Socialism 101 Part 5: The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant

[Kant’s] method of attack is to wage a campaign against the human mind. Man’s mind, he holds, is unable to acquire any knowledge of reality.

In any process of cognition, according to Kant, whether it be sense experience or abstract thought, the mind automatically alters and distorts the evidence confronting it.

Reason is impotent to discover anything about reality; if it tries, it can only bog down in impenetrable contradictions.

Since reason, logic, and science are denied access to reality, the door is now open for men to approach reality by a different, nonrational method. The door is now open to faith.*

And no matter how powerful the rational argument against their faith, that argument can always be dismissed out-of-hand : one need merely remind its advocate that rational knowledge and rational concepts are applicable only to the world of appearances, not to reality.

Kant also found it necessary to deny happiness, in order to make room for duty. The essence of moral virtue, he says, is selflessness—selfless, lifelong obedience to duty, without any expectation of reward, and regardless of how much it might make one suffer.

Morality, according to Kant, possesses an intrinsic dignity; moral action is an end in itself, not a means to an end. As far as morality is concerned, the consequences of an action are irrelevant.

Many false ethical theories have been advanced, in Kant’s view, but “the principle of one’s own happiness is the most objectionable of all. This is not merely because it is false... Rather, it is because this principle supports morality with incentives which undermine it and destroy all its sublimity....”

Source: Ominous Parallels.

 

*Misplaced faith can be bad and sometimes hazardous to a person’s health or to the health of a country. Like for instance faith in a political leader like Hitler or Stalin. Or a leader who talks about “social or economic justice.” That’s blind faith. That’s what I believe the author is talking about. Only faith in God is the only right kind of faith.

What Kant is talking about isn’t religion so much but a delusional philosophy. Most main stream religions teach physical reality exists but there is also a spiritual reality too. Any religion where you can’t question or use reason or even to have doubts is not a religion but a cult.