Anyone into philosophy/ethics/theology?
I’ve only studied technical fields, but I love trying (and typically failing) to engage with philosophical material. One of my old roommates studied philosophy, and we’d stay up late discussing it so I’d get tangential exposure and a good dialogue on ideas (I credit them with helping me “discover” actual theory). Anyway, they’ve been dead for a while now and while every day I wish it weren’t the case, so is my only connection to engaging with philosophical topics.
Anyway - I wanted to pick up more background info of ethical philosophy, and have been wading into Kant (like literally getting started with reviewing overview pages like this: https://iep.utm.edu/kantview ) and the page author’s summary stood out to me:
Kant’s ethics are organized around the notion of a “categorical imperative,” which is a universal ethical principle stating that one should always respect the humanity in others, and that one should only act in accordance with rules that could hold for everyone. Kant argued that the moral law is a truth of reason, and hence that all rational creatures are bound by the same moral law. Thus in answer to the question, “What should I do?” Kant replies that we should act rationally, in accordance with a universal moral law.
Kant also argued that his ethical theory requires belief in free will, God, and the immortality of the soul. Although we cannot have knowledge of these things, reflection on the moral law leads to a justified belief in them, which amounts to a kind rational faith. Thus in answer to the question, “What may I hope?” Kant replies that we may hope that our souls are immortal and that there really is a God who designed the world in accordance with principles of justice.
Maybe I’ll have my own understanding when I engage with Kant’s actual writing, but I find the mentioned notion of a “categorical imperative” interesting. I guess when I’ve heard disagreements framed as “philosophical differences”, I never took it literally (ironically), but it seems like differences in worldview stem from a disregard of the
universal ethical principle stating that one should always respect the humanity in others, and that one should only act in accordance with rules that could hold for everyone.
and it makes sense then that common ground cannot be found when opposing viewpoints are rooted in incompatible principles. (Assuming that all parties have principles of sorts).
Idk where I’m going with any of this post, but I don’t have anyone to engage in my philosophical dumbassery with, so you’re all the lucky recipients.
Also can one hop around between authors? Or is there a benefit to interacting with older material? I was interested in reading some Kierkegaard, but thought I should go through Kant and Hegel first… but should one go further back to idk… Plato?
I’m an amateur too and yes, personally, I think one should definitely “hop around” between authors before engaging more deeply with one of them. Or else be prepared for a rude awakening once you finally managed to work through one author (any author) and the next one just completely destroys their core premises in a few sentences. Yes, this will totally happen with Kant.
That’s an incomplete description. Kants real categorical imperative claims we should always act in such a way, so that we can, at the same time, wish for the principles of our actions to become universal law. For example Kant says it’s always wrong to lie, no matter the context, because if everyone lied, no one would understand each other and lying would become pointless. So if a murderer asks you were you hid their next innocent victim, you are compelled to answer truthfully.
A dialectical critique of Hegelians against Kants categorical imperative lists many examples where it leads to absurd conclusions. For example is it ethical to give to the poor in order to reduce poverty? Not if you follow the categorical imperative, because if that became universal law, poverty would be eliminated and charity would be pointless. So, strictly speaking, you can not act in this way and at the same time rationally wish for your action to become universal law. In the same way, the categorical imperative can be seen to fail to address any material contradiction on a society wide scale.
I’m not saying Kant isn’t worthwhile(although it almost does seem as if he made his writing hard to understand on purpose). Any philosopher can be criticized and many still have a lot to offer us. It just helps to know what you’re getting into.
For a general overview and if you like podcasts, you could listen to “history of philosophy without any gaps” with Professor Peter Adamson. The main series is about philosophy in Europe and the Islamic world (which includes Jewish philosophy). It’s engaging and funny and starts with the Pre-Socratics and over 450 episodes later is still going in the Renaissance. There are also spin-off podcasts for African, Chinese and Indian philosophy.
Studying history, you’ll get a good understanding of why people call the entirety of philosophy merely “Footnotes to Plato”. Also it helps in understanding any philosophical text to know what context philosophers react to (for example Kant reacted to Hume, Hegel reacted to Kant, there is no consensus on who had the better arguments). You also definitely go away from the podcast with a sense of “history isn’t over”.
Studying history helps understanding how contemporary philosophy isn’t “better” or “worse” than philosophy at other times in history. People have always been smart and always had complex ideas. And who knows if philosophy of our time will later be remembered as an important contribution. Another important lesson from studying the history of philosophy is that it’s easy to attack any philosophical system, but hard to build one. You can very quickly go from “wow, this makes a lot of sense” to “this is completely absurd” and still gain a lot from engaging with the material.
For a good sense of how well a particular philosophy holds up against it’s critics, I like reading the Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy as well as articles linked in the sources.