Ontology and epistemology meet in a negative definition, definition of what can not be -
an infinitely great totality.
It is useful to look at Anaximander and his notion of Apeiron, by which the infinity of God can be replaced.
Prismatic,
This is an unnecessary detachment, because it assumes that subjectivity does not involve critical thinking and/or rationality, and that subjective arguments are not valid in response to your claims. Not on the basis of their content, but because of their nature. As if when discussing things like God and perfection our personal beliefs are not relevant or do not influence our thinking.
There is no “one” god other than the reintegration of mankind’s collective will. It is a force, it is wisdom, both absolute and infinite, continuous growth of contextual questions after every answer, wisdom never stops. It is all good, all powerful and all knowing, that is what wisdom is and this god that has been Mis-interpreted.
The singularity is the nothingness of which something spawned…
That is the point;
because we can use similar strategies to validate any absurdity
It exists right now without any absurdity, it’s wisdom and I’ve already proven it. It is one thing that does not spawn out of imagination, only if you give it form outside of existence does it.
I do not get your exact point above.
However ‘ontology’ in the theistic sense, is not tenable, feasibly or possible to be real.
In your case, you are relying on the ontology of God which has attribute of absolute-perfection.
I have argued in this thread, such an ontological God is an impossibility to be real empirically and philosophically.
Btw, to the Abrahamic, God has to be real to the extent of listening and answering prayers, creating and sustaining the universe, grant eternal life in heaven, etc.
Such a God is impossible to be real in the above sense.
Kant CPR ultimate focus is about metaphysics and ontology where he demonstrated metaphysical-ontology are impossibility as contrasted to Mathematics and Science.
Yes, Kant is a deist and did align with the idea of God [I do not agree with Kant on this] but only for moral reasons not as a reality within the empirical world.
Actually the ‘absurdity’ refers to the one who made the claim ‘God exists’ without any groundings nor arguments.
In the above you are making claims after claims but provide no justifiable evidence nor arguments at all.
There are many schizophrenics over history who claim they ‘know’ God with certainty where that God commanded them to kill people and they followed that command to the ‘t.’
Surely you would want evidence and arguments to support such a claim - in any case no evidence will be probable from the schizo.
Point is one cannot simply make claims without justifiable evidence nor arguments at all. If so, there will be many absurd claims.
And of course, rational counterarguments have been made, and these were not adequately responded to. His idea of response is a combination of appeals to authority, dismissing via unsupported judgment, and restating his position. IOW he writes this as if he responds to couterarguments in a rational way, but he does not. Once I get this kind of response a few times, I move over to simply being critical and pointing out patterns of interaction. So, he’ll focus on this, as if he has not gotten other types of response also.
The argument has already been made, in threads and here. Your dismissal of it does not mean it was not made. The only whom has argued against it is you and not even in the correct context. Because you can’t argue against it, it’s a purely logical and reasonable version of the idea that is god.
You’re the schizo here guy, look at your thread and how many philosophers are against your mundane misinterpreted ideas of god, which isn’t even being argued for anyways. Look at how many are in my thread god being a possibility, except you. Should tell you who the schizophrenic is
I made a whole thread disproving this one, where I set the parameter of what god is and the idea I am defending and he still arrived there arguing the misinterpreted version of it, the literal man in the sky, which is NOT the correct INTERPRETATION of the fucking GOD that was spoken of. If he can’t change his view then it’s his own issue. He bases his entire argument off of a misconstrued idea of god then says he wins, how utterly nonsensical.
Where are your arguments that I have not countered?
Don’t simply make claims.
If you can point your arguments I had not effectively countered, I will show you I have done so. It had happened in many other cases.
KT,
This is why I also become critical of him. After pages and pages of people presenting rational counter-arguments, he has reduced everything that others have said to “subjective feelings” which is clearly not the case. Valid points have been made in abundance, but he has not recognised them. He believes that he has successfully countered everyone’s arguments, that he has proven God is an impossibility and even that his argument is ironically, perfect. Given this, I don’t see how he would recognise any valid counter-arguments (which he hasn’t) and if he did, would he even acknowledge them? In the other thread where we were discussing instincts, he dismissed Maslow’s ideas out of hand, which disagreed with what he was claiming. And when I asked him for evidence related to his claim, he implied I was too dumb to interpret it. I don’t believe that he gives serious consideration to counter-arguments or points, when they contradict what he is claiming. He just sees them as entities that need to be countered, never mind how it makes him appear.
Despite Prismatic’s big brain, I believe this is what it comes down to with him, in his response to Artimas;
He simply won’t tolerate the possibility that different ideas to his can have any validity. I don’t want to criticise him excessively, as I have my own flaws, I don’t know him personally and I acknowledge that he is a bright person, but I have never encountered anyone with such an unyielding view of their own correctness; more so extending into so many different fields. Even the most educated people I’ve encountered seemed to accept their own fallibility and did not take themselves so seriously outside of their professions. I don’t know what qualifications he holds, but if he is self-taught, it would not be right for him to be so dismissive - no matter how naturally intelligent he is.
No I am not relying on “an ontology in which God has the attribute of absolute perfection”. I doubt human beings are capable of knowing what that is. If you were only saying that it is impossible for God to be known rationally or empirically as a totality or an absolute certainty that would make sense to me. But to say that it’s impossible for God “to be real empirically’ suggests that empiricism is closed system which it isn’t.
To Kant God was unknowably transcendent. Kant maintained that neither human reason nor the empirical world could give any direct or unequivocal indication of divine reality. He refuted the rationalistic arguments for the existence of God. But Kant left open the possibility of faith in the transcendent God and belief in the soul’s freedom and immortality. It seems to me you’re trying to use Kant to refute Kant.
A religious tradition that recognizes that God is ultimately unknowable didn’t start with Kant. It has a long history in Christianity. According to this way of thinking whatever qualities the human mind attributes to God cannot be considered ultimately valid for if they are humanly comprehensible they must be limited to the finitude of human understanding which can’t possibly comprehend the infinite nature of God. Kant’s philosophy of God is consistent with this perspective. Yours isn’t.
I did not state I agreed with Kant totally, not where he kept the term ‘God’ in the deistic sense. Note deistic not theistic.
Kant’s argument is the idea of God is an illusion if claimed to be empirically real, i.e. to the extent of a God that listens and answers prayers, plus created and sustaining the Universe.
The only provision by Kant for the idea of God is for the purpose of morality where God is absolute [not real].
Note:
Kant: God is a Transcendental Illusion
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=195263
To Kant, the idea of God should never be reified as real, but merely adapted for the purpose of morality and absolute moral laws.
Perhaps you are banking on the following quote;
For in order to arrive at such insight it must make use of Principles which, in fact, extend only to Objects of Possible Experience,
and which, if also applied to what cannot be an Object of Experience, always really change this into an Appearance,
thus rendering all Practical Extension [i.e. morality] of Pure Reason impossible.
I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith.
-Bxxx -Kant in CPR
The above is merely a point in the Preface. The details of the above statement do not provide for any belief i.e. God exists as real. The term ‘deny’ ‘faith’ are not the direct translation of their German equivalent.
The main purpose in this case is to make room for the Practical [i.e. Morality] which has nothing to do with any real God but merely with an ontological God [illusion] with the attribute of absolute perfection.
Your use of the term “real” above continues to suggest that you are conflating Kant’s epistemology with ontology. Kant abandons objective anthropomorphism and possibility of knowing God absolutely or as God as God is in God’s self. He does not give up the possibility of Supreme Being as he elucidates here:
When we connect the command to avoid all transcendent
judgments of pure reason with the apparently conflicting
command to proceed to concepts that lie beyond the domain
of immanent (empirical) use, we become aware that the
two commands can subsist together, but only right on the
boundary of all permitted use of reason—for this boundary
belongs equally to the domain of experience and to that of the
creations of thought [= Ideas]. And through that awareness
we also learn how these Ideas, remarkable as they are, serve
merely for marking the boundaries of human reason. On
the one hand they give warning •not to go on extending
our empirical knowledge with no thought of boundaries, as
though nothing but sheer world remained for us to know,
and yet on the other hand •not to overstep the bounds of
experience and want to make judgments about things beyond
them, as things in themselves.
But we stop at this boundary if we limit our judgment
merely to how •the world may relate to •a being whose very
concept lies beyond the reach of any knowledge we are
capable of within the world. For we don’t then attribute to the
supreme being in itself any of the properties through which
we represent objects of experience, and so we avoid dogmatic
anthropomorphism; but we attribute those properties to the
supreme being’s relation to the world, thus allowing ourselves
a symbolic anthropomorphism, which in fact concerns only
language and not the object itself.
When I say that we are compelled to view the world as
if it were the work of a supreme understanding and will,
I actually say nothing more than that a watch, a ship, a
regiment, are related to the watchmaker, the shipbuilder, the
commanding officer in the same way that the sensible world
(or everything that underlies this complex of appearances) is
related to the unknown; and in saying this I don’t claim to
know the unknown as it is •in itself, but only as it is •for me
or •in relation to the world of which I am a part Such knowledge is knowledge by analogy. This doesn’t
involve (as the word ‘analogy’ is commonly thought to do)
•an imperfect similarity of two things, but rather
•a perfect similarity of relations between the members
of two quite dissimilar pairs of things.13
By means of this analogy we are left with a concept of the
supreme being that is detailed enough for us, though we
have omitted from it everything that could characterize it
absolutely or in itself ; for we characterize only its relation
to the world and thus to ourselves, and that is all we need.
Hume’s attacks on those who want to determine this concept
absolutely, taking the materials for doing so from themselves
and the world, don’t affect my position; he can’t object
against me that if we give up the objective anthropomorphism
of the concept of the supreme being we have nothing left.
Prolegomena, Immanuel Kant, pgs 66-67
earlymoderntexts.com/assets … nt1783.pdf
And here:
Thus I see before me order and design in nature, and need not resort to speculation to assure myself of their reality, but to explain them I have to presuppose a Deity as their cause; and then since the inference from an effect to a definite cause is always uncertain and doubtful, especially to a cause so precise and so perfectly defined as we have to conceive in God, hence the highest degree of certainty to which this pre-supposition can be brought is that it is the most rational opinion for us men. * On the other hand, a requirement of pure practical reason is based on a duty, that of making something (the summum bonum) the object of my will so as to promote it with all my powers; in which case I must suppose its possibility and, consequently, also the conditions necessary thereto, namely, God, freedom, and immortality; since I cannot prove these by my speculative reason, although neither can I refute them.
Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Practical Reason (p. 113). Public Domain Books. Kindle Edition.
In the latter quotation, Kant admits he can’t refute the possibility of God as you argue you have done.
Did you just pick up someone’s interpretation or you did read the above related books to understand them thoroughly?
There are many translations of the Critique of Practical Reason, can you include the translators’ names as well.
If the above are cherry picked for the purpose by someone or yourself, they do not reflect the whole context.
Re the quote from the the Critique of Practical Reason, here the translation from Abbot;
It is obvious from the above Kant stated the presupposed deity is not an objective reality, i.e. cannot be real empirically.
On the other hand, for the purpose of Pure Practical Reason, God, Freedom and Immortality MUST be supposed [assumed]. On that basis, Kant could not refute them.
In the above, Kant definitely did not accept God as objectively real within the empirical world.
Note the quote and many similar quotes, where Kant distinctively differentiated what is empirical from the moral. To mix nature with moral laws [God and its law] is the mother of all illusion.
I have already quoted Kant many times on how he demonstrated the transcendental idea when reified as real is an illusion.
For Kant the transcendental idea of God is a useful illusion for the purpose of Pure Practical Reason, i.e. Morality and Ethics.
The point in the Prolegomena is the same for Kant, where it is impossible for God to be real but then must be presupposed for the purpose of Morality - Practical Reason.
Btw, in terms of God, Kant is a deist [I am very aware of that], not a theist who believe in the personal God.
Kant is a deist [with immortality and freedom] merely in relation to Morality only.
Note the following from the Prolegomena [your link above].
Note the Prolegomena is merely an explanation for the Critique of Pure Reason.
Note the last part,
“we have omitted it from everything that is absolute or in-itself”, i.e. from reality.
Kant stated it is useful only for humans [theists and deists] in relation to the world, and in context that is related to Morality and not to objective reality of the empirical world.
This is in the whole context of Kant’s philosophy.
I provided a link to the translation of the Prolegomena pdf. The translation by Abbot changes nothing. Talk about cherry-pickng, your emboldened phrases ignore the thrust of Kant’s argument that the presupposition of a Deity as the cause of the order and design of nature is “the most Rational Opinion for us men.” But yeah that doesn’t give us God as a phenomena let alone thing-in-itself . Thank you for acknowledging that Kant said he could not refute God on the basis of practical reason. On the other hand,I am unaware that Kant ever stated as you do that God was a useful illusion.
So let’s look at your statement “In the above, Kant definitely did not accept God as objectively real in the empirical world.” Empirical observation doesn’t give us objects in the sense of things as they are in themselves. It gives us phenomena from which we infer the existence of realities the absolute knowledge of which we do not possess. So we have absolute knowledge of nothing through empirical observation. And God is a special case by any criteria. So it’s hardly surprising that we don’t have direct empirical phenomena substantiating God. The Ancients realized this as is evident from the concept of logos which goes back at least to Heraclitus. There must be some mediating being or image that intimates Ultimate Reality, i.e. God which is unknowable as it is in itself. For Anselm it was the idea of God in the mind. For Kant it was the categorical imperative.
The sense in which Kant was a theist he makes quite clear in the following passage which speaks of God’s requirements, commandments and emotional reactions to humans:
I was not cherry-picking but merely provided another translation of what you quoted.
Btw, do you know the meaning of ‘opinion’ and how Kant used that term:
Generally:
Opinion = a view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge. [list]- Google Dictionary[/list:u]
Kant did not give much confidence to what is opinion, given its above literal meaning. However Kant did emphasize the distinction between ‘opinion’ ‘belief’ and ‘knowledge - truth - fact’. ‘Opinions’ are the lowest grade of thoughts.
Note [mine];
So Kant’s “the most Rational Opinion for us men” is merely the best guess any one can come up with.
Kant demonstrated the thing-in-itself is a transcendental idea which is an illusion which is reified as a real God [ending with an illusion instead].
According to Kant, the transcendental idea of the thing-in-itself [illusion] as ‘God’ is very useful for the purpose of morality.
Kant stated, one can have regulative use for the idea [illusion] of a God, but not for constitutive use [empirical implications].
Note Kant always use the term ‘assumption’ presupposed, and the like to indicate God is merely a play of thoughts and not a real fact, knowledge or truth.
The above is like Newton who assumed God exists [he believed God is real] and therefrom discovered his useful theories for mankind. Newton claimed to believe God is real, but the reality on hindsight and factually was, Newton was merely making an assumption of a God in his theses.
The Given and empirical knowledge of the Given is what is real.
The thing-in-itself is an illusion when reified based on the most rational opinion humans can inferred.
Absolutely absolute knowledge, i.e. thing-in-itself cannot exists as real, they are illusion when reified.
Nope, your “For Kant it was the categorical imperative” is totally off point.
For Kant, it is the transcendental idea [void of empirical] that is a thing-in-itself [totally unconditional] which an illusion but theists reified it as a real God.
Kant [deist not theist] relied on the idea of God to support his moral theories.
It is not that Kant cannot refute God as real re his Practical Reason.
As explained he is merely using the idea of God [an illusion] as the best opinion for his moral framework.
Kant have another term the absolutely absolute i.e. the Ens Realissimum. He could have used this term for his morality instead to the messy term ‘God’.
Note Kant was warned by his employer [University] on his critique of the idea of God, thus he has to show some positive views of God. Thus his deism and not theism. I believe Kant was a closet atheist.
For St. Anselm, it is the Ontological God which Kant refuted.
Nope! Kant was not a theist, he condemned theism.
Rather Kant was a deist who believed in a reasoned-God, not a real God.
Given the threat to his career, I believe Kant is more likely a closet atheist.
The above is from a Kant’s book which condemned theistic religions, especially organized Christianity by the Schools and their theologians with their corrupted morality instead of a purely moral religion.
Wherever Kant used [assumed, presupposed, presumed] the term ‘God’ is it solely for the purpose of his Morality Framework and has nothing to do with any claim that God is possible to be real.
Thus your above quote is pointless.
Btw, note my alternative view why theists believe in God as real.
The reason is due to the very strong impulse of the existential crisis inherent in ALL humans that drove and will drive the majority into theism. The basis is thus due to existential psychology.
The idea of God is merely a play of thoughts that happened to be very effective in soothing the terrible pains from the inherent existential crisis.
I find your statement that Kant’s own description of his religious belief is pointless a bit ironic.
Your position on Kant is far from his stated intention in writing his first Critique:
“I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.”
― Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason
As I see it, in spite of Kant’s criticisms of the classical arguments for God’s existence he’s neither an atheist nor does he think that God is an impossibility like you do. From my reading, Kant both believes in God and holds that the belief can be rationally justified. To Kant, while the traditional arguments for God’s existence are based on errors, moral theology is perfectly possible. The basis of Kant’s moral proof of God existence is significantly different from the speculative proofs. It doesn’t start from a concept or from a fact about the world but from an immediately experienced moral situation. According to Kant a moral agent feels called upon to achieve “the exact harmony of happiness with morality”, and knows that he can’t do it by his own unaided efforts. So, insofar as he commits himself to action he shows his belief in a moral author of the universe, i.e. God. Thus, Kant links affirmation of God’s existence is with the practice of a moral life.
Kant was critical of Hume’s deism and he believed in God as the guarantor of morality. That puts him in the category of theist, in my opinion.