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This is primarily to Monooq, who knows Kant better than I. Is it possible to be a materialist Kantian (not in ethics mind you. I’m talking only about Kant’s theory of mind or epistemology or whatever you want to call it)? For example these “thingies” in our heads that create the ways in which we perceive always seem to have their origins out there in transcendentalia mundis. Are their any problems if we say that the strcuture creators come from two million years of human evolution and are verifiable? Are you familiar with the neo kantian Ernst Cassirer? I always thought he was headed in this general direction with his Philosophy and Myth book. What are the consequences of this idea?
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The fight between Darwinian Evolution and Lamarckian evolution characterized the first twenty odd years of evolutionary history, with Darwinian theory coming out on top. Yet Lamarck still vexes me. (probably from my not being totally super read in evolutionary theory). if I am remembering correctly, the theory states that a parent can pass on in its genes things that it acquired in its lifetime ie what it learns. Information passes from the body to the reproductive genes (there are special terms here like somatic, but I can’t remember them) and then is passed on to the children. This on its face seems pretty obvious, but it seems to me that human genetic manipulation is turning us into a More lamarckian direction. I wonder if there are any other examples in the world? Any comments are welcome and desired
a materialist kantian, no, i wouldn’t say so. well, using theoretical reason to posit the noumenal world as a material world… no. because substance is a property of objects of experience, and so a property of yourself only. atleast it think that’d be the hardcore trans idealist answer.
yes, darwin is a huge problem i’d think. but kant was a time before darwin. and maybe you’d say that some experiments done show how the brain has evolved in such and such material ways, but these experiments, though obviously they show the material evolution of the brain, shouldn’t lead you to believe that the underlying operation of the brain and everything to do with it is material. you’d be ignoring the pheno/noumen distinction.
i haven’t touched any neo kantians, but me personally wouldn’t make the case, because of darwin, for noumenal material substance.
i’d rather think of darwin as explaining things in the experience-world. the only world that counts and matters.
sort of like, cut open as many brains as you want, you’ll never see a thought… and whatever you see of the brain that you think is the thought, isn’t the thought.
absolutely not… to be a kantian one has to accept a priori synthetic truths which can never be empirically verified before the fact (one of kant’s more eggregious contradictions)… kant’s epistemology is by definition idealist and never empiricist… he calls it transcendental idealism but it is merely a contradiction…
-Imp
wait wait, hold up a Second.
impenitent,
Would the question have a different answer if I asked “Neo-Kantian”?
Monooq I have a longish reply for you, but i’m busy right now - I’ll write it a bit later.
h3m
you would have to define neo kantian… if a neo kantian still accepted the basics of kant’s epistemology (the existence of a priori synthetic judgements), then yes, even a neo kantian is an idealist…
-Imp
#2, My understanding is, and I am probably most certainly mistaken so do please correct me, but what Lamarck was proposing would mean (an example) if you had a sufficient number of generations of leopards who all had the misfortune to break a certain leg before mating, eventually, from disuse, a generation would be born lacking that particular leg.
That’s right. The reaosn Darwin’s model won out is because he had the right idea. changes to DNA in somatic cells do not get passed on. The very mechanism of reproduction prohibits it.
And what sort of genetic manipulation are you talking about? Human gene splicing is currently not practiced. In the case of GM food, the genes are spliced into the reporductive cells,a nd the offspring subsequently exhibit that gene.
None of our genetic manipulations could be considered Lamarkian because they are all playing with the reproductive cells. Essentially, it;s a variation (through slection or downright hacking) of the sperm that enters the egg. None of those processes give the aquired traits of the parent to it’s offspring. In that way is is not lamarkian, but simply an "intelligent’ or “planned” darwinian evolutionary mechanism. It is the same path as darwin, but faster.
What this possibly has to do with Kant is beyond me.