our text for today

David McDivitt david at subjectivist.org
Tue Dec 14 06:51:35 CET 2010


>From: Emeka Nweze <enweze at gmail.com>
>Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2010 23:40:29 -0500
>Cc: nonserviam at mailman.gramstad.no
>
>I concur.
>Kant had a few gems, such as the noumena, but he switched the christian god
>for the categorical imperative. The trouble is that der einzige is not a
>category (a WHO?) but an undefinable je nes se quas (french for i don't know
>WHAT)
>
>Kant was a courageous philosopher and had a healthy curiosity.
>Unfortunately, most of his ideas are inadequate.
>
>In regards to the term "happy" even that is inadequate. Happiness is always
>external, and all external ideas are conditioned by external causes. Acting
>by one's own volition for transient advantage seems more prudent than
>serving an abstraction.

In reading more Kant stuff I read the "Critique of Pure Reason" summary at
Wikipedia:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Pure_Reason

This was good. The words "rationalism" and "realism" are used in their
classical, proper context and meaning.

I've read several pages on Wikipedia regarding rationalism, realism, and
objectivity. The root idea of "object" is medieval, a thing, and a thing
representing all attributes and characteristics as it should, as it's
supposed to BE. From that, objectivity is to know truth as truth should be
known. Objectivity then, was not the open mindedness the word implies today,
but the ultimate in bigoted thinking, and an example of the interplay
between reality, authority, god, and men who assumed power by speaking on
behalf of god. Anyway, about Wikipedia, many articles on this subject were
very accurate early on, but were edited to save realism, and might I say the
authority of realism. It's very difficult for people to accept the universe
has no authority, meaning, or purpose except what we ourselves attribute to
it, and supposed physical law is not a special class of special authority,
but merely a representation of our own intelligence and our own ability to
predict the future based on past observations.

If we're going to live and if we're going to have ideas, we may as well rate
those ideas good, bad, and how well they serve us. Fantasy is merely an idea
that doesn't serve very well. But name dropping god, physical law, and other
forms of authority in an attempt to bolster the significance of an idea, is
very poor reasoning, and many people still think that way.

--
yes, I dare to be subjective!


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