I can almost read Kant

I’m reading “Kant: A Very Short Introduction”. It’s a good read for those who simply can’t read Kant’s own writing, but still very hard to follow. There is this one passage and I’d like to hear from Kant savants about what it means:

This is a little obscure to me. On the one hand, I interpret it to mean that our concept of causation comes from our experience of duration - that to observe something enduring is to witness its antecedent states giving rise to its subsequent states, and we extract cause out of this.

On the other hand, I interpret this to mean that we devise causation when we posit a constant and enduring thing to account for the series of appearances I am confronted with in my experiences, however intermittent they may be.

In other words, causation is abstracted either from 1) the enduring states of an object through time, or 2) the relation between an enduring object and my perceptions of it. I’m not sure which of these is more accurate or whether they are both accurate.

I’m also aware that Kant wants to prove that the concepts of causation and substance are known a priori, which means that we don’t really “abstract” causation or substance from experience, but that they are there in order for experience to be possible. Yet, at the same time, he doesn’t want to posit these a priori concepts to be known without or before experience, and so I’m having a tough go at understanding their relation to experience. Are they “in” the experience? Are they in the mind in a latent state until experience “wakes them”? Do they arise together yet remain distinct entities? Are these concepts and the experiences they apply to parts of a greater construct?

Gib - remember two things when reading Kant - that he is reacting to Hume, and that he makes no real sense. Trying to make sense of Kant can drive you to distraction. It’s also useful to remember that Hume was in all things trying to prove the impossibility of God, and that Kant was trying to save God from this fate - even when he (Kant) didn’t himself realise this.

Things endure - but they don’t really endure. Kant must necessarily contradict himself - which is the real problem here - because he sees the world statically - even when he seems to speak as though he does not. The world isn’t static.

But, more to the point, there is a big fat assumption present in the passage that you quote - that our judgements have “objective validity” at all. While we are busy trying to figure out why our judgements have objective validity, how this can be so, we can forget that it is not very likely that they do - nor is it very likely that the phrase “objective validity” itself has any useful meaning.

When we parse up the world into “subjective” versus “objective” - we have a set of paired opposites that may itself mean nothing - so that anything we say about them must suffer the same fate. We also have an old-fashioned worldview - one that never really led anywhere, and still doesn’t. It’s a mechanistic view - the same kind of view that Hume was worried about - that causality implies force. Causality is an analysis - it describes events - these events themselves may be described in terms of “force” - which seemed more like a physical law in Kant’s time than it does now - but that doesn’t mean causality is itself a force. Causality is an analysis after the fact - it’s human mathematics applied to events that we witness.

Causality is not a physical force, but a mathematical (logical) relation. The paradigm Kant uses is nonsensical. You can’t make sense out of it. Because there is now no definitive difference between substance and change, between object and event.

My advice is to give up. Read Kant to understand the absolute rape of common sense that he has perpetrated - and to know how this rape has continued to this day. It’s scary, but fun, in a way.

Dude that’s a great little book. There’s actually an entire set of them which cover alot of different philosophers. I think I have ones on Marx, Schopenhauer, Kant and another one I can’t remember right now. Good luck!!

faust! Good to hear from you again.

In the end, Kant may make no sense, and he may be trying to do something that is inherently self-defeating, but I would at least like to give understanding him my best shot. I already tried reading his original works and gave up - now I’m reading other authors’ translations of him. I’ve got a few books on the subject, and once I get through those (if I get through those) and still don’t understand, I’ll assume the fault lies with Kant and not me. It’s always a tough call, though, coming to this conclusion about any philosopher. There’s always the question that lingers: is there some ellusive underlying sense in the convolusions of his writings, some meaning that neither I nor legions of others have been able to decypher, or is what you see what you get?

It is a great book. I also got the one on Hegel (and now I’m officially turned off of him :slight_smile:). I’m thinking of ordering Wittgenstein too. I think the author bends over backwards in some parts in order to put the philosopher in question in a good light, but I suppose he’s obliged to if the whole subject just is the philosopher’s views made clear. What do you think?

Nice to “see” you again, too, gib. Kant has confounded many - maybe because he managed to be a great philosopher without being a good one.

Maybe Nietzsche’s advice will help as you read him. To get to the bottom of any philosopher’s work, try to discern what morality it supports.

Hume’s threat to Christian morality was fatal. Kant panicked at this. He’s bailing water - right into the back of the boat.

You are not alone! :slight_smile:

I said as much about Heraclitus a few days ago. Ultimately we will never be able to know… with any philosopher. But thats just fine because I don’t think knowing is the point anyway.