Immanuel Kant vs. René Descartes

In this episode, I present Immanuel Kant's issues with René Descartes' idealism.

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[NinjasSpirit]

Very well explained. I appreciated hearing about these concepts in a novel way. I enjoy your videos a lot.

[WilfridCyrus]

Absolutely fantastic explanation of one of Kant's main ideas.

[a_b]

Great video, really enjoying thw Kant content (dare I say… Kantent?)

I’d love to hear a discussion on Kant’s conception of time (and space) in relation to current scientific and philosophical theories of 4D spacetime. It appears to me that a lot of modern thinkers seem to think these new theories discredit Kant and go against what he was saying, but I feel this really misses the point that Kant is investigating the human faculties of understanding.

For example, if 4D spacetime is an accurate/acceptable scientific/philosophical model (and I personally think that it is), surely this doesn’t impact the points of Kant’s Transcendental Aesthetic? Kant is explicitly talking about ‘space’ and ‘time’ as our forms of intuition, and so when he says they “only exist” as such, this sounds to me to be right in line with current theories of time that suggest our experience of ‘time’ is dramatically different to what the best theories suggest about it; i.e. space and time as seperate 3 and 1 dimensional ‘things’ do not in fact ‘exist’ externally, because they are our pure forms of intuition, and this is further supported by current theories that describe space and time as existing as a 4dimensional ‘spacetime’, so again the space and time that we experience does not exist externally. tldr: Kant’s “time” and modern science’s “time” are not the same thing, and neither discredit the other. (There is a similar claim about space, where Kant’s discussion of space is discredited for being focused only on euclidian geometry, and so they say that since we now know that space can bend etc his theories are proven false, but again the main point it seems like is being missed is that he is talking about the ‘space’ that *we* experience)

The reason I’m wondering about this is because some very popular scientists like Stephen Hawkins have publicly written passages that paint Kant as someone who was confused about time not existing, and since now we know time does exist, he was wrong. This just seems like it’s missing a lot of the point, so I’d love to hear you weigh in!
I’ve read the short volume ‘Kant’s Conceptions of Space and Time and Contemporary Science’ by A. Strefanov that aimed to defend Kant in a similar way to what I am describing, for anyone interested in this, but I did think some of the main points could have been pushed further and made a bit stronger, which is also why I’d like to get your insight on it.

[It also makes me think of the conflict Bergson had with Einstein over his theory of relativity and what that meant for ‘time’, which again seems to be more of a misunderstanding of 2 seperable concepts than anything in direct conflict (though in that case Bergson felt Einstein’s theory was an indirect attack on his own, whereas I’m arguing that Kant would not have felt threatened by current theories of Time since they are not about the same “time” he is focusing on)]

[ivanelrino]

Kant says we understand time and space intuitively. Kant never saw Interstellar.🤯

[laviebelle]

Could u explain Gaston Bachelard's work The Poetics of Space

[WhereisWaldo]

For me the discussion of Kant vs. Descartes around idealism, sensation and the properties of things always leads to Hume's contribution. I know it's outside the scope of this particular video, but especially when discussing something like "wetness" or geometry, my thinking goes right to Hume's Enquiry.

[Rico-Suave_]

Great video, thank you, note to self(nts) watched all of it 11:05

[numbersix]

Thanks! I think I now kind of understand another idea of Immanuel Kant. He sort of turns Platonism on its head, doesn't he?
Instead of ideal Forms giving rise to the phenomenal world, phenomena through their regularity act to sort of create the ideals (functionally or conceptually) within us. Is that right?

[not_enough_space]

At around 10:00 you say, "The problem with that, though, for Kant is that if space and time weren't just sensible objects or forms of our intuition and they existed out there, then we could not be sure that all people have the same possible understanding of them."

But I'm not seeing how Kant's idea would contrast with that. Suppose we _do_ have space and time built into us. It's still possible that we each have a different space and time, or that our understanding of space and time changes. And Kant's idea would miss out on one advantage of external space and time -- an independent point of reference. A standard that we then _could_ universalize with.

EDIT: After looking into it a bit on my own, it seems as though Kant isn't worried about both ways possibly being the same. Instead, he takes it for granted that our understanding of space and time is universal. And he then wants to contrast "out there" as necessarily being variable vs intuition as possibly being variable or possibly universal. Given his assumption, he goes with the possibility that allows it. At this point, I'm not immediately sold on everything going into it, but that argument does have a logic to it.

[Firmus]

Waiting for the synthesis that is Deskante to drop.

[viljamtheninja]

This is why I don't think an AI talking about typically "human" emotions is any sign of intelligence or sentience, quite the opposite. An AI lacks the human senses for human experience, so when it's talking about "human" or even just bodily emotions (I think it was ChatGPT who described love as a "floating feeling"), that's just confirmation that it is mindless code simply repeating things it has seen said in the same context. And that's why I don't think AI will ever become Skynet; sentience, I believe, requires sensory knowledge of oneself as being in the world. (Though I suppose creating artificial senses might at one point be possible that are actually based on physical information from the external world as opposed to digital information, and who knows what happens then.)

[whereisawesomeness]

Might be of interest: my understanding is that the forthcoming book ‘Le discours philosophique’ (a manuscript by Foucault, expected to publish in May) will contain an extensive discussion of Descartes and some discussion of Kant

[cristiangabor]

What about Arthur Schopenhauer in relation to Immanuel Kant and René Descartes ?

[samparr]

so i listen to the podcast (great work btw, and i just got to this episode

what’s with the Eckrich Smoked Sausage ads?

[christofthedead]

Descartes seems to take for granted that his thoughts originate from himself. He doesn't provide any evidence that there is a "thinker" behind his thoughts, or that it's him. "I can observe the phenomenon of thoughts in my head therefor I exist" seems like the same problem he thought he solved.

[jorgetejada]

joder y yo pensando que estaba en español... tengo examen mañana

[johncracker]

Do you think it makes you better than anyone else because you poorly attempt the French pronunciation of Descartes?

[johncracker]

You’re not French. Say Descartes normal you cringe lord