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OP
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Dear Inselpeter,
and it is possible that the real is a concept that exceeds itself.
You perfectly understood my concern. Any attempt to provide a closed definition of the real will lead to a contradiction or a petitio principii at some point. Yet we cannot do without the notion of the unreal, i.e. the real does have a non-empty complement.
Kant also knew that perceiving 'the' reality is not a purely passive act, but involves us applying (putting) something to it.
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Pooh-Bah
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You know, W, you make life worth living, sometimes, really.
Heidegger, as I understand him (and, to paraphrase Henry Kissinger, "I don't") took off from these observations of Kant's and limitations of his theory.
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Dear wsieber and inselpeter, Kant and Heidegger represent stages in human thought. Today any podunk college professor with tenure can slap out a word construction just as well or better. Now tell me, can you two restate Kant's and Heidegger's ideas on existence in succinct form here?  Milo
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Pooh-Bah
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Milum,
I don't know if Kant had much to say on existence; he had a lot to say about epistemology and ethics which, interestingly, he may actually have grounded in aesthetics.
As to Heidegger, what I understand of him has to do with his readings (explicit or impllicit) of Kant, but I really give *any* account of what he may or may not have to say about 'existence,' per se.
Maybe wsieber can be more helpful.
As to your suggestion that these two represent stages in human thought, alright, if you must. But give them a *little* credit, there is nothing about either of them to be so slighted as to suggest any Phd from Podunk could go them one better.
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Forgive me Inselpeter if my remarks sounded impertinent and brash. I usually venerate with the best of yall, but do you not think that the very worthwhile endeavors of Kant belong to the nineteenth century and should be given rest.
Just before writing my podunk post I was thinking about voo-doo. And Sigmund Freud. And the twentieth century when a hundred million people suffering from mental illness were treated by the empty but vogued words and ideas of Sigmund Freud. I was one, at first, that celebrated his writings as gospel.
The twenty-first century is upon us we need new words and ideas to reach the twenty-second.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The thing that bothered me most about philosophy was the ability of each new philospher
to demolish the ideas of his predecessors. And the abiguity of their verbiage gives me a
headache. I do not pretend to understand it.
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Pooh-Bah
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<<Forgive me IP...and should be given a rest>>
Well, I don't have much use for Freud, either but I wouldn't call him a stage in human thought. (One thing about Freud, he doesn't understand Kant). I'm not really sure where all the suffering of the last century comes into the discussion. At any rate, I'm didn't mean to launch into a defense of his thinking -- only to suggest that one need not dismiss him. Poetry is also useless -- but I like some of it.
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<<Forgive me IP...and should be given a rest>>
Forgive me IP, two more brief points and I will stop beating around your bush and give myself a rest.
...I'm not really sure where all the suffering of the last century comes into the discussion...-IP
(1) Three generations of freudian psychoanalysts were unleashed on a trusting public by the modern medical profession. After eighty years of treatment and untold billions of dollars spent by governments and desperate people, their cure rate was found to somewhat less than voo-doo doctors. Kant is considered one of the most influential people of the past millennium. So is Freud. Kant meant no malice. Neither did Freud. The danger of the sparkling ideas of Kant is that they are not being used as a base to build upon but rather as a jeweled navel stud for pedants to contemplate and quote.
Poetry is also useless -- but I like some of it. -IP
(2) By liking some poetry you give some poetry meaning.
And conversely, it is impossible to like something without that something possessing an evolutionary function. This, I think, is an extension of the thoughts of Kant.
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Pooh-Bah
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<<...navel stud for pedants...>>
Were we talking about Kant or pedants?
Are pedants responsible for the suffering of the twentieth century.
Kant was, by the way, 18th Century.
<<...impossible to like...without evolutionary function...>>
Oh?
<<By likeing something, you give it meaning>>
Are you saying that meaning is a utile? (not rhetorical)
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Responding to IP...
Were we talking about Kant or pedants?
You were talking about Kant and I was talking about pedants.
Are pedants responsible for the suffering of the twentieth century.
Yes. To the degree that their pedancy distracted from the good which they could have been doing to advance the cause of human comprehension of purpose.
Kant was, by the way, 18th Century.
But his ideas lived and flowered in the 19th.
<<...impossible to like...without evolutionary function...>>
Oh?
Oh yes.
<<By likeing something, you give it meaning>>
Are you saying that meaning is a utile? (not rhetorical)
Absolutely.
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