Kant vs Nietzsche

What do you mean ‘both works and not derivable for the Categorical imperative’? If it has to work, it better not be deduced from the CI… because that sure doesn’t work.

And no, i’m not going to show you my moral, this thread is not about me. Before you go on to say you need to formule an alternative… no i don’t. If Kant’s system doesn’t work, it all of sudden doesn’t start to work if there is no alternative. It just doesn’t work, and it can be said that it doesn’t work without presenting a whole other moral system.

Also i think you have the wrong idea about philosophy. Philosophy isn’t about building a system… it’s about finding your way out of the system. Socrates originally questioned the Greek Gods and the arbitrary imposed morals that came with it. That’s what it is about, about questioning the societal imposed norms you happen to find yourself confronted with, reëvaluating them and replacing them with your own view on how to live. It’s first and foremost a personal endeavour. Building universally applicable morals and metaphysical systems to found those, is something for party ideologues, priests, politicans and other people in power… who need to device ways to crowd control.

No. Not Kant as a philosopher but, if at all, the philosophy as a philosophy failed, or, in other words, Kant was the first philosopher who showed that also the philosophy can come to an end. After having its climax the philosophy became more and more redundant and at last something like a „pensioner“. It was not a coincidence that Kant was a contemporary of Mozart, Hegel a contemporary of Beethoven, and Nietzsche a contemporary of Brahms - and by the way: Sloterdijk is a contemporary of Zappa, and Ecmandu a contemporary of Eminem. :slight_smile:

I mean that you or anybody else should show me any moral which both works and is not derivable from Kant’s Categorical imperative.

And therefore you should show me a (for example: your) moral, if it both works and is not derivable from Kant’s Categorical imperative.

:laughing:
Yes, Diekon, this thread is not about you.
I meant that you should show me a (for example: your) moral, if it both works and is not derivable from Kant’s Categorical imperative.

No, that’s merely nihilistic philosophy, thus nihilism, and of that sort we have already enough. There is no way out of nihlism, if nihlism is already entered.

No, that’s again social critcism, thus again nihilism, merely nihlistic philosophy. You have the wrong idea about philosophy.

If we all would think and act in the sense you are prefering, then in the end (consequently) there will be no philosophy anymore. Everything and anything would be sociology, nothing would be philosophy anymore. We are already on this “trip”.

No, because then most people would say (like you): “This thread is not about me”. :laughing:

They would say “I want to have every and any right because I am the victim”. Look at the so-called “human rights”. They all begin with the word “one” or the word “everyone”. Do they work? Does individualism ()extreme egoism) really work? And are they not derivable from Kant’s Categorical imperative?

“Party ideologues, priests, politicians, and other people in power”? Like I said: social criticism and sociology, thus nihilism. I say: primarily philosophers should do it, and they should not be allowed to get money for it.

Another straw-man.
If you insist you understand the Kantian Moral/Ethics system, show a simple example of how it is done and why it don’t work.

Note I mentioned the Kantian process is leveraged upon experience [though not stated explicitly by Kant] and the moral law is formulated as independent of experience [in contrast to Hume’s psychological association, customs and habits that are dependent on experience.], then applied in parallel to the actual world.

From another thread:

What do you think about that?

Note that the ILP (1) was formed with the Kant imperatives (1-10) in mind (although not from Kant at the time). It is a “universal law” for any life form focused on ensuring the self while also ensuring maximum momentous harmony with the environment - the most stable, strong, and joyful existence possible, similar too, but not identically the same, as the Buddhist and Christian concept of Heaven on Earth, but far more enduring.

If it is to be something in alignment with the Kantian system it would be as follows;

A. The Categorical Imperative -Formulation 1
(1) “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law without contradiction.”
(2) - (5) …

B. The Maxims/Laws/Rules to be acted upon
(1) “Know Thyself”
(2) “Be revolutionary.”
(3) “Trust in the absolute spirit and the dialectic processes.”
(4) “Relinquish.”
(5) “Be yourself.”
(6) “Persevere.”
(7) “Be autarkic as much as you can.”
(8) “Take care of you, your relatives and dependents, your surrounding and ecological environment.”
(9) “Participate in the discourse.”
(10) “Take care of your foam, because you live in it.”
(11) Others …

Note this section can be quite complex and need further deliberations to refine and simplify within a system, otherwise it is impossible to deal with the full details within the infinite diversified empirical world.

C. Check to ensure all your Maxims comply with A.

D. Implement and apply the Maxims, Laws and Rules in the actual world

[b]E. Measure gap/variance between C and D

F. Introduce strategies to close the gap in E

G. Review to maintain overall system from A-F[/b]

What is complicated about the Kantian system is how to ground and justify every element and the full implementation of the overall system.

Yo Prismatic,

What do you think of Fichte’s metaphysics in comparison to Schelling’s? Do you see any merit in either of their philosophies, or did they deviate from Kant in error?

As with Kant I had always insisted one is not qualified to comment on Kant unless one had delved into his philosophy via his original works thoroughly.
I had not dig deep into Fichte’s and Schelling’s original works. Thus I would have to provide reservation when commenting on them.

I noted Ficthe’s central view on Kant is this;

If this is what Ficthe meant, then he has misunderstood Kant re thing-in-itself.
Kant never considered the thing-in-itself as mind-independent, external ‘cause’ of sensation. He has no way of inferring that. Kant starts from outer world of experience, the human condition [Copernican Revolution] and link them interdependently to the assumed thing-in-itself.

At present, I do not have Schelling’s views within my grasp, thus will have to refresh and research further to give any credible views on him. However I don’t think I will divert resources to it unless someone show something very convincing from Schelling.

prismatic, regardless of whether the thing in itself is dependent or independent of human thoughts , it is closed. The distinction becomes totally irrelevant. the main thing is, that it is closed system, and it’s closure is not attributable to what source the closure is to be accounted to. Predecessor philosophers may, also,have views on this, which do or do not relate to such an idea, but even within this view, such preceding views, and the degree to which, they may have been inffluential on Kant is immaterial.

In this case I do not want to venture to say it is ‘closed’ or ‘open’ as that lead to an infinite regress, i.e. 'what is behind the ‘closed.’

As one of the many uses, Kant justified the idea of the Noumenom [thing-in-itself] rationally to deal with the infinite regress on Negative basis and, thus thwart and give no room for theists to jump in and insist on a real first cause. For Kant, to insist on a positively real first cause is illusory.

This is fast becoming pointless if you going yell strawman every time.

To restate, my basic problem with the CI is that Kant doesn’t present an actual argument for it. It pretty much all follows from definition. “A moral law is a law, and therefore needs to be universal and derived from reason only, etc…” If you don’t buy into his metaphysical jumbling with mere definitions of words, there is no reason to accept any of it. Why use the CI, and not - to give but one example - Nietzsche’s twist on it in the eternal recurrence?

As for practical concerns for why the CI doesn’t work, or at least is of no real use, I think the Artful Pauper did a pretty good job. The CI just doesn’t say alot. If you come up with some maxim (like killing is not permissible), you immediately need to amend it with a host of exception for it to have any use in the real world. The real content comes from experience with real world situations. And it’s not like we can’t come up with some general principle without using the CI.

So in the end I’m stuck with the same question and no real answer : why the CI?

So your argument is that there is something like social criticism, and it’s nihilistic… and therefor philosophy cannot be that. You argue like Kant from definition.

You know, the root of Nihilism, is not some criticism on the societal system, but the allready present lack of belief in the societal promoted values… because the values end up being hollow. God is dead because people killed him. The philosopher, or societal critic if you really will, merely reports that God is in fact dead. He’s the doctor diagnosing society. To find a cure, it doesn’t suffice to desparately try to stitch together the deceased corpse and hope that it will magically come back to live, like Kant does. You need to dispose of it alltogether, to create space for something new…

As a side note, no the human rights don’t really work, there is contradiction abound… and one doesn’t have the power to enforced the rights that are given in the declarations.

Double post.

It is not my “Argument”, it is an historical fact.

No. Therfore nihilistic philosophy can not be an entire philosophy and has to remain something like criticism, skepticism … and so on. I am not complainin about this much but referring to the topic of this thread and saying that philosophy is the better means than criticism, skepticism … and so on, but if we do not have any other possibility, then we have to accept it.

Really?

I hope you are not referring to Nietzsche, because: long before Nietzsche was born there was alraedy nihilism. Nihilism began in the end of the 18th century or the beginning of the 19th century, thus, let’s say, nihilism began about 1800.

Who is “the doctor diagnosing society”? I think, you are again referring to social criticism, aren’t you? A social critic or a nihilist nihilistic philosopher is not the better philosopher (and this is the question of this thread) but merely the better cocial critic or nihilistic philosopher. It’s simple. You only have to refer to the topic of this thread.

No. I do not need to, but I can “dispose of it alltogether, to create space for something new”. If all current humans would “create space for something new”, then there were perhaps already no humans anymore. :wink:

So, in that point, you agree with me. That’s fine.

You are leaving out the reëvaluation part, i never said a philosopher should only criticize, but it will be an important part of it. There is the sceptic deflationary part and also the constructive positing of his own values. You (the philosopher, not you specifically!) cannot build on unsolid ground to good result. The philosopher is the doctor diagnosing… and looking for a cure.

The god is dead reference is ofcourse a reference to Nietzsche… and i don’t see the problem as he didn’t say he died at that exact moment, he was allready dead (for a while), people just hadn’t got the memo yet.

No. I am not “leaving out the reëvaluation part”. Please read ort reread my posts.

Yes, unfortunately, because it is too much criticism. The more criticicsm or nihilism the less philosophy you have. You have to accept the historical facts. You can not have both non-philosophy and philosophy.

No one of those skepticists has ever achieved and will never achieve such a huge influence that Kant has achieved. And that belongs to the answer of the question in the topic of this thread. I remind you again: please refer to the topic. This little philosophers you mean are dwarfs in comparison to Kant.

Nietzsche said that - and I like it very much -, but that does not mean that it is always (for ever, ad infinitum) right. It depends on the time and space humans live in.

They had got the memo. An example: In the 1790’s Johann Gottlieb Fichte was accused of atheism. And because of this Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi used also the word „Nihilismus“ („nihilism“) in his „Sendschreiben an Fichte“ (1799). I know for a fact that at least since then the God-is-dead-philosophem has been knowing and keeping in mind. Later, Nietzsche just repeated it, but he did it with much language violence, because he was powerfully eloquent.

I don’t agree with your characterisation of non-philosophy and philosophy. Criticism is intrinsically tied into philosophy, it’s not non-philosophy. I don’t think you can get good philosophy without it. If it were that simple you could just build whatever arbitrary thing and call it philosophy.

Influence isn’t the only, or even the most important, criterium for a good philosopher. A good philosopher has both aspects, he reëvaluates which implies a certain scepsis and a creative act.

And some got the memo, but most didn’t. Kant for example didn’t really get the memo, nor did the whole tradition that followed him. And if they did get the memo, they certainly didn’t fully realise all the ramification of it. Nietzsche was the first to do that… to do philosophy without metaphysics.

That was not a “characterisation” but a statement that you can not have both non-philosophy and philosophy. That is logical, even tautolgical: A non-philosophy can not also be a philosophy. That is impossible. Either “It rains” or “it does not rain” - both is not possible.

Philosophy contains logic, Diekon. Is ILP a philosophy forum or not?

I did not say that criticism has nothing to do with philosophy, but I said: if criticism is merely nihilism or turns its fury on philosophy, then it is not a part of philosophy anymore.

Have you really read my posts?

Again: I did not say that criticism has nothing to do with philosophy, but I said: if criticism is merely nihilism or turns its fury on philosophy, then it is not a part of philosophy anymore. Modern criticisms are often advertised as philosophy, although most of them are obviously not philosophy. That is the problem. We do not have too much philosophy - we have too little philosophy. That’s why I joined ILP, b.t.w… :sunglasses:

Did I say that a philosopher has nothing to do with reevaluation or skepsis? No. I did not.

Be honest: you do not want Kant to be the greatest philosopher. Not your or anybody else’s “opinion” but the history itself decides about the greatness of a philosopher. You do not accept historical facts. That’s all.

Some are enough. There have always been merely some with an interest in getting a memo. Most have always been not interested in philosophy. So why should they have got the memo? It’s just irrelevant.

That is not true.

That is also not true. I think you do not know much about Kant and Kantians, Neo-Kantians, Neo-Neo-Kantians.

And already about 20 years after his death metaphysics returned (was it because of the eternal recurrence? :wink: ).

Yeah some never seem to get the memo… I’m done here.

Yes and no. Yes, that goes for all of us: I want Nietzsche to be the greatest philosopher, and you want Kant to be the greatest philosopher. But because Nietzsche would, in sharp contrast with Kant, actually affirm this, he is the greatest philosopher.

Even if there were such a thing as a fact, that depends on what you mean by “greatness”. You seem to mean “influence”. I therefore give you an excerpt of an old post of mine:

No, it was not eternal recurrence, nor even historical recurrence; it was merely a shadow of the dead God (compare section 108 of The Gay Science).