Repost-Roger Scruton on Kant: A Response To Hume?

“It is a common empiricist assumption that I can know my experience simply by observing it. But this is not so. I do not observe my experience, but only its object. Any knowledge of experience must therefore involve knowledge of its object. But I can have knowledge of the object only if I can identify it as continous. Nothing can have temporal continuity without also having the capacity to exist when unobserved. Its existence is therefore independent of my perception.”

-Roger Scruton here.

This is part of a brief summary of Kant’s transcendental deduction, of which Scruton later says:

“It is fair to say that the transcendental deduction has never been considered to provide a satisfactory argument (boldface mine). In all its versions it involves a transition from the unity of consciousness to the identity of the subject through time. Hume pointed out that the slide from unity to identity is involved in all our claims to objective knowledge; he also thought that it could never be justified. Kant did not find the terms with which to answer Hume.”

Also On This Site:  A Few Responses To Kant’s Transcendental Idealism…Link To An Ayn Rand Paper: The Objectivist Attack On Kant…A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”

From CATO: ‘New York Times “Celebrates” The Fall Of The Berlin Wall’

Full post here.

In your ideological discontent with ‘capitalism,’ do you have to get into bed with some of Slavoj Zizek’s ideas…especially on the 20th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall came down?

Still waiting on the Times to stop the ideological retreat…

Also On This Site:  Adam Kirsch In The New Republic On Slavoj Zizek: The Deadly Jester…Slavoj Zizek In The New Republic: Responding To Adam Kirsch

A Few Thoughts On Relativism In The Wake Of The Fort Hood Shootings: The NY Times PTSD Theory

Full post here. (From Althouse, with interesting comments)

There is an argument attached to the Hasan killings; namely that Hasan may have been giving signs of a belief in a more radical Islam that would conflict with his military duties (though it’s perhaps not reasonable to suspect that such extreme and violent action would ever be taken).  The argument states that an environment of fear (or oversensitivity, at least) has been created and potentially institutionalized in the military.  Such an environment (motivated by an overly pc cultural climate) might have led some who were alarmed at Hasan’s behavior to turn their heads and avoid the problem, and thus may have helped to prevent the extreme outcome.

As the facts are discovered, it seems Islam was likely a motivating factor in Hasan’s decision to attack soldiers who would soon deploy to fight Muslims, and it may even be that he was connected with specific groups that would support such an action.  Muslims of course, are free to practice their religion, and to follow the laws, and most do. However, there are clearly an issues of concern here for further consideration (also some on the American right which will too easily incite the passions into a mold of religious conflict for political gain…mostly thanks to Hasan).

Addition:  Or perhaps people were monitoring him but he fell through the cracks.

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More broadly, a friend of mine further on the right than me is making the argument there are at least two issues:

1.  the real threat of radical Muslims willing to attack American targets from abroad and potentially at home, in the name of their religious beliefs…and how to best handle this threat…and the underlying reasons which help to cause it.

…as well as:

2.  An overly relativistic and confused set of ideas guiding the political left, which might not be deep enough to handle the type of situation that Hasan has presented us with.  In addition, such lack of depth (on full display in the Times article) forces us into more bitter partisanship, creating deeper rifts in the body politic.

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A few facts and a lot of generalizations…your thoughts and comments are welcome.  Here’s a quote from Simon Blackburn I put up a while ago:

“Nigel: Has relativism had its day as an influential philosophical position?

Simon: No – and I don’t think it should ever die. The danger is that it gets replaced by some kind of complacent dogmatism, which is at least equally unhealthy. The Greek sceptics thought that confronting a plurality of perspectives is the beginning of wisdom, and I think they were right. It is certainly the beginning of historiography and anthropology, and if we think, for instance, of the Copernican revolution, of self-conscious science. The trick is to benefit from an imaginative awareness of diversity, without falling into a kind of “anything goes” wishy-washy nihilism or scepticism….”

See Also On This Site:   From YouTube: Roger Scruton On Religious Freedom, Islam & Atheism…How do you reasonably deal with relativism anyways?: From Virtual Philosophy: A Brief Interview With Simon Blackburn…From The NY Times: Review Of Christopher Caldwell’s Book “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West”

Repost-Is Psychology A Science? From Richard Feynman’s ‘Cargo Cult Science’

Excerpt here.

Feynman (wikipedia) wonders in this piece about what makes science science.  He manages to argue quite well why he doesn’t think psychology and the social sciences are.

I’d offer that very good minds can practice psychology…people with deep experience and wisdom and understanding.  Psychology obviously has value to many, many people… and also makes deep metaphysical arguments about the world and our understanding of it…yet… as Feynman rather effectively argues…it’s just not a science.

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I should also note that Feynman bristled at philosophers endlessly philosophizing about the nature of scientific knowledge, and who often are looking to borrow what they can from it to bolster their own metaphysical theories about the world.

Here’s a quote from Roger Scruton’s book (pg 50) on Immanuel Kant, one of the deeper philosophers:

“Scientific explanation depends upon principles of method:  being presupposed in scientific enquiry, these principles cannot be proved through it.  Kant believed that such principles would be reflected in basic scientific laws; and it is one of the tasks of metaphysics to provide grounds for their acceptance.“

Metaphysics will love you not…but at least philosophy can potentially recognize some of its shortcomings against such measure.

See Also: Karl Popper’s metaphysical theory on much the same subject: Falsifiability

Also On This Site: From 3 Quarks Daily: Richard Feynman Talks About A Pool And A Not-So-Pretty Girl…Elizabeth Spelke On Bloggingheads: Towards A Coalitional Mathematics?

Repost-Dinesh D’Souza And Daniel Dennett at Tufts University: Nietzsche’s Prophesy

D’Souza is a Christian, and while debating Daniel Dennett at Tufts University, he brings up Nietzsche’s argument that God is dead.   From the depths of Nietzsche’s thinking, D’Souza argues he was able to see the coming crisis in Europe; that Europeans could no longer base their lives upon defunct Christian metaphysics without radically and creatively developing new thinking from the ground up.  Nietzsche also supposed that few if any would heed his call and realize the depth of this crisis, and so would likely lumber into the tremendously violent conflicts of the 20th century.

D’Souza then charges Dennett with a similarly shallow approach; over-simplyfying the metaphysical depths of Christianity from the relatively stable position of present day scientific analysis (which, as D’Souza’s argument suggests, grew out of Christianity itself).

D’Souza is a Christian, as mentioned, and Dennett not.   Nietzsche would probably have not thought much about either a 20th century man still resting upon a belief in God…nor a 20th century man analyzing such a belief from an understanding of science (as a philosopher, Dennett, with a background in science).  Nietzsche, of course, was almost entirely ignorant of science.

You might have to come up with more than that to get to Dennett.

Good debate.  Argument starts at 5:30:

See Also:  A Few Thoughts On Allan Bloom:  The Nietzsche Connection…A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”…: A Few Thoughts On The Stanford Encyclopedia Of Philosophy Entry: Nietzsche’s Moral And Political Philosophy

From The Christian Science Monitor Via A & L Daily: An Interview With Francis Fukuyama

Full interview here.

So to Robert Kagan, Fukuyama might argue:

“…the pessimism about civilization that we had developed as a result of the terrible 20th century, with its genocides, gulags, and world wars, was actually not the whole picture at all. In fact, there were a lot of positive trends going on in the world, including the spread of democracy where there had been dictatorship. Sam Huntington called this “the third wave.”‘

And (particularly with Russia in mind):

“Clearly, that big surge toward democracy went as far as it could. Now there is a backlash against it in some places. But that doesn’t mean the larger trend is not still toward democracy”

Fukuyama also points out on what he bases much of his thinking; extending Samuel Huntington’s framework:

“Huntington’s argument was that democracy, individualism, and human rights are not universal, but reflections of culture rooted in Western Christendom. While that is true historically, these values have grown beyond their origins.”

And what about China?:

“You cannot solve the problem of the “bad emperor” through moral suasion. And China has had some pretty bad emperors over the centuries. Without procedural accountability, you can never establish real accountability.”

You can teach people to be moral in this argument, and instill moral values, but without levers and counter-levers, we’re only a step away from tyranny.

Related On This Site:  Kagan’s new book “The Return Of History And The End Of Dreams“ seeks to challenge Fukuyama’s thinking…does it succeed?: Obama’s Decision On Missile Defense And A Quote From Robert Kagan’s: ‘The Return Of History And The End Of Dreams’

Stanley Kurtz suggested Fukuyama’s Hegelian influence is too much to bear:  From The Hoover Institution: Stanley Kurtz On Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington

Also:  From The American Interest Online: Francis Fukuyama On Samuel Huntington…A Few Thoughts On (Absolute) Idealism, Both Religious And Political/Philosophical

From Outlook India Via A & L Daily: An Interview With Amartya Sen

Full interview here.

“I am a friend of the Left and my politics has been on the Left, but sometimes it’s difficult to recognise what is Left, what is Right. I am in favour of fighting today’s battles rather than yesterday’s battles. I think this gut anti-Americanism—don’t make it the headline (laughs)—is a problem. It is a minor problem, but one of the reasons why the Left cannot liberate itself from the Cold War. It made sense at some stage to oppose America for various reasons. But I think gut anti-Americanism is certainly pulling the Left back now.”

Of course, that’s the Indian left.  It seems that if you think deeply enough, you think through a lot of party ideas.  Yet, those ideas run deep in your own mind and childhood, and maybe you never stop really stop wrestling with them.

If you’re more familiar with Sen’s work, feel free to comment.

Also On This Site: Certainly the work he and Martha Nussbaum did is to better the quality of life in India, and create more economic opportunity there, but is there also global left-leaning international platform being built too…are these the best ideas to understand the range of American political and philosophical traditions?:  Amartya Sen In The New York Review Of Books: Capitalism Beyond The Crisis

Can you maintain the virtues of religion without the church…?:  From The City Journal: Roger Scruton On “Forgiveness And Irony”…Are we going soft and “European”… do we need to protect our religious idealism enshrined in the Constitution….with the social sciences?…Charles Murray Lecture At AEI: The Happiness Of People

A Quote By S. Korner On Kant

For a philosophical friend, with similar doubts:

“Space, it follows from the Kantian analysis is empirically real; that is to say, it is real ‘with respect to everything which can be given to us as an external object’.  It is also transcendentally ideal; which means, in Kantian nomenclature, that ‘ with respect to things…considered in themselves ‘ space is not real.  Time, too, in which all perceptions are situated, is empirically real, that is to say it is real ‘with respect to all objects which could ever be given to our senses; and it is transcendentally ideal.  ’Once we abstract from the subjective conditions of perception it is noting at all and cannot be attributed to the things is themselves.”

S. Korner ‘Kant’ Pg 39 Pelican Books 1955.

So, why follow Kant out to such a limb…on his mission to put metaphysics on a more sure footing (when even greater minds can’t put the epistemology of mathematics on such a sure footing, though mathematics is an a priori and synthetic form of reasoning ((by Kant’s analysis)) and Kant’s metaphysics doesn’t even reach that standard)?  

I am stuck with the contradiction of saying that objects are really there, and exist as I perceive them by my senses and by my reasoning…. but then also saying that I can not ever know them as they really are, and may never be able to know them.

Why should these be the limits by which I pursue knowledge?

 

Also On This Site:  A Few Responses To Kant’s Transcendental Idealism…Link To An Ayn Rand Paper: The Objectivist Attack On Kant…A Few Thoughts On Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts Of Liberty”

From Reason TV: Nick Gillespie on Freedom Watch With Judge Andrew Napolitano

Full post and video here.

Both men suggest that, perhaps, libertarianism is the current heart of the conservative project with its continued focus upon individualism and limited government.   There’s been a tendency for Reagan, the recent George Bush, and of course now Obama to increase the government’s size and scope.   In fact, they invoke the spirit of Barry Goldwater in the search for roots.  It’s a little grandiose, but is libertarianism growing up (getting more mainstream credibility and creating a history for itself?) and dealing more and more with genuine policy problems?:

A commenter notes:

 ”The problem with “returning to our Goldwater roots” — Goldwater never got elected president. The “roots” are all about a beautiful theory that’s never been tested in the crucible of actual governing experience.”

To be even more skeptical:  Is this a high-watermark for the libertarians…where do they go from here? 

See Also On This Site:  In response to Obama’s presidency and the current political landscape, is Will Wilkinson moving toward a more liberal youth?:  Will Wilkinson And Jonah Goldberg On Bloggingheads: Updating Libertarianism?…From Reason’s Hit And Run: What Kind Of Libertarian Are You?

Also:  A Few Thoughts On Robert Nozick’s “Anarchy, State and Utopia”…Ayn Rand was deep, but still kind of a cult-figure:  Link To An Ayn Rand Paper: The Objectivist Attack On Kant

Obama’s Decision On Missile Defense And A Quote From Robert Kagan’s: ‘The Return Of History And The End Of Dreams’

Book here.

Obama has pulled out of the missile defense program in Eastern Europe, and some are calling this a capitulation to Russia. Here’s a quote from Robert Kagan that perhaps could clarify that position a little better:

“That is the primary motive behind Russia’s opposition to American missile defense programs in Poland and the Czech Republic.  It is not only that Russians fear the proposed sites may someday threaten their nuclear strike capacity:  Putin has suggested placing the sites in Italy, Turkey, or France instead.  He wants to turn Poland and other eastern members of NATO into a strategic neutral zone.”

Because, as Kagan argues, we’re not living anymore in the heady days after the fall of communism and a coming liberal international order (See Francis Fukuyama’s The End Of History).  We’re living in a world where Russia is playing old-style, nation-state power politics to regain its former scope, complete with a lot of strong-arming its former satellites and shutting off access to its resources when it sees fit.  

Kagan broadens the picture further:   China and India are gaining national strength (though still fragile) and their governments’ and peoples’ conception of their own identity will change accordingly.  They will want more resources, to have more control over their own waters and trade routes, and have larger and larger spheres of influence.   Matters of national pride and identity (Taiwan) are not to be taken lightly.  They will push nations into potential conflicts, shifting alliances, and a scene more closely resembling 18th and 19th century European states and geo-politics.

Philosophically, Kagan clearly has doubts about the Enlightenment roots of the popular vision of  liberal international order (with roots in Kantian “perpetual peace” and Hegelian dialectical progress…).  However, he argues that there is a future, and there are moral obligations that (I would imagine individuals have in it), and that democracies have to one another to shape that world going forward (as we progress through our collective will?).  

It’s definitely worth a read for its keen eye on the international scene and its challenge to a liberal internationalism. 

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So,  as for the missile-defense program…was it an appeasement to Putin…do you trust Obama’s vision for the world and America’s place in it…is he positioning us well between our own interests and our own moral obligations?

Addition:  A reader links to this piece and argues that this is Obama trying to forge common interest with Russia, which may bear fruit.

Another Addition:  Juan Cole argues how shrewd a move this is here.  Obama is rounding up Kagan’s autocracies (Russia, at least) as well as the democracies (France, at least) and putting the full heat on Iran.

Yet Another Addition:  It’s looking like Russia’s not on board with Iranian sanctions.

See Also On This Site:  From The American Interest Online: Francis Fukuyama On Samuel Huntington…From The Chronicle Of Higher Ed: Russian Forum…Dick Cheney Travels To Georgia: Is the U.S. Allied With Georgia?