Whoa.

[bippus1]

Kant just blew my mind. I remember, once upon a time, that I criticized Kant and other philosophers (probably without deeply understanding them) for building thought-castles, but that stood on no solid structure. Well, I just read through the second part of Kant's The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, and I realized that what he just

Comments

[teh_grate]

hrm. it may be time to give Kant another chance, since what i'm understanding, i think, of your initial impressions, the first time around, feel very close to my own.

watching you interact with the Nichomachean Ethics text has been interesting -- wow, it makes me feel sort of weird and voyeuristic to say it that way ... regardless, it's been nicely thought-provoking, in a vicarious, one-or-more-levels-removed-from-the-text-or-"text" sort of way.

anyway, it's been quite a while since i read in earnest any philosophers less recent than Nietzsche (other than Aristotle, and some Plato) -- perhaps it's time for a revisit.

[bippus1]

I'm glad you're enjoying my philosophy-notes. If you do pick up Kant again, I'd be interested in hearing your impressions.

What philosophers have you been reading recently? Or other authors?

[teh_grate]

i'll certainly voice my impressions, when i can make room for another reading.

for various and sundry reasons: i've been going through Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, Heidegger's Poetry, Language, Thought, Foucault's Power/Knowledge, and Edward Said's Orientalism. it's an interesting bunch, and the interactions within the texts -- or the ones that i create between the texts in my own mind -- are very satisfying. oh, also Aristotle's Poetics (which provides a nice counterpoint to the Heidegger).

as far as fiction goes, recent reading includes the likes of William Burroughs, Cathy Acker, Kobo Abe, and (of course) Pynchon.

it keeps me busy.

[pggmilltn]

Let me see if I have this straight...is he argueing that the catagorical imperitive does exist, or that if it does exist then it should be follorwed?

[bippus1]

He's arguing that the categorical imperative does exist -- but so far, only in the realm of pure practical reason. However, the form of the concept "categorical imperative" necessitates that if it does exist, then so does the autonomy of the will, the will giving law to itself. I'm not sure yet how he's saying that it does or does not exist, though -- and for all I know, he may stop at saying that it exists in the realm of pure practical reason, but that itself, because we are rational actors, is enough to impel us to follow it. He might be saying it does exist because we can think it.