Kant vs Nietzsche

“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.

Prismatic,

What i think Sauwelious is trying to get at is that Kant merely replaces God with reason. They both play a role in justifying universal or absolute morality. So in the end Kant did away only with a name, not with the function of the concept.

To truely do away with god, you need to do away with the idea that morality follows from something, that there is an absolute authority for morality, be it God or pure Reason. Morality is created, by human beings, who also happen to disagree about it alot. That"s where Nietzsche starts…

Not “replaced”, but expressed.

What you imagine to be reason that has “gone too far”, isn’t reason, but rather superstition, such as Quantum Physics.

Excuse me , James, for wedging into the sequence something which I hope will not interrupt the flow, and yet I have to say it. In reference to the suggestion that, we oft mix up the philosopher with the philosophy, or near to that, the suggestion came to mind, which Fixed Cross and I have discussed on one occasion, vid, that You may consider threeseemingly illogical propositions at the same time:

  1. Nietzche is the greatest philosopher.
  2. Nietzche is a better philosopher than Kant
  3. I am not a Nietzchean

The point is, just because a philosopher is ‘better’ in some respect, does not meet the substantial aspects of the corollary that a belief in him must follow.

a better philosopher, say Kant, may be more convincing, more structurally decisive, more comprehensive and logical, all that, and less intuitive.
the implication between intuition and a lesser philosopher his is a hidden minor premise.
if it is recognized as such, and I happen to be an intuitionism, then, I can accede to Kant being the better, yet I may not correspondingly believe in his thoughts, as applicable to current concerns.

No, “expressed” does not fit the context and the meaning i was trying to express.

Yes, I know what you intended. I am expressing something contrary.

You most probably have the common Santa-Claus understanding of God and thus see reasoning as something very opposed to it. The fact (and well known in many circles) is that what is actually very sound reasoning, IS God and beyond common man (aka super-normal/natural - “Truth”/“Reality”/“I am that which is”).

I don’t know where you got that I think they are very opposed, because in the sentence you are quoting i’m saying they play the same role.

And yeah that kinda follows that rationalist logic, that reason and words have some special meaning above and beyond mere experience… it’s not my thing.

I don’t propose a poll or a rating at all. In my view only the great can recognize greatness.

But wouldn’t that recognition then also have to be based on a rating with accepted criteria and “weightances”, and this rating, in turn, also have to be completed by recognized philosophers to be more credible? Doesn’t recognizing who is the greatest among multiple philosophers presuppose the recognition of philosophers in general?

I know Kant has an idiosyncratic conception of reason (Vernunft), distinguishing it from the “understanding” (Verstand) and “intuition” (Anschauung). Picht and I, however, are talking about the entire human cognitive apparatus, which makes synthetic a priori judgments. What Kant assumes or posits is that that apparatus, and therefore the judgments it makes, is unhistorical. To be sure, he does not teach that it was created by a transcendent God; after all, he teaches that things in themselves are inaccessible to us. Thus Fichte already dismissed the whole notion of “things in themselves”–in fact, he was convinced that such a great mind as Kant could not possibly have meant this the way he seemed to have meant it! But Kant of course had an ulterior motive: to leave open the possibility of a good transcendent God, immortal souls, free will, and an afterlife with rewards or punishments. But thereby Kant leaves open the possibility that our cognitive apparatus was created by a good transcendent God! Indeed, Kant taught that it was necessary for human beings to believe in such a God, the immortality of their own souls, the freedom of their will, etc. So according to Kant it’s necessary for us to believe that our cognitive apparatus with its necessary beliefs and synthetic a priori judgments was created by a good transcendent God, “in His own image” so to say: our finite reason is then the once-and-for-all finite incarnation or in-spiration of infinite divine reason, much like, in Christianity, Jesus Christ–who is there called the Ultimate Adam–is the sole and definite incarnation of God. Compare Hegel and Vaishnavism: in Hegel, every finite form of reason is a historical manifestation of absolute spirit, and the sequence of these forms is progressive, so that each consecutive form is a more perfect manifestation; much like, in Vaishnavism, there are at least ten incarnations of God, of whose progressive-evolutionary interpretation there exists a veritable tradition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashavatara#Evolutionary_interpretation

Noted.

So how would you propose a reasonable objective comparison.

As Nietzsche had implied, ‘there is no absolute, there are only perspectives’.
I have no issue with poll or rating, as long as I am aware of the terms and conditions.
If the greats are egoistical, narcissistic, etc. they may be bias only to their own greatness.

As I said, the final resultant is conditioned to the terms, criteria and other conditions that are used within the framework.
Thus in this case we need to understand who are the participants.

Let say we select 200 credible philosophers who has at least 15 years of teaching in a university and are familiar with Kant and Nietzsche. Their credentials are open for all to read and verify. If you find all the variable acceptable, then you should find the final results acceptable.

The point is whatever the approach used, we need to understand and agree with the variables used. The result is then conditioned upon these agreed variables.

The following points are bad understanding of Kant’s view and straw-men.

This is a delineation in line with progressive evolution from animality (senses to thinking) to humanity (thinking to higher reasoning). What Kant did was representing the fact in a more detailed form and explanation.

Picht and I, however, are talking about the entire human cognitive apparatus, which makes synthetic a priori judgments.
Note Kant’s main approach is ‘Completeness’ and his forte is systematicity and architectonic. However to get an idea of the whole we need to understand the parts in details. This is why Kant analyzed the parts of the mental faculty in detail.

Completeness - this is what neuroscience and connectome is attempting to do.

When understood thoroughly, Kant’s ‘history’ cover from the epigenesis of the first one cell entity to the human being. What Kant deliberately left out was the later cruder history of mankind which he left for others [from Hegel to the postmodernists] that followed him to take up.

To be sure, according to Kant, the transcendent God is impossible to be real and to insist it is real is illusory and delusional.
It is your phrasing of the things-in-themselves as ontological that is misleading yourself to what Kant meant.
Kant never intended the thing-in-itself as some independent ontological substance or essence that need to be or possible to be known at all.
I have quoted, to Kant, the thing-in-itself is an assumption to be used negatively as a limit and never be used positively in the real sense.
Kant used the thing-in-itself within his moral system in another sense but that require extensive analysis to understand where it stand, but ultimately it is never an independent ontological absolute substance nor essence.

If Ficthe unable to align the idea of the thing-in-itself epistemologically within philosophy, then he had wrongly interpret Kant’s view. Note Schopenhauer’s positive Will.
As far as I had gathered, Nietzsche’s philosophy is in alignment with Kant’s but fall short of Kant’s total ‘complete’ framework representing reality.

Nah … this ‘an afterlife with rewards or punishments’ is rubbish to Kant and he detested organized religions.
But Kant did state,

This require VERY heavy and in depth analysis to understand and ‘faith’ in this case is not religion nor the theistic God.

This contradict your above;
To be sure, he does not teach that it was created by a transcendent God;

I had already stated Kant asserted the transcendent and real God is an impossibility.
Kant did use the idea of a transcendental [not transcendent =illusion] God within his System of Morality. However we need detail analysis to avoid conflating it with the conventional belief in God as in theism and theistic religions.
I personally do not agree with his use of the term ‘God’ [carry a lot of negative baggage] rather I would prefer the term ens realissimum as an assumption [not ontological substance].

This is all bullshit, nonsense and has no relevance to Kant’s philosophy.

Hegel’s philosophy is grounded on the Absolute as in pantheism and Brahman of Vedanta.

Hegel was blinded by a natural and unavoidable illusion;

Once Hegel [other pantheists] has been seduced by the natural unadvoidable transcendent illusion it is not easy for him to rationalize away and this basic virus infect and distort his philosophy.

As for the progressive-evolutionary process, Kant went into great details to lay down the principles of
-the logical principle of genera
-the logical principles of specification
and tying in with the taxonomy of Carolus Linnaeus.

Note this related point;

Schopenhauer also wrote on the above as if the idea was from himself.

That gives it away. ‘Descended from the slightest genus’ is neo-Platonism at its best. the fact is , declension has been eclipsed by ascension, and that is the problem, par excellence. how to measure descent from ascent, is a problem, with myriad implications. relatively speaking, how can one, tell the difference ? If not compared to another object in movement, and event the. It is simply impossible.

That gives it away. ‘Descended from the slightest genus’ is neo-Platonism at its best. the fact is , descension has been eclipsed by ascension, and that is the problem, par excellence. how to measure descent from ascent, is a problem, with myriad
implications. relatively speaking, how can one, tell the difference ? If not compared to another object in movement, and even then.
L It is simply impossible.

Not sure of your point, can you give some examples.
Note Kant is not an expert in biology but merely expound the principles involved from the philosophical approach, i.e. the philosophy of biology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory
System Theory is critical to knowledge and an understanding of reality.
By rejecting the ‘system’ perspective, this is a minus point for Nietzsche in terms of philosophy.

No wonder those who hero-worship Nietzsche are so anti-Kant because one of Kant’s stronger point is his systematicity and architectonic.

Here is a comment on Nietzsche’s rejection of system theory.

Erik - Reason flows forth from the passions. Whoever treats reason as if it operates independently of the energies has not yet begun to think.

Kants categorizations are useful but not profound or especially meaningful. He is still wholly passion-bound, has not yet begun to clearly reflect (on) it, which is to say himself.

Kants first axiom lies in the dark, and is thus useless to him, affording him honesty nor consistency.

With Schopenhauer there is a breakthrough. He discerns what it is in passion that allows for reason to come out of it: will and imagination (“Vorstellung”).

Nietzsche went on to dissect the workings of that phenomenon, and to integrate all conceptual understanding into the fundamental logic he had discerned in and developed out of Schopenhauers idea.

What we have here is a logic that is consistent with itself and includes in itself the ground of logic itself. From here on philosophy could begin to produce scientific results.

Nietzsches emphasis came to lie on the concept value. Herein he found the terms to the logic of what manifests as power.

I developed these terms to amount to a fully operational philosophical grammar. In Kantian terms, that means an a priori judgement that is equally analytic as it is synthetic. Or: a circular formulation that is not tautological but creative.

Creative in the way of man, the world, the will to power itself; the formula is an active representation, it “enacts” the world. It is thus “alive” - it behaves in the same way as what it describes - it represents itself along with the world. In this it is not alone - both Schopenhauers and Nietzsches ideas “behave” in the same way; as ideas that aren’t imposed on reality as if from some other purer realm, ideas that aren’t untouchable to themselves, ideas of flesh and blood. This is the lineage of honesty and power, two things that in philosophy are indispensible to each other. From the pessimism of Schopenhauer the idea of will (‘energy with intent’ to use your phrase) has become more optimist, more free to enjoy itself, more vital, healthy, fuller; more “well rounded”, a world to itself, voluptuous and incessantly (pro)creative.

The above need further interpretations from various perspectives otherwise it can be misleading.

It is odd to say reason flows forth from the passions.
The term ‘passions’ can also mislead as ‘passion’ generally refers to very strong emotions on the edge of them being uncontrollable by the person with the potential toward extreme good/Beneficent or extreme evil.
In addition, extreme passion with common reason can generate more extreme evil, e.g. those of the psychopath.

It is a fact, the primary and secondary emotions evolved earlier and are embedded ‘deeper’ in the human brain than the neural circuitry that support the faculty of reason [from common to pure reason].
As such, we can agree the faculty of reason emerged with the leverage on emotions and other mental elements. This point is easily recognized, note
The Evolution of Reason: Logic as a Branch of Biology (Cambridge Studies in Philosophy and Biology) (9780521540254): William S. Cooper.

Neuroscientists has also done research to arrive at a very strong hypothesis that reason has to work interdependently with emotions.
Note Antonio Damasio’s

Re Ethics [btw not moral], Kant believed the faculty of reason is the worst element to be relied upon to drive ethical motives and actions.

Despite Kant’s understanding that instincts and emotions are more effective and critique Reason as ineffective for ethical motives, he believed there are good reasons why Reason is necessary for Morals [not ethics]. Kant do not expect Reason* to drive the motives/actions of ethics directly but merely act as a sort of overseeing counselor for ethics.

  • Kant analyzed the concept of Reason in great details and the relevant reason in this case is positive Pure Reason with rationality and not Common-Reason or even philosophical logic in general.

Kant’s approach is system-based and he represented sensibility [emotions and other sensual faculty] in its proper place within the human system [mental and physical] in its interdependent interaction with reality.

Kant’s categories are a critical but merely a very small part to his whole system of philosophy. Kant presented his categories in principles and its forms/details are limited within the knowledge available in his time, but its details, forms and complexities can now be explored further via cognitive neuroscience* and other advance knowledge.
Some claim Kant to be a pioneer of cognitive science (thus cognitive neuroscience).

As I had mentioned elsewhere, to made a fairer review and critique of Kant’s views or for comparative purposes, one need to put in a LOT of effort to grasp and understand [not necessary agree with] his philosophical theories.

I had feared that the term ‘passions’ might be interpreted like this, even as I replaced it in other instances with ‘energies’ which should make it clear that I an referring to a more general category than mere sensibility. I mean the basic life force.

It is not (objectively) good that reason relies on energy, it is merely fact.

Therefore, philosophical reason must engage this admittedly daunting and even terrifying difficulty of the passions including all their obscurity and violence before it can engage the subject of reason.

But as I have discovered, the passions aren’t nearly as dreadful as they are made out to be by the champions of reason-a-priori. In fact it is the passions that include love, and reason which is unbound by love as it can choose any passion as its logical ground, as its axiomatic value. In the passions is com-passion, however irrational it would often seem to the merely calculating mind. It is the passions that value being, of self and of others, and reason can only accomodate the valuing of others if these loving passions are strong enough.

Therefore I laud Kants passions, because they drove him to imagine that reason in itself would give birth to similar appreciation as he felt in his heart. But he was misled, as loftily as a man can be perhaps… but from Kant there follows not any effective moral command, only a rhetorical, aesthetically pleasing one. To be effective in commanding integrity of action and compassion, which are Kants axiomatic values, we have to dig deeper than he did and confront those plasmic forces beneath the surface, and discover that they, the passions, from sensible emotions to the raw unconscious energies, are themselves valuing.

There is no indifference to nature. All is love, in a sense, but most of it is blind love. The path to a lofty hearted politics of power is the process of illuminating love to iself. This path is a poetic, creative one, not one of system building. It is the process of awakening.

For human consciousness to become aware of its own lofty ground and nature, this is the moral imperative and the purification of reason.