that is to say, it presupposes the existence which the argument sets out to prove, which philosophers do not look kindly upon
'if I can think the existence of something, then I can also think the non-existence of that very same something. given both possibilities, I can not move from thinking either to concluding the truthfulness of either'
dissoi logoi strikes again
'but if these modes of approach don't work, what then about people's experiences of the Divine? those surely indicate that some thing, however defined, is up?'
hope yet lives
'in the presence of the sublime majesty of nature, our faculties of language and reason find themselves mute, unable to convey the grandeur of the experience, relegated to inadequate inarticulate analogies. alas, this being possible in general, does not necessitate the specific"
shoulda seen that coming, I suppose
we now move on to the argument in favor of intelligent design
I can not but marvel at how this argument finds its most lucid formulation in a book so devoted to proving the utter impossibility of it
'the grandeur of the entity sought to be proved does in no way match the grandeur of the argument brought forth in favor of it'
Kant keeps keeping at these sick burns
I gotta admit I find these god-unfearing parts ever so slightly less interesting than the runup to it. which, to be sure, does not bode well for the rest of the book, if "pure reason" is about to be defined as theology in general
no spoilers for this 240 year old book, plz
'if, after all this, theologians somehow still want to argue in favor of the existence of God, I hereby say: fight me'
I admit
I loled
"ideas are the parents of irresistible illusions"
'transcendental ideas never refer to actually existing objects, but can still be useful, by way of organizing our thinking towards a more unified mode of being'
as long as the unity is not a Unity, I reckon
modern textbooks on scientific method owes more to this one singular book than I suspect their authors even know
and thus, at 17:34:05, my ever decreasing powers of cognition declare that it is time for a (1) break
there are still five hours to go, somehow, and there's no telling what sick burns and philosophical shenanigans still awaits
By scouting ahead, aka glancing at the table of contents, I have gleaned that there is one single chapter left. Given the nature of philosophy books, this might either be the big climax at the end of the movie, or a collection of sidenotes shoehorned in

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