we question the point of both Descartes and Kant’s final
results…… for example, Descartes wanted to set the limits
of knowledge so that science could fit into the “current”
way of thinking… in other words, to make room for science
by denying faith… which of course he didn’t because he was
a Frenchman living in a time where it was dangerous to deny
faith…but the real question lies with this question…
so we know the limits of knowledge, now what?
where does it lead us? the middle ages was the age of faith,
but where did that faith lead us? read any good history of the middle ages
and see exactly where faith lead us? The thousand plus years of the middle ages
were some of the most abysmal years in human history… faith has little value if
the results were as terrible as the middle ages were really terrible years for human
beings…
now you can make an chicken or the egg argument for which came first,
the rise of or the rebirth of civilization or the slow loss of faith that
ended the middle ages…………Descartes of course wrote after the middle ages
and even after the Renaissance during another age but, but the questions of
Descartes were questions that had lingered on from the middle ages……
and the questions of Kant were also about Knowledge…what are the limits of
knowledge? but the essential question of Kant about knowledge leaves out
an important point…… this question of the limits of knowledge,
what are we suppose to do with it? what does it lead to? what it does it mean to us?
and that is the question we always need to ask, what does it lead to?
what is next? so we try to think about another period of history which
is the Enlightenment. Ok, so we are suppose to free ourselves from authority,
to dare to think for ourselves, Sapere Aude, and then what?
we have found ourselves trapped inside of the many forces of man and nature…
we are trapped inside of the force of capitalism where the “invisible hand of god”,
the market forces has left us without free will or the power to act freely because
we cannot escape these market forces which dominate our lives…
we cannot escape the forces of nature which is gravity and evolution
and the cycle of the stars and galaxies as they circle around the universe…
(of course what they circle is up for some question)
so we think for ourselves and we get an understanding of how trapped
we are in the various forces that exists……
so now what? we cannot escape into religion or god because we
are trapped in forces also beyond our control… if god has a plan for
the universe and us, then we have choice, no free will, for no matter what
we do or say, we cannot change or control or have any say about god’s plan…
Religion traps us as firmly as our ism’s and ideologies trap us as does
the forces of nature trap us…….
so Kant offers us self determination as a goal and once again we must
ask, then what? as a victim of the many forces of ism’s and natural
causes, my self determination which cannot affect or
control or have any say about those forces which dominate my life,
what does it matter to pretend to have self determination when
those forces of ism’s and natural forces are the real factors in my life…
the question becomes, what can I do in the face of these forces which
control my life… what response can I make in the face of these forces?
How can I find “salvation” given the nature of these forces which control
every part of my life…… how can I be “saved”?..…
Nietzsche response was to postulate the eternal reoccurrence and the
ubermensch………to say yes, to the forces of the universe which control me
and my life… to find the very limited aspect of our lives and learn to
control that aspect of life…… here we find ourselves looking at morality…
and ART as responses to the limited possibilities we have in the midst
of forces which dominate and limit our possibilities…
so given how we are at the whim of forces beyond our control
and us not having any say in capitalism and communism and religion…
how are we to be “saved”?
Kropotkin