Immanuel Kant: A Response to Stephen Hicks

This video is a response to Dr. Stephen Hicks’ account of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy given in his book Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. The book has received a significant amount of attention due to an endorsement from cultural critic Jordan Peterson, and has been critiqued before. This critique goes more in-depth on Immanuel Kant and responds to Hicks’ defense of his book given in his Open College Podcast, with brief discussions of Arthur Schopenhauer, Søren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Social Media:

Sources:
Jonas Čeika (CCK):

Stephen Hicks:

Immanuel Kant:
Critique of Pure Reason (Cambridge Edition)

Friedrich Nietzsche:
The Will to Power (Walter Kaufmann)

Arthur Schopenhauer:
Critique of the Kantian Philosophy (In The World as Will and Representation, Vol. 1) (I forget which version it got recalled to the library)

Timestamps:
Intro - 00:00
Thesis - 2:00
Kant - 2:59
Part 2 Intro - 12:38
Schopenhauer - 14:53
Kierkegaard - 16:34
Nietzsche - 17:19
Final Arguments - 19:13
Social Medias - 21:47

Hashtags:
#jordanpeterson #kant #immanuelkant #stephenhicks #hicks #postmodern #postmodernism #kierkegaard #nietzsche #schopenhauer #friedrichnietzsche #sorenkierkegaard #arthurschopenhauer #philosophy

[matthewkopp]

Immanuel Kant‘s ideas are foundational to understanding Carl Jung‘s psychology. Jung considered a Basic understanding of Kant as prerequisite for his own theory and referenced Kant in almost every book I have read. Jung‘s archetypal theory makes the distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge. It is central idea.

Hick‘s understanding is beyond idiotic. But Peterson’s advocacy for Hick‘s revealed to me why his understanding of Jung was so flawed.

But I don’t think Peterson cares. Peterson and Hick‘s are not interested in truth or a descriptive theory they are interested in clothing right wing propaganda in a type of sophistry that convinces people that their politics are reasonable.

But it is rather striking who some of the most famous anti-Kantian materialist philosophers are: Marx, Lenin, Foucault, most of postmodernism except Deleuze and Ayn Rand.

It seems to me that a better premise for his book would be to establish what ideas he actually shares with post-modernism and Marxism namely materialism vs idealism. And then proceed to show how his materialist Philosophy is a more useful theory. And here is why:

Lenin’s anti-Kantian essay actually reminds me of Hick‘s writing. It is filled with ad hominem attacks against Kant and why the working class should reject Kant. Lenin never goes very deeply into what Kant‘s arguments are, it is more like idealism is obscurantism and materialism is our only concern.

Being that Ayn Rand was from Russia as well, I couldn’t help to think that this was a popular Russian position. And upon further research I found it was.

Both Lenin and Ayn Rand were inspired by the now obscure Russian philosopher Nikolai Chernyshevsky.

Hick‘s ideas have a direct lineage to Vladimir Lenin.

This of course shouldn’t be some indictment but it does reveal that Hick‘s doesn’t explore the very ideas he is espousing.

Lenin‘s influence is clear, in this regard. He even titled an essay with the Same title as Nikolai Chernyshevsky.

But what about Rand‘s influence? Chernyshevsky endorsed egoism as the proper source for individual behavior and for harmonious social relations. I think that both Materialism and self interest egoism is a clear similarity even if the political philosophies are different.

[Rhhnewgnnss]

A very thoughtful critique. I’m very impressed.

[haenkules]

This was super well made on so many levels. You did a concise job of showing just where the points of contention are while maintaining a fair presentation of Hicks’ work and you did it in an extremely communicable series of explanations with helpful graphics where appropriate. Love your work and can’t wait for more to come!

[PostStruct-xjwr]

Great video! I find it ironic that Hicks chides postmodernism for being "relativist" and "identitarian" while he himself misrepresents a crucial philosopher and claims "it doesn't matter" because of the "more important [political] issue"

[Mal]

The connection between Kant and Postmodernism that Hicks drew involves little more than the "fallacy of the single cause."

[youngslimemillionaire]

I await your future videos! This one was great.

[James-lljb]

I wrote Peterson 6 months ago telling him Hicks is all wrong about Kant and his response to me was to say "You ungrateful little shit! How many books have you written?"
I wrote back saying I'd written and had published 3 books in philosophical theology.
He never responded after that....
I think that his most recent difficulties have more to do with alleged unprofessional behavior than it does criticism of the government per se, doesn't it? I mean, "Poor people eat too much food" or "climate doesn't exist" aren't direct critiques of any government, are they?
I lost interest in what he is saying when I checked out his assertion that "lack of serotonin is the cause of depression"; it turns out there is no scientific basis for that whatsoever.
Then I looked into him further only to discover his claims, "I am an evolutionary biologist, " and "I am a neuroscientist" to both be false: he's always only had a doctorate in cognitive psychology.
I've always intensely disliked and mistrusted paucity of intellectual integrity...
(..."There is a false saying: 'How can someone who cannot save himself save others?' Supposing I have the key to your chains, why should your lock and my lock be the same?"
~ Friedrich Nietzsche)

[Wesenschau]

Good stuff man, great content and I really like the visuals here

[owenburt]

Wow! Love how informative this video in such a short period of time

[markasp]

Why not blame Plato and Aristotle, rather than Kant, for pomo?

You joke? The Enlightenment was a wrecking ball used against Aristotle - to the extent that he was the foundation for Natural Law and the Academia. Remember: Kant was the ONLY Enlightenment philosopher who was an academic. Post-Enlightenment, most philosophers were academics again; philosophy reverted to the norm. Pomo grew out of continental philosophy by the way of Marxism, Structuralism, and French philosophy. So we clearly need to follow the roots of French philosophy. How its neo-Kantianism, gave way to a kind of back-to-Hegel, semi-existential Marxism, followed that the peculiar combination of Structural Linguistics, French Anthropology and Lacanian Psychoanalysis which became Poststructuralism = the mother of Postmodernism. BTW: French neo-Kantianism rejected both Aristotle and Hegel. (so no Aristotle). Hegel entered the scene in the 1930s via Sartre, Hyppolite, and Kojeve.


Kant is key to postmodernism. In that post-Enlightenment philosophy begins with Kant. They're Germans, metaphysicians, and they created 'continental philosophy'. That trend in philosophy is where Hicks aims his big guns (to the extent his has them). Hicks is right: Kant has to fall. But I think psychology and experimental philosophy will have to provide Empiricists with the ammunition to bring down the Dark Tower of Kant. Not Hicks.

[markasp]

Introduction to the 'dispute'.

Postmodernist is really just a codeword for Social Contructivist. Pomodernism, pomo, gives Social Constructivism, SC, some kind of "philosophical foundation"; giving SC the appearance of a rigorous discipline. So that academics of "social theory" can pretend to be doing serious work. But there's a problem with that foundation:- it crumbled. How? Philosophy itself is split between 2 main branches today: Analytic and Continental. Pomo was a radically skeptical branch of the continental tree. The crumbling of pomo began 5 decades ago, in the 1970s soon after pomo's birth. Pomo could not defend its own "foundations" from attacks made by both Analytic and some Continental philosophies. So much for pomo and SC. Yet, of course, we remember that - despite being a zombie - pomo somehow lived on. Because SC still needed something it could claim as a 'foundation'. To me - that's the real puzzle here: that pomo Zombie in the academy.

But the topic here is Kant, and Kant is a hybrid in that he's one of the few philosophers who's work is still central to both Analytic and Continental philosophy. Attack Kant at your peril. Because all the real philosophers from Hell will be after you. As well as all the fake pomos cheering them on.

This will be an exciting ride[*]; as we'll no doubt all be up for a re-reading or, more likely, a first reading of actual Kant - rather than mere 'Kant for Dummies'. I'm definitely book-marking this one.

[*] That's me being ironic.

[henrikkrogh]

I think you over do your criticism of Hicks on your (I think correct) representation of Kant.
One thing is how Kant is correctly understood, another (and the interesting for Hicks's project) is how Kant was 'taken down' by post modernists(and others).

As I understand it, the thing is Kant's establisment of the 'Das Ding an sich'. It might be that Kant thought that you could make valid statements of it (as you demonstrate), but remove that, and you are left with, namely, 'Das Ding an sich' - something which is (then) inaccessible to our minds/experiences/reason.

Now it can go two ways: Nietzsche (Götzen dämmerung, E.g. 'How the true world became a fabel' in which Kant is central), thinks 'Das Ding an sich' is a re-hash of the old platonic 'True world' (dualism) and that we should get rid of it, so that we are left with the 'Real world'.
Post modernists seems to go the other way, and says: "See, even if there is an objective reality, it is inaccessible to us (because 'Das Ding an sich'), and thus don't matter" which, it seems to me, ends up in a practical denial of objective reality, realism, truths, facts (god(s) and all that comes with it- ofcourse!). It's a complete undermining of 'The western thought' and this is what Hicks gets wrong: (The early)Post modernists didn't do it to salvage their marxist beliefs, they did it because they exactly were marxists and wanted to undermine the bourgeois society, in order to make way for the great revolution.

In my mind, and what I think Hicks is getting at, Kant introduces a critical weakness by establishing this 'Das Ding an sich' which in reality works to refute realism, objective reality etc. (even though that was not Kant's intention). Simply by denying Kant's, and for many modern thinking people questionable, reliance on reason. Which leaves us with, at the very least, an inaccessible reality etc. Which is then easy to deny, opening up Pandora's box.

[YOA]

Hicks and Pedersen are on a mission. Language makes and defines our reality. And our emotions makes language almost useless.

[hectorlp]

Very well done! I had the same reaction to a Hicks video. His views on Kant rely on people having no preexisting knowledge of Kant. Hicks is a mixed bag. I like some of his work but, like many "public intellectuals" in the internet age (eg Peterson Degrasse Tyson, etc.), he's sloppy and you take apart his sloppiness with regard to Kant expertly.

[criticalrealist]

Hicks derives his view of Kant from Ayn Rand. Curiously, it is unlikely that Rand ever read Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" all the way through. So where did she get *her* view of Kant. According to Rand biographer Jennifer Burns, Rand derived her view of Kant from libertarian writer Isabel Paterson. Where then did Paterson pick up *her" view of Kant? The most likely source would be George Santayana. In Santayna's "Reason in Common Sense" (considered a classic in the early decades of the 20th century), Santayana argued as follows: "Side by side with this reinstatement of reason, however, which was not absent from Kant’s system in its critical phase and in its application to science, there lurked in his substitution of faith for knowledge another and sinister intention. He wished to blast as insignificant, because “subjective, ” the whole structure of human intelligence, with all the lessons of experience and all the triumphs of human skill, and to attach absolute validity instead to certain echoes of his rigoristic religious education."

[dramsaysteele]

I'm trying to follow this interesting exposition. Why this utterly stupid music?

[tedsanders]

😂 wonderful postmodern creative deconstruction you just re arrange meaning until it supports the political sub group you want to win in the Darwinian dystopian competition of the world as you see it.