Kant's "causality of freedom"

gib · October 4, 2007, 3:39pm

What does Kant mean by a “causality of freedom”? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Wouldn’t freedom cease to be freedom if it was involved in any sort of causality?

altd_amp_s · October 4, 2007, 3:46pm

Kant was a dipshit.

I never really read him and I don’t plan on it. He was into abstract ideas that contradicted eachother like the above shown.

Although, freedom is a capricious word. It could mean alot of things, that’s why it’s freedom.

Freedom to and from and in and out and where and what etc.

I guess it’s hard to explain because it doesn’t exist. Only causality, and they don’t go together.

Xunzian · October 4, 2007, 3:49pm

These ideas about causality and the nature of science became further entrenched by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant realized that the science of Isaac Newton rested upon the objective principle of cause and effect. Kant saw this as a contradiction to the scepticism of Hume and believed that philosophy must choose between the two points of view. Kant sought to resolve this conflict by stating that the world exists only to the extent that humans participate in constructing it. The objects people observe are determined by the knowledge of those people rather than that knowledge being determined by the object. People can become aware only of the phenomenal world, not the true, noumenal existence of reality as it truly is. Man’s phenomenal self is subject to cause and effect but his spiritual, noumenal self is bound by nothing except its own choices (Jones, 1952; Oldroyd, 1986; Tomlin, 1963).

For Kant, causality is a condition of existence. It is a category or rule which cannot be experienced but which exists in people’s minds and which gives order to data that we think about. The principle of causality is necessarily true, but the source of that necessity does not reside in the nature of the objects involved but in the way our minds are structured (Windelband, 1901).

source

altd_amp_s · October 4, 2007, 4:01pm

Nowadays we call it brain signals. In its literal sense, freedom is anatomic brain perception of a cause or causes followed by cellular movement in brain tissue causing anatomic intellectual or physical movement causing the caused to cause to cause to cause ad infinitum.

If you want to get technical. I’m sure a neuro specialist could do wonders more.

gib · October 4, 2007, 5:52pm

Xunzian:

These ideas about causality and the nature of science became further entrenched by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). Kant realized that the science of Isaac Newton rested upon the objective principle of cause and effect. Kant saw this as a contradiction to the scepticism of Hume and believed that philosophy must choose between the two points of view. Kant sought to resolve this conflict by stating that the world exists only to the extent that humans participate in constructing it. The objects people observe are determined by the knowledge of those people rather than that knowledge being determined by the object. People can become aware only of the phenomenal world, not the true, noumenal existence of reality as it truly is. Man’s phenomenal self is subject to cause and effect but his spiritual, noumenal self is bound by nothing except its own choices (Jones, 1952; Oldroyd, 1986; Tomlin, 1963).

For Kant, causality is a condition of existence. It is a category or rule which cannot be experienced but which exists in people’s minds and which gives order to data that we think about. The principle of causality is necessarily true, but the source of that necessity does not reside in the nature of the objects involved but in the way our minds are structured (Windelband, 1901).

source

This book, does it get pretty deep into Kant, or does it touch on him just briefly?

Xunzian · October 4, 2007, 6:21pm

I was just referencing the essay, which only touches on Kant briefly but dealt with your question. I have no idea about the book itself.