Any Western Philosopher Greater than Kant?

Of course, Kant had the correct judgement when it comes down to knowing the whole thing, as we are of course merely human beings in this vast Universal. He is indeed correct that we all often fall into pitfalls, because of being human beings, of over-speculation and misguided reason. Nonetheless, I believe that Kant was misguided into believing that we can never ‘truly’ know the Reality as it is, or what he calls Noumenon. For me, and many others, the underlying way to know this Absolute is simply to look at it ‘as it is’ - as what I believe is emphasized in Eastern philosophy, I believe. All things else falls into place, through intuition and with that, the use of reasoning and logic.

I don’t really buy the idea that he completely resolved the problem of induction, though he did offer an interesting response to it. His ethical system was pretty terrible as well, in my opinion.

True.

Like all the others, Kant wasn’t wrong about everything, nor right about everything. Hegel had a greater challenge and started a lot of social trouble, eventually through Marx. They didn’t have it all right either.

From what I know about Hegel and Marx, Marx had merely misrepresented Hegel and turned his philosophy upside-down; from Idealism and contemplations on the Absolute to Materialism. But I do agree that Hegel ended up misguided and too attached to his philosophy.

He didn’t reveal the basic resolve to it (definitional logic).

It is difficult to translate Kant’s “Ding an sich”. One would do better to not translate it and after the use of it to describe what is meant. The “Ding an sich” has much to do with “Erkenntnis” (“knowledge”, “cognition”), “Erkenntnistheorie” (“theory of knowledge”, “theory of cognition”). It is not possible to (exactly, really) know the Ding an sich.

That is true. And, b.t.w., it refers also to the Ding an sich and to the sentences I said above. It is a problem of Erkenntnis.

Schopenhauer (some people call him “Eurobuddhist”) accpeted merely two philosophers before himself: Kant and Platon.

If Kant (or Hegel) is the father of the current modernity, the Occidental modernity, then Platon (or Aristoteles) was the father of the former modernity, the Ancient Greek and Ancient Roman modernity.

Or do we have to say: Hegel (or Kant) … and Aristoteles (or Platon) …? :-k

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Any Western Philosopher Greater than Kant?

And answer is yes,
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No… just no.

Do you understand what “going off topic” means.

This is again off topic in the manner of your above question.

If you say;

  1. The “Categorical Imperative” [CI] is the main “keystone” of Kant’s philosophy.
  2. The CI is a useless concept because of X, Y, Z.
  3. Therefore Kant is not the greatest.
    then, perhaps that is relevant.

The CI is central to Kant’s ethical system, which is one the best ethical system I know of. However Kant is ‘greatest’ in consideration of his many other significant contributions to philosophy. Even without this ethical system, Kant is still the greatest.
Thus your CI question is irrelevant to this OP.

In any case, before you discuss CI let us know what you understand 'what is the Categorical Imperative" proper.

His resolution of the ‘Problem of Induction’ is sufficient enough for many purposes. Given Kant’s time, he had limitations. However we can now use neuroscience and neuro-philosophy to refine the solution.

Kant’s discovered ethical system was too far ahead of his time and even now. It is the best ethical system I know of that is most optimal for the future. Point is you need to understand his ethical system fully within a system and conceptual framework of reality. For the average person, one will need at least 2 years of sustained reading of Kant’s work.

Kant readily tell us he was not introducing an ethical system that he invented by himself. What he did was discovering the natural inherent ethical system and its principles that are unfolding as humanity evolve with improvements continually.

I consider Kant’s Critique to be vastly inferior to Leibnitz’s Monadology. The mathematical model’s compare similarly between them.

Leibniz defined a Monad in the Monadology (written 1714, published 1720) as a ‘Simple Substance that enters into composites’ (§1), one which is capable of ‘Perception’ (§15) and ‘Appetition’ (§16).

Kant allotted on significant chapter in criticizing Leibniz’s Monad - a Simple Substance.
A Simple Substance is one that has no parts.
It is something equivalent to the claim of an absolute.

Kant accepted Leibniz’s theory of Monad before his Critique of Pure Reason [CPR].
However in the CPR, Kant asserted and demonstrated Monads are illusory, but like the idea of God, it can be useful as long as it is not used constitutively or reified as real.

Kant thus explained away the idea of Monads, thus they cannot be superior to the Critical Philosophy of Kant explanation and conceptual framework of reality.

Here is a commentary by G J Mattey,

You think Kant is misguided because you have not guided yourself in understanding Kant sufficiently. I know because I have taken a lot of trouble in an attempt to understand Kant’s theories.

Rightly, there should be no question of trying to know the ‘noumenon.’ The noumenon is merely a limiter and should always be used negatively. It should not be used in the positive sense as ‘something’ to be known.
If we need to consider the noumenon as something, then the most we can do is to assume it and never ever consider it as something real in reality.

Within Eastern philosophy [Buddhism], the seduction to know ‘something’ or the ultimate thing is the work of ‘maya.’
The Vedanta consideration of Braham as ‘something’ ultimate is still the work of maya at another deeper and finer subliminal level which the Vedantist overlooked.

You havn’t given a single proof, only talked about some weird principles that doesn’t make any solid case. It’s like hearing a religious guy saying the end is nigh, we’re all heard the sales pitch before, but never any proof.

I not consider GJ Mattey’s quote of Kant’s critique as sufficent in terms of the intellectualization of matter, as You describe, because he has taken the Noumina as am equivalent non-material, albeit divorced materially. What Kant is doing,is trying to preserve, e.g. synthesize the two, bringing in Hume’s absolute material interpretation, yet trying to save the noumenal, immaterial part. Mathematically, the idea of synthesis does not work on any level, the idea of a pure understanding works on the levelmof approximation. Hegel took the ideological dielectic as the form of pure understanding, his synthesis not abject to the one Kant was up against, in the question posed, 'How are synthetic a-priori judgements possible?
That history did in fact not bear him up on this, is proof positive of the dubious nature of his ontology in this regard.

I Leibnitz’s case, the mathematical model of understanding is successfully demonstrated, as applied to pure logicsl diagrams of functional relation. That this can be adapted toward the models upon which theories of sets, limits, and approximations are based, I i to the idea of the functional use, of models correlated and not synthesized with them.

Monadology resembles atomism, which in fact has turned out to be the right intellectual model to a theory of the material universe. The question arises as to the nature of mathematical models, and that is a different question.

But to ascribe a synthesis , is only an effort to unify an intrinsic theory of pattern recognition and logical criteria and try to unify it with it’s material counterpaert , as it was a material idea. This has proven to be a failure for Marx, a disaster of what i consider more of ascribing political revision in detriment of ontological certainty.

Ethics, as has been pointed out, was not an original concept, but brought back from classical sources, and dressed up in an a-posteriori proof, as it were.

I agree, that Kant embodied a stage in philosophy,
which could not be circumsribed, because the fallacy of the a-priori synthetic was needed to demonstrate the more relevant dialectic of the pure understanding, which in turn had to be surpassed by it’s nihilization, and it’s ultimate existentially based reduction, an anti development of the progressive decay of Hegel. Inn any case, Leibnitz pre dated this problem by his model.

Okay - I’ll admit that I haven’t gone deep into Kant, as to read his Critique; doesn’t mean that I don’t know exactly what his philosophy is.

Coming to the conclusion of the Absolute is quite easy; what it takes really is higher reasoning and further exploration (psychological, in the sense of Jung’s psychology) into the nature of reality. It’s just that it also takes a sense of knowing that you’re a human being, and that life flows eternally.

Some sects of Buddhism (ie. Mahayana, etc) and Vedanta (for example, Advaita Vendanta as I recall) actually in fact do speculate on the nature of the Absolute. I think you need to look further into those philosophies, as it actually does go beyond what Kant is talking about.

I am not too sure of where your above post is driving at.

Your original claim was;

My main point to the above was;
Kant accepted Leibniz’s monadology in his earlier philosophy but subsequently rejected it by justifying that ‘Simple Substance’ are not tenable, i.e. Leibniz intellectualized sensibility as mentioned by Mattey. I agree Mattey’s comment is merely an outline. The details are explained within Kant’s book.

Another addition point, this OP is about Kant and philosophy, therefore we cannot compare Mathematics. Leibniz is definitely greater than Kant in terms of Mathematics but Leibniz cannot be greater than Kant in terms of philosophy based on the points I presented.

Another further point re Leibniz’s Monads is they lead to the theory of the Soul and God.

In terms of philosophy, I believe the criticalness of Leibniz monadology is his justification for the existence of God.

In addition to Kant proving that Monads are not realistic, Kant has justified why the independent soul and God are impossibility.

Therefore in terms of philosophy [not mathematics], Kant is greater than Leibniz.

How did Kant “prove that monads are not realistic”?

To infer the Absolute is not that easy but it is not difficult either.
The Vedantist infer that there must be a permanent self within the changing selves [over child, youth, adult ages] over time. This permanent self must be a part of an overall absolute self like a drop of water [the individual self] to the ocean [higher absolute SELF].
The point here is the Absolute Self is a mere speculation and cannot be proven.

My basic philosophy is based on Eastern philosophy so I am very familiar with the above. I had explained how the Vedantist infer the Absolute above.
The Mahayanas do consider the ‘higher’ Dharmakaya, the Buddha Nature, Alaya Consciousness, etc. but these are not absolutely Absolute like those of the Vedantist pantheism or the theistic God.

The core principles of Buddhism has no room for the absolutely ABSOLUTE. Kant’s philosophy is parallel and almost exactly the same as Buddhism core principles on the intellectual aspects. Buddhism has a lot of practical and practices whilst Kant is restricted to merely theories and principles.

Can’t answer that one either??

Is there anything about Kant’s thesis that you actually understand?