Kant and Aquinas

[utunumsint]

I am wondering if there is anyone out there who has read and understood Kant, but who still believes that Thomistic metaphysics is valid?

How did you come to this conclusion?

God bless,
Ut

 

[empther]

I am wondering if there is anyone out there who has read and understood Kant

You won’t find anyone who read and understood Kant because he didn’t understand his own writings.

He’s one of many philosophers who thought he could “get it right” by starting all over again with a blank piece of paper and build a system through reason.
It’s impossible to get to the full truth about God without divine revelation.

So Aquinas is better.

 

[adawgj]

I have both of their writings. Just need to read them.

 

[oldcelt]

One of Kant’s primary statements was that reason is the basis for morality. All these years after college that is about what I remember because I agree.

 

[adawgj]

One of Kant’s primary statements was that reason is the basis for morality. All these years after college that is about what I remember because I agree.

One of my favorite Kant quotes is “Science is organized knowledge, Wisdom is organized life.”

 

[ccmnxc]

Well, I’m not a candidate, and I cannot discern other peoples’ levels of understanding. However, the Transcendental Thomists like Bernard Lonergan would tend to fall into this category.

…but maybe examples like Lonergan were why you were asking in the first place. IMHO, I don’t think there is a lot to be said about mixing the two, especially if you throw Kantian Idealism into the mix. Metaphysics becomes rather tricky with that implementation.

 

[Theophorus]

You won’t find anyone who read and understood Kant because he didn’t understand his own writings.

You bet me to it

To return to the OP’s point, I find Etienne Gilson’s book “Thomistic Realism and the critique of knowledge” is a useful one on this subject it looks at people who have tried to combine the kantian critique and Thomistic realism and who have failed.

I’ve studied Kant and I don’t find him convincing.

• I don’t find his subjective turn convincing (although psychological considerations of how the mind and objects in reality interact is indeed fascinating)
• I don’t find the a priori conditions which the mind imposes on reality thereby giving it access only to the empirical realm of space and time convincing (i.e his proof from geometry is interesting but ultimately unconvincing IMO)
• I don’t find his claim that speculative metaphysics is groundless(at least in its scholastic incarnation) to be adequately robust. I agree with him insofar as he is arguing that the idealist and strict empiricist philosophies of his time were deficient, but thomistic realism is a different kettle of fish.

To take one point, his metaphysics ultimately collapses into his epistemology yet Kant himself accepts that behind the phenomena there are nomena-behind the appearances there is being which appears. but anyone who accepts this premise must face ontological questions which I find Kant’s philosophy unable to answer, indeed it refuses to see reality(nomena) as a proper object of philosophical investigation IMO this is a weakness.

Yet at the same time the Kantian critique presupposes knowledge and its conditions of possibility, but what makes knowledge knowable? For me this is an ontological question and once again I find kant unable to answer this question with his system. I find his epistemology ultimately demands a metaphysical component which his system does not adequately address.

I believe that Thomistic realism is still the most convincing philosophical explanation of knowledge and reality.

 

[empther]

One of my favorite Kant quotes is “Science is organized knowledge, Wisdom is organized life.”

How do you get wisdom without Divine Revelation?

You can’t. :crying: :bighanky:

 

[oldcelt]

How do you get wisdom without Divine Revelation?

You can’t. :crying: :bighanky:

By reading, observing, living, experiencing…

 

[jimmy]

I am wondering if there is anyone out there who has read and understood Kant, but who still believes that Thomistic metaphysics is valid?

How did you come to this conclusion?

God bless,
Ut

Karl Rahner was a transcendental thomist. The transcendental Thomists tended to fall into your category.

 

[empther]

Originally Posted by empther
How do you get wisdom without Divine Revelation?
You can’t. :crying: :bighanky:

By reading, observing, living, experiencing…

Those who reject the Judeo-Christian God,
do things their own way and think they’re free from guilt,
which is why they reject the Judeo-Christian God.

---

Maybe one percent of those who try to get wisdom
By reading, observing, living, experiencing…
will get some by age eighty,
but those who accept the Judeo-Christian God, devine revelation, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit will all get wisdom by age fifteen ()*.

(*) Bishop Sheen said a person’s character is set by age fifteen. **

 

[utunumsint]

Thank you all for responding.

To give you some context, I have been reading a lot from Aristotelian Thomists like Father Benedict Ashley’s The Way Toward Wisdom. morec.com/nature/ashley.htm He believes his brand of Thomism is immune from Kantian critique because he proposes that the fundamental metaphysical truths about the existence of God can be found a posteriori from empirical causes to immaterial effects. He criticizes Thomists like Gilson and Maritain on this score (not on others) for the stance they take in trying to make Metaphysics completely independent of science. His argument is that Aristotle proved the need for an immaterial prime mover in his physics (based on faulty science, but that did not invalidate his conclusion). Aristotles metaphysics, and by extension, Aquinas' metaphysics rested on this notion arrived at a posteriori. He believes that by rejecting any link with science, Gilson and to a lesser extent, Maritain, opened themselves up to Kantian critique such as would be leveled against Anselms ontological argument.

Having never read any Kant, I find it hard to tell whether he really has succeeded or not. I am hoping that reading Kant is not a complete waste of time though. I get the impression from the folks who have posted so far that there isn’t much to write home about with regard to his writings.

Thank you.

God bless,
Ut

 

[empther]

His argument is that Aristotle proved the need for an immaterial prime mover in his physics

The existence of God can’t be proved by science,
but it can be proved by the existence of science. :bigyikes:

Clearly the universe could not have started itself. We know that much, now.
Quantum effect, chance, and accident couldn’t do it.

( Now I’ll get the usual atheist’s lame arguments. )

 

[oldcelt]

The existence of God can’t be proved by science,
but it can be proved by the existence of science. :bigyikes:

Clearly the universe could not have started itself. We know that much, now.
Quantum effect, chance, and accident couldn’t do it.

( Now I’ll get the usual atheist’s lame arguments. )

It is good to be sure of one’s faith, but unless you are a top of the line physicist, astronomer, cosmologist, etc., you aren’t qualified to make pronouncements on such complex processes as if they were fact. What the final scientific word will be on this universe is impossible to know right now, but technology is getting us closer.

 

[levinas12]

I am wondering if there is anyone out there who has read and understood Kant, but who still believes that Thomistic metaphysics is valid?

How did you come to this conclusion?

God bless,
Ut

Kant’s synthetic apriori has had a powerful influence on 20th century philosophy, in particular, phenomenology. Heidegger’s notion of Dasein, being-in-the-world, is a good example of this.

In his Being and Time, the world has always and already been disclosed to us from the start of our awareness. This “always and already” is a synthetic “apriori”.

We find ourselves “always and already” out there in the everyday world going about our daily round of activities with others, e.g., waiting for the bus, working overtime at the office, etc. We do not start with private ideas and impressions (contra Hobbes, Locke, Hume, etc).

There is thus no problem of an external world - we do not have to figure out how to bridge the gap between the private ideas and impressions to what is “outside” ourselves - we’re already there from the git-go (this is Heidegger’s appropriation of the Kantian synthetic apriori).

Unfortunately, Kant himself did not make it to the promised land of “disclosure”. With the abyss between phenomena and noumena, he created what you might call a “crisis of truth”. If the apriori does not involve the disclosure of beings as they really are, but instead functions as an imposition, a screen that blocks us from the “being” of entities, then “disclosure” gets eclipsed.

In phenomenology, on the contrary, the great insight is that things can show themselves to us as they really are. There are “subjective” conditions for this disclosure but they do not erect a wall between us and the “really real”.

Phenomenology’s “synthetic apriori” is not a threat to Thomistic realism. In fact, it is a complement or helpmate.

 

[mgoforth]

What the final scientific word will be on this universe is impossible to know right now, but technology is getting us closer.

I’m always surprised and/or confused when I hear statements like this.

Just what exactly do people expect science or technology to produce in terms of a “final word” on the universe? Think about that question for a minute - don’t just respond reflexively. If the Big Bang hypothesis is correct, then there was an infinitely dense point that went bang, right? Where did the point come from? If the bang resulted from a collision of “branes” in a multiverse, where did the branes come from, where did the multiverse come from?

I don’t doubt that science can answer some of those questions…but how can science ever discover the very first uncaused cause? I think the most we’ll ever be able to say through science is that we’ve found a certain point way back in time - possibly a multiverse of multiverses balanced on the backs of an infinite number of turtles - but as to what caused that point our language and mathematics are powerless to offer an explanation. The beginning of the universe (or multiverse) would have also been the beginning of the constants and logical truths that math and science rely on to operate. Therefore, they won’t be able to describe what preceded created things, because they deal exclusively with created things.

Christianity says that the Creator is spiritual, not physical. Since science (except the science of logic) can’t explain the spiritual, then science is limited to explaining the physical world, but not the spiritual Creator of the physical world.

Folks like Stephen Hawking refuse to admit this, and keep coming out with absurd statements like “the universe created itself from nothing”. When I read his explanation, I was amused to discover that “nothing” to Dr. Hawking really means the law of gravity…which is not nothing, is it? Where did the “law of gravity” come from? Did it create itself from another nothing which is actually something? In Dr. Hawking’s defense, at least he has a history of admitting when he’s wrong…but it usually takes a long time for him to realize it.

 

[utunumsint]

Kant’s synthetic apriori has had a powerful influence on 20th century philosophy, in particular, phenomenology. Heidegger’s notion of Dasein, being-in-the-world, is a good example of this.

In his Being and Time, the world has always and already been disclosed to us from the start of our awareness. This “always and already” is a synthetic “apriori”.

We find ourselves “always and already” out there in the everyday world going about our daily round of activities with others, e.g., waiting for the bus, working overtime at the office, etc. We do not start with private ideas and impressions (contra Hobbes, Locke, Hume, etc).

There is thus no problem of an external world - we do not have to figure out how to bridge the gap between the private ideas and impressions to what is “outside” ourselves - we’re already there from the git-go (this is Heidegger’s appropriation of the Kantian synthetic apriori).

Unfortunately, Kant himself did not make it to the promised land of “disclosure”. With the abyss between phenomena and noumena, he created what you might call a “crisis of truth”. If the apriori does not involve the disclosure of beings as they really are, but instead functions as an imposition, a screen that blocks us from the “being” of entities, then “disclosure” gets eclipsed.

In phenomenology, on the contrary, the great insight is that things can show themselves to us as they really are. There are “subjective” conditions for this disclosure but they do not erect a wall between us and the “really real”.

Phenomenology’s “synthetic apriori” is not a threat to Thomistic realism. In fact, it is a complement or helpmate.

Because I am not familiar with Kant and much of modern philosophy, could you confirm, if you know whether these ideas can be mapped to the problem of universals?

Anselm was a realist about words. He believed, I think, that to have the concept implies, somehow, the reality of that concept as well. Thus his ontological argument.

Aristotle was a moderate realist, who believed that forms exists in matter, but they also exist in another mode in our mind. But that form, in the abstraction of our minds, corresponds to the real form in the physical universe.

Peter Abelard was interesting because his conceptualism, based only on Porphyry, actually was very close to Aristotle’s moderate realism and Aquinas perferred him to Aristotle on this topic.

Add to this group, another group of skeptics who believed that our words and mental concepts were mere flatulence from our mouths and did not necessarily correspond to reality at all. I forget what this group were called.

Going back to Kant, then, what he did was to introduce a skeptical gap between the our words and what we know (the neumena), and the external world (phenomena). Our a priori innate ideas actually prevent us from knowing (or cannot help us in knowing) phenomena as they really are.

Furthermore, if I understand you correctly, Heidegger sort of flips that around on Kant. We are phenomena, for Heidegger, or part of the phenomenal world. There is no neumena for him. This position sort of gels well with Aristotle’s moderate realism or Abelard’s conceptualism.

Does that make sense?

God bless,
Ut

 

[levinas12]

I am wondering if there is anyone out there who has read and understood Kant, but who still believes that Thomistic metaphysics is valid?

How did you come to this conclusion?

The issue here is whether there is such a thing as “disclosure”, whether beings can show themselves to us as they are in themselves (which is the fundamental presupposition of metaphysics).

Every detective story relies on this presupposition.

 

[levinas12]

… Heidegger sort of flips that around on Kant. We are phenomena, for Heidegger, or part of the phenomenal world. There is no neumena for him. This position sort of gels well with Aristotle’s moderate realism or Abelard’s conceptualism.

Heidegger does not use the word “phenomenon” in Kant’s sense (which implies an inaccessible “noumenon”).

For Heidegger (at least the Heidegger of Being and Time), a being can show itself to us as it is in itself. This “showing” is a “phenomenon” that “discloses” what is really going on (this is the fundamental tenet of metaphysics).

In a way, every good detective story presupposes this possibility of “disclosure”.

What’s crucial is getting at the “truth” of what happened.

Kant is like a detective story where we never find out.

 

[CatholicWhovian]

There is a problem I have found with German philosophers. It’s either they’re against what I believe in (Marx, Feuerbach, Nietzsche) or are incredibly confusing (Hegel, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, Wittgenstein). Kant falls in the latter category, of course. It takes some time to get what he is trying to say, especially about the experience-concept relationship. Laymen would not be able to grasp a thing if they take him by face value. And to be honest, I have never read anything from him because of that reason.

Take Aquinas instead I guess…