Kant vs Nietzsche

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.

Or a mouse with an elephant, or a molehill with an huge mountain like the Mount Everest.

Trying to compare a nihilistic philosopher with a non-nhilistic philosopher is difficult but not impossible.

Thre is realitiy, and so there is objectivity. There should be science, thus there should be history too. Thers is still science, thus there is still history too. We have logic, empirical evidence, and history in order to know that a nihilistic philosopher can never be the greater or better philosopher. Nihilistic philosophy has merely a litte bit to do with philosophy.

The question was, who was the better philosopher Nietzche or Kant. Heidegger, Hitler, and Neumann were not considered … :wink:

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

And what about the reverse? A belief in a philosopher “does not meet the substantial aspects of the corollary that” this philosopher is “better”.
Nihilistic philosophers may be more sympathic - and in nihlistic times they mostly are, at least for other nihilists -, but they can never be the greater or better philosophers.
It is the definition itself that makes it impossible to really have a little philosophy as the greatest or better philosophy.

That’s the main problem I am having with the idea of trying to uplift people here. There’s some people who have it in them to dare to understand but they don’t really require teaching. As for valuing normal honest people, that is inevitable to a great soul, I think, but valuing them does not mean trying to teach them to think like great men. They might be great in their own nature, such as a man like our friend whom I will refer to as “El”, who surely has greatness in him even though he may understand less than petty hearted people with some intellectual cleverness. What he does understand he understands generously and joyously, and he is able to act on it.

Part of valuing the great hearted and the honest is also denouncing the petty an the dishonest. It never ceases to amaze me, even though from a VO perspective it is perfectly comprehensible and predictable, to what lengths people will go to ignore, misread or otherwise stupidly interpret my writing so as to be able to disregard it. I am afraid I do not have your patience at all and will also never attain it.

This is of course the weak link. That group is exactly the group that does require teaching. But how large is that group really? How many posters are likely to eventually come to value their valuing so consciously as to break through into understanding?

Noted your use of the term ‘passion,’ and ‘energy’.
If it is not qualified accordingly it can be easily misunderstood. Note the controversial Hume’s ‘Reason is the slave to Passions …’

Kant was not misled.
Kant’s system comprised the Moral [pure[ and Ethics [applied] aspects. Kant understood for humanity to progress both the pure and applied aspects must work complementarily and interdependently.

Due to the very divergent sphere within the world of the empirical, practices [practical], pragmatic and the likes, Kant preferred [passion perhaps] to concentrate on the converging principles, systems and framework, i.e. the pure moral aspect rather than the applied ethical aspects. In addition Kant has limited time to deal with the ‘anthropological’, pragmatic-practices due to his age (64 when he wrote Critique of Pure Reason].

Kant did attend to the practices of the empirical world [he called it anthropology then - not the same as its current use ], but his work on this aspect was not significant.

There is a very strong correlation between Buddhism and Kantian philosophy in essence however Buddhism is not as systematic in its presentation. The additional feature that Buddhism over the theoretical Kantian system is its personal self-development program of the individual to align optimally with the natural moral impulse towards the ideal. This involve actual rewiring of the neural circuitry in the brain.

Thus in my case, whatever is omitted from the Kantian system is supplemented by the affective system from Buddhism.

I required, and still require, teaching. To be sure, though, I haven’t required proselytising–in fact, I’ve always been most adverse to it. I’ve required proselytising myself, indoctrinating myself, with ideas I myself found, or which found me, and which I myself chose and thereby honoured. So for me, “trying to uplift people here” means to put my ideas–by which I mean both the ideas I’ve chosen and made my own and those I myself thought of–out here. It’s like recreational fishing for men, for human beings, for potential philosophers, or at least for potential lovers of philosophy: a recreational fisherman does not use a net; he just puts his bait out there, waits until something bites, and then, if and when something does, tries to pull it up into the air and the light with the right measure of force and gentleness, patience and resolve. To be sure, that’s something I’ve needed to learn. And of course, it’s not merely recreational–at least not in the shallow sense. It’s re-creational:

[size=95]“Nietzsche often speaks of self-overcoming in terms of self-creation, and this fecund metaphor conveys his sense of the nomothetic [= legislative] influence of exemplary human beings. Great individuals are always artists in Nietzsche’s sense, for, in the course of their self-overcomings, they inadvertently produce in themselves the beauty that alone arouses erotic attachment. By virtue of their self-creation, exemplary figures come to embody ‘the great stimulus to life,’ unwittingly inviting others to join them in the pursuit of self-perfection.” (Daniel Conway, “Love’s labor’s lost: the philosopher’s Versucherkunst [= art of the (at)tempter]”.)[/size]

Indeed. In fact, I was thinking in this direction for my one-sentence summary of what I’d call Value Ethics: “The philosopher is obliged to express his appreciation of beings as much as he can in ways they can appreciate, though not necessarily exclusively.” I was especially thinking of beings that make him possible as a philosopher, that make his philosophising possible.

Yes. I would say that they are great insofar as they are pre-forms of the philosopher and/or make him possible, like the man in the street who is a–more or less–valuable member of the society in which the philosopher lives; even the little yappy dog that helps keep some such people’s happiness with their little lives above the minimum level required for that. Though no, I don’t think our friend has a yappy dog.

Yes, but not absolutely, because they are necessary links in the chain of which the great-hearted and the honest, and especially the philosophers, constitute the links that justify the whole chain. I think the philosophers justify the whole chain because the unexamined life is not worth living; the philosophers examine the whole chain and especially the essence of it and of each of its links, and on examining it discover that it is valuable in itself to them.

But you will have to try and develop yours, because the success of our political philosophy may depend in no small part on your courteousness.

I must disagree with Kant here. I think a philosiphical work can and should account for everything that it claims. That in fact philosophy can and therefore ultimately must be more exact than mathematics. This is because mathematics postulates the integer, whereas philosophy must derive it, arrive at it. That’s at least what my work has been about.

Ultimately the integer is given, and it is therefore not dangerous or dishonest to postulate it, but to speak of it one must arrive at it from within itself, one must uncover what makes it an integer, even though it is irreducible.

That is the ground of an understanding of how integers can come to interact without damaging each others integrity.

I too have been trained rigorously in Buddhism as well as in Yogic and Vedic philosophies, which indeed include or even start with physical practices. Yes, the brain does need to be rewired (though some form of meditational disclipline, not necessarily eastern) for it to grasp the inner workings of being.

deleted

Btw, what Kant meant in the above quote was the substance, i.e. principles, system and framework, is more important than the forms. Thus it is critical to keep the framework intact while one can experiments with the forms.

In his works, Kant did discuss and differentiate between Mathematics and philosophy [especially metaphysics] to establish ‘How Pure Mathematics is Possible?’ while metaphysics [once touted as the queen of the sciences] cannot be possible. This would be a long story thus off topic.

As for exactness or definite answers, I am with Russell’s

Sauwelios - Realize that I have been fishing for four years now. The catch has been quite alright, especially with you now on board, but the efforts it took me have been very great. Also note that my acute and exact understanding of being came to be precisely as a remedy against an impending non-being - against valuing other beings and their perspectives too much, being too courteous and considerate, something that actually brought me on the brink of death, as can be understood at the hand of that principle. Its emerging in my mind was due to a necessity on the level of life and death. You must see my aggression as a medicine against unwarranted sympathies and good will. Erik, for example, had received much good will from me, long before I made that one unfortunate expression. My investments in him turned out to have been futile, he had understood (perhaps taken setiously) absolutely nothing, and this was so disappointing as to cause nausea. Lyssa on the other hand, to give an example, has been a rewarding object of investment, despite her and my violent and scornful clashing. Perhaps actually because rather than despite that she is able to muster such brute intellectual force. I still see philosophy as a glorious battle, and diplomacy is warranted only when the stakes are sufficiently high, when much has already been gained.

Yeah, you really spazzed out on me, buddy. What was that all about? Just having a bad day? I was genuinely interested in your thoughts on the subject, but you decided to get snide and nasty…

Was it because I casted aspersions on Nietzsche?

An issue of separating philosophical power from philosophical value, assuming you can do that, and suggesting that I would do that.

Fixed Cross,

What are your thoughts on the following quote:

You are quite creative, I gotta hand it to ya.

That was my version of expressing myself to you in exaggerated caricature of the way you expressed yourself to me.

You said to me: “I stated that you prefer Nietzsche” and went on to say that this did not mean that I thought Nietzsche is the better, stronger, greater, more influential, more relevant philosopher. As strange as this may have been to you, this was a very grave insult to me. You implicitly said that I stated a preference or a philosopher without having philosophical ground for that preference. Hence, I wanted to show you how that comes across to me, and I used a creative way of expressing that (stating something about a preference of yours that was not something you stated at all).

The point was that I prefer Nietzsche only and alone because is greater, more significant, deeper, more powerful, more relevant, more important, has more impact, is more honest, more intelligent, etc etc etc etc - and that I felt and feel that I had made this very clear, throughout all my posts about Nietzsche.

I admire Nietzsche as a master-logician. I look down on Kant whom I consider to be a failed wannabe logician.

In my view Fixed Cross’s analogy is sound: you did say the same thing to him first, Erik–in form, that is, not in content. And in fact, it’s quite evident that, for him, the content was on the same par.

An example of what I was trying to get at:

I like the movie Scarface, I prefer it over the Godfather collection. I prefer Scarface, because I can relate to it more, I can identity with the main character better. But I can acknowledge that the Godfather collection is superior to the Scarface movie, as there is better acting, better structure, more depth to the story, etc – even though it gets kind of boring at many times, like Plato, and because I don’t relate to the characters on a personal level, like I do in Scarface.

That’s an example of how one can prefer something, yet think something else, which is non-prefered or less preferred, is generally superior/better.

Could I have worded my question differently? Of course - I could have just asked him: " Who do you think is better? Nietzsche or Kant? ".

But at the same time, Fixed Cross didn’t need to get snide and pissy over a triviality.