What did you study? Did you finish your thesis?

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Thanks for watching. Yes, I'm regularly told that to understand Kant one needs to understand where philosophy was historically during his time. Empiricism was huge and overrated in Kant's mind so he was trying to remind the philosophical world that empiricism has limits through demonstrating the importance of reason. And in doing so he also showcases the limits of reason. But I feel like focusing only on the historic context of Kant's philosophy can lead to a too abstract understanding of what he's saying. So I think it's important to show how Kant's philosophy can be applicable to today's world, how one can use his philosophy in a practical and constructive way. That's what I tried to do in this video.

Its both, kant is using the scottish common sense philosophy against theoretical reason that leads to nihilism (pantheism controversy and jacobi) as well as the empiricists (transcendental realists) who take appearances as being things in themselves

What Kant is talking about is a lot more abstract than what you said. You might want to look into the Metaphysics Of Morals though

Yeah, he'd probably call me the n-word and hand me over to the KKK.

@@theblackponderer No he believed in treating all people with morality, he did note that. But he was conflicted about the logical capacity of black people. But this way of thinking was a product of his time. This was a time when many black people were still living in tribes and viewed as primitive. But Kant would not have endorsed the abuse of black people, no. I think he would be happy to see your video.

@@mymorrowind Yeah, I was joking. I'm guessing Kant would probably appreciate my video. Also, not all Africans were living tribally during Kant's time.

Cool. Yeah, personally I think it is important to talk about the "thing-in-itself" even if it is impossible for us to know what that "thing-in-itself" is. It's important to acknowledge that there is a thing that something is which we do not know. By doing that we don't make the mistake of assuming we know what something ultimately is when in reality we don't. The is especially important when we're talking about people, not just things. We live in a society where we are forced to assume that we know who people truly are, when in reality we don't know people. We act as if our assumptions of people are true, ignoring the "thing-in-itself", and this leads to a lot of problems in our society.

@@theblackponderer Very insightful reply, thanks so much for taking the time! Great points. So you would at least acknowledge it but agree it's unattainable. Thanks for sharing!

@@theblackponderer I've never thought of it in terms of assumptions about people, brilliant idea.

@@courtneydolly6538 Yes, we are seeing this unfold contemporarily in the philosophy of identity. An example would be gender. Our society encourages us to make definitive assumptions about who someone is based on the type of genitalia they were born with. But it is becoming more evident that such assumptions are not indicative of the "thing-in-itself" or who that person truly is. Today, we are still trying to understand this. We are creating identities like gender nonconforming, nonbinary, and genderqueer to better acknowledge the truth of a person, dispelling incorrect assumptions. Queer identity is a way to talk about the "thing-in-itself" which is important and necessary. A lot of people dismiss this kind of discussion by throwing out terms like "identity politics" but I think this kind of discussion is how we can apply Kantian and Hegelian philosophy to today's world.

That would most certainly be, "Walden", by Henry David Thoreau. The critique first starts with the classic idea: Be the change you want. He argues to live the way you want the world to be and do not participate in activities that support what is wrong with society, either directly or indirectly. Basically don't be complicit. Now, you can take this first part either way because some people believe the world should change in an immoral way and fight for that. But the second part of his argument talks about how what's best for society is what's best for each individual person. He argues that we are all connected/interrelated with each other and what makes one group of people suffer ultimately makes everyone suffer and he draws from Eastern philosophy in this way. The third part of his argument is that if you plan to live the change you want and if that change is truly for the better than you must be prepared and expect to suffer because society is designed in a way that benefits some through the exploitation of others. So you literally have to go against the social structure to live a better life and that means society will make you suffer. Then he gets spiritual because he says it is better to suffer for the benefit of those who suffer than benefit from the suffering of others because what you ultimately gain is the development of the soul. This realization is a branch in philosophy called Transcendentalism because you are transcending material benefit for spiritual development. Sorry I went on for awhile but I really, really, really, really, really, love that book.

Yes, this is how we apply philosophy from centuries in the past to contemporary problems like race as a social justice issue.

Thanks for watching! That quote begins at the top of page 431.

Yep. That's what I did.

I would even go further and say that when applying Kant's philosophy every culture should evaluate and question their own cultural standards before there is even a comparison between different cultures. What does one's own culture say about an individual within that culture? How does that culture define the individual? Is the individuality of a person culturally defined by a social construct? And is that social construct a reflection of truth or rather a falsehood used as a means to uphold a cultural reality? When we look at culture through the lens of pure reason, we begin to understand that culture itself is a human construction used as a tool to maintain a social order. Pure reason breaks down culture as a reality only true through a human perspective, and because human perspective is limited, there is a limit to what culture can truthfully reveal about the actuality of an individual.

I will check them out.

Penguin sponsors my videos... No, I'm just kidding. That would be nice. I'm just a fan of the publisher's Black Classics series. I like their design. They have really good introductions by translators too which provide a lot of helpful background information.

I just don't like how ostentatious they are with their branding. In many books, they color the whole book is orange, with a huge brand icon of the penguin.

The orange design is indeed pretty boring. Most designs for philosophy books are pretty boring I think. The Black Classics are cool because they always have an interesting painting in the front. And I like the all black around. Their "Penguin English Library" series however is a bit too pretty for my tastes.

The Black Ponderer Yeah, some book covers nowadays are too nice. Sometimes, after a good session of reading, I keep my thumb on the page and turn over the book to the front cover and be in a spell staring at the abstract art, or the face the author and contemplating deeply one of his or hers philosophy and thinking, "Wow. What were you thinking? You have quite a brain."

Because penguin is the best! Now it’s Penguin-RandomHouse

Well, sure. Whatever decisions we make as humans, the Earth will continue to persist, the planets will continue to orbit the sun, and the universe will still follow the rules of physics. Sure. But our decisions still have enormous impact on ourselves and others. Take for example the issue of climate change. Scientific research overwhelming tells us that if we continue to use fossil fuels at the rate we currently are using them, the planet will be less habitual for human life. Sure, the planet will continue to exist if we decide to continue using energy in the same way we are. But the planet will exist with more humans and other species dying than if we collectively chose to change our energy usage. It doesn't mean our decisions don't have enormous impact just because our decisions don't have impact on a cosmic level.

Yes, and that varied understanding amongst different peoples demonstrates the limit of actual true knowledge. I use race as an example because race is often used (often subconsciously) as a descriptor of true nature, i.e. race is treated as pure reason. But because race is a social construct with varied meanings across societies, race is a very limited tool to describe true reality. It is one of many ways humans assume we are reasoning purely when we actually aren't.

Right, so the point I'm trying to make in video is that thinking only phenomenal truth matters gives you a false perception of reality. This is because in actuality truth exists phenomenally and it exist beyond phenomena. So only considering phenomenal truth is considering only part of truth which can lead to falsehood. Not only that, there exist different phenomena. One human has a different phenomenal reality than another human. So a common mistake is that a person considers only truth that exist within their own phenomena while dismissing truth that is outside their phenomena, and meanwhile that dismissed truth exists within another person's phenomena. This is how the truths of people are dismissed. This is why it's important to consider truth outside of one's own personal phenomena.

Thanks! I will eventually make a video about the Critique of Practical Reason.

Yeah, many of the great philosophers allowed the social conditioning of their era to bend their judgments toward racist and sexist tendencies which is also ironic because much of their ideas transcended much of that. Just goes to show that dwelling too far into abstraction can lead one astray from practicality.

+The Black Ponderer Hello, Kant's views of black people? It is what KMO 325 wrote. I heard you use some things of "race," etc. in your video. From the content I have read so far, one of the many things he has done is create the means to segregation between things of Science and Religion. It is one of the numerous implications and/or functions of his writings. The applications of his writings are innumerable. During the Dark Ages up until the Renaissance era (if I remember this particular part in time correctly), many people were believing things of knowledge were ordained by God, just as Muslims choose to believe all knowledge stems from Allah. It was during a time when things of religion and science were more conflated with each other as one. Many things during history were treated with some form of "monism," "uniformity," and/or "universality" in relation to God. Religion and the pursuit of true knowledge of God was a primary driving force in people's lives. There was not much discernment nor distinction between fact and belief. During that time in history, there was so much bloodshed, death, and destruction in the name of God, Allah, or "It's God's will!" etc. During that time, saying anything that would be against doctrine was dangerous. A person would be tried for Heresy Against Doctrine, Blasphemy, or even High Treason. His written works cannot be interpreted with/by fewer narratives in the history of man. For many years, he was rigourously wrestling with things of Leibniz, Newton, Descartes, among many others (I cannot remember how many others) to deconflate (opposite of conflate) or segregate things more a matter of opinion, things of wishfulness, idealisms, beliefs from things of scientific truth - in the best way possible with how language was used during his time. What he did was extremely difficult, especially with how people who used language differently from different places, different culture (shaped, structured, formed, etc. differently) during the time. From the reading I have done up to this point, I do not see anything that can even be perceived of sexism or racism in the writing of "Critique of Pure Reason" (at least in the version I have, translated by Werner S. Pluhar, copyright 1996 by Hackett Publishing, a 1,000+ pager book). It does strongly appear he may have been trying to write in such a way that will try and speak to the future. I am under the impression there will be people who may have that type of premise. I commend you for talking about this in a video. This particular book has a great deal of depth, depending on how deep one chooses to go. You wrote a comment: Yeah, many of the great philosophers allowed the social conditioning of their era to bend their judgments toward racist and sexist tendencies which is also ironic because much of their ideas transcended much of that. Just goes to show that dwelling too far into abstraction can lead one astray from practicality. I am under the impression that Kant might have possibly been aware of the potential implications of the use of mentioning anything pertaining to anything of race or gender, his written works may have been disposed of in the future if that were the case. Or......................, he may not have been thinking of anything of race or gender at all. His thoughts were very immersed in the attempt to achieve some type of reconciliation between things of religion (more controversial) and things of science (less controversial). I feel certain there were things of sexism during the time. How exactly? Likely when the domain of gender roles, etc. cannot adequately accommodate for the circumstances when issues arise.With this book, he appears to have used language and/or terms that speak universally to all people, as individuals - for a vast array of perspectives. In the attempt to fully understand the things he wrote, one must adopt the terminology he uses because there needs to be stratification, hierarchy, etc. to organize each of these concepts. To try and make uniformity of all the things he speaks about would be exceedingly complicated. There are so many concepts spoken in the book. How exactly they are all tied together requires serious commitment in the achieving the fullest understanding of it all - if possible. It challenges things of values, things of belief, things of opinions, things of thought, etc - things that need to be challenged - especially with the many issues in the now.

Hello, I forgot to mention something else. I would only suspect the existing racial issues during that time existed based on how other ethnic groups were perceived - which holds a great deal of truth. When a person looks at ethnic groups more along an anthropological scale (over milennia, thousands of years), forms of barbarism existed within all - whether it be tribal groups - or group populations of other scales. With how people have chosen to live, whether the beliefs work for a person and/or against a person, it has proven that ideologies are dangerous. The attempt to strive for a way of life that allows people to live more by principle and discourages harsh treatment. One can hope a book like this still has the potential to speak to us and to people in the future. What are some of your thoughts?

Yeah might want to check out my videos on Aristotle and Hume then.

you need to understand Hegel to fully understand KANT.

Paola Florentin paola you are contradicting yourself. if the black wonderer were copying cliffnotes(and he is not) then he would surely understand kant because their synopsis is accurate also. i think you need to reread the book. the ponderer does a great job of translating esoteric concepts into common language and practical reality

im sorry" black ponderer"

Paola Florentin - Your comment is interesting because it entails the concept of what it is to 'Understand'

“Don’t judge a book by its cover.” 😎

@@theblackponderer I feel like you can and you have a chance of being right but you always have to find out what’s inside. Loved the lecture bro😎

@@johncracker5217 "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck." Thanks for watching!

Luke Desobry What translation do you recommend?

The Werner Pluhar translation is the one I use and I think it is vastly superior to the Penguin edition

Luke Desobry What makes it better?

For one, Kant wrote two editions of the critique so the translator decides which parts of the 1st edition to omit and which parts of the second edition to include. Also, the Pluhar translation is much clearer and has much better footnotes and references which help illuminate the text. The Penguin translation is truly cumbersome to read as there are so many run on sentences which is how the Germans wrote at the time, but it just sucks to read

Luke Desobry I'm pretty sure the Penguin edition does have both translations. They are stacked together section by section. I remember because I felt like a read the text twice over, which helped me reinforce the philosophical themes.

I assume that it makes you uncomfortable because you are living in the land of another race. I could be wrong and you could be an African person living in your own native land with your own native people, but I think you're probably an invader in the native land of another native people (most likely a native European people), whether through direct choice on your part, or through consequence of birth that was out of your control because your parents or grandparents fled their homeland and decided to squat in another, and because of this the topic makes you very uncomfortable because you know that you are an outsider imposing yourself on others, and because you know you are not at home. I think, if you were living amongst your own people in your own home, you would feel much more comfortable and relaxed as that is natural for everyone. There's no place like home as the saying goes. I have traveled to many countries but nowhere is as comforting as being at home in my own land, amongst my own people and culture. Muhammad Ali spoke about a similar thing to this several times, you can find clips on KZfaq.

@@folksurvival It's not that complicated. This is 2020, not the 18th century.

@@eugeneonline Nice Muh Current Year meme.