Posts Tagged ‘Reason’

what is kantianism??? philosophy modern reason?

Wednesday, February 1st, 2012

Question by : what is kantianism??? philosophy modern reason?
kant???…. in words i can understand what did this philosopher say???

Best answer:

Answer by Julia
kantianism is the philosophy of kant

What do you think? Answer below!

General Commentaries: Spirituality, Religion, Reason, Science

Friday, October 14th, 2011

Imagination is only a groping. It has no value unless it is divinely inspired, for then it becomes inspiration. Completely new terms can be made up by new-age authors. A lot of science fiction and fantasy movies also come up with several new terms which you might not have heard before. Ingenious sure, but empty all the same. Sometimes they run out of terms to explain what they are trying to say, so what do they do? They borrow from other age-old cultures and just use terms superficially. So, before one reads new-age books, one must read some real spiritual books, try to have real inner experience, and then you will have the discerning ability to tell the real from the false. But if you rather just be swooped up in some fancy imagination than the real truth, then you should just continue reading novellas and short stories and have fun.

 Imagination, as beautiful and as creative as it can be at times, is aesthetically pleasing but is also vacant and void and often baseless and non-revealing of any higher truth. It may correspond to something higher in a very faint and obscure way but it has the danger of leading you astray and away from the harsh realities that must be endured on the way to the truth if you lack discernment and rational discrimination. Imagination is a tool for us lower beings with our limited mentality and our obscure groping for truth. However, if used well it can be a good tool to reach out into the unrealized possibilities, and our minds could be like antennae that pick up on the unmanifest and will to create it here in the material realm. Some beings tend to have more power to realize and manifest what they imagine and sometimes it betters humanity and sometimes it worsens and sometimes it’s neither. It comes from the universal mind. The universe is impartial so it allows the complete and utter realization of any possibility that can be thought up and there is nothing we can imagine that isn’t already contained in the framework of the universe. It may not exist in our current world or be a part of our present existence but it still exists in seed state or realized in subtler realms. Otherwise, somebody like a Tesla could never have invented things that were yet incomprehensible to most people then. So, I admit that imagination can be used as a tool towards realization of truth, but when one ascends to higher levels of consciousness, the dependence on imagination recedes and must be abandoned in favour of inspiration and intuition combined with higher discrimination from higher and deeper realms. Also, there is a strong will required and a detailed thought process involved in converting these ideations, imaginations or inspirations into something material that is utilizable and applicable in Life.

Things that have fancy names and are colourful and make a lot of noise obviously lack content and attract attention through vacant polysyllables. The beauty should be in the content and the living truth that it represents, not some far off fantasy. These things often don’t have a definite demarcation between them. We can ideate and try to define them but that would lower its content. Then it loses value. Our language is insufficient to express higher truths. So one must first realize and live in the truth oneself and then transform one’s own being entirely before his exterior equipments (mind, life, body) are ready to express it without dilution or distortion. But most new age authors just read a lot of ancient history and scriptures from various great civilizations of the past and then just use their extremely imaginative mind to make up their own little world by which they then try and proselytize undeveloped minds. And people just buy into it because it’s been published as a book. These shouldn’t receive more importance than a novel or a short story that took you on a surreal journey yet when you’re back on the ground you must use your rational mind to discern the truth alone. Often times certain novels and stories written in the right spirit expresses more truth than this new-age nonsense. It is just a marketing gimmick. I am all for synthesizing and integrating truths from various timeless cultures but it has to be a synthesis of truth and truth alone. It must not be a mere enthusiastic and ecclesiastical orgy of polysyllables and exotic terminology engineered to invade the undeveloped minds of the ignorant mass. It must be an integration of the essence and not just terms and false symbols. None of these authors have had any authentic spiritual realizations. Neither is their outer nature transmuted enough to express the truth in any form.

 Almost all ancient texts from around the world are esoteric in the sense that they contain hidden truths, which they represent in an interactive, often extra-logical ways; kind of like a fairy tale. They exaggerate it to such an extent that it is purposely meant for you to look beyond the literal and into the deeper psychological subtleties leading to truths. However, majority of the world still hasn’t developed much of a thought-force and rather not think and just repose on the mundane. Once you have been awakened to deeper meaning behind the ancient symbolism, your perspective changes for ever. You tend to see it everywhere you look.

Terms such as religion, God, spirit and soul have all been corrupted indeed, by the limited understanding of puny minds. So, when science advanced, it found it easy to disprove all the so called “religious” truths because even the so called “religious and spiritual” leaders did not have a proper understanding of their own beliefs as science did of science. So materialism took over and we see the world today as its most extreme form. It seems today that matter and spirit are mutually exclusive but the perfect reconciliation of the two is what will set humanity free and immortal.

In the words of the great Seer-poet-philosopher Sri Aurobindo:

 ”Atheism in Europe has been a shallow and rather childish reaction against a shallow and childish exoteric religionism and its popular inadequate and crudely dogmatic notions.”

This sort of atheism, materialism, capitalism, positivism and agnosticism is more pronounced in the west than the East. In the east there never was and possibly never will be such an unbridgeable gap between spirituality, mysticism, Religion and Science because all Eastern philosophies work towards synthesis and reconciliation. This comes easy to them because they start from an essential unity whereas all western thought begins from a multiplicity and differentiation and division. The West tends to live in the realm of the mind which has a natural tendency to division and separation and exclusive analysis and thus cannot look at the whole. It takes a part for the whole and gives it an absolute value. Thus its perspective is limited only to that portion no matter how large the portion. Eastern thought on the other hand views the world from the largeness and vastness of the spirit and thus even the most opposite of principles fuse into one essentially instead of an eternal dichotomy.

Science is still playing catch up to Spirituality & Occultism, which have a few thousand years of head start. Yet science arrogantly claims the findings as its own & discredits others; fails to acknowledge the truth in them. Perhaps, it has become a new kind of dogma and a new church. The Power of the Mantra, known to ancients millennia ago is now starting to be accepted by science as per the article by Grazyna Fosar and Franz Bludorf, “Scientist Prove DNA Can Be Reprogrammed by Words & Frequencies”. Take the long route science. I shall be waiting on the mountain peaks of the Spirit, if & when you transcend your limiting intellect & eventually get there. For our destination is the same.

However, Science cannot be completely discredited or dismissed. Science has made an immense contribution in terms of analyzing and classifying details of creation. It has brought to light the minute and detailed workings of world nature and physical matter and is constantly moving towards further perfection. However, it must work within its limits and stick to what it knows and what it’s expertise entails. It must not state its claim on non-physical or supra-physical phenomenon using physical means. It must constantly move towards a truth and be flexible in its approach and not be fixed in its ways. It must be willing to accept other possibilities beyond the physical and widen its scope and its future development. It must not become a new religion but be constantly in pursuit of truth be willing to accommodate varied viewpoints if it is to enlarge its scope.

The superficiality and the superfluousness of the world can be really frustrating at times and the Ignorance and stupidity that brews daily is just simply repugnant. However, we can only try and live the truth. That is the only way we can lead by example. Whatever truth is concretely and subjectively realized must be objectified and externalized in life and must constantly remain living. This is what the ancient rituals of various traditions such as Vedas and Tantras aimed at when they translated their inner realization as outward rites and actions. However, they have a tendency to become mechanical over time since the average man is unable to see the living truth behind the form and hold it in his heart and mind whilst performing such a rite. Hence, Spiritual realization must come first and we must be a conscious instrument, forever spontaneously acting out the truths based on the intimations received from that infinite spiritual space.

Reason used upon itself and for itself only leads to agnosticism and facts or logic leave no room for other possibilities. Reason must be used to transcend

The Enigma: Reason, Metaphysics and Experience

Friday, July 29th, 2011

If we look into the same object we are immediately faced with reasoning out concerning the object itself. What is this? Where does this come from? And what is it for ( the why question)?

The object itself needs explanation and reason is the vehicle of explanation.. Whether we are objective in our reasoning or subjective the effort purports to the same thing: knowledge. Nevertheless, science, with its all progress remain sterile in unveiling reality and leaves the door open for metaphysics.

Epistemology discussing the nature of the plausibility of a thing does not solve the question of presence, origin and finality, for it reaches sterility of thought at the end of more investigation into these questions.

Metaphysics is dead according to the Cartesian reason, but is it? How does experimental knowledge claim empirical knowledge while the most exact of sciences remain at loss of finding out what reality is.

We all are equipped with a mind that no one, none, what so ever, knows where the hell our mind comes from, what is it doing in this world, and what is its finality targeting knowledge or ignorance.

Aristotelian metaphysics was meant to discuss first principles. But Aristotle attempted the impossible. He attempted to prove the existence of God by ‘necessity’ prompted by movement. His theoretical findings did not even pass the most rudimentary level of utter speculations and conjecture.

He claimed that by observing movement in the universe we need a prime mover and he jumped to the false assumptions that for such a necessity we need a God, who is eternal, like the objects itself, he must be prime principle and prime mover, but unmoved Himself, He ought to be good and His job is to contemplate His own intelligence. But according to Aristotle God did Not create anything. Everything was there and the mere function of God is to move things eternally.

Cartesian knowledge necessitates experience to validate knowledge. In other words empirical knowledge must be subject to proof. Since this is the stand of science today, and for the last four centuries after Laplace and Descartes, refreshed by Kant Kuhn who proclaim the death of metaphysics but metaphysics is still the only other alternative to the sterility of scientific knowledge.

Nevertheless, science with its claims to empirical objective evidence dependant of experimental knowledge does not explain the enigma of things, the enigma of the universe, its presence, its function, its control, its change, its dilution, its behavior, its finality. Science toady with all its progress does not even touch on why life is there.

It does not even explain the origin of life, its presence and its function, its control and, who has put it there. No one explanation for who put the universe in its place. Why should man confront the universe, remains a question enigmatic as mysterious as man himself along side the presence of two million animal species in the world today, not counting the flora, the mineral and other microscopic life manifestations.

The mystery of it all remains as valid, as strong , as ever, Its impact on the layman mind, like everyone else, is impossible to be solves, It remains a mystery, a constant enigma. Reality, as the first target of science and scientific thought, remain unveiled. We live in a world that remains a mystery, in its presence, origin-especially that- and its function and its finality. No science can pretend to knowledge of mater, whether white, black or yellow. No one can pretend to know where our mind came from.

No science can pretend to describe how man came about, how life came about. A stupid Darwin did not unveil anything, but plunged further in metaphysical finalities that darkened reality with conjectural speculation.

For this metaphysics, dealing with questions of reality still as strong as ever, if not more realistic, than science which )believes only in what it sees- denying the plausibility, or the necessity of a creator-designer-architect who could have made everything, that has control over everything.

This is exactly the first principle, responsible for making everything. He is the origin, the maker, the creator, source of all knowledge, the controller and finality of everything. He is Reality. But scientists, with all their knowledge, remain blind to reality and remain arrogantly blind for they need evidential- empirical-experimental proof for the existence of God and God’s role in creation. T

hey rarely look into themselves and wonder how they are forced to confront the universe and that without their minds they are worth nothing. Thanks to their minds that they think, but they miss the most important thing in their thinking namely to acknowledge the power that has given them mind to think and eyes to see.

Metaphysics, with the sterility of science, remain indispensible for man, to uncover what is real, and to unveil what is true.

Reason to Believe: Why Faith Makes Sense

Tuesday, October 19th, 2010

  • ISBN13: 9781586170882
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Product Description
Is religious belief reasonable? Of course the so-called New Atheists, such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris, energetically say, No! Many others, including some believers, insist that faith is utterly beyond reasoned argument. Faith, they declare, is believing something that reason tells you cant be so. In this way they think they shield belief from rational criticism. But philosopher Richard Purtill will have none of that approach to religion. In this newly updated… More >>

Reason to Believe: Why Faith Makes Sense

Reason and Religious Belief: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion

Sunday, October 17th, 2010

Product Description
What is the status of belief in God? Must a rational case be made or can such belief be properly basic? Is it possible to reconcile the concept of a good God with evil and suffering? In light of great differences among religions, can only one religion be true?
The most comprehensive work of its kind, Reason and Religious Belief, now in its fourth edition, explores these and other perennial questions in the philosophy of religion. Drawing from the best in bot… More >>

Reason and Religious Belief: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion

Immanuel Kant: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics: That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science: With Selections from the Critique of Pure Reason

Friday, June 25th, 2010

Product Description
This new, revised edition of Kant’s Prolegomena, the best introduction to the theoretical side of his philosophy, presents his thought clearly through careful attention to his original language. Also included are selections from the Critique of Pure Reason, which fill out and explicate some of Kant’s central arguments (including famous sections of the Schematism and Analogies), and in which Kant himself explains his special terminology. The first reviews of the Crit… More >>

Immanuel Kant: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics: That Will Be Able to Come Forward as Science: With Selections from the Critique of Pure Reason