A Critique of Kant’s Philosophy from an Objectivist Perspective by Leonard Peikoff, part 47 of 50

History of Philosophy by Leonard Peikoff - Lesson 47 of 50

Leonard Peikoff offers an Objectivist critique of key points of Kant’s philosophy. Peikoff explains what he regards as Kant’s fundamental error and why Objectivism agrees with Kant’s contemporary, Moses Mendelssohn, in branding him “the all-destroying Kant.”

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[MatWlson]

1st. Sad that we live in such a degenerate civilization that after one year this only has 167 views.

[Mal]

Most philosophers call the transcendental deduction "nuanced and layered." Ayn Rand labeled it 'obscurantism' because she was unable to understand it.

[Mal]

Kant scholars who understand Kantian transcendentalism have this to say about it (I posted this as a response to this video):
"The distinction between appearances and things in themselves is not intended to imply a bifurcation of reality, but rather a differentiation within the cognitive standpoint from which reality is apprehended." (Henry Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense, p. 25).
"Kant’s strategy is to show that the categories are the very conditions for the possibility of experience, and thus must apply universally to all possible objects of experience." (Paul Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Knowledge, p. 156).
"Kant’s critical philosophy does not lead to a radical skepticism or subjectivism, but rather to a disciplined understanding of the limits and scope of human reason." (Ameriks, Kant’s Theory of Mind: An Analysis of the Paralogisms of Pure Reason, p. 23).
"The Copernican turn in philosophy initiated by Kant involves understanding the mind’s active role in structuring experience, which is not a surrender to subjectivity, but a recognition of the conditions for objectivity." (Pippin, Kant’s Theory of Form: An Essay on the Critique of Pure Reason, p. 45).
"Kant’s philosophy is deeply intertwined with the development of modern science; it seeks to articulate the foundational principles that make empirical knowledge possible." (Friedman, Kant and the Exact Sciences, p. 12).

[Swaaaat]

Some many butthurted kantians and believers in the comment. lol. They can't accept that kant is wrong.

[Mal]

11:51 Peikoff asked: "What are the facts that we observe that human beings can as a matter of fact integrate fleeting sensations into integrated percepts?.. Kant proceeds arbitrarily to assume that this integration of sensations and percepts requires an incredible complexity of conscious mental processes on the part of the mind."

Peikoff here is stating that the facts presented within Kant's transcendental deduction must be detectable by the senses. If they can't be detected, Peikoff argues, then Kant is arbitrarily asserting these facts.

Peikoff's critique is grounded in empiricism -- the idea that knowledge must be based on observable facts. Yet there is no perceivable fact that can ground Peikoff's empirical approach. This poses a problem for Peikoff which is known as "the problem of self-reference." This leads to the circular reasoning that Rand and Peikoff are known to apply.

Therefore, Peikoff has already run into trouble in being unable to justify his grounding of all human knowledge in empiricism. This in itself doesn't render empiricism invalid, it only means that empiricism is problematic. And in the case of a Kant-oriented critique, it is applying empiricism to transcendentalism, which is backwards. Because Kant sought to understand the necessary conditions for the possibility of experience itself. There is no empirical content to be had, and none are needed for his arguments. And even if a modern scientist tried to find a neurological basis for these necessary conditions, none of these physiological processes would be visible either. Because interpreting what that brain activity means in terms of cognitive processes involves significant inference and interpretation.

[vincentjappi]

Hans-Hermann Hoppe
has also examined, albeit not fully, the normative presuppositions which are necessary for action and argumentation.

[Mal]

"His explanation is this: in an unknowable noumenal realm, something unknowable occurs. And when the unknowable material passes through unknowable filters, that guarantees
necessity in the worldly experience."

That is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard Peikoff say. He's said a lot of stupid things, but that is definitely right up their in the unknowable realm of stupid things.

Peikoff cried at Ayn Rand's funeral because she served as a parental figure, a mommy or daddy figure, and he can't let go of his childhood.

[Mal]

Excerpted from “Brief Summary, ” The Objectivist, Sept. 1971, 4

'The “phenomenal” world, said Kant, is not real:' Kant neither said this nor implied it.

'reality, as perceived by man’s mind, is a distortion.' Kant neither said this nor implied it.

"The distorting mechanism is man’s conceptual faculty: man’s basic concepts (such as time, space, existence) are not derived from experience or reality, but come from an automatic system of filters in his consciousness (labeled “categories” and “forms of perception”) which impose their own design on his perception of the external world and make him incapable of perceiving it in any manner other than the one in which he does perceive it.' And you, Miss Rand, assumed that your percept is somehow a direct copy of the object being perceived, despite the fact that, in the case of sight, light-waves are transduced by the rods and cones in the eyes into electrical signals which travel down the optic nerve to the brain. From there, neurophysiology shows that certain changes have to be made to those electrical signals or else we wouldn't have the experience of sight or awareness of the object.

Whoever's reading this, you can research it for yourself. Then try to prove that the product of several biological processes, which comes from sight, is an exact reproduction of the object of perception.

'This proves, said Kant, that man’s concepts are only a delusion, but a collective delusion which no one has the power to escape.' Kant never spoke of a "collective delusion" much less a delusion.

'Thus reason and science are “limited, ” said Kant; they are valid only so long as they deal with this world, with a permanent, pre-determined collective delusion (and thus the criterion of reason’s validity was switched from the objective to the collective), ' It's certainly true that the senses are limited to how they sense. But reason and science are not limited to the senses. That is, in fact, Rand's own theory.

'but they are impotent to deal with the fundamental, metaphysical issues of existence, which belong to the “noumenal” world. The “noumenal” world is unknowable; it is the world of “real” reality, “superior” truth and “things in themselves” or “things as they are”—which means: things as they are not perceived by man.''' Kant never spoke of a superior truth. Things in themselves are a product of transcendental reflection, they are not a concept from any empirical investigations. Claiming this is a common error with Rand and others.

[Mal]

"The [Objectivist] layman in the section of dialogue quoted above claims that the relationships between body 1 and body 2 don’t change when body 2 moves. This is a bizarre claim since the relative state of motion of two bodies is a relationship between them. So why shouldn’t some measurements change as a result of different states of relative motion?"

The Objectivist then scratches his head, remembers something Ayn Rand said about Immanuel Kant, and decides that Kant is the evil force behind relativity theory because Ayn Rand is right about everything.

The result is David Harriman.

[guilhermesilveira]

Kant was an irrational philosopher. Ayn Rand and Peikoff are the reason and the truth.

[Mal]

Leonard Peikoff believes that modern physics should be subservient to philosophy (i.e., Objectivism). That if the conclusions of modern physics don't correspond with the evidence of the senses (identity, causality), then they must be false.

[georgepantzikis]

"Space is not an empirical concept which has been derived from outer experiences. For in order that certain sensations be referred to something outside me (that is, to something in another region of space from that in which I find myself), and similarly in order that I may be able to represent them as outside and alongside one another, and accordingly as not only different but as in different places, the representation of space must already underlie them. Therefore, the representation of space cannot be obtained through experience from the relations of outer appearance; this outer experience is itself possible at all only through that representation."

"Space is a necessary a priori representation that underlies all outer intuitions. One can never forge a representation of the absence of space, though one can quite well think that no things are to be met within it. It must therefore be regarded as the condition of the possibility of appearances, and not as a determination dependent upon them, and it is an a priori representation that necessarily underlies outer appearances."

This video completely ignores Kant's transcendental argument, and simply rails on about some imagined Kantians destroying reason by claiming that "because I perceive space and time, they must not exist." as if anyone would ever make that argument. They are, however, perfectly fine with making the argument "because I experience it, it must be true." It baffles me how someone can call themselves a philosopher and literally presuppose their way to their conclusions. You can't simply assert that the senses and the mind are man's method for knowing reality, that reality is encapsulated within the senses, that identity requires nothing but consciousness of existence (as if Being was synonymous to identity), and then claim that the reason Rand isn't taken seriously by serious academics (and dismissed even by non-serious ones outside the US) is because Kant has corrupted the universities with his anti-reality, feels over reals, arguments.

[Mal]

Ayn Rand bridged the is/ought gap by not including the moral oughts (how to live a virtuous life), but only technical oughts (how to live a successful and happy life).

[Mal]

Rand's circular and self-affirming axioms don't affect Kant's arguments for the existence of noumena, at least in the form of a belief that they exist. Despite the inherent unknowability of the noumenal, its inferred existence serves as a vital foundation for understanding the origins of phenomena, a notion often overlooked in contemporary philosophical discourse. This inference is necessary, because phenomena must come from somewhere; they can't exist in a vacuum.

When Rand hand-waves the idea of a noumenal realm away in your reading as 'mystical, ' remember that she is also hand-waving away the source of phenomena.

Thus, by doing so, Rand was showing a preference for subjectivism or idealism. Because if phenomena don't have a source beyond the senses, then then can only originate from within the mind.

But in truth, Rand simply didn't know what she was talking about.

[Mal]

20:23 "'Necessary' really means 'implied by the law of identity. If you take any example of necessary truth, you will see that what's meant by saying that it must be true is that if it isn't, a contradiction is involved." That statement doesn't offer absolute proof of the truth of the alleged necessary truth itself. Its truth relies on one's acceptance of the Objectivist framework. In other words, it's only true within the Objectivist system.

For example, to say that a bachelor is an unmarried female is a contradiction of the conventional definition of "bachelor." However, the conventional definition is only true within a given accepted system of concepts. Definitions and concepts change over time. So the most we can say, beyond the idea that it's a contradiction, is that the definition I offered is unconventional. It's not a contradiction in the absolute sense. I'm not saying that absolute contradictions *don't* exist, in thought. They certainly do exist (in thought). But it is more needful to consider a wider perspective on Peikoff's epistemological stance and to say that he should distinguish between absolute contradictions and relative contradictions.

[Mal]

19:47 "In common sense, what does it mean to say that some fact or statement is necessary? To say it's necessary is to say it must be so -- the opposite is impossible."

Leonard Peikoff is incorrect. The opposite of necessary can be possible, although not ideal or sustainable. It depends on the context, which Peikoff conveniently forgets about when it suits his arguments. For example, it is possible for a human to live in the absence of oxygen, although not for very long. So while oxygen is necessary for human life to continue, it is possible to live without it for a short length of time.

[GeorgWilde]

It is not the concept (abstraction) of life that makes the concept of value possible. It is the actual concrete fact of living that makes the concept of value meaningful. Since you already clarified many times that objectivism is based on inductive thinking, it is pretty much possible to partially discover the concept of value sooner than discovering the concept of life in general...

[Mal]

If a percept is mental and biological (in the human brain), then how can you prove that the percept is identical to the object being perceived?

[GeorgWilde]

I have heard that Kant's ethics do not follow from or are even at odds with this Critique of Pure Reason.

[Mal]

Is a percept mental, biological, or transcendental?