Freedom and then.....what?
While reading Kant's work on the question of enlightenment, one thought persistently knocked on my brain:
"This sounds like our First Amendment.."
In this passage, Kant is expressing the importance of freedom of speech, belief, and thought in order for a nation/country/people to prosper and improve; especially concering religion. What stuck out to me was his highlighting of how important it was for a ruler or monarch to allow their people to decide certain things on their own.
"A prince ought not to deem it beneath his dignity to state that he considers it his duty not to dictate anything to his subjects in religious matters, but to leave them completel freedom.."
"What a people may not decide for itself may even less be decided for it by a monarch, for his reputation as a ruler consists precisely in the way in which he unites the will of the whole people within his own. If he only sees to it that all true and or supposed {religious} improvement remains in step with civic order, he can for the rest leave his subjects alone to do what they find necessary for the salvation of their souls."
This gave me a renewed appreciation for our government and the freedoms we are guaranteed as Americans under the Bill of Rights. I can't imagine living in a country where openly loving Jesus costs me jail time or worse, my life. Sure our system isn't perfect but free speech allows us to vocalize those imperfections and bring about a solution to present to our leaders. When a country gives its people freedom to be different, they become unified in that diversity.
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I dont even know where to start with this guy. *inhales*
I feel completely comfortable in saying Descartes was tripping off an early form of acid when he wrote this. He spends paragraphs and paragraphs picking apart his body and what the meaning of "I" is and his existence and whether anything he is seeing is actually a deception from some demon up above. Just....what!? He starts off believing he has a body and is a living being and percieving and picks allll of that apart and then comes to the conclusion that he IS thinking but his senses (sight, smell, touch, ect) could most likey be lying to him becuase of his deceptive creator so he's not sure that anything around him is in its true form?! How can you have a conclusion on anything if you believe the very things your body possesses to tell your brain what's what are false? (Dont get me STARTED on the wax bit....) This meditaion feels like it's going around in a big circle with smaller circles inside it and it hurts my brain. I'm also still confused about his major point here. S.O.S someone help me!
(I commented on Natalie's and Carmen's post)
"This sounds like our First Amendment.."
In this passage, Kant is expressing the importance of freedom of speech, belief, and thought in order for a nation/country/people to prosper and improve; especially concering religion. What stuck out to me was his highlighting of how important it was for a ruler or monarch to allow their people to decide certain things on their own.
"A prince ought not to deem it beneath his dignity to state that he considers it his duty not to dictate anything to his subjects in religious matters, but to leave them completel freedom.."
"What a people may not decide for itself may even less be decided for it by a monarch, for his reputation as a ruler consists precisely in the way in which he unites the will of the whole people within his own. If he only sees to it that all true and or supposed {religious} improvement remains in step with civic order, he can for the rest leave his subjects alone to do what they find necessary for the salvation of their souls."
This gave me a renewed appreciation for our government and the freedoms we are guaranteed as Americans under the Bill of Rights. I can't imagine living in a country where openly loving Jesus costs me jail time or worse, my life. Sure our system isn't perfect but free speech allows us to vocalize those imperfections and bring about a solution to present to our leaders. When a country gives its people freedom to be different, they become unified in that diversity.
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I dont even know where to start with this guy. *inhales*
I feel completely comfortable in saying Descartes was tripping off an early form of acid when he wrote this. He spends paragraphs and paragraphs picking apart his body and what the meaning of "I" is and his existence and whether anything he is seeing is actually a deception from some demon up above. Just....what!? He starts off believing he has a body and is a living being and percieving and picks allll of that apart and then comes to the conclusion that he IS thinking but his senses (sight, smell, touch, ect) could most likey be lying to him becuase of his deceptive creator so he's not sure that anything around him is in its true form?! How can you have a conclusion on anything if you believe the very things your body possesses to tell your brain what's what are false? (Dont get me STARTED on the wax bit....) This meditaion feels like it's going around in a big circle with smaller circles inside it and it hurts my brain. I'm also still confused about his major point here. S.O.S someone help me!
(I commented on Natalie's and Carmen's post)
I feel like what Descartes was trying to make a point of was the fact that we only know we exist and are because we can think. He went around in circles, possibly to help guide others with different ways of thinking into his own, but he was raising the question of the fact that we have such little proof that we're actually real. Life could be a dream as we know it.
ReplyDeleteAGREED!!!! I'd like to add that at the end he states, "I now know that even bodies are perceived not by the senses or by imagination but by the intellect alone, not through their being touched or seen but through their being understood". As much as he questions everything he thinks he knows, why does he not question his final conclusion of "understanding"?? He explains his thoughts on "thinking", and I totally get that, but what is this "understanding"? I cannot seem to understand his understanding.
ReplyDeleteDescartes indeed has an interesting view on things. The way I see it, is sometimes in life we have situations that seem surreal and unbelievable. Like the effects of a drug on our bodies. The physical aspects of life can lead us astray, but thought can go beyond that and reason through the things our body may cause us to see or feel.
ReplyDeleteAs for Kant, I agree his writing does sound much like the First Amendment. Freedom in this sense is what makes enlightenment possible to attain.