Philosophy Now Forum

Peter Holmes: Kant's Ridiculous Argument!
Below is my counter to PH's point.

Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Wed Feb 09, 2022 1:06 pm Just to deal with Kant's ridiculous argument.

• P1 There's a distinction between noumena (things-in-themselves) and phenomena (things-as-they-appear).
  P2 There are no noumena.
  C Therefore, there are only phenomena.

Any torment here is of Kant's own making. It's the torment of thinking this argument is valid and sound - which has afflicted some philosophers ever since. (In my opinion, it's just Platonic dualism recycled, renamed and disguised.)

Meanwhile, civilians have never given a toss about philosophical lucubrations down the rabbit hole.

(And meanwhile, the claim that Kant's nonsensical distinction lends any credence to the claim that there are moral facts is ... well ... farcical.)

Your thinking is very immature in this case and thus insulting your own intelligence with the above short-sighted syllogism.
I'll accept your crude syllogism as a starting point but there are critical details you missed out either ignorantly or deliberately for rhetorical purpose.

• P1 There's a distinction between noumena (things-in-themselves) and phenomena (things-as-they-appear). [in the conventional sense and crude logic (Kant called that Pure, Raw Reason)]
  
  P2 There are no noumena. [as justified and reasoned]
  
  C Therefore, there are only phenomena. [as verified, justified based on empirical evidences and reinforced with philosophical reasoning within a credible FSK, e.g. scientific FSK]

So what is wrong with C as detailed above?
Point is we take reality [an Emergence] which we are entangled with as far as our empirical evidences and philosophical reasonings can soundly and rationally support it with no addition of your mystical tripes.

OTOH, your claim would be

• P1 There's a distinction between noumena (things-in-themselves) and phenomena (things-as-they-appear).[in the conventional sense and crude logic]
  P2 There are noumena. [based on crude primal logic]
  C Therefore, there are phenomena [as justified via the specific FSK] and noumena.

Obviously my detailed syllogism is more solid that yours.
Do you have a counter for my above claims?

In your case, you argument ended up with a claim of the noumena, noumenon which as the ultimate sense is a thing-in-itself and that is reasoned out to be an illusion.
In your case, that is philosophical realism while the theism will claim God [thing-in-itself as Father of all things-in-themselves] exists as real.

Views? anyone?

In his essay ‘The Ancestry of Fascism’ Bertrand Russell had this to say about Kant:

“The philosophy which has been distinctive of Germany begins with Kant, and begins as a reaction against Hume. Kant was determined to believe in causality, God, immortality, the moral law, and so on, but perceived that Hume’s philosophy made all this difficult. He therefore invented a distinction between “pure” reason and “practical” reason. “Pure” reason was concerned with what could be proved, which was not much; “practical” reason was concerned with what was necessary for virtue, which was a great deal. It is of course obvious that “pure” reason was prejudice. Thus Kant brought back into philosophy the appeal to something recognized as outside the sphere of theoretical rationality, which had been banished from the schools ever since the rise of scholasticism.”

The other names mentioned in his essay other then Hume and Kant in the modern revolt against reason were Fiche, Nietzsche, Carlyle, Mazzini as well as supporters Treitschke, Rudyard Kipling, Houston Chamberlain, and Bergson.

Russell described it as: “The irrationals of our time aim, not at salvation, but at power. They thus develop an ethic which is opposed to that of Christianity and Buddhism; and through their lust of dominion they are of necessity involved in politics.”