Plato and Kant

[BaalChatzaf]

Ayn Rand called Kant the most Evil Man that ever lived (please correct me if I am mistaken in this). Why Kant and not Plato? Plato tells us that the world we are born into, live in, suffer in and die in is not the Real world. It is a distortion, a shadow on the wall, a mere illusion. Plato sunders form rom from matter. On top of that Plato wrote -The Republic- which is a pro-Spartan totalitarian screed that has been used by every dictatorship as its handbook, from Robespierre in the French Revolution to Stalin in Russia. Plato detested the middle class rule of Athens by people with crass commercial interests. He thought men would be better ruled by Philosopher Kings who would be our shepherds and we would be their cattle and flocks. Plato's mentor Socrates turned out as students pro-Spartan thugs who participated in an overthrow of the rule of middle class interests and substituted rule by the club and the chain. Plato sympathized with Socrates' disdain for the "democracy" of Athens (it really was not all that democratic). Plato regarded farmers, mechanics, merchants and traders as not fully human. Never mind that he ate the food they grew and used the goods they produced and sold.

So why is Kant so evil, when Plato has produced ideas that have had grim consequences for the human race. Why didn't Rand damn Plato as evil?

Wherein is Kant's evil? Is it because he believed space and time are epiphenomena of the brain processing our sense data. Is it because he tells us we can not know reality directly and plainly, but only as a result of our brain-work? This may be mistaken, but evil? Where is the evil?

A lot of philosophers were mistaken and were not vile. Hobbes, Hume, Newton and many others. Is being wrong evil?

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited October 30, 2007 by BaalChatzaf

[Guyau]

Bob, the quote below is a note I posted in a thread at SOLO last year. I will give a link to the thread from which it is taken, as well as a link to a related thread I originated there concerning Kant, Plato, and mysticism.

You might want to extract from Rand's writings her remarks on Kant, and sequence those remarks in chronological order. One thing I would be looking for is how far back in her writings Rand criticized Kant for espousing an ethics of duty. Who else made that criticism of Kant before Rand? Did any philosophers upholding a Eudaimonian ethics make that criticism? How about Nietzsche? As I recall, his predecessor Schopenhauer did.

I have heard that, at Columbia in the early 1950s, old man Dewey was saying that Kant had been the cause of NAZISM. It would be nice to check that out.

In his 1945 book A History of Western Philosophy, Russell criticizes Kant for the error of the Primacy of Value. (Cf. Plato's primacy of the Good in the One.) That book was widely read. Doesn't Rand instead take Kant's basic error to be the Primacy of Consciousness? Fertile ground for study here: Kant and Russell-on-Kant and Rand-on-Kant.

Plato-Rand Note

Here is a pulse of kinship between Plato and Rand that may be of interest to readers here. It pertains to Rand's well-known argument for the primacy of existence vis-a-vis its relation to consciousness. You remember that little argument in Galt's Speech?

"A consciousness conscious of nothing but itself is a contradiction in terms: before it could identify itself as consciousness, it had to be conscious of something [else]" (Rand 1957, 1015).

There is a kindred argument in Theatetus, where Plato writes (in the voice of Socrates):

"But I must necessarily become percipient of something when I become percipient; it is impossible to become percipient, yet percipient of nothing" (160b)

Plato is speaking only of the percipient in sensory perception in this passage. I do not find him generalizing the argument to knowledge of being. Perhaps a reader here could correct me on this impression.

In addition I should say that for Plato, perception does not grasp being. Knowledge of being is not "in sense-perception at all, but in whatever we call that activity of the soul when it is busy by itself about the things which are" (187a).

A good philosopher to generalize Plato's argument kindred to Rand's would be Aristotle. For he writes in On the Soul:

"Thinking and understanding are regarded as akin to a form of perceiving; for in the one as well as the other, the soul discriminates and is cognizant of something which is" (427a20-22).

Could the "something which is" be only a soul itself, not partly something beyond itself? Aristotle, as Plato, does not seem to rule out that possibility.

Kinship has its limits.

http://www.solopassion.com/node/1507

http://www.solopassion.com/node/1857

[merjet]

I vaguely recall (so I might be wrong) Rand giving credit to Plato for his championing of the intellect and presenting philosophy as an alternative to religions. He was worthy in that regard and he didn't have an Aristotle to precede him.

Regarding her view of Kant, OPAR probably reflects much of what Rand thought about him. In my opinion one thing Kant did that really irked Rand was his draining morality of self-interest. Also, a part of Rand's assessment of him may have been that Kant was preceded by Aristotle and the Enlightenment, so he is far less excusable.

[BaalChatzaf]

I vaguely recall (so I might be wrong) Rand giving credit to Plato for his championing of the intellect and presenting philosophy as an alternative to religions. He was worthy in that regard and he didn't have an Aristotle to precede him.

Regarding her view of Kant, OPAR probably reflects much of what Rand thought about him. In my opinion one thing Kant did that really irked Rand was his draining morality of self-interest. Also, a part of Rand's assessment of him may have been that Kant was preceded by Aristotle and the Enlightenment, so he is far less excusable.

Excusable? For what? Being wrong? What evil did Kant do? I do not see making a mistake as an ethical breach or an overt wrong act. If you go by consequences, the consequences to Plato's philosophy of Ideas has wrought much more harm than anything that Kant's philosophy entailed. Christian theology up to Thomas is the child of Platonic thought. And Plato's -Republic- begat Robespierre. Why condemn Kant and not Plato?

I do not defend Kant's philosophy, by the way. His notion of the synthetic a priori is bogus. The existence of non-Newtonian physics and non-Euclidean geometry has given Kant's ideas concerning the synthetic a prior the deep six.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Daniel Barnes]

What evil did Kant do?

The Soviet Union and Nazi gas chambers apparently. There is a passage somewhere in Rand/Peikoff that asserts both causal connection and something like deliberate motive as I recall, but I don't have time to check it out.

[BaalChatzaf]

What evil did Kant do?

The Soviet Union and Nazi gas chambers apparently. There is a passage somewhere in Rand/Peikoff that asserts both causal connection and something like deliberate motive as I recall, but I don't have time to check it out.

Kant died in the year 1804. Not his doing. You can't blame the sins of the follower on an intellectual predecessor. By that standard, Plato is far guiltier. His -Republic- is a handbook for totalitarian tyranny.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Brant Gaede]

What evil did Kant do?

The Soviet Union and Nazi gas chambers apparently. There is a passage somewhere in Rand/Peikoff that asserts both causal connection and something like deliberate motive as I recall, but I don't have time to check it out.

Kant died in the year 1804. Not his doing. You can't blame the sins of the follower on an intellectual predecessor. By that standard, Plato is far guiltier. His -Republic- is a handbook for totalitarian tyranny.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Yes, but who read it?

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

Kant died in the year 1804. Not his doing. You can't blame the sins of the follower on an intellectual predecessor. By that standard, Plato is far guiltier. His -Republic- is a handbook for totalitarian tyranny.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Yes, but who read it?

--Brant

Oh, come on, who read Plato's Republic? Are you serious? Plato's Republic remains, unfortunately, what one might call the "implicit" foundation of the liberal world view to this day -- the "Philsopher Kings" -- including, mega-unfortunately, of the scientific part of that world view.

Ellen

___

[BaalChatzaf]

Yes, but who read it?

--Brant

-The Republic-? Every one whoever went to college or university (at least back then). -The Republic- is far more readable than anything Kant ever wrote. In fact almost all of Plato is very good reading, even in translation. It is witty and -fun-. Kant read Plato. Every Christian theologian (including Thomas) read Plato. Christian theology, notwithstanding the -Summa Theologica-, is basically Platonic, not Aristotelean. The same folks also read -The Timmeus- which is the clearest metaphysical statement ever written by Plato. Even I have read -The Republic- and -The Timmeus-. I never got past p 116a in -Critique of Pure Reason-. Why? I barfed on the notion of a Synthetic A Priori.

Plato has had as large an influence (for good or ill) on Western thinking as Aristotle. The concept of Form is Platonic even though Aristotle modified it somewhat. Plato and his hero Pythagoras had more influence on modern physics than Aristotle did. The sharpest tool in the physics kit is mathematics. Platonic philosophy promoted mathematical abstraction and quantitative thinking much more than Aristotle's philosophy which was basically qualitative.

So I repeat the question. Why did Rand beat up on Kant more than on Plato? And why is being mistaken considered a moral defect? Kant was unhinged by Hume's denigration of -necessary- causal connection which is -never- directly perceived (Hume was right on this point). So, in despair Kant invented the notion that the mind creates the spacetime manifold from god knows what in order that necessary causal connection might be available to the mind. Without that assumption causal connection would simply be a plausible inference from persistent coincidence of event pairs, not a directly knowable thing. If Rand were more fair she would have blamed Hume, not Kant. Hume begat Kant and Ernst Mach. That is not a moral defect, but it had an influence on how science developed.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Chris Grieb]

Ba'al is right about Plato being much more readable than Kant. I would suspect that far more people have been influenced by Plato than Kant.

[studiodekadent]

Baal,

Although I think Plato was an idiot, I disagree with your stance that "The Republic" was political advocacy. The Republic was basically Plato's worst argument: a giant false analogy that he used to argue for the concept of "justice in the soul." The entire argument is logically fallacious, but again I find it hard to think it is genuine political advocacy.

Certainly it is correct that the kind of political condition he describes is totalitarian. But I dont think Plato genuinely advocated The Republic as the "form of the good society."

Of course it is hard to guage Plato's intentions. So it is difficult to tell how allegorical the Republic is.

But yes, I think Plato sucks, as for "most evil man in history" I disagree with Rand, Kant or even Plato are not the most evil.

But I would say that the "worst metaphysician" is Plato, the "worst epistemologist" is Kant (or more correctly the German Idealists that Kant inspired), the "worst ethicist" is Auguste Comte.

[Guyau]

Andrew referred to the analogy between the constitution of the city and the constitution of the individual soul that Plato famously develops in Republic.

Here is a recent book on that subject:

http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/168076.ctl

Anyone attending the meeting of the Ayn Rand Society in Baltimore at the end of December will also have the opportunity to attend a session of Author Meets Critics for this book. I have given particulars of these sessions here:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/NewsDiscu...ns/1787.shtml#3

[Chris Grieb]

How seriously is Comte taken as an ethicist.?

[Guyau]

I have heard that, at Columbia in the early 1950s, old man Dewey was saying that Kant had been the cause of NAZISM. It would be nice to check that out.

I see now where I "heard that" or something along that line. It was in H. J. Paton's 1956 paper "Kant on Friendship" as reprinted in N. K. Badhwar's Friendship: A Philosophic Reader (Cornell 1993). Paton writes:

Some thinkers, notably Professor Dewey, have argued that Kant, in spite of being a consistent opponent of tyranny and whole-hearted advocate of freedom, was responsible for the excesses of Nazi Germany.*

*This strange contention has been dealt with faithfully by Professor Julius Ebbinghaus (Philosophical Quarterly, April 1954).

So that last citation is the lead that would be nice to check out.

Concerning Kant "being a consistent opponent of tyranny and whole-hearted advocate of freedom," see this note:

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDi...s/1904.shtml#14

[Neil Parille]

Dan,

This is from The Ominous Parallels, page 255:

"It was the universe that had been hinted at, elaborated, cherished, fought for, and made respectable by a long line of champions. It was the theory and the dream created by all the anti-Aristotelians of Western history."

Note: not just that Kant, et al. taught some bad things that even in some sense resulted in the concentration camp. It was their "theory" and "dream."

[Ellen Stuttle]

http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDi...s/1904.shtml#14

[sB used curly braces {. . .} for his insertions and square brackets [. . .] for insertions or footnotes from the translators; I've added spaces for para. breaks.]

It is very understandable, then, why Kant should be writing in his Preface for the second edition (1787) of CPR:

“A critique that restricts speculative reason is, to that extent, indeed negative. But because, by doing so, the critique also removes an obstacle that restricts—or even threatens to annihilate—the practical use of reason, its benefit is in fact positive and very important. We see this as soon as we become convinced that there is a use of pure reason which is practical and absolutely necessary (viz., its moral use)” (Bxxv).

“Now let us suppose that morality necessarily presupposes freedom (in the strictest sense) as a property of our will . . . . But then suppose that speculative reason had proved that freedom cannot be thought at all [viz., as ruled out by the necessary mechanism of nature] . . . . {Then} freedom, and with it morality, would have to give way to the mechanism of nature. But in fact the situation is different. All I need for morality is that freedom does not contradict itself and hence can at least be thought; I do not need to have any further insight into it” (Bxxviii–xxix).

“I cannot even assume . . . freedom . . . [as I must] for the sake of the necessary practical use of my reason, if I do not at the same time deprive speculative reason of its pretensions to transcendent insight. . . . I therefore had to annul knowledge in order to make room for faith. And the true source of all lack of faith which conflicts with morality—and is always highly dogmatic—is dogmatism in metaphysics, i.e., the prejudice according to which we can make progress in metaphysics without a [prior] critique of pure reason” (Bxxx).

The line of argument -- though not stated in so involuted a way -- is one I've heard frequently employed by physicists who claim a separate preserve from the laws of physics for free-will (and sometimes for God as well). I often summarize the argument in my own shorthand thoughts as "the 'give onto physics what is physics' and onto God what is God's' ploy."

Ellen

___

Edited November 2, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Selene]

I vaguely recall (so I might be wrong) Rand giving credit to Plato for his championing of the intellect and presenting philosophy as an alternative to religions. He was worthy in that regard and he didn't have an Aristotle to precede him.

Regarding her view of Kant, OPAR probably reflects much of what Rand thought about him. In my opinion one thing Kant did that really irked Rand was his draining morality of self-interest. Also, a part of Rand's assessment of him may have been that Kant was preceded by Aristotle and the Enlightenment, so he is far less excusable.

Excusable? For what? Being wrong? What evil did Kant do? I do not see making a mistake as an ethical breach or an overt wrong act. If you go by consequences, the consequences to Plato's philosophy of Ideas has wrought much more harm than anything that Kant's philosophy entailed. Christian theology up to Thomas is the child of Platonic thought. And Plato's -Republic- begat Robespierre. Why condemn Kant and not Plato?

I do not defend Kant's philosophy, by the way. His notion of the synthetic a priori is bogus. The existence of non-Newtonian physics and non-Euclidean geometry has given Kant's ideas concerning the synthetic a prior the deep six.

Ba'al Chatzaf

"Christian theology up to Thomas is the child of Platonic thought. And Plato's -Republic- begat Robespierre. Why condemn Kant and not Plato?" Soooo, now you are a forensic philosopher who makes incredible connections across cultures, religions, regions, individuals, mass movements and etc.

Please tell me that you never, ever speak for Objectivism as to a neophyte as a representative of what it even may believe to be true.

[Alfonso Jones]

I vaguely recall (so I might be wrong) Rand giving credit to Plato for his championing of the intellect and presenting philosophy as an alternative to religions. He was worthy in that regard and he didn't have an Aristotle to precede him.

Regarding her view of Kant, OPAR probably reflects much of what Rand thought about him. In my opinion one thing Kant did that really irked Rand was his draining morality of self-interest. Also, a part of Rand's assessment of him may have been that Kant was preceded by Aristotle and the Enlightenment, so he is far less excusable.

Excusable? For what? Being wrong? What evil did Kant do? I do not see making a mistake as an ethical breach or an overt wrong act. If you go by consequences, the consequences to Plato's philosophy of Ideas has wrought much more harm than anything that Kant's philosophy entailed. Christian theology up to Thomas is the child of Platonic thought. And Plato's -Republic- begat Robespierre. Why condemn Kant and not Plato?

I do not defend Kant's philosophy, by the way. His notion of the synthetic a priori is bogus. The existence of non-Newtonian physics and non-Euclidean geometry has given Kant's ideas concerning the synthetic a prior the deep six.

Ba'al Chatzaf

"Christian theology up to Thomas is the child of Platonic thought. And Plato's -Republic- begat Robespierre. Why condemn Kant and not Plato?" Soooo, now you are a forensic philosopher who makes incredible connections across cultures, religions, regions, individuals, mass movements and etc.

Please tell me that you never, ever speak for Objectivism as to a neophyte as a representative of what it even may believe to be true.

Peikoff gives a lot of credit to Plato as being an early philosopher with a comprehensive philosophy. He indicates he disagrees profoundly (as he should!) with Plato's content, but has great respect for Plato's comprehensiveness.

That being said, Ba'al has a good point about where Plato's thought has led.

Why the emphasis on Kant by Rand and followers? Rand abhorred Kant as defender of altruism and Christian ethics, and as being willing to sacrifice reason to save altruism. Again, rightly so.

Alfonso

[Daniel Barnes]

Soooo, now you (Ba'al) are a forensic philosopher who makes incredible connections across cultures, religions, regions, individuals, mass movements and etc.

Right. So I assume you're equally critical of Peikoff's equally "incredible connections" across cultures, religions, individuals, mass movements etc to try to claim that the Nazi gas chambers were the "theory and dream" of alleged "anti-Aristotelians" like Kant?

[Chris Grieb]

Daniel; Didn't Eichmann consider himself a good Kantian?

[Selene]

Soooo, now you (Ba'al) are a forensic philosopher who makes incredible connections across cultures, religions, regions, individuals, mass movements and etc.

Right. So I assume you're equally critical of Peikoff's equally "incredible connections" across cultures, religions, individuals, mass movements etc to try to claim that the Nazi gas chambers were the "theory and dream" of alleged "anti-Aristotelians" like Kant?

Oops! Another fatal logical comparative error. A [me - the logical guy] is against B [you] . B [you] apparently are against C [the evil Pope Leonard I's conclusions actoss time, etc.]; ergo ????

[Daniel Barnes]

Daniel; Didn't Eichmann consider himself a good Kantian?

Perhaps, but this does not seem really enough to assert a causal connection.

[Daniel Barnes]

Oops! Another fatal logical comparative error. A [me - the logical guy] is against B [you] . B [you] apparently are against C [the evil Pope Leonard I's conclusions actoss time, etc.]; ergo ????

If you don't want to answer the question, that's fine.

[Ellen Stuttle]

Attempting to trace the history of Rand's condemnation of Kant:

As I recall, someplace in her earlier comments she said that "in terms of his effect," or similar wording, he was the "most evil man in history." Later she dropped the qualifying description and went to the ad hominen form of accusing Kant himself of being "evil."

I find the latter quote in the Lexicon but not the former (I think the former is somewhere in Galt's Speech).

The latter quote reads:

Lexicon, pg. 242;

original "Brief Summary" -- which was the end of The Objectivist, Sept. 1071, 4:

You may also find it hard to believe that anyone could advocate the things Kant is advocating. If you doubt it, I suggest that you look up the references given and read the original works. Do not seek to escape the subject by thinking: "Oh, Kant didn't mean it!" He did.... [ellipsis in original]

Kant is the most evil man in mankind's history.

I was taking a course in ethics with Henry Veatch at Northwestern when I went through some problems myself about Kant's epistemology. My conclusion then was that where Kant made a mistake was in believing that knowledge required, in words I only heard some years later -- from J. Roger Lee (title of a paper he wrote), "On Getting the Rock Into One's Head" -- the standard David Kelley calls "the diaphanous" theory of knowledge. About a year and half after that Rand's ITOE was published, and I thought at the time that the reason Rand hated Kant so much was because he came SO CLOSE to her own relational theory of knowledge.

Whatever the sources of her hatred of Kant, I see nothing in Kant's own writing (and, yes, I've read a fair amount of it) which justifies her venom.

I would be interested if someone could find her first wording in which she said (I'm almost sure) "in terms of his effect" without the ad hominem. I think it is in Galt's Speech. There's lots in the Lexicon from Leonard Peikoff, along with AR's vitriol on the subject, but the only quote from the Speech I see in the Lexicon (maybe I'm not looking closely enough; several pages of quotes) pertains to "sacrifice" and doesn't mention Kant by name.

Ellen

Btw, skimming accumulated posts, Daniel appears to have addressed the idea that Bob K. was stepping out of bounds in saying Robspierre, etc., read Plato's Republic. "For the New Intellectual" is one of the two items I most wish Rand had never published (#1 is the "Psychologizing" article). FNI, although it's a tour-de-force of writing which sweeps along like a tornado, is so incredibly simplistic as to amount to a sheer caricature of intellectual history.

___

Edited November 2, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Alfonso Jones]

I would be interested if someone could find her first wording in which she said (I'm almost sure) "in terms of his effect" without the ad hominem. I think it is in Galt's Speech. There's lots in the Lexicon from Leonard Peikoff, along with AR's vitriol on the subject, but the only quote from the Speech I see in the Lexicon (maybe I'm not looking closely enough; several pages of quotes) pertains to "sacrifice" and doesn't mention Kant by name.

Ellen -

I do not recall Kant's name coming up in Galt's speech, or elsewhere in Atlas Shrugged. And I just did an electronic search, and did not find it there.

Alfonso