“The Revised Method of Physico-Theology”

Teleology ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 186-218
Author(s):  
Jeffrey K. McDonough
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Philosophical Method ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Central Topic ◽  
Regulative Principle ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Philosophical Topic

For Immanuel Kant, teleology was a philosophical method as well as a central topic for philosophy. As a philosophical method, teleology meant that no way of thinking that is natural for us can be in vain, as long as we understand it properly: this was the basis for Kant’s critique of traditional theoretical metaphysics but reconstruction of the central ideas of metaphysics on practical grounds. As a philosophical topic, Kant thought about teleology from his early book The Only Possible Basis for a Demonstration of the Existence of God (1763) until his late Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790), eventually arriving at the position that a teleological outlook is a subjectively necessary regulative principle for our scientific inquiry into organic nature but also an indispensable part of our self-understanding as moral agents in the natural world.

The Ontological Argument Revisited: A Reply to Rowe

2010 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-44
Author(s):  
Eric Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Ontological Argument ◽  
Logical Analysis ◽  
Existence Of God

Saint Anselm’s Ontological Argument is perhaps the most intriguing of all the traditional speculative proofs for the existence of God. Yet, his argument has been rejected outright by many philosophers. Most challenges stem from the basic conviction that no amount of logical analysis of a concept that is limited to the bounds of the “understanding” will ever be able to “reason” the existence in “reality” of anything answering such a limited concept. However, it is not the intent of this paper to prove or disprove Anselm’s argument. Rather, in this paper we concern ourselves with arriving at a sound interpretation of Anselm’s leading critic—Immanuel Kant. Kant put forth perhaps the most vaunted criticism of Anselm’s argument. However, Kant has been perhaps the most misunderstood objector to Anselm’s argument. This paper confirms that charge, simultaneously offering what I believe to be a sound interpretation of Kant’s criticism.

Nietzsche's Values

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Analysis ◽  
Eternal Return ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Central Topic ◽  
Key Concepts ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Argumentative Structure

The book gives a uniquely comprehensive philosophical analysis of Nietzsche’s thinking. It shows how this thinking has its unifying focus on values: both the past and prevailing values that his psychologies and genealogies explain and the new values that he himself creates and defends. It maps, in detail, the argumentative structure of his thinking as it bears on this central topic. It argues that his ultimate ambition is to show how we can incorporate the truth about values into our own valuing—and that he is therefore more deeply committed to truth than often supposed. The book’s chapters examine twelve key concepts, each at the heart of a network of problems and ideas. A first group of concepts (value, life, drives, affects) treats the bodily valuing he attributes to our drives and affects; a second group (human, words, nihilism, freedom) treats the valuing we carry out in our deeply flawed conception of ourselves as moral agents; the third group (the Yes, self, creating, Dionysus) projects the values he offers as the lesson of his critiques—values centered on a universal affirmation expressed in the idea of eternal return. Each chapter organizes the rich complexity of Nietzsche’s thought on its topic and works to resolve contradictions, often by showing how he treats the concepts and problems as historical. The book synthesizes these detailed analyses into a systematic picture of his thought.

The Scientific Sublime

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan G. Gross
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Rachel Carson ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
Crucial Difference ◽  
Stephen Jay Gould ◽  
Stephen Hawking

The sublime evokes our awe, our terror, and our wonder. Applied first in ancient Greece to the heights of literary expression, in the 18th-century the sublime was extended to nature and to the sciences, enterprises that viewed the natural world as a manifestation of God's goodness, power, and wisdom. In The Scientific Sublime, Alan Gross reveals the modern-day sublime in popular science. He shows how the great popular scientists of our time--Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Brian Greene, Lisa Randall, Rachel Carson, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, and E. O. Wilson--evoke the sublime in response to fundamental questions: How did the universe begin? How did life? How did language? These authors maintain a tradition initiated by Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith, towering 18th-century figures who adapted the literary sublime first to nature, then to science--though with one crucial difference: religion has been replaced wholly by science. In a final chapter, Gross explores science's attack on religion, an assault that attempts to sweep permanently under the rug two questions science cannot answer: What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of the good life?

scholarly journals Framing Humanity by Framing Nature: John Maxwell Coetzee's Disgrace in the Context of Kant's Theory of Morality // Encuadrar a la humanidad encuadrando a la naturaleza: Desgracia de Coetzee en el contexto de la teoría moral de Kant

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 137-150
Author(s):  
Kamil Michta
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
The Third ◽  
Formula Of Humanity ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Kant's Ethics ◽  
Kantian Philosophy

The essay discusses the correlation between Immanuel Kant’s ethics, especially his views on human duties toward animals, and John Maxwell Coetzee's literary depiction of man’s struggle to rediscover the meaning of humanity by tending unwanted animal corpses. Hence, it firstly concentrates on the key issues concerning Kant's moral philosophy, placing particular emphasis on the third formula of his categorical imperative, the so-called formula of humanity as an end in itself, and on elucidating the thinker's contention that good treatment of animals, that is, as if they were moral agents, improves in humans the propensity to treat other people well. The essay argues that the manner in which people treat animals, approached from the Kantian perspective, partakes in the duty to improve their own morality and, thus, their humanity. After examining Kant's outlook on animals, the essay discusses Coetzee's 1999 novel Disgrace. In particular it scrutinizes the figure of an aging literature professor, David Lurie, who, having been expelled from his university for sexual abuse, moves to the country. Here he engages in putting down unwanted animals and also in taking personal care for incinerating their bodies with decency and respect. Adopting the perspective of Kantian philosophy, the essay argues that Lurie's concern for animal corpses, despite its apparent pointlessness, can be seen as indicating the renewal of his humanity. In a sense, then, it is nature (unwanted animals and their corpses) that makes Lurie rediscover his humanity. The essay concludes by maintaining that Disgrace, when coupled with Kant's moral theory, is a novel conveying the (Kantian) idea that the manner in which people frame nature, that is, how they relate to it, is formative of the manner in which they frame their own humanity. Resumen   Este ensayo analiza la correlación existente entre la ética de Immanuel Kant, especialmente sus opiniones sobre las obligaciones de los seres humanos hacia los animales, y la descripción literaria que hace John Maxwell Coetzee de la lucha de un hombre por redescubrir el significado de su humanidad ocupándose de cadáveres de animales no deseados. Se centra, por ello, en su primera parte en los temas clave de la filosofía moral de Kant, haciendo especial hincapié en la tercera formulación de su imperativo categórico, es decir, la llamada formulación de la humanidad como un fin en sí misma, y en la elucidación de la controversia kantiana de que el buen trato dado a los animales, o sea, el hecho de tratarlos como si fueran agentes morales, mejora la propensión del ser humano a tratar bien a las demás personas. El ensayo sostiene que la manera en que la gente trata a los animales, examinada desde una perspectiva kantiana, contribuye al deber de mejorar su propia moralidad y, con ello, su humanidad. Tras la parte dedicada al punto de vista kantiano sobre los animales, el ensayo examina la novela Desgracia de Coetzee, publicada en 1999, y, en particular, el personaje de un profesor de literatura cincuentón, David Lurie, quien, tras haber sido expulsado de su universidad por acoso sexual, se traslada al campo donde se dedica a eutanasiar e incinerar con decencia y respeto a animales no deseados. Desde la perspectiva de la filosofía kantiana, el ensayo argumenta que la preocupación de Lurie por los cadáveres de animales, a pesar de su aparente falta de sentido, podría ser considerada como un signo de la renovación de su humanidad. En cierto modo, es la naturaleza (los animales no deseados y sus cadáveres) la que hace redescubrir a Lurie su humanidad. El ensayo concluye sosteniendo que Desgracia, combinada con la teoría moral de Kant, es una novela que transmite la idea (kantiana) de que la forma en que los seres humanos encuadran a la naturaleza, es decir, su forma de relacionarse con ella, configura la manera en que encuadran a su propia humanidad.  

scholarly journals Permasalahan Iman : Kritik Atas Iman Dalam Filsafat Barat dan Tawaran Jawaban

2013 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 3
Author(s):  
Setyo Wibowo
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Martin Heidegger ◽  
Friedrich Nietzsche ◽  
Infinite Horizon ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Auguste Comte ◽  
Human Desire ◽  
New Situation ◽  
Fallacious Reasoning

<div><p><strong>Abstract :</strong> Faith becomes problematic in our modern world. In the age of secularization and emancipation man masters the Nature with his growing reason and ever developing technology. This new situation brings with itself a discredit toward faith and religion. Without refusing the existence of God, Immanuel Kant declares that theology is a paralogism (a fallacious reasoning). Auguste Comte corners the religion in the realm of infantile age to be overcomed by the progress of science. Meanwhile Friedrich Nietzsche, from his own view, analyses that the phenomenon of fanatism in religion hides the uncontrallble “need to believe” typically found among the weaks.The central critique of Martin Heidegger toward ontotheological metaphysics shows that theology defined as science does not think. Man of faith has already all the answer before a question is posed, therefore he cannot truly pariticipate in the question of Being. This article tries to consider these objections against faith. As an answer, this article offers to acknowledge “the act of believe” as an universal disposition in man. Much wider than his need to possess knowledge, man is driven by a desire for the infinite. Faith resumes this human desire for infinite.</p><p><em>Keywords : Emancipation, theology, metaphysics, faith, knowledge, way of belief, act of belief, passivity, infinite horizon, anthropological disposision.</em></p><p><em><br /></em></p><p><strong>Abstrak :</strong> Iman menjadi problem di dunia modern. Gerak sekularisasi dan emansipasi manusia berkat perkembangan rasionya, yang tampak dalam penguasaan manusia atas alam lewat teknologi, membuat keyakinan pada Tuhan dianggap ketinggalan roh jaman. Meskipun tidak menolak Tuhan, Immanuel Kant menganggap bahwa teologi adalah sebuah paralogisme. Auguste Comte tegas-tegas mengatakan bahwa jaman teologi dan agama adalah era kekanak-kanakan yang harus dilampaui demi kemajuan jaman. Friedrich Nietzsche memperingatkan bahwa fanatisme dalam agama adalah tanda besarnya kebutuhan manusia untuk percaya, yang tidak lain adalah kelemahan diri manusia. Kritikan besar Martin Heidegger kepada metafisika onto-teologis semakin menunjukkan inferioritas iman di depan pemikiran. Beriman artinya tidak bisa berpikir secara sungguh-sungguh. Artikel ini hendak menimbang keberatan-keberatan atas iman di atas dan sekaligus menawarkan bahwa “tindak percaya” adalah sesuatu yang secara antropologis menjadi disposisi setiap manusia. Lebih luas daripada obsesi pada “pengetahuan”, manusia memiliki hasrat akan ketakterbatasan yang menemukan ekspresinya dalam apa yang kita sebut sebagai iman.</p><p><em>Kata kunci : Emansipasi, teologi, metafisika, iman, pengetahuan, cara beriman, tindak percaya, pasitivitas, horison ketakterbatasan, disposisi antropologis.</em></p></div>

Immanuel Kant: Aesthetics and Teleology

Philosophy ◽  
2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Guyer
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Main Part ◽  
Laws Of Nature ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Human Effort ◽  
Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten ◽  
Popular Work ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Natural Means

The Critique of the Power of Judgment (Kritik der Urteilskraft), published in 1790, was the last of the three critiques by Immanuel Kant (b. 1724–d. 1804). In the Introduction to the work, Kant argues that the gulf between the realms of the laws of nature and of freedom, or between theoretical and practical philosophy, needs to be bridged, and that the “reflecting” use of the faculty of judgment can do this while also taking us from the most general principles of natural science to empirical concepts and laws of nature. In the first main part of the work, the critique of the aesthetic power of judgment, Kant analyzes and defends our responses to, and judgments of, the beautiful in both nature and art and the sublime in nature; in the second main part, the critique of the teleological power of judgment, Kant defends our “regulative” rather than “constitutive” judgments of organisms as purposive systems within nature and of nature as a whole as a purposive system that has as its “final goal” (Endzweck) the development of the discipline necessary for the realization of human morality—although as a product of human freedom, morality can never, in Kant’s view, be achieved by merely natural means, only by an act of choice. Kant had been interested in reconciling a teleological outlook with the development of modern science since such early works as the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens of 1755 and The Only Possible Basis for a Demonstration of the Existence of God of 1763. He had likewise long been interested in issues in aesthetics, having published a popular work of Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime in 1764. In addition, following the example of the textbooks by Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten and Georg Friedrich Meier that he used for his courses on logic, metaphysics, and, beginning in 1772–1773, anthropology, he had touched upon aesthetics in all of those courses. But the idea of addressing aesthetics and teleology in a single book does not seem to have occurred to Kant before the end of 1787, after he had finished writing the Critique of Practical Reason, and he then wrote the third critique very quickly. His deepest reason for having written this book seems to have been his realization that both aesthetic and teleological judgment could support the human effort to be moral without sacrificing what is distinctive to them.

The Logic of the “As If” and the (Non)existence of God

Words Fail ◽  
2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colby Dickinson
Keyword(s):  
Wallace Stevens ◽  
Paul Celan ◽  
Adrienne Rich ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Ethical Imperative ◽  
Politics And Religion ◽  
Regulative Principle ◽  
Regulative Ideal ◽  
Mystical Traditions ◽  
As If

The first chapter explores Jacques Derrida’s rich reworking of the Kantian regulative principle of the as if in order to point toward certain potential movements of the as such in the poetry of Wallace Stevens, Adrienne Rich, and Paul Celan, as well as the various mystical traditions which Derrida himself took up on occasion. By taking this precise path and yet staying open to Derrida’s critique of any possible presentation as such beyond the as if, this chapter shows how Derrida’s work ultimately also points toward an encounter with the O/other as such, beyond the as if, though within language, very much within its failures—which is, in the end, the only real way to fully respect the encounter at all. In such fashion, an ethical imperative appears within the event of encounter, one that does not seek to reduce the singularity of the O/other’s presence before us to a regulative ideal as if to go beyond what has been (re)presented to us, but rather that which embraces what cannot be represented, bringing philosophy, politics, and religion to the threshold of a mystical-ethical imperative that we must take very seriously.

Peculiar Attunements

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger Mathew Grant
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Music Theory ◽  
Affect Theory ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Entire Structure ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Parallel Movement ◽  
Affective Attunement ◽  
Vital Component ◽  
Way Of Thinking

Peculiar Attunements places the recent turn to affect into conversation with a parallel movement that took place in European music theory of the eighteenth century. During that time the affects—or the passions, as they were also called—formed a vital component of a mimetic model of the arts. Eighteenth-century critics held that artworks imitated or copied the natural world in order to produce copies of the affects in their beholders. But music caused a problem for these thinkers, since it wasn’t apparent that musical tones could imitate anything with any dependability (except, perhaps, for the rare thunderclap or birdcall). Struggling to articulate how it was that music managed to move its auditors without imitation, certain theorists developed a new affect theory crafted especially for music. These theorists postulated that it was music’s physical materiality as sound that vibrated the nerves of listeners and attuned them to the affects through sympathetic resonance. This was a theory of affective attunement that bypassed the entire structure of representation, offering a non-discursive, corporeal alternative. Inflecting our current intellectual moment through eighteenth-century music theory and aesthetics, this book offers a reassessment of affect theory’s common systems and processes. It offers a new way of thinking through affect dialectically, drawing attention to patterns and problems in affect theory that we have been given to repeating. Finally, taking a cue from eighteenth-century theory, it argues for renewed attention to the objects that generate affects in subjects.

Kantian ethics

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Onora O’Neill
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Kantian Ethics ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Agents ◽  
Universal Principles ◽  
Reasoning About Action ◽  
Contemporary Work ◽  
Conception Of The Good ◽  
Kant's Ethics ◽  
The Relationship

Kantian ethics originates in the ethical writings of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), which remain the most influential attempt to vindicate universal ethical principles that respect the dignity and equality of human beings without presupposing theological claims or a metaphysical conception of the good. Kant’s systematic, critical philosophy centres on an account of reasoning about action, which he uses to justify principles of duty and virtue, a liberal and republican conception of justice with cosmopolitan scope, and an account of the relationship between morality and hope. Numerous contemporary writers also advance views of ethics which they, and their critics, think of as Kantian. However, some contemporary work is remote from Kant’s philosophy on fundamental matters such as human freedom and reasoning about action. It converges with Kant’s ethics in claiming that we lack a substantive account of the good (so that teleological or consequentialist ethics are impossible), in taking a strong view of the equality of moral agents and the importance of universal principles of duty which spell out what it is to respect them, and in stressing an account of justice and rights with cosmopolitan scope. Both Kant’s ethics and contemporary Kantian ethics have been widely criticized for preoccupation with rules and duties, and for lack of concern with virtues, happiness or personal relationships. However, these criticisms may apply more to recent Kantian ethics than to Kant’s own ethics.

The Kingdom of Freedom in the Garden of God: Ferguson's Postulates of Moral Action

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 105-123
Author(s):  
Zisai Lin ◽  
Eugene Heath
Keyword(s):  
Immanuel Kant ◽  
Three Dimensions ◽  
Moral Action ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Moral Conduct ◽  
Religious Sensibility ◽  
Freedom Of The Will ◽  
The Will

Similar to Immanuel Kant, Adam Ferguson links freedom of the will, the existence of God, and immortality to the possibility of moral conduct. We explore these three dimensions of Ferguson's thought across several of his works. Ferguson's account of these postulates of morality not only anticipates Kant but incorporates a religious sensibility that manifests an appeal to nature rather than scripture.

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