Was Kant a Douchebag?

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Advocate
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Re: Was Kant a Douchebag?

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We forget at our peril that race, nation, religion, and culture were synonymous until very recently.
kuntogdi
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Re: Was Kant a Douchebag?

Post by kuntogdi »

(hi I'm not a native speaker, sorry for my bad english firstly)

I always thought Kant was a narcissist from first time I heard what is categorical imperative. Imo categorical imperative makes people more open to abuse and use. It makes people not think for their interests, even when their interest doesn't hurt anyone. "You should be selfless and giving, not thinking taking" is the essence of categorical imperative I think. If I was a narcissist who wants to make people more open to narcissistic abuse I would definately create ethic theory similar to categorical imperative..

And I've read at first page this:
Probably the most important aspect of his work was the so-called 'copernican revolution' in philosophy, which said that, rather than 'thoughts conforming to things, that things conform to thoughts'.
Copernican revolution seems pretty narcissistic to me also.. Because narcissists cannot differentiate their thoughts and feelings from reality outside. They unconsciously believe what they think and feel is how external reality truly is.

I think Kant had narcissistic personality disorder and dark triad characteristics..
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RCSaunders
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Re: Was Kant a Douchebag?

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ForgedinHell wrote: Sun Sep 02, 2012 7:55 pm It [war] doesn't build character. It builds bad memories, often physical wounds and death, and psychological problems like post-traumatic stress. Kant's position that wars were good for building character, which is just a commonly held stupid belief among Christian fascists. Kant's moral theories were quite common for his day, in Germany where he lived, and there is nothing stellar about them. The fact philosophy departments put such ignorance and feeblemindedness on a pedestal, just shows how far philosophy has sunk. It is now not just useless, not just pointless, but dangerous. Bastiat was among the first to voice this opinion, and it was as right then as it is now.
Absolutely! Hume, Kant, the logical positivists and post modernists have destroyed any possible value in what is called philosophy.
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RCSaunders
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Re: Was Kant a Douchebag?

Post by RCSaunders »

ForgedinHell wrote: Sat Sep 08, 2012 1:19 am If people were blank slates, then how could we ever learn anything in the first place?
Now that's odd. You have properly criticized Kant's absurd evil philosophy, but simply accepted one of it's worse ideas--a priori knowledge.

If you know what knowledge is there is no problem with understanding how a conscious being makes their first identification. It's called concept formation.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: Was Kant a Douchebag?

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

kuntogdi wrote: Wed Jul 28, 2021 6:48 am (hi I'm not a native speaker, sorry for my bad english firstly)

I always thought Kant was a narcissist from first time I heard what is categorical imperative. Imo categorical imperative makes people more open to abuse and use. It makes people not think for their interests, even when their interest doesn't hurt anyone. "You should be selfless and giving, not thinking taking" is the essence of categorical imperative I think. If I was a narcissist who wants to make people more open to narcissistic abuse I would definately create ethic theory similar to categorical imperative..

And I've read at first page this:
Probably the most important aspect of his work was the so-called 'copernican revolution' in philosophy, which said that, rather than 'thoughts conforming to things, that things conform to thoughts'.
Copernican revolution seems pretty narcissistic to me also.. Because narcissists cannot differentiate their thoughts and feelings from reality outside. They unconsciously believe what they think and feel is how external reality truly is.

I think Kant had narcissistic personality disorder and dark triad characteristics..
Kant has been proclaimed by many to be one of the greatest philosophers of all times.
You are merely insulting your own intelligence by asserting your above views from a basis of ignorance, i.e. the ignorance of Kant's full range of philosophy and his views.
I am a reasonable expert on Kant's philosophy and I am confident your views reflected you have read very little of Kant's books.

Re Kant's Categorical Imperatives [5 of them], they are self-directed to be good rather than evil or promote narcissism.

Note the First Categorical Imperative, i.e.
  • Act only according to that maxim
    whereby you can at the same time will
    that it should become a universal law.
From the above maxim, whatever is to be promoted you must [Will] take it to be a universal law.
Therefore if you were to 'will' a maxim that is evil, it must be taken to be universal, thus all humans must be evil and that you must be evil and welcoming evil acts [killing, raping, torture, being narcissistic, psychopathic, etc.] upon yourself from others. This is stupid.

Therefore the most proper maxim would be to will or promote only good acts which must be universal. Since it is universal and ALL humans are to be good, thus only the good will be directed at oneself from others and vice-versa.

So Kant never proposed anything that is negative or evil for humanity. The above are merely ideals and Kant also introduced steps on how to strive in practice towards the ideals.

You will have to read up Kant's work to understand how the above moral ideals are to be put into practice.

If you interpret Kant's work as seriously negative, that is due to misinterpretations, e.g. Kant is racist, telling a murderer where his victim is, etc.
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