Hilarious. Via Chris Betram. I was never properly taught anything about Kant's aesthetics in school, but it always sounded absurd.
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The Case Against Kant
08 Dec 2007 02:42 pm
Comments (22)
Kant is so busted.
I think the video's gone already.
What sounded absurd about the aesthetics? I note that that there are two serious misstatements in this ad; as well as two other, less crucial errors.
The video is only semi-gone. Based on my internet anecdotal experience:
You can watch the video here. You can still find the video via Google - I believe it is the second or third search result that is addressed myspace.tv. Oddly, you cannot find it via MySpace.Tv's search engine.
The video is only semi-gone. Based on my internet anecdotal experience:
You can watch the video here. You can still find the video via Google - I believe it is the second or third search result that is addressed myspace.tv. Oddly, you cannot find it via MySpace.Tv's search engine.
And you can "view source" to get the embed code, and that should probably work, too.
This is an old version of the ad. The corrected version is here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M-cmNdiFuI
Could you replace it with this one, please?
Thanks!
This is an old version of the ad. The corrected version is here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M-cmNdiFuI
Could you replace it with this one, please?
Thanks!
I note that that there are two serious misstatements in this ad; as well as two other, less crucial errors.
Could you elaborate, my Kant knowledge is a tad rusty, but it sounded reasonably correct to me.
I agree though that I don't see why Kant's aesthetics are deemed absurd by Matt. They have to be viewed within the framework of his epistemology and are only tangentially concerned with art - that's probably were most misunderstandings spring from.
1) "Reality" belongs to the objects of our experience, and is fully knowable, according to Kant.
2) "Noumena", or purely intelligible objects, are not knowable. But this is not an "inherent" feature; it is rather a consequence of the limits of the human intellect. (God, for example, would them).
3) Ethical decisions must of course "*consider* specificities of circumstance and likely outcome"-- but their moral worth is not *grounded* in these, Kant holds.
4) "Universal maxims" do not exist in Kant's theory. Moreover, the moral law is not a maxim at all.
1) and 3) are important. 2) and 4), less so. The stuff on the sublime is ok.
But as an attack ad on Kant, why should it be 100% accurate? It does a good job of getting across the sort of thing an unfriendly critic of Kant would say about him.
The statements obviously get Kant's philosophy wrong (and probably implicitly gets Nietzsche wrong as well). But that is obviously not the criteria according to which the video is meant to be judged. I am hereby calling out anyone who debates the philosophy in the video after this posting as seriously lame.
“I was never properly taught anything about Kant's aesthetics in school, but it always sounded absurd”. Didn’t people go after Joe Klein for sloppy stuff like this? Why bother offering an ill-informed opinion? Acknowledging that it’s ill-informed doesn’t help.
If the choice is between Kant and Nietzsche, I'm voting third party, even if it does mean throwing my vote away.
Whatever, like I'm going to believe some syphilitic with a mustache like some kind of hippie.
I'm with Julian. Kirkegaard in '08!
Russell Kirkegaard!!
A traditional leap to the right
A logical leap to the left
Let's do the Time Warp Again
matt, I disagree on the first point, though that's more of a semantic problem, as I fully agree with your second point.
The term reality is used by most people in a strongly externalist sense, i.e.: objects etc. as they exist totally independent of our mental faculties and reasoning capabilities - this is what in Kant's terminology is meant by noumena and he argues that we have no means of knowing them, which is actually very plausible, since knowledge is tied to sensory input and reason and we cannot make meaningful statements beyond that. The common misconception is that Kant denies the existence of an externalist reality, which he doesn't.
On point 3: Again, it's probably a matter of semantics, but Kant's discussion of lying strongly indicates that considerations regarding circumstance and likely outcome are totally and always trumped by universal moral law, and he uses the former clashing with the latter to illustrate the whole point of is ethics. A decision purely made on consequentialist grounds is not a moral decision for Kant, even if it doesn't clash with moral law, and if it does it would be immoral to disobey moral law in favor of a preferred outcome. That's pretty radical but also the interesting point of his ethics, which shouldn't be watered down.
I'm new to Iglesias and haven't read enough of his work to form a solid opinion on whether I should continue reading him. However, his gratuitous remarks regarding Kant's aesthetics, and by association, with Kant himself, reveal much more about Iglesias than about Kant, as I'm sure he will agree. I'm afraid what it reveals goes into the negative column, for me.
I'm new to James Dix and haven't read enough of his work to form a solid opinion on whether I should continue reading him. However, his inability to spell the name of the person whose blog he is commenting on reveals much more about him than about Yglesias, and I'm afraid what it reveals goes into the negative column.
Know who nailed this one, some 35 years ago? Pirsig. Take another look at Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for a beautifully balanced perspective on Kant. I'm not kidding.
Isn't the point a humorous one about how even a respected philospher's ideas can be distorted and misrepresented by an opponent in a 30 second attack ad? It has nothing whatsoever to do with what Kant actually wrote or said. Unless you belong to Nietszche's party.
Comments closed December 22, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Fantastic!
Posted by Nick Kaufman | December 8, 2007 3:05 PM