Kant vs Nietzsche

Geez… you guys are still trying to compare the apple to the banana?

Kant vs Nietzsche is like Logic vs Emotion, Order vs Chaos, or Construction vs Destruction. Each belongs in its own era. But the constructive thinker will think more deeply and analytically (the male) vs the destruction thinker reacting to immediate pressures (the female). The influence that each has is a different kind that belongs in a different era. You can’t really compare them any more than you can claim that men or women are superior - “superior at what, at which??

You might as well ask which has had more influence over humanity, males or females?
… it’s a naive, very feminine question.

Yes, or like non-nihilistic or pre-nihilistic philosophy verus nihilistic philosophy - as I said before.

Leibniz’ philosophy contains all things philosophy needs, thus also mathematics. After Leibniz mathematics vanished from philosophy. Kant’s philosophy contains all things philosophy needs except mathematics, thus Kant’s philosophy contains also physics / cosmology / astronomy. After the middle (not the late) Kant physics / cosmology / astronomy vanished from philosophy. So the base of metaphysics vanished - which necessarily means: nihilism. A philosophy without any metaphysics is not a complete philosophy anymore. Since then the nihilistic philosophy has been triumphing over the non-nihilistic philosophy as the very much more real philosophy, the destruction has been triumphing over the construction, the chaos has been triumphing over the order, the emotion has been triumphing over the logic, …, and so on.

Nihilistic philosophy has merely a litte bit to do with philosophy. The greater or better philosopher can never be a nihilistic philosopher. A partly destroyed house can never be the greater or better house.

That’s again a bad excuse.

True.

But both Kant and Leibniz left out one very important philosophical issue (Nietzsche never even approached it). And due to that oversight, very many bad things have taken place unnecessarily. They left out the issue of ontological construction (the very make of Truth itself).

The not only left it out, they were de-constructionists.
It was not them who took on themselves to do that, they were privy to the socio politico processes of the time, the question is, who was more in touch with what was going on Kant tried to remedy the conflict, Nitzche totally negated it. Therefore Nietzche is far better.

But not the better philosopher! He was the better negator, the better nihilist … (see above).

It is not certain that there is an absolute exclusivity between a negator and a philosopher, although there may be situations of proximal perception, there of.

He even negates the negation by his affirmation, or, a re-affirmation.

As I said before: A nihilistic philosophy has not nothing, but merely a little bit to do with philosophy.

Long before Nietzsche, Hegel did it in a better way. So Nietzsche was not the only, not the best, and even not the frist one who did that.

The question was, who was the better philosopher Nietzche or Kant. Hegel was not considered, in exclusive terms. That he was an influence, is of no doubt, however, that would be a different topic, and Hegel may very well be better than Kant, or even
Leibnitz

I mentioned Hegel merely because of the fact that Nietzsche was not the only, not the best, and even not the frist one who negated the negation by affirmation. If i had not mentioned Hegel, you would probably have asked: “Who was it before Nietzsche?”.

I did not want to weigh in on that, the issue here is context. the fact is, that exclusivity and inclusivity of thought is entailed by basic focus. the focus being on who was the best is mistaken. The was Neitzche exclusively working within a context of pure intuition,
of course not. Is Kant?, neither. Intuitionism is nothing new, I could likewise roll off names, Bergson comes to. Ink first and foremost, but others too,
Santayana, a source of inspiration for William James.
The latter, was mostly known for being a psychologist, but with a very strong philosophical basis. Included just as well declare, that Picasso’s
supporter Gertrude Stein was a very credible
philosopher, having studied undernWilliam James.

But returning to the topic, yes, Hegel did that, but,
he did not nihilize, he did the opposite, he
constructed an absolute. Kant did not have what it takes except perhaps intuit the coming succession of Hegel’ search for the absolute.
A pure transcendental reason with which to try to

. Nietzche saw through this, not because he was able to think through this colossus of edified construction,
but, because he intuited from other sources, some
knowingly, and some probably, and most likely subliminally, that this structure has to be brought down. Because if it isn’t the results would be an
absolute model, that should be strung in to reason,
by virtue of it’s ‘goodness’. But, what the good and bad is, has nothing to do with arriving at it with formulae, but it is an act consisting of ad hoc
decisions. The point here, is to point out a cognitive
shift away from reason towards action as a modicum of analysis, because , reason, and analysis in reliance upon reason has been offset. Philosophy, ever since then, has become the product of tools of newly formed thought, admittedly, and undeniably. denial meaning the same thing as A nihilistic attempt to invent a new form of denial.

The philosopher has become a tool, and this became Nietzche’s misfortune, to be so mis interpreted,by people who still thought of the philosopher as the primal movernofmthought. the ontology has ceased to be but a sign , the signature of which was written
At a time where people still had to be convinced that the earth was not flat .

The question was, who was the better philosopher Kant or Nietzsche. The others that you are mentioning here were not considered … :wink:

Yes: it is idiotic:

[size=95]“In a passage suppressed by his sister, Nietzsche describes Jesus as an idiot using the word in its ancient meaning according to which an idiot (idiotes) is a private person, a man with no tribal or civic gods–and therefore no politics–of his own. Such people–mere human beings or persons–seemed slavish or infantile on the ancient polytheism’s radically political horizon. To escape this idiotic fate, the Jews interpreted it as a temporary divine punishment which would be terminated when their messiah restored their political integrity by rebuilding their ancestral temple on its ancestral site in Jerusalem.” (Harry Neumann, “The Case Against Liberalism”.)

“The death of god means the destruction of mankind, of any community, whether within one’s own self or country or mankind or the universe. It isolates the nihilist in the nothingness revealed by radical atheism. Horror of this isolation usually prevents more than half-hearted atheism, driving men to revere mere jackasses, shadows of the now dead god.” (Neumann, “Nietzsche”.)

“Science emerges when anyone, from cavemen to contemporaries, declares his independence from philosophy. Prior to this declaration of independence, there is no science as such. Instead there is Aristotelian or epicurean or thomist or Newtonian or Einsteinian or Christian Science, etc. Each of these pseudo-sciences is subordinated to some more or less clearly articulated philosophic (or theological) theory about the universe. Each subordinates science’s radically personal, incommunicable core to a hypothesis or theory, a philosophic effort to communicate something common to the whole universe. […]
Science itself is the simple realization that whatever is experienced–a self, a world, the law of contradiction, a god or anything else–is nothing apart from its being experienced. Science’s reality is nothing but empty experiences, impressions as Hume called them. From a scientific point of view everything high and low, including the distinction between high and low, becomes a way of experiencing, a point of view, an interpretation, a method, a discipline of thinking or perceiving. Heidegger’s ‘Age of the World-View’ rightly notes that ‘world view’ understood scientifically ‘does not mean a view of the world, but the world understood as a view (or picture). Existence as a whole is now understood in such a way that it only exists in the first place insofar as it is produced by man who perceives or produces it (durch den vorstellend-herstellenden Menschen) … Wherever existence is not interpreted in this way, the world cannot become a view or picture; there cannot be a world view.’ Heidegger rightly insists that a previously unscientific world-view does not change into a scientific one, but this very thing, ‘that the world itself becomes a view’ is the essence of science. In this regard, Nietzsche claims that, for science there are no facts, only interpretations or methods–methods of experience, points of view. There is nothing inherently rigorous or mathematical in scientific method which, rightly understood as it rarely is, means nothing more than nihilist experience, any way (or method) of experiencing–whether it be that of a tiger, an infant or an Einstein. Science is the realization that reality is nothing but mere experience, methods of perceiving or thinking. This ‘definition’ of science, like all theories or thoughts, is no more than another empty experience or method.” (Neumann, “Political Philosophy or Nihilist Science?”)
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For the sake of argument, though, I’m willing to grant that there are historical facts.

You mean his influence will probably be even greater. Well, considering how badly the likes of you want to believe in their own phantasmagoria, and how the world teems with them, I suppose you’re right.

Indeed. Kant never really refuted Hume.

Then I suggest a ninth subforum for you to post on: ILP 2 (“I love Phantasmagoria”). Seriously though, you still be-lieve in what Picht, following Pascal, calls the God of the philosophers. It is suspect, then, that Kant’s popularity has always greatly depended on his stealing back the room for this belief, which Hume had taken away. And the structure of our cognitive apparatus is just another impression: it may be different tomorrow. You want Kant to be the greatest philosopher because you want to believe in “facts”.

Prismatic, I was not talking about what you call the “weightances”. Let me put it this way: Will every participant have one (1) vote, and will all votes count equally? If so, why?

[size=114]No. You want Nietzsche to be your greatest false god, because you are not able to accept facts.[/size]

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Talk about derailing…

To address only the first of your many rants:

No, history shows, at most, the greatness of influence of philosophers. As of yet you have failed to establish a link–in fact, you have not even tried–between the greatness of influence of philosophers and the greatness of philosophers. You have merely ranted a lot, like the little fanatic you are.

You are a Nietzscheanist, I am an historian. So you are the fanatic. And you are even an extreme fanatic. All your posts show that very clearly.

You are ranting and derailing, presuming and speculating, and of course predictively threatening the “resurgence” of your false god. That’s so ridiculous. Maybe your false god will resurrect on Christmas in the middle of your kindergarten. “Great”! But you can believe me: In reality your false god will never resurrect.

I am not against Nietzsche -like (for example) Contra-Nietzsche is -, but you are against Kant. You hate Kant. So you are not able to contribute to any part of this thread. You are too much biased, too much prejudiced.

“My false god” is not dead; if he is, then so is Kant. Anyway, like myself, you cannot be sure about the future either, of course. And politics is only experimental history. I’m practicing political philosophy here. May the greatest philosopher win!

[size=95]“History is needed to make some sense out of the customary faith in something so obviously false as common sense.
If nothing exists but one’s perceptions and thoughts, why do most men so passionately cling to selves, and pursue goods, which they believe exist independently of their cognition? That question can be answered in liberal terms only by a historical account, a record of the origin and development of the sensations and thoughts responsible for faith in common sense. If nothing exists but perceptions and thoughts, the common sense belief denying this liberal conviction must itself arise from perceptions and thoughts. History explains how illiberalism or superstition arises in an essentially liberal reality. It is the story of all moral-political life which, as such, is sparked by nothing but superstition. It is the account of blind aimless wills and their foolish conflicts which superstition forces men to take seriously. Far from being guided by evident insight, as the nihilist rejection of common sense is, history is merely a record of the blind resolves enslaving men to certain prejudiced perceptions and thoughts such as faith in one’s family, tribe, city, state, race, sex, church, or humanity. Superstition manufactures an ‘objective’ reality for the objects of these faiths. Those pseudo-liberals who take history seriously will even die to actualize or preserve one or another of these historical developments of superstition.
Heidegger opted for one such historical development, nazi Germany, and particularly for the nazi German university. Unlike most thinkers of this [the twentieth] century, he was clear that neither his country, nor her universities existed or have any right to exist apart from the resolve to have them. Consequently he despised any allegiance which assumed that its object exists independently of the will that it be. Self-assertion, the willing of its self, is the only existence moral or communal things can have. Heidegger, therefore, rejected Hitler’s claim that Aryan superiority over Jews exists by nature apart from will or self-assertion. He traced Hitler’s error to ‘fishing in the murky water of values and universals,’ that is, to what Spinoza called superstition. For Hitler wanted his biologists to prove his racial theories scientifically.
Heidegger despised Hitler for his ‘Platonic’ enslavement to the common sense need for independently existing moral standards. The lesson of 1933 was responsible for Heidegger’s liberal contempt for politics. It taught him that Hitler’s enslavement to superstition was no exception, but the necessary hallmark of political or moral life. Liberals interpret such illiberal necessities as the culmination of the senseless, historical developments of thoughts and feelings unable to perceive themselves merely as thoughts and feelings. Only the basic liberal insight into the falsity of the whole illiberal orientation responsible for this inability requires no historical studies to make it intelligible. Anyone liberated from superstition realizes the illiberal fraud behind all pseudo-liberal efforts to obfuscate liberalism’s emptiness. Since nothing is more terrifying to superstition than honest liberalism, nothing is more popular academically than pseudo-liberal obfuscation of that terror. Universities and colleges are pseudo-liberalism’s most effective contemporary propaganda institutes.” (Neumann, “Illiberalism or Liberalism?”)[/size]

In this case, every participant will have one ‘vote’ and all ‘votes’ counter equally. Why? this is to avoid biasness.

Note this is not the typical poll where one merely tick off candidate A, B, C like a political election.

In what I proposed, each participant must rate (1 -10) an agreeable set of criteria for each candidate and the weighted points are totaled.

Here is a sample model of how it will work,

Philosopher A
Criteria…Points Score…Weightage…Weighted Points

  1. …9…60%…5.6
  2. …9…20%…1.8
    3…8…10%…0.8
    4…6…10%…0.6
    Total…100%…8.8

Let say criteria 1 above is ‘Revolutionary and paradigmatic ideas/theories,’ and based on a discussions with experts, etc. a weightage of 60% is given for criteria 1.
For example, Newton and Einstein are great and notable because they introduced revolutionary and paradigm shifting theories.

Each criteria must be provided with evidences and justifications.

In this case I would give Kant a rating of 9/10 for criteria 1.
The other criteria are rated (1 low- 10 High) and weighted.
The results is totaled, i.e. 8.4 out of maximum 10.

Then I would complete a rating for Nietzsche.
If Kant is 8.8, my guess for Nietzsche would be 7.0.

The final result is the average total from all the participants.

The above sort of rating would provide greater objectivity rather than just ticking off who one favored and count the number of ticks for each candidate.

To be more credible we could get recognized philosophers to complete the rating.

Intuitively and based on a set of criteria I have in mind, I believe Kant is greater than Nietzsche based on the format I proposed above.

In terms of the Criteria ‘Revolutionary and Paradigmatic’ which I believe should be given a significant weightages, Kant contributed the following; example,

  1. Revolutionizing epistemology in the “Critique of Pure Reason.” Note his Copernican Revolution and reconciling rationalism and empiricism.
    Kant is a watershed figure who forever altered the course of philosophical thinking in the Western tradition.

  2. Revolutionizing moral/ethics in “Groundwork for a Metaphysic of Morals” and the “Critique of Practical Reason.”

  3. and other novel ideas …

As for Nietzsche what is so great about him [relative to Kant] other than regurgitating old ideas in nicer, attractive and more appealing packages.

Kant ‘killed’ the ‘real’ God long before N. That is why I am very confident and can explain [note easily though] with rational and justifiable grounds why God is an impossibility in the real world. Kant however brought back the inherent and unavoidable idea of God within the human psyche as merely an assumption.

Kant and Nietzsche are both very popular philosophers but I would give low weights for ‘Popularity’. Both can be rated 9/10 but the weighted result would not be significant to the total weighted results.

Philosophers like Hegel, others and Nietzsche contributed the applied aspects of being, life and reality.
The fact that Kant did not focus on this applied aspect is deliberate.
Kant stated his was not interested [not that he not capable] in this applied aspect and prefer to focus his limited time [he was already 64 when he wrote the CPrR in 1788] on the principles, system and framework/architectonic aspects of reality. He suggested those who followed after him to fix the flesh [various applied aspects] to the bones [framework] he constructed.

But it doesn’t avoid bias at all, as the vote would then be biased toward the idea that all men are equal. This would actually make the vote biased for Kant and against Nietzsche a priori.

Philosophers recognized by whom?

No, Kant’s unhistorical conception of reason implies what Picht, following Pascal, calls the God of the philosophers in contradistinction to the God of the Bible. I quote again:

[size=95]“What the sun is in the domain of the sensual world, the idea of the good, which Plato in his later works designates as God, is in the domain of true being. As light and heat radiate from the sun, so truth and being radiate from the idea of the good, and as the sensual eye of man is at the same time brought forth by and adequate to the light of the sun, so that he can see what appears in this light, so the spiritual eye of man is both engendered by and adequate to the idea of the good, so that he can know [erkennen] what is in truth.
Modern philosophy calls this spiritual faculty of knowledge ‘reason’, and adheres to the doctrine that reason is able to know what is solely because reason is in accord with that light of truth in which we are able to know all that is. Christian metaphysics calls this light the lumen naturale, the natural light, in contradistinction to the lumen supranaturale, which is also called the lumen fidei [light of faith], namely the light of eschatological revelation. The term lumen is ambiguous. Lumen in Latin does not just mean ‘the light’ but also ‘the eye’. […] For philosophy the ambiguity of lumen means the following: the seat of the lumen naturale is the human faculty of knowledge. It rests on the inborn ideas which give reason the faculty of knowing the world the way it is in truth. But these ideas could, as Descartes establishes, just as well be a deception. They could just as well force us to know [or: cognize] the world the way it is not. We could well have been created by an evil spirit which has created us as a creature fallen prey to deception. The truth of the inborn ideas, and with that the lumen naturale, is ensured only if it is proven that the hypothesis of an evil God is unthinkable. As long as we do not transcend the bounds of the human faculty of knowledge, the only unquestionable thing is that we think. If, over and above that, we wish to ensure that what we think is true, we have to assure ourselves of the knowledge of God.” (Picht, Nietzsche, page 217, my translation.)[/size]

Note sure of your point?
What is your proposal to ensure fairness then?

A reasonable sample that is recognized by you and others.

Again I am not sure of your point?

I gathered,

  1. Kant’s unhistorical conception of reason = the God of the philosophers,
    in contradistinction to
  2. the God of the Bible.

I can’t detect what is your argument and problem statement from the above.
For me, your point 1 make no sense at all and I cannot relate it to the Picht quote you provided. Picht views above do not explain and reflect Kant’s view of what is the faculty of reason and its limits.

“Kant’s unhistorical conception of reason” - what has to do with Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.
To Kant, the faculty of reason is the highest mental faculty which humans must exploit to the fullest but one must understand its limits and limitations. He expressed this in his Critique of Pure Reason.

Note here is how Kant criticized Plato’s abuse of the faculty of reason [italic = mine],

Kant understood and respect the higher power of the faculty of reason and use it optimally and at the same time ‘kill’ it where necessary if reason [pure] is going too far.
Obviously Kant’s use of reason would not fit into Picht’s view, i.e.
“Modern philosophy calls this spiritual faculty of knowledge ‘reason’ …”
If you insist, prove and justify that with reference to Kant’s texts.