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3.2.17

reason can perceive universals

To me it seems reason can perceive universals. I tend to go with Michael Huemer on this and Hegel also. The idea that there is some upper limit to reason Hegel answered by means of a dialectical approach.  [That is Hegel does not really hold of what is called intellectual intuition and is like Kant on that score. But he holds by thinking reason penetrates into the ding an sich by a dialectical process.]

As Bryan Caplan pointed out Kant is based on Hume and Hume assumes that all reason can do is perceive contradictions. He never proves this but just accepts it as an axiom. But clearly Reason does much more. It recognizes general principles.  Thus the whole basis of Kant falls away. Still there is much in the Intuitionist school of Michael Huemer that seems like quietism and does not address the issues raised by Kant--like how does reason go further? For this we need Hegel.

That is the Intuitionists deals with Kant's question how can reason perceive synthetic a priori like this: It just does. Period. clearly Huemer is more subtle than that and goes with probability. He is an amazing writer but still things there that needs critique. 

[I would rather not go into this, but just look up Hegel and Huemer's writings  Prichard's, John Searle, and the Rambam's Guide for the Perplexed.  You will see with this background what I mean.] [When the Rambam says to learn Metaphysics, I think that though he meant the set of books of Aristotle by that name, this should be applied to Kant and Hegel.]


[I should mention I have tried hard to defend the Kant/Fries school of Kelley Ross, but in the end I have had to go with Hegel. It is not necessarily one particular problem. Kelley Ross is an amazing thinker, but to me Hegel just makes a lot more sense.]

There is a Jewish mother blog "Mother in Israel" that suggested on her blog Hegel a long time ago that I ignored because I had found some important insights on Kelley Ross's Kant Fries site.  The thing I think that got me most interested in Hegel was when I realized his jargon was philosophical an that statements taken out of context or poorly understood did not constitute a true critique. Also just seeing  some of the problems in Kant that simply are not well answered brought me around to seeing the importance of Hegel. That is in a nut shell: The critiques on Hegel I thought were not accurate.

It occurs to me I was never very impressed with implanted knowledge especially since it can't be falsified-not with any of the things Kant though were unconditioned, but even things like Math.   Still all in all Dr Kelley Ross is an amazingly thorough thinker. I still have to go with Hegel.