How Immanuel Kant Undercut Classical Culture and Led to Postmodernism | Stephen Hicks

Stephen Hicks is a professor of philosophy at Rockford University, U.S. and the author of several books, including the best-seller Explaining Postmodernism, which details the philosophical roots of today’s cultural climate. Mr. Hicks highlights Immanuel Kant's role in undermining objectivity and reason, showing how his ideas remain the corner stone of Post Modernism and "Fine Art" to this day.
Giving an overview of Kant's aesthetics, metaphysics and epistemology, the conversation further explains how this cocktail necessarily cripples classically minded people:
If we cannot know reality then the act of painting it becomes naive. If nothing is objective then we cannot trust the rules of any craft and if nothing is universal then we become estranged from the mythic perspective.
You can listen to Hicks' lecture How Art Became Ugly or check out his appearances on various podcasts including his own @OpenCollegePodcast.
His official KZbin-channel is @CEEChannel - Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship.
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Chapter markers:
00:30 Introducing Stephen Hicks
01:13 "Explaining Postmodernism" & the Enlightenment
04:59 The "Counter-Enlightenment" defense of irrationality
08:54 Dissolving reason and the individual
12:46 Postmodern philosophers
15:58 Arthur Danto, Clement Greenberg & Jackson Pollock
17:35 Kant's Metaphysics: we cannot know reality as it is
23:34 No voluptuous women, no muscular men
26:12 Turning concepts against themselves
27:07 Kant's Epistemology and the devaluation of classical painting
33:31 Quotation mark bonanza
35:30 Munch's green sky
40:01 Modernistic art: a grooming ground for Kantianism
41:26 The representational project must be abandoned
43:21 Kant's Aesthetics: the sublime
49:15 The sublime lets us access "real reality"
50:50 Romantic art and the sublime
52:59 Anti everything & the greatest compliment ever!
55:20 Kant undercuts the possibility of being classical
56:38 Jack Unterweger: a mass murderer genius?
59:58 Expressionism and Cubism: products of Kant?
1:03:08 Originality hinders your development
1:07:03 Aesthetic indifference negates the eternal perspective
1:10:59 Thou shalt not make any "graven image"
1:14:44 Disintegration and destruction of classical values
1:19:23 "Spirituality" or "reality"?
1:22:35 Read Kant to break out of the modernist box
1:30:05 The painter who stopped painting after reading Kant
1:30:33 Aristotle is the greatest philosophical genius of all time
This episode featured Stephen Hicks and Jan-Ove Tuv and was filmed and edited by Bork Nerdrum.
The centerpiece was a reproduction of Johann Christoph Frisch's 1768 oil painting of Immanuel Kant.
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[@stephenrose1343]

As an art student in the late 70s,I was subjected to Kantian philosophy, without his name ever being mentioned. The adverb"merely" was continually on the lips of my tutors. Those echoes can still be heard but with the rise of KZbin and the private atelier, aspiring young artists can find alternatives,where they can develop ,adopt and reject as needed. I have listened to Professor Hicks many times, so I was delighted to hear him on cave of Apelles.

[@RichardSmith-cl8qh]

Abstract expressionism between 1950-1975 in the US is the extreme presentation of that subjectivism nihilism

[@haybuhay1994]

This was probably the most significant youtube video I ever watched on this platform.

[@mark4asp]

The painting in the back is a copy of the portrait of Immanuel Kant by Johann Gottlieb Becker, 1768.

[@zein9227]

Everything that is being said about Kant sounds much more like the philosophies of Schelling, Fichte and Nietzsche. What Hicks describes sounds like Kant was a proponent of subjectivism, relativism or nihilism. But he was the total opposite of that. Kant's works deals with the pre-existing conditions of rational thought and reason. Quite the contrary to Professor Hicks, Kant didn't introduce subjectivity, scepticism and relativism but he was deeply engaged in the idea that there are universal principles that govern rational thought and reason and he wanted to define the conditions and validity of arguments based on pure rationality. So, he wasn't primarily engaged with the role of our senses, psychology or physiology on our ability to make sense of the world around us nor the role of our culture and history on our understanding of ourselves, those were Hume and Lock and Diderot and Rousseau, respectively. Moreover, the thinkers who introduced irrationality, emotion and sensibility into Central European thought were the German and English Romantics (Novalis, Schlegel, Hölderlin, Wordsworth, Shelley, etc.). Kant would've disagreed vehemently with them. Kant was a total proponent of Classicism in literature and music. He had a really conservative, even old-fashioned taste.

[@francescaerreia8859]

Those pre-existing conditions were sought by him due to his skepticism as to the actual objective existence of them - which is the perfect starting point for subjectivism, relativism, and nihilism. He is the logical progenitor of all the people you mention. He suggested both time and space were not real, even doubting the existence of any external objects at all. Instead he made them out to be requirements of the mind for thinking at all, meaning they became for him subjective fictions for the sake of “rational” thought, although it can hardly be called that if it has no real object to apprehend. This is why Hicks speaks the way he does of Kant.

[@daviddelworth8372]

Professor Hicks is one the best thinkers alive today, not only to fight wokeness, but to articulate a positive alternative as well

[@kavorka8855]

You're correct. Unlike the basic, original ideas and values behind the distant past woke movement, which most of us support, Wokeism is a dangerous dogma that tries politically limit the freedom of speech, Enlightenment values and achievements.

[@cliveadams7629]

What is wokeness? Why does it need fighting?

[@kavorka8855]

@@cliveadams7629 Wokery or Wokeism is a derivative of the Woke movement, created by the lefties to confuse the young, attack Enlightenment values, and enforce cancel culture. It's a radical leftist movement against the the capital democracies, or liberal democracies that attempts to limit freedom of speech, redefine sex, race and Western values, and openly supports autocracy.

[@VesnaVK]

​@@cliveadams7629it's an authoritarianism collectivist gnostic belief system and activist project that sees people in terms of oppression dynamics, dividing then into groups based on their essential qualities.

[@JohnDoe-hr4xj]

I think Hicks is highly overrated.

[@artlessons1]

As a retired classical Art teacher with a lifetime interest in Philosophy and psychology, I found this very informative. Jung was significantly influenced by Kant in his concept of the unconscious. As an artist as a young man, I remember being horrified by the modern ideas (Kantian) of art. Thank You!

[@CalebThornhill]

Yes, I agree! Carl Gustav Jung was influenced immensely by Immanuel Kant! In his biography Memory, Dreams & Reflections, Jung said his two primary influences philosophically were Goethe and Nietzsche; but he was being somewhat disingenuous. He read Kant as a young man and in later life betrays the influence of Kant in all his concepts But Jung was a massive showman who assiduously cultivated and curated his own public persona -- and he determined that Goethe and Nietzsche had more cultural clout in the marketplace of ideas, than Kant Interestingly, Jung's spellbound obsession with the occult -- especially the Germanic iteration of it -- was deeply rooted in Kant. Kant wrote a book as a young man that examined an aspect of the occult -- the ability to see reality byway of a spirit guide. Jung read the book and was deeply effected by it It was an early guidepost that set Jung on his way down a very dark, very confused, very wicked rabbit hole

[@johnbrown4568]

Thank you for this wonderful conversation.

[@CarliMichelle]

This was the most sublime intellectual experience of my life

[@Doneamansjob]

Absolutely agree with the description/evaluation of professor Hicks. I have a degree in post modern studies from the University of Washington and the ideas presented to me, although I did very well. , we're still a little fuzzy. " Explaining Post Modernism" brought everything into sharp focus. Not only from a philosophical perspective, but within the whole historical context that the ideas themselves developed.

[@ndenman420]

You should look into Thomistic Psychology (trust me). Two books: The Human Person: A Beginner's Thomistic Psychology - Jensen || The Concept in Thomism - Peifer. To contrast sense realism in Thomism against the loss of it in Kant really has facilitated the break from the 'empirical tradition' (using that in a strange way).

[@ndenman420]

@KL0098 I don't know any Thomist who believe in the existence of God without any evidence. Define evidence? Define empirical? The Catholic Tradation is extremely grounded in the Real Order of Creation.

[@bryanoldenburg9870]

A couple things come to mind. 1) Comedian Steve Martin used to say he studied just enough Philosophy in college to screw him up the rest of his life. 2) I hated what little bit of Kant I read back in school (not having the patience to wade through his crazy notions). 3) Only Philosophy majors could appreciate Kant, Heidegger, Hagel and other such difficult writers. 4) My brilliant grandfather used to often reference "educated idiocy" (of which I considered these Philosophers' writings). If anyone could cut through the Kantian confusion, it would be the capable and amiable Stephen Hicks... I thought he and the host did a fantastic job!

[@shelleyscloud3651]

I think often the problem is that ‘educated idiots’ are looking for the one theory that will answer all situations & problems. It’s lazy and illogical. Most philosophies fail if rigidly adhered to their logical conclusion. And that’s the risk: certain psychologies are drawn to absolutes that should rarely be taken from the realm of thought experiment into practical application.

[@lukedmoss]

​@@shelleyscloud3651hegel is said to be the last great systems builder in this regard. Postmodernism according to lyotard shares your skepticism in metanarratives, although postmodernism is much more complex and nuanced than most the internet cares to know. It's not like a church where you can consult a statement of faith and particular stated doctrines.

[@andresmacgaul9991]

Thank you for this wonderful conversation with the great Stephen Hicks! I learned a lot and --of course--subscribed!

[@axiomguy]

Enlightening episode! We’ll Done! Thank you!

[@pasquino0733]

Brilliant talk! The only thing is I think you need to go further back than Kant. To Rene Descartes. The problem for the arts and for culture as a whole, starts there. We see this played out in the French Royal Academy. Andre Felibien articulates the classical world view derivative of Aristotle (Felibien's Conferences), the visual arts are defined by 'the unity of the action' i.e. to tell a collectively significant cultural story. Then Roger de Piles, following Descartes and prefiguring Kant, changes this dictum to 'the unity of the object'. Roger de Piles formalist reductionism, is the destruction of the Renaissance / classical vision. In fact, the au priori of the arts of every culture is denied by Roger de Piles dictum, the unity of the object.

[@casteretpollux]

You can't fight modern idealism just with Rennaisance art. You need philosophy / understanding of the world and our cognition of the universe that is post postmodern! And that build on the foundation of dialectical materialism of Marx. The world determines thought not the other way around.

[@pasquino0733]

@@casteretpollux Its not just in Renaissance art. Its a premise underlying all the arts coming traditionally from all cultures. Postmodernism - What is "that"? Post-structuralism etc? Is Postmodernism a monolithic thing? Foucault is not Derrida etc Why does Marxism have to be a singular foundation? e.g. I can see Marxism within the aesthetic outlook of William Morris but it is subsumed along with Ruskin and Carlyle.

[@maguffintop2596]

Wish I would’ve had Hicks in my college days!

[@fultoneth9869]

Philosophical foundations made easy, thanks prof. Hicks.

[@Dino_Medici]

Love ur page guys thanks so much for this

[@johnward5102]

Great post, Dr. Hicks, thank you. Kant was undoubtedly a very clever man but, well, is there a philosophical term for 'stupid' or 'deranged'? He says many perceptive things but in the end gets it all so massively wrong. How can anyone who has ever hit their thumb with a hammer doubt the nature of reality? It is subjective, and experiential. The space/time/matter component is real also, but almost a mere backdrop to the experiential dimension(s). He was right about phenomena and noumenon, but the noumenon is not like some architect's plan, tucked away in an office, relative to the phenomenal building. The noumenal is finely and deeply stitched into the structure of 'phenomenal' reality. The Celtic Christians understood this, the elaborate tracery of the Celtic cross indicating pathways, connections, between heaven and earth, at every level, from the highest to the lowest. The noumenon is within the phenomenal. God is immanent, as well as transcendent. PS reason is great. It gives us a powerful means for understanding our world and making our way within it. But it has limits. We can only reason about entities we can characterize adequately, and between which we can map the logical, inferential, connections. This excludes much of our reality. Kurt Godel did a fantastic job on that. Beyond that territory we have faith, custom, tradition, intuition, and revelation. All of these have demonstrable grounds in reality, if not logically provable. The structural formula of benzene was revealed to Kekule. He did not 'figure it out'. If you want the truth badly enough, you will find it, somehow.... But quite enough for one 'comment', and thank you again for your work.

[@baldurhermannsson9413]

Interesting, enlightening, entertaining ... this Hicks dude is really smart!

[@nobody_gtk]

another comment somewhere pointed out how annoying it is when Jan-Ove Tuv laughs at inappropriate times and now I can't stop noticing it

[@VesnaVK]

Wow! Amazing talk. Thanks.

[@flamesintheattic]

Kant had a gnostic interpretation of the world. Like all gnosticism it's the equivalent of throwing a molotov cocktail into society. Great way to amplify any pre-existing mental disorders.

[@TheBraunzone]

Brother, that was an excellent philosophical insights!

[@RichardSmith-cl8qh]

wonderful

[@frodej6640]

On the subject of kitsch: I came to think about Odd Nerdrum, who called himself a kitsch painter. I never thought much about it, but there seems to be a reference to Kant there. But it could be an interesting topic to investigate.

[@mark4asp]

Regarding Kant's distinction between the phenomenal and noumenal worlds. I think many people relish in this today; such that science 'educators' now see their job as explaining what we must believe by embedding meaning in narratives and parables they tell us. The real issue for most people is how to deconstruct those parables and narratives to exorcize the myths which rule our minds. In contrast, when I was a kid science education assumes a cut down story which avoided narrative and parable by design. In my experience, the real forces mystifying us today are our beliefs in these myths, parables, narratives, and even ideals! For example, woke sells itself as a better version of equality: "equity is just equality".

[@squatch545]

As soon as you use the word woke, you lose all credibility.

[@casteretpollux]

​@@squatch545that's just the kind of censorship that the alphabet soup is designed to produce.

[@squatch545]

@@casteretpollux What "censorship"?

[@w1cked001]

here's a teachable lesson here folks. Watch out for these language games- this is just a version of the tactic where they label you 'racist sexist ableist transphobic' in order to sidestep any argument because only the high priest can judge what's credible (anyone agreeing with his views) vs non credible (anyone arguing against it). It wouldn't have mattered if he didn't use 'woke' or any arbitrary term, he'd be attacked for being a white male or being objective or having privileges or some other nonsense @@squatch545 @mark4asp

[@mongoose6685]

We really need Kant 2.0. It is quite obvious we are not as rational as we could be except in exceptional circumstances. Recognizing Reason cannot alone solve all problems would greatly help enshrine Reason in the fields where it is most needed and allow other value systems to exist where Reason is less necessary. We need some kind of Aristotlean balance of values.

[@dorukdenkel]

The reality of the human condition is that, other than the air to breathe, everything anyone needs or wants must be produced. The first question about the “Kant problem” should be that how such worldview (phenomena vs neumena, and so on) can possibly exist in anyone’s mind and that person can be productive. If a person can’t be serious about both Kantianism and productiveness, who produces for them, and why?

[@ndenman420]

You must be an economist, "everything must be produced". But, more seriously, the rationality and cognition for the success of science and engineering strain the credibility of Kant's conception of rationality and our disconnect with the noumena. I would also say that much of modern physics is most clearly articulated in Aristotelian metaphysics (see Nancy Cartwright). Her claims are that laws of nature are not fundamental but substances interacting is more fundamental (I simplified).

[@dorukdenkel]

@@ndenman420 Yes. By taking quantum things as Prime Matter, the rest fits with Aristotelian metaphysics. It is annoying that he was someone else’s private tutor for three years. (!) I will look at Nancy Cartwright. Thank you.

[@gordmacdonald9711]

Thank you. Im glad you realize that the task of an artist is difficult enough without getting a PhD in philosophy. What might be helpful for a young person pursuing art as a career/life are broad diagrams of major ideas. Most painters are visual and although capable of reading, absorb knowledge faster and better with visual representation. Philosophers, psychologists, and academics in general speak and think in a slightly different paradigm than visual artists. Venn diagrams, flow charts and any other visual aids would be helpful as to not overwhelm an 18 year old who is headed for art school. A reading list of unreadable Germans as the only defense against the desolation of the contemporary art schools is completely futile. No 18 year old has a chance otherwise.

[@ciucinciu]

asking for venn diagrams and simplified visual concepts to explain deep abstract and powerful ideas? that s hilarious dude. why are you being so weak?just put in the work to understand philosophy. stop underestimating yourself like that and start listening or reading philosophy, youtube is filled with creators explaining philosophy for beginners

[@gordmacdonald9711]

Maybe I'm an illiterate weakling that enjoys being "hilarious".

[@sgabig]

@@ciucinciu some people have different skill sets & interests

[@casteretpollux]

Whatever else you do read the 10 page Communist Manifesto. Or Marx's intro to Capital. About the same length. May one tip is to read original work of the authors. Most people who produce summaries make serious bloomers .

[@whoaitstiger]

"Not a serious artist" has got to be the most German phrase I have ever heard. 🤣

[@Rico-Suave_]

Great video, thank you, note to self(nts) watched all of it 1:32:39

[@sgabig]

@55:30 commercial representational artists like Norman Rockwell weren't considered real artists but crass commercial sell outs vs nonrepresentational artists like Jackson Pollack were - so this divide seems to have been partly influenced by Kant's philosophy

[@Mal1234567]

Scientific evidence of time and space as a form of perception: Damage or disruptions in the processing of the visual cortex can lead to temporal distortions, such as difficulties perceiving the timing of events or changes in the temporal order of visual stimuli. Damage to certain regions of the visual cortex can lead to perceptual distortions in which objects may appear smaller (micropsia) or larger (macropsia) than they actually are. These spatial distortions can affect the individual's perception of the size and distance of objects. If Kant was right, does this mean that Postmodernism is right?

[@royaebrahim2449]

❤❤❤

[@casteretpollux]

Dont worry about modern art: worry about invisible art. The art of the spectacle is blowing up and after the bang comes closure of the art schools. Very pleased to have stumbled into the cave.

[@lukeskirenko]

Kant was basically right, the noumenal is presupposed in any account of the relation between conscious agent and material reality, and is congruent with a scientific view of the world. The question is how to consider the relation between the two, and to avoid crass moves towards extreme relativism... which unfortunately many post modern thinkers failed to do adequately, or at all. Well, these are the most difficult matters, and most likely we'll continue to address them badly.

[@forevergrasping]

So Kant seemed to suggest that while reason could not connect us with the real, the sublime could connect us with the noumenal. Desiring the experience of the sublime doesn't seem bad. We have all experienced things that are beautiful that we wouldn't consider sublime and it seems fine for artists to want to create sublime work. The problem I see is the experience of the sublime IS intricately tied with what Kant calls the phenomenal. If we didn't have eyes, and a sense of scale, we wouldn't experience the sublime when looking at the Grand Canyon, mountains, redwoods, starry host without light pollution, etc... From what I hear, artists may be responsible for the mountains leading to a feeling of the sublime, so even our sublime experience is influenced by culture and subjectivity. Music as well is sensual. So Kant's prescription seems absurd. The Romantic landscape artists used representation and skill to create masterpieces that are far more likely to lead to the sublime, than any of the art that has rejected representation, craft, and beauty.

[@kulturedads]

Hicks explains this well. I'm half an hour in though and everything he explained about the Counter-Enlightenment seems great and valid. Interesting how these things are like a Rorschach test. I think the Enlightenment was a serious mistake and I would have explained it very similarly. Truth (what happened) is a separate domain from morality (what we should take from what happened).

[@robleahy5759]

Nietzsche says it is only since we enlarged our dubious senses (contra Kant) with microscopes etc, that we started getting payoffs. Der.

[@nerian777]

Kant summarized every possible mistake of the enlightenment

[@Mal1234567]

Too much "led to" in your video titles: fallacy of the single cause.

[@ronjohnson4566]

you have caught my interest and I want to learn what you are saying. When I read, I usually find all the things I can't entirely agree with. Especially when listening to philosophers and the like. sometimes I even learn something. I saw the title of your How Art Became Ugly. wow. I think I found something. I clicked on OpenCollegePodcast and the first thing I see is Jordan Peterson. He is the tower of babble. I saw the lecture videos but didn't see the How Art Became Ugly. oh lord, I wish you were there. if you don't show up and explain yourself, you can stuff your sorries in a sack.

[@slmille4]

Odd that free and harmonious play of the faculties isn't discussed

[@plekkchand]

Surely not " indifference", but "disinterestedness"?

[@davidmasner]

Ayn Rand would concur. Aristotle is the greatest.

[@lukeskirenko]

Stephen Hicks makes some good points but the interviewer is hopelessly superficial in wanting to join the dots in a manner that elevates his own project, and doesn't appear to be listening to the more complex map that Hicks is describing. But Hicks makes some daft points also, e.g. the idea that the promotion of novelty is somehow connected to the notion of getting outside the devalued subjective (universal) of the intution of Time. Novelty becomes the continuation of the timeline in the modern period, novelty is continuity, mainly because it creates a market, and creates jobs for academics and pretentious critics. At a certain point the timeline ends, because novelty can only perpetuate a timeline to a certain stage, eventually the sheer size of the timeline means that there's too much stuff there for it to constitute a shared cultural heritage and standard against which novelty is made possible. At that point novelty is no longer possible. Hence the whole activity of art ended around the time of Warhol, and since then the art world has clasped at straws to find ways to sell more shit. Selling more shit has an important function, it provides hedges against inflation and the devaluation of the currency, and that's probably art's main function these days.

[@StephenHicksPhilosopher]

I make no such point about "Novelty."

[@lukeskirenko]

@@StephenHicksPhilosopher I'm relistening to see if I followed correctly. At 1:06:00 you seem to be saying that since Kant regards time as a subjective thing and not part of the 'real', this value system transposed onto art results in an antagonistic stance towards tradition, since tradition is a manifestation of time in the form of a timeline. Thus the artist has to break with tradition and do something completely shocking, as you put it. I used the word novelty to refer to those art objects intended to shock. I would take issue with that section of the video.

[@kyleelsbernd7566]

Plato>aristotle

[@AncientRylanor69]

P

[@StephenPaulKing]

Classicism needs a serious upgrade. Marx's attempt has obviously failed.... Let's see what Kant proposed.

[@jazw4649]

1:10:00 Jewish and Islamic Scripture don't make graven images of man - Scriptural Fundamentalism and modernism sharing fundamentally that representation of the body in art is wrong.

[@sgabig]

@1:13:15 Kant seems more Manichean heretic

[@kyleelsbernd7566]

All these Protestant philosophers are confused semi reformulations of plato

[@nyahhbinghi]

greenberg liked pollack

[@lesliecunliffe4450]

Hicks gives a poor account of the way science emerged in Western culture, It was NOT a product of the Enlightenment but resulted from Christianity. Anybody familiar wth the reserch of the last 30 years would know this. Peter Harrison's many publications are an example of this research.

[@StephenHicksPhilosopher]

1. Do note that Christianity existed for 1500 years before significant science emerged. And that once Greek and Roman authors were reintroduced, science was quickly established.

[@StephenHicksPhilosopher]

2. Do note also that the Enlightenment was the maturing of science, not the founding.

[@robleahy5759]

Oh, who is protestant

[@jonaha502]

​@@StephenHicksPhilosophergreek and roman authors were not "reintroduced", they were always important and well known for all of christian history

[@StephenHicksPhilosopher]

@@jonaha502: Sorry, Jonah, that's not true. Vast quantities of works were lost and neglected (and occasionally destroyed) for centuries, and of the major Greeks like Plato and Aristotle only a few of their works were known (and usually not well). A wonderful re-importing of Greek and Roman works began in the 1200s.

[@MrReedling]

Hicks voice sounds like an ai text to speech. No offence, just an observation

[@robleahy5759]

😂

[@vaclavmiller8032]

This is terribly poor Kant exegesis

[@CaveofApelles]

We would all be happy to hear your reasoning.

[@vaclavmiller8032]

​@@CaveofApelles The video is very long and I don't have much time, but here are a few thoughts about Kant's supposed anti-realism/subjectivism, "devaluing" of the phenomenal world and anti-Enlightenment stance. One of the key dichotomies in Kant's epistemology is between empirical realism and transcendental idealism. Kant is *constantly* at pains to say that tables and chairs etc. are real from the common sense, empirical standpoint - in fact, he thinks that transcendental idealism is the only way to save this standpoint and Newtonian science from scepticism; that it is the only way to explain causality, substance and the application of mathematics to the world (among other things), all things which Hume had thrown into question. Kant also never uses the word "subjective" to describe the forms of intuition and the categories of the understanding. Something subjective for him would be, say, the particular shade of red that I perceive a tomato to have, but that was just orthodox post-Galileo. The form that he says we impose on the world is *necessary* and has universal application to all finite cognisers. The very crux of the Critical project is to demonstrate synthetic a priori truths - that is, necessary and objective truths. With respect to Hicks' argument, Kant explicitly (and famously) claims to **refute** idealism. He explicitly rejects again and again the notion that objects are "just in my mind". Nowhere does Kant say that the phenomenal world is "unimportant". He was a very keen scientist himself after all. To take a birdseye view, his project can be construed as fundamentally therapeutic, not unlike that of the logical positivists or ordinary language theorists - every empirical judgment is going to be objectively true or false, but every metaphysical question not answerable by the Critique's system (viz. the Paralogisms, Antinomies and Ideal) is in principle unanswerable by finite cognisers (at least from a theoretical perspective). I don't see why this ought to have had any disastrous consequences for Western thought. That's just a Randian myth that is laughed out of the academy. In sum, Kant was a passionate defender of the Enlightenment project in the First Critique. Please read and engage seriously with it if you're going to try and present technical objections to it. It's just embarrassing to do otherwise given the enormous body of work on the subject.

[@StephenHicksPhilosopher]

@@vaclavmiller8032: (1) Many, many times, Kant says things like this: "Appearances are not things, but rather nothing but representations, and they cannot exist at all outside our minds” (CPuR, B235). That's textbook subjectivity. [Correction: The quotation is at B520.]

[@StephenHicksPhilosopher]

@@vaclavmiller8032 (2) Kant explicitly rejects objectivity, e.g., in the Second Preface: "“Hitherto it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects” (Bxvi) That assumption has been a total failure. Hence we must try the opposite: "We must therefore make trial whether we may not have more success in the tasks of metaphysics, if we suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge” (Bxvi). Again, textbook subjectivism.

[@StephenHicksPhilosopher]

@@vaclavmiller8032 : (3) On "That's just a Randian myth". Rand's interpretation of Kant is also Fichte's, and Schopenhauer's, and Nietzsche's, and Heidegger's, and it's widespread in the academy.

[@Paul-talk]

this is interesting and intelligent... but since neither of these guys really know anything about painting its all mostly nonsense. 😞

[@yajy4501]

Hick’s book on postmodernism misattributes quotes, mis-cites sources, misrepresents arguments and is generally laughable. I can’t believe people still take him seriously on these issues.

[@casteretpollux]

Say just one thing that refutes him and you'll earn some credibility.

[@robleahy5759]

😂

[@EatPieYes]

@@casteretpolluxAfter only glancing through his book, which I recently bought, I can already point out a misquotation of Kierkegaard on page 90, which Hicks alleges is from Fear and Trembling: "Faith requires the crucifixion of reason." I've looked through three different editions of Fear and Trembling and found this line nowhere.

[@TreeLuvBurdpu]

If you had an actual example you would say it, so...

[@Ortho_Clips]

Random anonymous KZbin “person” making claims 😂 😆

[@18andcloudy]

Hicksy isn't just a psuedo intellectual, he also somehow falls short of being human, like he really has no idea what he's supposed to do with his face when speaking lol. Also I bet the Poncho and the old timey furniture really lulling nubs into a comfy, familiar facade of intellectuallism too lol, compensating for something?

[@casteretpollux]

Fantastic demo of ad hominum blurb.

[@18andcloudy]

@@casteretpollux I mean it's relevant, the dude can barely manage convincing facial expressions, you think he's capable of seeing past his own baked in tunnel vision? Frankly i'm just countering the seminal charitability this dude receives for his psuedo intelletual, non-empirical, easy to stomach hate parade, it's convenient and slanted and you know it.

[@robleahy5759]

You are sad, is ur dad at fault

[@18andcloudy]

no I'm just not a deliriously bored politically illiterate nub that'll inhale conveniently served up dross then offer no semblant retort the 2nd a single person isn't glazing my fave talking head

[@zabooza74]

Kantians mad...

[@kyleelsbernd7566]

Kant is terrible philosophy.

[@TheGrinningViking]

I'm here because this man is so wrong I wanted to say it on two platforms. I hope only his job is replaced by AI.

[@parker5944]

lol

[@ciucinciu]

shut up gamer

[@sgabig]

What specifically did Hicks say that is wrong?

[@robleahy5759]

😂

[@VesnaVK]

Wrong about what?