Kant

Immnuel Kant. Nor can I.

Well, as written in previous post, I have been trying to read/watch age appropriate subject - philosophy.  And failing miserably. I try to watch videos after videos of Kant's philosophy. Without understanding what he is trying to say. 

Why did I select this philosopher? Why didn't I select some one easier like sadguru? No, I am not trying to belittle our great religion and its philosophies. But I do have some reservations about modern gurus and their teachings.

So, instead I selected Kant. Kant's book the critique of pure reason basically tells us about the limitations of reason alone. We can't understand the universe on reason alone. Apparently he changed his complete outlook, after reading Hume's philosophy. 

He also says time and space are constructs of our mind. And things in reality are different from things as we perceive them. Heavy stuff!

So let us say I see a tree. The light rays fall on my retina and my brain interprets that object as a tree because of different colors and shades I see. But am I sure that the tree has green leaves? Or is just my perception? I know that if I wear red tinted glasses, I will see every object in red tint. Is the tree even present there?

Apparently there are two types of philosophers - rationalists and empiricists. Rationalists believe that we can understand and analyze ourselves and the universe and everything else based on reason and reason only. And empiricists believe that our senses and experiences gathered through them, help us in understanding the universe. 

And Kant shows the limitations of both these schools. This professor was giving a very good example to show the limitations of reason and logic.

1. Richard is an animal
2. All animals are mortal
3. So Richard is mortal.

We can infer (3) from (1) and (2). But we can also write some wrong postulate and arrive at the same inference.

1. Richard is a God
2. All Gods are mortal
3. So Richard is mortal

We arrived at a correct inference by using a wrong postulate that Richard is God. So obviously logic and pure reason can't answer all our queries.

So in effect Kant says that reality is a joint creation of external reality and the human perception. And the best part is, we will never know what is actual reality outside of our perception.