I have been reading a good deal of philosophy recently. I have always been interested in German Romantic painting - particularly the art of Casper David Friedrich. this has lead me to the philosophical underpinnings of the romantic movement in the early 19th century. I know that Susan Marie has written about the similarities between ITLAD and Kant and it therefore came as no surprise to me to find that central to Kant's philosophy is that the entire world as we experience it (the phenomenal world) is dependent upon our apparatus for experiencing it. As such he argued that things as thy appear to us are not identical with the things as they are in themselves ( the noumenal world). This position is known as transcendental idealism and sounds very similar to me to The Copenhagen Interpretation of Bohr.However I was really surprised (and quite delighted) to recently come across the writings of another German philosopher of that period, Johann Gottleib Fichte (1762-1814). Fichte took Kant's transcendental idealism to its logical (and profoundly itladian) conclusion in suggesting that if reality is beyond all possibility of apprehension, as Kant claimed, then we have no grounds for claiming that there is anything out there at all. The entire phenomenal world is therefore not an independent reality, but the creation of the individual ego that creates this world for itself. Fichte argued that at his death his world will cease to exist with him. His world needs him as its observer to continue being. However he also argued that other people also exist in their own worlds and somehow we all exist independently but also interrelated. (Bohmian IMAX and Implicate Order).
Clearly ITLAD argues that there is a Kantian noumenal world that exists external to the observer. This has to be in order for the LeMarcsian Virgin Life to take place. The challenge is understanding how that relates to later iterations of the Bohmian IMAX which one could reasonably argue is a phenomenal model (I have aways considered ITLAD to be phenomenal, now I know why).
I need to read more of this guys stuff. I have ordered a copy of his book The Vocation of Man and I will work my way through it. Indeed I am now stimuated to write something (article, book?) on the philosophy of Itlad and how it reflects the ideas of many famous thinkers of the past.
10 comments:
I think it would be wonderful if you were to lecture and write on the philosophy of the CTF theory. From the start, so many thinkers - Kierkegaard, Kant, Nietzsche, Jaspers, Schopenhauer, Heidegger; as well as Jung - were reflected in your writings; I could scarcely believe that so many thinkers could be enfolded and contained within your theory. I had even imagined you lecturing at one of the American Philosophical Association symposiums ( my husband and I attended in New York City, Boston --alas, I must renew my membership) because so many are interested in Consciousness Studies. Even a work like Schopenhauer's "The World as Will and Ideation" mirrors back your theory, as does Heidegger's "Language, Poetry and Thought" (and in particular his study of the poet Holderlin). Even to look at it from a vulgar and mercenary perspective (a view I actually do not usually entertain) there is quite a market which could be tapped into(the entire lecture circuit of philsophy of consciousness studies, as well as the philsophy of time, and of the self. Always looking for keynote speakers, essays, books--can't help mentioning all of this as two of my mentors have been published and anthologized internationally, and both presided over chapters of the APA and regional societies of philosophy) --Well, all of this is just "grist for the mill"--but from the start I saw that in certain passages in your first essay (which I read before the book) you had moments in which you spoke as a philosopher of some import and stature. I know it when I see it.
Tony: I also wanted to add that - as you probably know from your own University studies - there is an entire branch of philosophy (phenomenology) which is dedicated to discourse about the contents of consciousness. And there is also the idea set forth by the neoKantians that consciousness precedes reality, shapes it via perception, and gives rise to it: very much as Fichte asserts. And Heidegger has very poetic and profound insights regarding Kant's own assertion that "the world is empirically real, but transcendentally ideal"--all more grist for the mill.
Susan Marie,
Things are so synchronistic sometimes that it scares me. Yesterday afternoon I worked on a book synopsis for my third book. My publisher wishes me to write a 'self-help' book suggesting ways in which the reader may be able to contact their Daemon. Whilst doing so I came to the conclusion that I fourth book is also possible - one in which I review the philosophical antecedents of CTF. I wrote a list of philosophers whose work I considered to be itladian and I came up with a very similar list. Indeed after your suggestion I am considering making this my third book.
Any help or advice you could give with regard to this project will be gratefully received.
Susan Marie and Tony
Have you read, and are you aware, specifically of Kant's Antimonies??
I ask as the most often stated criticism or argument voiced with the Antimonies in mind is:
"Do Kant's Antimonies preclude the possibility of ever understanding the nature of self?"
I won't even begin to write my answer but I'd be interested to hear both your opinions.
And Tony,
you wrote "My publisher wishes me to write a 'self-help' book suggesting ways in which the reader may be able to contact their Daemon."
Can I ask you to again read:
http://cheatingtheferryman.blogspot.com/2008/03/peakeian-daemonology.html
and especially my note that:
"Peakeian Daemonology must teach the world of the secret self and share experiences and techniques of how to reach this communication."
KAAAARL: Of cooourse I know the Antimonies of Kaaant!! *spoken in that whining, grating tone of the nagging wife* They are from his Critique of Pure Reason, and deal with the inherent contradictions of the epistemic status of the transcencdent. If memory serves, they are of time and space, atomism, God and the eternal, and immortality. They are summed up in his wonderful assertion that " the world is empirically real but transcendentally ideal", and this theme is taken up again by Kierkegaard in his Christian edifying discourses (far more existential in tone than Christian). The Antimonies seem like refutations or polemical to the Aristoltean law of identity and conrtadiction, I think. All of this is fodder for ITLAD/CTF--Would that I could join you and Anthony for the ale-infused pub talks. OOkaay, Kaaarl????
Suuusaaannn Maaarrriiiieee
*sang in the style of West Side Story*
I rather suspected you knew of the Antimonies.
*secretly quite likes the nagging wife tone*
What would you answer be to:
"Do Kant's Antimonies preclude the possibility of ever understanding the nature of self?"
*intrigued*
Yes, I thiiink I can answer that in part *spoken again, rather like a nagging wife: with sarcasm and weariness* The Antimonies do indeed preclude an absolute empirical understanding in terms of static concepts of proof; however, they do NOT preclude a vital, dynamic depth of understanidng to a certain degree. As the poet Holderlin asserts, "Full of Merit, to be sure; and yet--Poetically Man dwells upon this earth." Is THAT enough for you, Kaarl?? **Now spoken shrilly, in that slightly hysterical tone of Blanche DuBois to Stanley in "A Streetcar Named Desire". . . **
Interesting.
We may need to continue this chat off-blog
*wink*
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