Thursday, April 28, 2011

Hank Harrison - Kant

Ive noticed that Kant's philosophy in art, as in epistemology, has permeated through so many other philosophers. Schopenhauer and Nietzsche especially, Kant's view of the world seems to be especially coherent. His inclusion of the human perception as being different for every person seems to be totally logical. We all do, in at least some regard, live in completely different worlds. We all act on information gathered through our senses and computed in our minds, and each of these functions are totally subjective. What, then, is actually universally applicable to all human beings? Kants answer, I believe, is logic and reason. This is not to be confused with sciences like physics because, as Kant says, these are further abstractions from reality. The reality that we experience is not necessary dictated by formulas and Newtonian laws alone but by something more. This something more, in my view, is our perception. We apply what we receive in data and think in our minds to our own subjective rationality.

Thus, physics and chemistry and mathematics are only tools we can use to further process what we detect in reality, not rules to which reality must adhere.

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