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Tuesday, October 4, 2016

NUMBER FIVE, AND COUNTING

Here it is, all you Kant fans, Lecture Five in my series on the Critique of Pure Reason.  Lots of good stuff, so enjoy!

7 comments:

Arun Jetli said...

Loving your exposition of Kant.You need to look into induction by the Samkhya nd Nyaya philosophers. The Aristotelian narrative is void of any logic of induction and KAnt being an Aristotelian follows through wth that The Nyayaphilosophy, The jain philosophy of partial knowing and NAgasena who was a buddhist philosopher was a more com=nsistent deniar of the self.Incidentally Allison Gopnik thinks that HHume got his main ideas from Buddhism while living n France. I have a PHD from American university in Frankfurt School's critique of Heideggar in 1981. I am so sorry that i knew nothing about Indian philosophy at that time,It is ironic because now when i look at Heidegger the whole on the concept of being that was discussed at a greater length is like reinventing the wheel. These concepts were not only central to the anciant discussions between Carvaka, Nyaya Buddhist and Jain philosophers, but led to mathematics. Remeber that Indian mathematics as opposed to Hellenistic)Egyptian) mathematics was ontology based not geometry based although geometry wasa part of it,
Kant's lack of understanding on induction is endemic as is Aristotle's who was wrong in all his physics, biology and strionomy. Kant and Aristotle were out and out racists and misogynist because they lacked the power of induction. I still consider Kant to be the most important philosopher of modern times, although i question the valididty of his paradgm in modern times

Arun Jetli said...

sorry for the typos

Michael Llenos said...

Dr. Wolff,
Thank you for your lecture #5. Next lecture I hope to learn about Kant's synthesis. The Big Bang Theory show reminds me of one incident when Stephen Colbert still had his show on "comedy central". The scientist, talking about the beginning of the universe argued: 'Why can't we have come from nothing?' Colbert replied: 'If God doesn't exist, if God is nothing, couldn't he have created something?' Then, of course, the scientist was stumped. That was a witty riposte by Colbert. But maybe not so much considering the statement 'we can come from nothing' is an overly used platitude in my opinion.

LFC said...

You've mentioned Descartes' cogito a couple of times in the lectures.

One question it raises is: why privilege the mind over the body as a proof of existence? Why is the statement "I'm thinking, therefore I exist" a more decisive proof of one's existence than, say, the statements "I'm walking, therefore I exist" or "I'm experiencing hunger, therefore I exist"?

s. wallerstein said...

LFC,

For Descartes, thinking refers to all conscious mental activity, so "I'm walking" for Descartes is really "I think that I'm walking" and "I'm experiencing hunger" is really "I think that I'm experiencing hunger", so thinking is more basic or primary for Descartes.

Robert Paul Wolff said...

LFC, the simple answer, pace Descartes, is that I could be wrong that I am walking [having a dream, phantom limb syndrome, etc], but I could not be wrong that I am thinking. Even denying it confirms it.

LFC said...

Thanks for the reply; that makes sense.