Betcha didn't know this . . .

[~]

Now that we've covered Free Will, let's move on to epistemology...


“Whoever wishes to be a Christian, let him pluck out the eyes of his reason.”
-- -Martin Luther (Werken Vol. 12)


Hmmm...That's pretty compact! Covers Mathew 29 and 1st Corinthians pretty succinctly. Say what you will about Luther - antisemite, backstabber, rebel, thief, etc - he had a certain economy with the Latin...


Of course, the Thomist tradition, while significantly more wordy, tends to appeal more to the logos and ethos corners of Ari's Triangle. Don't you think?

[Marcus]

[~]

I didn't say this was gonna be so easy a Platonic caveman could do it, Marcus. I just said it was gonna be fun.

Look at these little bon mots as a rough outline of things I'll expand upon later. A poetic abstraction; a fugue-ish prelude that starts in your little sacristry to flow through your presbytery, echo off your choir, and reverberate into your nave and off your clerestorium. Like a chorus of angels, or, if you prefer, a Chopin nocturne or some Stephen Fucking Foster, Mr Music Lover.

[Marcus]

[~]

Why Marcus, you sound like someone just walked across your grave! Wassa matter, Kant bear the strain?


Speaking of Kant...he was a right fart smeller. You can't just dismiss Kant with a few words. Unless you're Kant...



"Grant that either the world itself is necessary, or that there is
contained in it a necessary existence. Two cases are possible.
First, there must either be in the series of cosmical changes a
beginning, which is unconditionally necessary, and therefore uncaused-
which is at variance with the dynamical law of the determination of
all phenomena in time; or, secondly, the series itself is without
beginning, and, although contingent and conditioned in all its
parts, is nevertheless absolutely necessary and unconditioned as a
whole--which is self-contradictory. For the existence of an
aggregate cannot be necessary, if no single part of it possesses
necessary existence.

Grant, on the other hand, that an absolutely necessary cause
exists out of and apart from the world. This cause, as the highest
member in the series of the causes of cosmical changes, must originate
or begin* the existence of the latter and their series. In this case
it must also begin to act, and its causality would therefore belong
to time, and consequently to the sum total of phenomena, that is, to
the world. It follows that the cause cannot be out of the world; which
is contradictory to the hypothesis. Therefore, neither in the world,
nor out of it (but in causal connection with it), does there exist
any absolutely necessary being."

[*Footnote: The word begin is taken in two senses. The first is active--
the cause being regarded as beginning a series of conditions as its
effect (infit). The second is passive--the causality in the cause itself
beginning to operate (fit). I reason here from the first to the second.]


-- The Critique of Pure Reason (Fourth Conflict of Transcendental Ideas), Emmanuel Kant

http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/4280

[Marcus]

[~]

Dear dear Marcus...Still using all the muscles except the one that matters?

Credat Judaeus Apella, non ego.

[Demon of Undoing]

In re Kant , we are at the end of language here , even when we don't want to be. Physicists will tell us that the math is the better language for the begining of things , but it comes to a limit , too. If math itself , the basis of logic and reason and therefore language ( well , at least for some people) falls apart in this , why wouldn't Kant's carefully built suppositions fall apart , too? We are at the point where the differences between the map and the territory will kill us or at least leave us on the shoals.

I seriously resent the fact that the last line of reason I can erect against most of this comes down to asserting the importance of non- rational considerations , but that appears to be the only gap I can see God having a fair shot at defending. I can not in light of what I have seen discount the something for which there is no reason available. Eyes will not unsee nor hearts unfeel. But I do my best to struggle through Kant because I can not but see where the very processes that have shaped our world dramatically culminate in his reasoning. It is only by virtue of the fact that JITIY's epistemology allows for the un- rational that I lean , however slightly , towards apeshit Catholic ramblings. Trust me when I say it is a strange and unwelcome bed to lie in , and I wad fain lie down in another. None , however, fit.

The Lakota had a way of speaking when one asserted his opinion on things. It was rude to make out as if you were so correct on something that others simply had to see it the same way. They were used to being ignorant and wrong , and besides no man could make another do a damn thing anyways. So as a result , the old men that had lost the fore of certainty would say , " I am made to think " thus and so. They knew they weren't thinking it on their own hook. As much as they could not see themselves as anything other than an individual ( though always in context of the tribe ) , they knew it was not their conscious will that made them arrive at the thoughts and desires. They were simply made to be that way , for better or worse. It was a statement of limitation. Well , at least for now, still , I am made to think that reason can't treat with anything more than This and That. Problem is , I am made to believe in the Other. Perhaps there is a genetic thing going on. One day maybe they can ( will?) fix me with a DNA manipulator piggybacking on a reengineered virus. But for now , I can often do little better with Kant or any other than simply appealing to perceptions that are admittedly individual.

TL;DR : if I'm acting dumb struggling through Kant , it's not an act. Bear with me while I reread it five times over thirty minutes. I have never been able to just sit down and read ACoPR , though it stares at me from my bookshelf this very minute. I have had to confront Kant in chunks , which does him a disservice.

[Mr. Perfect]

[NapLajoieonSteroids]

When you recover from the shock that sagacity need not entail blase glowering or sophisticated haranguing, Jesus I Trust In You's epistemological criticisms of Kant and the development of Western Intellectualism is insightful, and unlike that demon-dude with a million caveats, I am comfortable enough to say it.

Where he errs is in his lack of charity towards Protestants and his oversimplification of historical events. These weaknesses hinder his viewpoint by unfairly narrowing the blame to progeny of a Descarte-type world. John Calvin and Martin Luther didn't tag team the Virgin Mary here; nor is a catholic (small c) fairyland redolent of any actual past. What we have here is an honest assessment of our slow, grinding denouement of the humanist era into some sort of post-nihilistic inhumane afterthought which is enough to show the fruits of this tree always have been largely rotten.

Kant can't account for, which Thomas can, a system that is universal in scope to a particular set of people. Sometimes I think mankind is too sensitive to finding out that the little rock we sit upon isn't a throne other heavenly bodies revolve around; so to make up for it, we have men like Kant who propose a set of beliefs that tries desperately to make up for this grievance by attempting to define everything all at once. What ends up happening is a disharmonious connection between the abstract/intellectual and the actions of quotidian human existence.

[I am ST]

[Demon of Undoing]

Stupid humans.

[Marcus]

[I am ST]

[Yukon Cornelius]

Also, there are a couple of schools of thought out there as to exactly what Kant meant.

[Colonel Sun]

[CgDs]

[Marcus]

[CgDs]

[Marcus]

[amos]

I gotta think the Wampanoags and other natives probably just did not get the Spirit of New England, but it is always amusing to see suggestions that they were slaughtered and cheated in the name of God as though this is something to be celebrated. Don't get me wrong, when it came to merciless slaughter in the name of God (translate: slaughter in the name of gold, wood, pelts, pick your commodity) the Protestants are no more guilty than the Catholics. But there have been countless documents designed to excuse the slaughter. Some of them are now Western literary treasures.

And one more thing: I hope Oliver Cromwell is swallowing syphilitic Irish cocks in hell.

[Marcus]

[~]

[amos]

[Marcus]