Hi, Ive been messing around learning this preface for a few days now and this is what ive come up with. First we have to start with some knowledge of Kant's Transcedental Aesthetic specifically phenomena and noumena. This is important because kant wont tell you what tf he talking about you have to figure it out some kind of way by reading him. Anyways in the preface the 2nd paragraph he sets up moral philosophy like this. All rational knowledge is material or formal. Material philosophy is two fold laws of nature and freedom. This is important disctinction and needs to be understood. Laws of nature is physics and think of a deterministic world without free will. That would be a complete naturistic world ruled by the laws of nature think of causality. A box moving on a ice block is subject to causality and everything in nature is also including humans. Our heart beats, we get hungry when we need food all biological processes. So thats the laws of nature so what is the laws of freedom? This is our free will. It is presupposed that we have free will here and arent living in a deterministic world. As such our free will and the choices we make do not exist in the laws of nature. They are independant and exist in the laws of freedom. The laws of freedom is where moral philosophy comes from. So for kant his whole epistimology exist in the phenomena and noumenal worlds. Freedom and morality exist in the noumenal world. We act out that morality in the phenomenal world. We act on impulses and our desires. Kants says that is us acting on behalf of the laws of nature. To act in accordance with morality and to be free we have to act on morality that is in our reason and outside of nature. This exist in the noumenal world and we can not know its nature. Now here's where it gets interesting. As human we also exist in both the phenomonal and noumenal world. We exist as we see ourselves and we exist in a thing in of itself outside of any of our understanding. This is where we get morality from. When we make a decision to act morally that decision originates in the noumenal realm but manifest itself in the phenomal world as an action. Think of Descartes and Princess Elisabeth and the mind body problem. Descartes cant answer how a thought that originates outside of ourself becomes the way we can move our body. And if he cant explain how then he must give way to the fact that thoughts are from our mind and exist in the natural world and we become determistic with no free will. Kant answers this by saying that our thoughts originate with reason and morality and freedom in the noumenal world and we act out our thoughts in the phenomal world. And then he beautifully dodges the why by using Hume's own concept that we can not know the full causality of any event. Therefore kant says knowing how an immaterial thought become a material action is beyond human understanding just like Hume says knowing the cause of any event is. This is why knowing how the transcendental aesthetic is key because Kant breaks down that its our senses that we percieve the noumenal world and our human mind creates suffering and desires and causes us to not be free and act according to nature and become less human. To be fully free we must act in accordance with the moral law free from any desire or selfishness. We must act bc its our duty not bc its a want.. I could go on and on but yeah that a brief synapses of the first 2 paragraphs of the Preface of the book. I dont suggest moving forward without understanding it tbh. Not just for the sake of the book but bc once you see what kant is doing its eye opening and powerful.
Good job! Sounds good to me. I'm not sure it's fair to say that he "beautifully dodges the why by using Hume's own concept that we can not know the full causality of any event." It's more than a dodge: It's a recognition that practical reason (the concern of ethics) and scientific reason both depend on foundational principles that can't be proven scientifically. It's good epistemology there. But maybe it's still fair to say it's a dodge! I think it's fine to say that we can prove them, or at least give good evidence for them. There's no relying on _some_ unproven foundational principles, like Thomas Reid explained. But there are interesting arguments from Descartes, Timothy McGrew, Laurence BonJour, and others that could, at least in principle, prove as much as we want of anything if we just allow the right two or three principles to stand as unproven foundations. We could use these to prove causality and some first principles of ethics. Kant could still be right that we don't _need_ to prove them, and right that the foundations of morality and religion are on a par with the foundations of science, but we could still actually know something about a world outside the mind (unlike Kant's view). This is all terribly subtle, and assuming I got it right in the first place it--well, it took me long enough. Turns out this is going to be maybe around 30% of my next book.
"This is important because kant wont tell you what t [heck] he [is] talking about[;] you have to figure it out some kind of way by reading him." Hilarious! I think maybe he does tell us; he just doesn't do it clearly.
I don't think they have morals--not in anything like the Kantian sense. They don't have moral laws they need to follow and the ability to act on a principle rather than on their desires. And those principles we need to act on, rather than on desires--they have a common structure. They all follow the same pattern.
Moral is without structures. Actually, there's no access to morals from any philosophical position. Only what a human can do is to become a moral person. When someone asks "what does it mean?", then it's the straight sign that the person does not know what he asks
@@TeacherOfPhilosophy I don't think that morality can be such a thing that requires one to do something certain and specifical. That's the point. Morlity is sound and deaf by the same time. It's like this notion is without being able to grasp it. However, as soon as we loose it no laws or rights become workable. Perhaps, this notion along with such notions as wisdom, life, science aren't specific, and completely philosophical (although, this doesn't mean non-philosophers cannot understand them).
@@TeacherOfPhilosophy Philosophy studies such difficult notions as 'life', 'wisdom', 'virtue', etc. 'Morality' is one of such notions. To be studies by philosophy doesn't mean to get the strict and full result
![Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals [SUMMARY] by Immanuel Kant](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Czk_co-2m4I/mqdefault.jpg)
Hi, Ive been messing around learning this preface for a few days now and this is what ive come up with. First we have to start with some knowledge of Kant's Transcedental Aesthetic specifically phenomena and noumena. This is important because kant wont tell you what tf he talking about you have to figure it out some kind of way by reading him. Anyways in the preface the 2nd paragraph he sets up moral philosophy like this. All rational knowledge is material or formal. Material philosophy is two fold laws of nature and freedom. This is important disctinction and needs to be understood.
Laws of nature is physics and think of a deterministic world without free will. That would be a complete naturistic world ruled by the laws of nature think of causality. A box moving on a ice block is subject to causality and everything in nature is also including humans. Our heart beats, we get hungry when we need food all biological processes.
So thats the laws of nature so what is the laws of freedom? This is our free will. It is presupposed that we have free will here and arent living in a deterministic world. As such our free will and the choices we make do not exist in the laws of nature. They are independant and exist in the laws of freedom. The laws of freedom is where moral philosophy comes from.
So for kant his whole epistimology exist in the phenomena and noumenal worlds. Freedom and morality exist in the noumenal world. We act out that morality in the phenomenal world. We act on impulses and our desires. Kants says that is us acting on behalf of the laws of nature. To act in accordance with morality and to be free we have to act on morality that is in our reason and outside of nature. This exist in the noumenal world and we can not know its nature.
Now here's where it gets interesting. As human we also exist in both the phenomonal and noumenal world. We exist as we see ourselves and we exist in a thing in of itself outside of any of our understanding. This is where we get morality from. When we make a decision to act morally that decision originates in the noumenal realm but manifest itself in the phenomal world as an action.
Think of Descartes and Princess Elisabeth and the mind body problem. Descartes cant answer how a thought that originates outside of ourself becomes the way we can move our body. And if he cant explain how then he must give way to the fact that thoughts are from our mind and exist in the natural world and we become determistic with no free will.
Kant answers this by saying that our thoughts originate with reason and morality and freedom in the noumenal world and we act out our thoughts in the phenomal world. And then he beautifully dodges the why by using Hume's own concept that we can not know the full causality of any event. Therefore kant says knowing how an immaterial thought become a material action is beyond human understanding just like Hume says knowing the cause of any event is.
This is why knowing how the transcendental aesthetic is key because Kant breaks down that its our senses that we percieve the noumenal world and our human mind creates suffering and desires and causes us to not be free and act according to nature and become less human. To be fully free we must act in accordance with the moral law free from any desire or selfishness. We must act bc its our duty not bc its a want..
I could go on and on but yeah that a brief synapses of the first 2 paragraphs of the Preface of the book. I dont suggest moving forward without understanding it tbh. Not just for the sake of the book but bc once you see what kant is doing its eye opening and powerful.
Good job! Sounds good to me.
I'm not sure it's fair to say that he "beautifully dodges the why by using Hume's own concept that we can not know the full causality of any event." It's more than a dodge: It's a recognition that practical reason (the concern of ethics) and scientific reason both depend on foundational principles that can't be proven scientifically. It's good epistemology there.
But maybe it's still fair to say it's a dodge! I think it's fine to say that we can prove them, or at least give good evidence for them. There's no relying on _some_ unproven foundational principles, like Thomas Reid explained. But there are interesting arguments from Descartes, Timothy McGrew, Laurence BonJour, and others that could, at least in principle, prove as much as we want of anything if we just allow the right two or three principles to stand as unproven foundations. We could use these to prove causality and some first principles of ethics. Kant could still be right that we don't _need_ to prove them, and right that the foundations of morality and religion are on a par with the foundations of science, but we could still actually know something about a world outside the mind (unlike Kant's view).
This is all terribly subtle, and assuming I got it right in the first place it--well, it took me long enough. Turns out this is going to be maybe around 30% of my next book.
"This is important because kant wont tell you what t [heck] he [is] talking about[;] you have to figure it out some kind of way by reading him."
Hilarious!
I think maybe he does tell us; he just doesn't do it clearly.
I don't know how to answer your last question. Are there morals without structures? Maybe jellyfish morals?
I don't think they have morals--not in anything like the Kantian sense. They don't have moral laws they need to follow and the ability to act on a principle rather than on their desires.
And those principles we need to act on, rather than on desires--they have a common structure. They all follow the same pattern.
Moral is without structures. Actually, there's no access to morals from any philosophical position. Only what a human can do is to become a moral person. When someone asks "what does it mean?", then it's the straight sign that the person does not know what he asks
Does morality involve following any rules?
@@TeacherOfPhilosophy I don't think that morality can be such a thing that requires one to do something certain and specifical. That's the point. Morlity is sound and deaf by the same time. It's like this notion is without being able to grasp it. However, as soon as we loose it no laws or rights become workable. Perhaps, this notion along with such notions as wisdom, life, science aren't specific, and completely philosophical (although, this doesn't mean non-philosophers cannot understand them).
Not quite sure i follow.
@@TeacherOfPhilosophy Philosophy studies such difficult notions as 'life', 'wisdom', 'virtue', etc. 'Morality' is one of such notions. To be studies by philosophy doesn't mean to get the strict and full result
True.