The Scope of Reason: An Epistle to the Persians

1984 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 195-208
Author(s):  
Renford Bambrough
Keyword(s):  
International Symposium ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
The West ◽  
World Views ◽  
Limits Of Knowledge ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Dialogue Among Civilizations

‘Does the planetary impact of Western thought allow for a real dialogue among civilizations?’ This arresting question was set to the lecturers at the first international symposium of the Iranian Centre for the Study of Civilizations, which took place in Tehran in October 1977. Plans were made for a second symposium to be held in January 1979 under the title ‘The Limits of Knowledge According to Different World-views’. The Director's letter of invitation amplified the theme in a series of questions:For instance, is the agnosticism which has now extended to a world-wide level the consequence of the destruction of objective reason, namely the universal logos, as conceived earlier in the great metaphysical doctrines of the East and the West? Is there any organic link among these: the creation of modern political myths, the individual's fragmentation and the reduction of thought to its mere instrumentality? Is knowledge limited solely to our calculating reason or can it lead to spheres raising us above the limits determined by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason?

The Scope of Reason: An Epistle to the Persians

1984 ◽  
Vol 17 ◽  
pp. 195-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Renford Bambrough
Keyword(s):  
International Symposium ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Western Thought ◽  
The West ◽  
World Views ◽  
Limits Of Knowledge ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Dialogue Among Civilizations

‘Does the planetary impact of Western thought allow for a real dialogue among civilizations?’ This arresting question was set to the lecturers at the first international symposium of the Iranian Centre for the Study of Civilizations, which took place in Tehran in October 1977. Plans were made for a second symposium to be held in January 1979 under the title ‘The Limits of Knowledge According to Different World-views’. The Director's letter of invitation amplified the theme in a series of questions:For instance, is the agnosticism which has now extended to a world-wide level the consequence of the destruction of objective reason, namely the universal logos, as conceived earlier in the great metaphysical doctrines of the East and the West? Is there any organic link among these: the creation of modern political myths, the individual's fragmentation and the reduction of thought to its mere instrumentality? Is knowledge limited solely to our calculating reason or can it lead to spheres raising us above the limits determined by Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason?

scholarly journals La potencia de la ficción en el pensamiento nietzscheano

2019 ◽  
pp. 161-176
Keyword(s):  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Phenomenal World ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Late Works

La potencia de la ficción en el pensamiento nietzscheano Resumen analítico.-El presente trabajo analiza las implicancias de la ficción sobre la posibilidad del conocimiento y la razón. Partiendo desde la obra de Nietzsche, se recorrerá las diferentes valencias de la ficción tanto en sus obras tempranas como tardías. En tanto el conocimiento, se partirá de la propedéutica realizada por Kant en La crítica de la razón pura haciendo al distinguir entre el mundo fenoménico y el mundo nouménico. Clarificando la metodología kantiana en la obra citada se puede observar cómo las ideas de la razón poseen una faceta ficcional. En el eje de la Razón como nuevo Dios, emerge la propuesta arkhica de un ordenamiento que es la raíz de la metafísica occidental. La mitologización de la razón, tal como lo menciona Adorno, es la creación de una nueva ficción que da sentido a la existencia. Por ello, la logicización del lenguaje, como lo detecta Cacciari, es la respuesta encontrada por Nietzsche en la propia razón para la formulación de un sentido aprehensible de mundo. Palabras claves: Ficción -Razón -Conocimiento -Mitologización –Arkhé The power of fiction in the nietzschean thought Abstract.-This paper analyzes the implications of fiction on the possibility of knowledge and reason. Starting from Nietzsche's work, the different valences of fiction will be traversed in both his early and late works. Concerning knowledge, it will be based on the propaedeutic realized by Kant in Critique of pure reason, distinguishing between the phenomenal world and the noumenal world. Clarifying the Kantian methodology in the cited work, one can see how the ideas of reason have a fictional facet. Being Reason the new God, the arkhica proposal of an order that is the root of western metaphysics emerges. The mythologization of reason, as Adorno mentions it, is the creation of a new fiction that gives meaning to existence. Therefore, the logicization of language, as Cacciari mentions, is the answer found by Nietzsche in his own reason for the formulation of an apprehensive sense of the world. Keywords: Fiction -Reason -Knowledge -Mythologization -Arkhé

Space, language, and the limits of knowledge

Janus Head ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-80
Author(s):  
Alessia Pannese ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Sensory Perception ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Limits Of Knowledge ◽  
Divine Punishment ◽  
Human Intellect

William Thomas Beckford’s Vathek chronicles the eponymous Caliph’s struggle and ultimate fall into hell as a divine punishment for his unre­strained desire for knowledge. Around the time Beckford wrote Vathek, Immanuel Kant released the Critique of Pure Reason, whose central implication is that human knowledge is restricted to appearances. Drawing on textual evidence from Vathek’s first three editions and from Kant’s Critique, I explore ways in which knowledge is negotiated and mediated by the limits of human intellect and sensory perception as they intersect with the protean boundary between reality and appearance, and suggest that Beckford’s Vathek may be viewed as a literary instantiation of Kant’s transcendental idealism, as they both - albeit in different ways - impose severe limits on man’s epistemic ability.

Kants kritische Psychologie als Aufklärung

2020 ◽  
Vol 74 (2) ◽  
pp. 253-273
Author(s):  
Hyeongjoo Kim ◽  
Carina Pape
Keyword(s):  
Important Change ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Ongoing Process ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Complete Rejection ◽  
Age Of Enlightenment

In his famous essay from 1784, Kant denied that we "live in an enlightened age"; yet he claimed that we "live in an age of enlightenment". If we should answer the question if we live in an enlightened age now, we could basically give the same answer. The enlightenment as an ongoing process can be found throughout Kant's whole work. This article focuses on how the concept of enlightenment can be applied to the Kantian psychology, which marks an important change of theory of the soul within modern western metaphysics. Kant's idea of enlightenment and 'critique' will be illustrated with reference to the "Paralogisms" of the Critique of Pure Reason. Finally, an analysis of some passages of the "Paralogisms" shall demonstrate that Kant's critique of the previous metaphysical doctrine of the human soul should not be understood as a complete rejection of this doctrine; rather, Kant's critique of what is called rational psychology should be understood as a critical transformation.

Kant’s Material Condition of Real Possibility

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Leech
Keyword(s):  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Real Possibility ◽  
Rational Theology ◽  
Material Condition

In the Postulates of Empirical Thinking, a section of the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant presents an account of the content and role of our concept of real possibility in terms of formal conditions of experience. However, much later in the Critique he introduces the idea of a material condition of possibility. What is this material condition of possibility, and how does it fit with the conception of possibility in terms of formal conditions? This essay argues that the key to answering these questions—as well as to understanding Kant’s criticism of rational theology, in which the discussion of the material condition of possibility appears—is Kant’s account of how we can individuate objects.

Epilogue

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Henning
Keyword(s):  
Historical Context ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Transcendental Deduction

This brief chapter summarizes central findings regarding the role of parenthetical sentences in practical discourse. But it also provides historical context. It suggests that a precursor of parentheticalism may be found in Kant, especially in Kant’s views about the “I think,” especially as they are expressed in the B-Version of the “Transcendental Deduction” and the B-Version of the chapter on Paralogisms in the Critique of Pure Reason.

The New Islamic State

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Farhad Khosrokhavar
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Islamic State ◽  
Imagined Community ◽  
The West ◽  
Patriarchal Family ◽  
The Past ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation

The creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham (ISIS) changed the nature of jihadism worldwide. For a few years (2014–2017) it exemplified the destructive capacity of jihadism and created a new utopia aimed at restoring the past greatness and glory of the former caliphate. It also attracted tens of thousands of young wannabe combatants of faith (mujahids, those who make jihad) toward Syria and Iraq from more than 100 countries. Its utopia was dual: not only re-creating the caliphate that would spread Islam all over the world but also creating a cohesive, imagined community (the neo-umma) that would restore patriarchal family and put an end to the crisis of modern society through an inflexible interpretation of shari‘a (Islamic laws and commandments). To achieve these goals, ISIS diversified its approach. It focused, in the West, on the rancor of the Muslim migrants’ sons and daughters, on exoticism, and on an imaginary dream world and, in the Middle East, on tribes and the Sunni/Shi‘a divide, particularly in the Iraqi and Syrian societies.

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