Kant’s philosophy is based on the assumption that man can define the meaning of God and the world , instead of that God defines the meaning of man and the world. For him, the only that which he has constructed for himself is real for man. Since Kant, modern philosophies are based on this assumption. Man can believe God to the extent that God is meaningful for him, so it is his free choice to abandon him.

But when the world view based on Kant’s idealism and his followers’ Romanticism restructured the academic world, there were repercussions mainly from the positivism. Because of the too religious and speculative nature of Idealistic philosophy, positivists opposed him saying “Be true to the fact”. Why was his philosophy was too speculative? Do you know? Because Kant did not stand on the objective facts but on his religious presupposition, i.e., humanism.

Modern philosophy has never been able to respond appropriately to the challenge of Locke and Hume, whose criticism was devastating to Cartesian epistemology. Kant acknowledged the Thing Itself cannot be known because of the limit, so he actually consent to the incapability of knowing the meaning of the things. So this means we cannot create the world view because it deals with the meaning of things. But he did. How? Based on transcendentalization of man. Man became a god. But without grounds.

2010年6月27日