Crash Course in Kant

Reply to New Republic article (previous blog entry)
In a message dated 8/16/2005 1:53:52 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, x @ x (Science For The People) writes:
nice draft John. Could you add 2 or 3 key refs and a brief account of Kant's ideas which you count so valuable regarding evolution?

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Actually, Kant's critique of the argument by design is very tricky, the reason it rarely makes headway in general discussions, and uses a sort of bowling pin argument which critiques the ontological which undermines the cosmological then physico-theological argument. Allen Wood has a good book on the subject, Kant's Rational Theology. It takes time and Kant calisthenics to really master the material. These ancient arguments and proofs which Kant swept away are a bit old-fashioned now.
For me, a more general approach is more useful, which is simply to see the metaphysical character of all claims that pass beyond basic observation, i.e. the basic critique of metaphysics in the Dialectic part of CPR. Read Kant's Prefaces to CPR, and consider them in themselves.


In fact, I am a Kant klutz like everyone else. Over and over people pick up Kant, get knocked senseless, and give up, frustrated.
That's a pity.
I consider myself fortunate that in constructing the original version of WH&EE the basic issue of Kant's Dialectic in the Third Antinomy sprang to life in a very vivid way, with the whole Kant's system suddenly making sense as one whole. That's the backdoor entrance to Kant, his basic antinomies. However this breaks new ground and applies to history. The result is spectacular, but because it actually discovers something the argument is forced to follow that logic, and gets a bit abstract, the reason people don't find the material easy going.

You might be interested thus to see what was going on in the period just before Hegel when these issues were active philosophy. I offer a rough and ready way to bypass Hegel.

So I always refer to my own model on Kant issues, rarely making direct use of Kant, so that I don't get Kant scholars breathing down my neck. (There's another reason for that, Kant's classical liberalism and his 'asocial sociability' argument in his essay on history are something I deviate from in my approach, for reasons explained elsewhere in my web material. So I am not a Kant expositor.)
So, in general, there's hope if Kant doesn't make much sense at first.
Moral: don't get discouraged, and wait quietly until you get the point, knowledge and understanding are different. If plain textual study fails, as is likely, find a way to intuit the essence of the noumenal/phenomenal distinction.

If you study my eonic model you will see the way in which 'evolution' is never visible, only the effects of the 'eonic sequence' are visible in history. From there we can discover the likelihood that the mechanism of evolution is never directly seen by man. That would explain the incurable nature of the Darwin debate.

Thing-in-itself discussions are counterproductive and often so arcane it is sad to read them (and they were attacked almost from the beginning by people who didn't understand them, but did exploit ambiguities in Kant, so the issue has been almost perfectly scrambled). Of course Hegel came along and seemed to bury Kant. You might consider Schopenhauer trying to revive essential Kant. Two books by Bryan Magee might give you a snapshot of the issues, Confessions of a Philosopher, and a book on Schopenhauer. However, once you go the Schopenhauer route the original issues Kant discusses might seem superceded, so the original material is essential.

If you look at my eonic model, you will see how I set up the 'evolution of freedom' argument in a two level model that reflects the Kantian antinomy. I constructed that model without Kant, so I was really stunned to discover I had recreated a Kantian paradox in another form.

I have a Kant series at my website, http://www.history-and-evolution.com/kant/index.htm
with a 'Crash Course in Kant' in the series. My pitch there is that we can grasp the essence of Kant with the first paragraph of his essay on history (?!). No, I am not pulling your leg.

In fact, as noted, I am not a Kantian, nor an expositor of Kant, but what I can offer, if you study my 'eonic model' is a snapshot of a Kantian style of argument, where the so-called Third Antinomy is reflected in the attempt to pursue historical generalizations. I have a series on the 'eonic model' at my website.
That's the reason Kant is close to evolutionary thinking, we can see the 'two levels' appearing in any theory based on a hint given by Kant's antinomy. You can see people like Gould trying to get those two levels straight, but trying to graft punctuated equilibrium onto natural selection, or levels of selection obscures the issue.

The reason I like Kant is that he is perfectly balanced between theological and reductionist fallacies.
A good short work on Kant is the old Korner's Kant, available at Amazon second hand for a pittance. I have two chapters scanned at my website:
http://www.history-and-evolution.com/evodocs/teleology.htm
http://www.history-and-evolution.com/evodocs/metaphysics.htm

For the teleomechanists, cf
http://www.history-and-evolution.com/evodoc/lenoir.htm

If anyone says Kant is out of date, etc, it is worth looking at a book/webpage of Peter Russell showing how Quantum Mechanics impinges on the noumenon/phenomenon issue
http://www.history-and-evolution.com/evodocs/quantum_kant.htm