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Why does everybody have to hate on Kant?

By purepedantry on December 11, 2007.

This Kant attack ad is awesome:

1) I love the "I'll make his picture get all blurry to make you think that his ideas are blurry" theme. It taps into the visually blurry = morally relative circuit that appears to be innate to the human species.

2) It is secondarily awesome because I get to go on a little Kant-related rant.

Why does everybody have to hate on Kant? (Yes, I realize that there is a certain element of hypocrisy in this because I rather like Ayn Rand, and she absolutely loathed Kant.)

But here is my deal: Kant's recognition that human beings have sensory apparatus -- and that because we have apparatus for understanding reality we cannot be sure about it -- does not necessarily imply that reality is relative. Existence exists; it is just that we are shielded from perfect understanding of reality by the fact that we have eyes and ears.

Further, in practice, there is little difference between someone asserts the absolute nature of reality and someone who asserts the absolute nature of reality viewed through filters. Both have to do the pragmatist double-take to see how well their ideas work. You have to check whether there is a cookie in the cupboard before you can eat the cookie, whether you assert the absolute existence of the cookie or not.

In last instance these ideas result in the same behavior. Those who deny absolute existence have annoying habit of getting their clocks cleaned by crosstown buses.

Hat-tip: Crooked Timber who also posts this hysterical counter-ad

Tags
Philosophy

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In my experience, there are very few people who both (a) hate Kant and (b) know much about Kant. There seems to be a visceral hatred, justified with handwaving, namecalling and misrepresentation - but no actual critique.

In this way he resembles Hegel, Marx and Nietzsche.

Rand is like a mirror image of Kant, in that almost the only people who read her are those who love her already.

I wouldn't say I hate Kant, but I hold him in contempt for pretty much the same reason I hold Freud in contempt:

Some of his early/initial work was good, which shows that he was capable of quality, but he went far beyond the bounds of rational argument and began to assume things that he incorrectly asserted he had demonstrated.

In terms of gaining a useful understanding of the world, he's pretty much useless.

By Caledonian (not verified) on 12 Dec 2007 #permalink