Ch. 6 - Kant: Reason and Freedom, History and Grace

Ophelia · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 2:22 pm Post subject:

Hello Saffron,

I'm not going to answer your post, but I'd like to welcome you to Booktalk.

I'm glad you've found us and plunged straight into a discussion,
that's great. Smile

Would you like to tell us a little about yourself by writing an introduction in the "Introduce Yourself" threads?

See you later!

Robert Tulip · Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 3:52 pm Post subject: Re: Jumping in

Hello Saffron, I agree with your comments, and think they illustrate how Kant, and much philosophy, operates from an inadequate scientific basis. Of course our nature is social, and empathy is wired in to our genes. It takes a toxic culture to remove our innate sense of empathy. Sadly, the modern world is quite toxic and alienated, and this is where I think the Christian concept of the fall is helpful – we have constructed identities which are so far removed from our original adaptive genetic nature that large parts of the world are quite incapable of imagining what is natural and what is not – that to me is a definition of modern alienation. I see the crucifixion of Jesus as the very depth of the fall, the worst moment of alienation, and the toxic perversity is that the Church somehow transmuted this evil act into a symbol of good. Part of this fallen mentality, by strange inversion, is the mind-brain identity thesis. I believe that mind is essentially cosmic, and that our thoughts participate in a universal reality, so cannot be reduced by Occams Razor to their neurochemistry. Kant was grappling with how modern empirical rationality could understand the world, and came up with some strange halfway intermediary ideas such as the claim that knowledge is of phenomena and not noumena. This idea is incoherent, because if a claim is knowledge then it is true, and if true, it is of a thing in itself, hence noumenal.


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