Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

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Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

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The essay: An Answer to the Question: "What is Enlightenment?"

The summary:

Kant seems to hold that the enlightenment of the human race is the goal.

Kant’s definition of enlightenment: “Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another.”

He is a proponent of free thinking, of self-reasoning. People who do not think for themselves are under the influence of guardians, people who think for them. They allow guardians mastery over their lives and are like oxen under a yoke, and are comfortable with this. The result is “self-imposed, lifelong tutelage” stemming from laziness and cowardice.

“Thus it is very difficult for any single individual to work himself out of the life under tutelage which has become almost his nature.”

In this, the public use of reason should always be allowed and encouraged. This is granted by freedom, that is, "the freedom to make public use of one's reason at every point." From here enlightenment can be pursued. There are mechanisms of society which must be obeyed, yes, err chaos will ensue. Undiscerned disregard for all institutions is not to be allowed, but individuals should always be able to express themselves outside of immediate obligations. For instance, the individual must pay his taxes, but he can express his opinion on fair taxation. A soldier must obey a command, but outside of obeying it, can express his concern with militaristic affairs.

This has very interesting applications to religious institutions, as Kant goes on to discuss. He holds that permanent, unchangeable, and not-subject-to-doubt doctrines (like the attitudes many religious leaders and institutions hold) are fetters to the advancement of the human race. Limited hindrance is to be expected, in the short-term, yes, so long as public use of reason is allowed and encouraged, so that when insights are gained and made wide, advancement can occur. He says even in the life of one man an attitude of permanent ideology is damaging. This is an emphasis on the brevity for which he allows hindrance to take place. He also goes on to say the priest must preach his church’s doctrine, as a taxpayer pays his taxes, but as a scholar the priest is fair to express his concerns with faith outside of his immediate obligation.

“Religious incompetence is not only the most harmful but also the most degrading of all."

Do not think Kant was not a Theist, either. He formulated arguments for the existence of God, and made room to allow for the rational belief in faith.

The questions:

1) Kant already holds that enlightenment, public, personal reason, escape from our controlling guardians, which we have grown comfortable with, is very difficult. In the age of technology, especially in social media, where information which is not self-attained or self-figured is thrust at us for consumption, just how difficult is this task? How prevalent is the hive mind of a hyper-connected community?

2) Kant says, “If I have a book to have understand in place of me, a spiritual adviser to have a conscience for me, a doctor to judge my diet for me, and so on, I need not make any efforts at all.” However, it is surely impractical to become fully independent thinkers. To what extent must we free ourselves? We are taught, not irrationally, to trust the experts in our lives. Is it enough to just reflect on what another man says, rather than come to it ourselves? To accept nothing as fact without self-corroboration? How can one become truly “enlightened?”

3) Do you see church doctrine today as positively changing as a result of freedom to reason? I am very proud of my church’s stance on gay and lesbian peoples. Too often religion is touted as a barrier for human rights, or the enemy of the left. With Kant’s perspective on the evolution of the thinking man, the two can coexist, provided an ability for the religious leader to be open to the free reason of the masses and of their own mind.
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Re: Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

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I think the essay reads in large part as an argument for free speech, seeing as it was the 18th century and all. I don't necessarily buy the requirements to become enlightened, or at least I do not place as high an importance as Kant does on an individual reaching this end. Kant's enlightened individual is a special man, a rare man. Enlightened men are needed to further human thought, yes, but such an end is impractical for most of us. It sounds so very robotic, beasts of cold reason. The pursuit is noble and shouldn't be discouraged by any means, in the singular sense, and it perhaps is the goal for man as a whole to attain enlightened thought. But in the ordinary, individual life, other aims can be held higher, for instance, the pursuit of fulfilling happiness, the journey of which may differ wildly from Kant's journey of enlightenment.

It's a very good point for free speech though and in the dangers in holding one thing as too certain, even to yourself, without thinking wholly on it. And it is a great message to the church.

I just don't really want to be enlightened. Sorry, Kant.
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Re: Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

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Post by pecelot »

I Kant see the point, to be honest... :?
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Re: Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

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Re: Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

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Post by Radix_Lecti »

lejend wrote: "Reason" by itself isn't enough to objectively discern right from wrong. In any case reason itself depends on the existence of God.


Hi, it's me again iwillspankyou's replacement. :dry:

Kant's reason/ reasoning is used to come to a ''categorical imperative'' without the aid of God. It is by definition the law/rule to discern right from wrong and does not rely on the existence of God. 'The quote God is dead' (Nietzsche) refers to this awakening of reason in man excluding God I think to remember from a course taken long, long time ago.

Now if you would venture on into Confucianism then you would have had an excellent point as they argue that the 'Heavenly mandate' grants us all with 'Li= reason' and the difference between right and wrong people is the amount of 'Li' Heaven has endowed them with, meaning the aristocracy had more 'Heavenly reason/wisdom' than the commoners.

You, my poor soldier Templique Salomonici, should have taken that argument and placed Christian worshippers above all others because of their heavenly mandate granted by God to argue against Kant.
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Re: Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

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Re: Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

Post by Amsel_ »

lejend wrote:If God doesn't exist, then it can't be an "imperative." It's simply the subjective, personal prejudice of Kant. He says X is wrong, others say X is right. Neither side is objectively correct.


I think that this argument you're putting forward deserves more of an inquiry into the origin of morality. You're making a good point about human derived forms of morality being heavily or entirely subjective; and I would be inclined to agree with you that morality needs to be rooted in something "higher" than man. However, I'm not so sure a personal God's word necessarily dictates morality. I mean, if Jesus were to come up to me and say not to run stop signs even if I knew that no other cars were coming, I'd probably do what he says. But it doesn't necessarily mean that running the stop sign is bad; his word alone doesn't create morality, because it is simply speech. The only way to have an objectively true, or "imperative" morality is to derive it from an unchanging principle, something metaphysical. So within a religious tradition it would be imperative to follow that religion's practices, like not running a stop sign, however, this is still technically subjective as there are many different religions and "principles" to receive morality from. Reason and wisdom are often considered metaphysical, and this doesn't even contradict Christianity. Doesn't that mean that if someone creates a "reasonable" morality, some Christians are able to recognize it, despite it being separate from the Christian Tradition?

lejend wrote:To have moral laws, you need a lawgiver. Kant is just a fallible finite being in the same category as you and I. He has no authority to decree laws over me or you.


I think you're unnecessarily ascribing the need for a personal or individual entity to a "lawgiver." Just because Kant is fallible i.e. there's a possibility that he's wrong, does not inherently mean that everything he says is untrue. (and I'm sure you weren't saying that either) That means that Kant could rephrase the 10 commandments and it would be true, even if he came to these laws through his own methods without ever hearing of the Bible, and despite the fact that he is a fallible man.

In this sense a philosopher would be acting as a "prophet" of morality where he is able to say "higher" things to men. The things Ezekiel says aren't true because Ezekiel, a fallible man, says them; they're true because God is using him to say those things. What I'm trying to say is that the truth isn't diminished just because there is a fallible intermediary. Your "lawgiver" should be where the truth is coming from, not the person who says it.
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Re: Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

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Re: Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

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That's not irreligion (which isn't even a word, afaik) taken to its logical conclusion. The man doesn't even understand the concept of freedom. And besides, hedonism isn't necessarily "irreligious".
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Re: Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

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Re: Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

Post by deleted_user0 »

lejend wrote:
umeu wrote:That's not irreligion (which isn't even a word, afaik) taken to its logical conclusion. The man doesn't even understand the concept of freedom. And besides, hedonism isn't necessarily "irreligious".
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Without religion, "hedonism" is not necessarily the true telos, but it is no less true than any other. I.e. moral relativism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreligion


No, I meant that hedonism doesn't have to be irreligious. You can have religious hedonism. What most people consider hedonism, seize the day, eat and fuck and do as much "meaningless" shit as you desire, isn't what was considered hedonism before. Pleasure in itself, like similar words such as freedom, good, truth, are just empty vessels, and unless you narrowly define them, can be used to mean pretty much anything.
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Re: Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

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Re: Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

Post by watching »

The only thing that in my book comes close to enlightenment is the accumulation of knowledge through time. Each decade there is a new layer of "collective" knowledge that is build upon previous information and which continues to guide the process for attaining even more knowledge in the future.

However this does not mean that individuals nowadays react much different from what "less enlightened" humans many years ago did. Even if you would know everything about everything, you are still bound by your biases. This stems from the fact that the brain eventhough very impressive is not perfect. You might fully understand the shortcomings of your brain and the pitfalls humans might fall for, that doesn't mean you can avoid them. We are wired to respond to things in such a way, that no matter how enlightened you think you are, when you find yourself in a critical situation you are gonna respond in the most basic way to survive like everybody else.

Moving on to morality, morality definitely does not need a god to have meaning or purpose. First of all I personally don't believe that there are universal morals that guide human actions. Morals are not deterministic laws governed by an all powerful entity, because that entity simply does not exist as far as we know. Even if you are hardcore religious, you still only assumse that entity exists, you believe in it. Faith does not equal undeniable truth. In my mind Morals only exist to keep a group from falling apart. But if many people in that specific group decide that they no longer wish to abide by these morals, they can simply ignore them by leaving the group, purposefully act differently or create their own group with different morals. Therefore morals are simply guidelines and nothing more or less.

Finally social media is shit, so is philosophy.
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Re: Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

Post by deleted_user0 »

lejend wrote:
umeu wrote:
Show hidden quotes


No, I meant that hedonism doesn't have to be irreligious. You can have religious hedonism. What most people consider hedonism, seize the day, eat and fuck and do as much "meaningless" shit as you desire, isn't what was considered hedonism before. Pleasure in itself, like similar words such as freedom, good, truth, are just empty vessels, and unless you narrowly define them, can be used to mean pretty much anything.


Yeah, but, obviously by pleasure he meant just doing whatever he liked.

And, like I said, "hedonism" might not be the logical conclusion of irreligion, but moral relativism is, under which violation of "liberty" is no more right or wrong than anything. An irreligious person could avoid killing people, but it would just be his personal preference, not a universal moral law.

In an irreligious worldview, objective morality is logically incoherent. In an irreligious world, there is no right or wrong; there's just what you do, and what you don't do. Of course some "religions" may have the exact same telos and morals as Bundy, but I'm talking specifically about the most true faith - the Judeo-Christian tradition.


sure, but just because he says something doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about.

Between a god and the individual you can also root morality within community.

You say Judeo-Christianity is the true faith. Other people will claim something else. You don't actually have any way to prove who is right. Obviously you believe that you are right, but that's true for everyone else. Since no god has manifested itself on earth beyond any doubt, I see no reason to follow what any human being tells me is the word of a god.
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Re: Kant, Enlightment, Religion, and Social Media

Post by Amsel_ »

@lejend I stand corrected. It seems improbable that an irreligious society could come up with a perfectly true moral system.

Although, I still dispute that the "ontological greater" necessarily has to be a personal God. It seems possible for the absolute to have an immanent nature; in fact all religious Traditions have this in some form, despite God's inherently transcendent nature. You seem to place morality within God's will, and I presume that it can be delegated elsewhere. I guess our "disagreement" is due to you having a Christian perspective and me having an emanationist one.

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