What is the Church's position on Immanuel Kant?

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It’s been quite a while since I’ve read philosophy, but I’m going over Immanuel Kant again, and to be honest, I like what he has to say (concerning his deontological ethics).

How does the Church view this influential philosopher?

Thank you,
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
 
Bohm_Bawerk said:
It’s been quite a while since I’ve read philosophy, but I’m going over Immanuel Kant again, and to be honest, I like what he has to say (concerning his deontological ethics).

How does the Church view this influential philosopher?

Thank you,
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
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Hi.

This expansive Catholic Encyclopedia article on Kant has opinions on his works from others in philosophy and Catholic theology.

As with many philosophers, the Church doesn’t appear to have any official stand or definitive teachings for or against Kant, specifically. Where the Church teachings disagree appear noted in the article.
 
I believe that the universal consensus is that Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable.

:cool:
 
Brendan said:
I believe that the universal consensus is that Immanuel Kant was a real pissant who was very rarely stable.

:cool:
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and Heidegger was boozy begger who could drink you under the table?

Loool, I’m unsure on Kants Philosophy, I’ll have a look into it and post on what I think (:
 
Why do people always seem to need and want official pronouncements from the Church on this aspect of this, that or the other thing? Why can’t we read Kant and compare his writings with what the CCC says and make our own determination? Didn’t God give us reason and the ability to think on our own? The Church has left large amounts of the Bible unofficially interpreted for centuries, so it’s no surprise that they probably haven’t weighed in on a philosopher.

Anyhow, what’s the Church’s position on forty year old Monty Python songs?

ChadS
 
ChadS said:
Why do people always seem to need and want official pronouncements from the Church on this aspect of this, that or the other thing? Why can’t we read Kant and compare his writings with what the CCC says and make our own determination? Didn’t God give us reason and the ability to think on our own? The Church has left large amounts of the Bible unofficially interpreted for centuries, so it’s no surprise that they probably haven’t weighed in on a philosopher.

Anyhow, what’s the Church’s position on forty year old Monty Python songs?

ChadS
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The Church considered St. Thomas Aquinas as the “perennial philosopher”, and I think one Pope said that the teachings of the Church could not be scientifically understood without first resorting to the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. I’m not asking for an “official declaration” per se (obviously, the Church wouldn’t have one), but more so on the general view that the Church holds with regard to Immanuel Kant, who is seen as a major influence on Western philosophy. If the Church has some implicit favour for St. Thomas Aquinas, then I wouldn’t be surprised if it had one for Immanuel Kant (I can see some parallels in his beliefs).

There is virtually no similarity between my question and your hypothetical question of the Church’s position on Monty Python songs…that was completely uncalled for.

Thank you,
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
 
Bohm_Bawerk said:
There is virtually no similarity between my question and your hypothetical question of the Church’s position on Monty Python songs…that was completely uncalled for.

Thank you,
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Click to expand...
I’m sorry you didn’t get my attempt at humor. The last line was a throwaway line in reference to Brendan’s and Skeptic’s posts. Both lines from Python’s “Philosophers Song.”

ChadS
 
ChadS said:
I’m sorry you didn’t get my attempt at humor. The last line was a throwaway line in reference to Brendan’s and Skeptic’s posts. Both lines from Python’s “Philosophers Song.”

ChadS
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Oh, my apologies 😊. I wasn’t around when Monty Python was airing, so…

Thank you,
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
 
Bohm_Bawerk said:
It’s been quite a while since I’ve read philosophy, but I’m going over Immanuel Kant again, and to be honest, I like what he has to say (concerning his deontological ethics).

How does the Church view this influential philosopher?

Thank you,
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk
Click to expand...
In a better light than AC Grayling if I was going to guess.
 
The question is whether Kant’s philosophy is compatible with the Church’s theology. Historically, Aquinas has been used to explain Catholic theology. And Aquinas and Kant disagree fundamentally about metaphysics (at least this is the consensus opinion - although there have been Thomists with Kantian leanings).

How to characterize the disagreement? It revolves around the concept of truth. Kant argues that we can only know phenomena (things as they appear to us) and not noumena (things as they are in themselves) - the assumption being that the phenomena are fundamentally different than the noumena. Furthermore, the phenomena are structured by us - time, space, key concepts such as cause, substance, etc, are “imposed” by us on reality. All of this creates a “truth” crisis - the human mind is no longer the “mirror” of things - we structurally cannot know reality as it is in itself - metaphysics becomes impossible. But how do we know the “truth” about the “structure” - if “structure” is noumenal (which seems to be implicit in Kant’s argument).

And this is not the end of the story. The entanglement of mind and being has continued to be a hot topic from the 19th century (Hegelianism, Marxism, etc) down to the 20th century (phenomenology, cognitive science, quantum mechanics, etc).
 
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