Followers

Wednesday, August 05, 2015

the speaking tree - The Need to Understand


About 250 years ago, German philosopher Immanuel Kant advocated a fine description of objective component of ultimate reality in nature in terms of its space-time structure and in society in terms of moral values. Such thinking did begun with Descartes and Galileo but Kant was the first one to become conscious of these things.This kind of stock taking of knowledge was a criticism and Kant called his great books as critiques: the `Critique of Pure Reason', the `Critique of Practical Reason' and the `Critique of Judgment'. He called his philosophy as the `critical philosophy' or `critical idealism'.
As far as the actions of an individual and their execution in the day-to-day life are concerned, the same appear in Kant's philosophy through the principle of morality that he has advocated in his later `critiques'.Kant regarded human actions as `phenomenal' when looked at them from an anthropological point of view. As a result, these actions are subject to the law of cause and effect.
According to Kant, we are born and grow with different natures, which, in turn, lead to different likes and dislikes, inclination and disinclination, temptations, temperaments and abilities to perform an act.The differences are attributed to different external environments to which an individual is subjected and responds differently in accordance with the principle of causality .
Human actions, thus, are considered as the result of interaction of character and environment and are not to be praised or blamed but understood.