Ah-Hah! Kant Caught with his Lederhosen Down

[WAB]

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Reid

It has been claimed that his reputation waned after attacks on the Scottish School of Common Sense by Immanuel Kant (although Kant, only 14 years Reid's junior, also bestowed much praise on Scottish philosophy - Kant attacked the work of Reid, but admitted he had never actually read the works of Thomas Reid)

I used to trot out Thomas Reid in the old threads, not because I thought his thought was as sophisticated as someone like...oh... Decartes, Hegel, Kant, or my boy Spinoza, but because of his very humorous and gentle way of criticizing Hume and Berkeley. I read him on a PDF file, one of those older texts where some of the 's's look exactly like 'f''s— and whose bloody idea that was, well, I'd like to wring his bloody neck— and I couldn't believe how funny it was. Reid had a very fine, not terribly complex prose style, but he was FUNNY!

And now, I see that Kant attacked him without even reading him. Rats! I wish I had known that back then.

I realize that anything that comes within a thousand miles of the words "common sense", in the Ivory Tower, is going to immediately make it a H U G E target for scorn. But what bugs me is, Reid didn't use the term in quite the dunderheaded & simplistic way that most people imagine. In fact, Reid was quite brilliant, if conservative to a fault and totally at ease with tradition, the church, etc. Nonetheless, he was FUNNY!

Even if you didn't agree with his 'take-downs' of Hume and Berkeley, it is tremendously entertaining to hear him go about expressing his thought, which is not nearly as simple as the term "common sense" would imply.

**

Anyway, what scholar goes about attacking a book or a theory S/he hasn't read? Ayn Rand did that, and she was duly slammed, in C20. How come Kant got away with it so easily? It's one thing for the peanut gallery to pshaw, leap to conclusions, mock, and hand-wave; but an academic?

Or perhaps he was and I am not aware of it. ?

Bear in mind, this is NOT about whether Reid's criticism was apt, which is why I didn't post this in metaphysics or epistemology. To me it's about principles. Peanut gallery, armchair philosophers, fine; but major high-brows, I would imagine one would read a work, or works, one was planning to attack?

ETA: If anyone should be curious, whatever you do, DON'T read any of those butchered and bowlderized texts put out by someone (whose name escapes me) who thought S/he'd just go prancing through Reid's perfectly lucid prose and "modernize" it. I took a heartfelt look at it and I remember being incensed by what a hack job it was.

 

[WAB]

A-hah! Located the smarmy dishonest bastard:

https://www.amazon.com/Inquiry-Essay...ZJBMMW4F12AK65

DO NOT even go close to this hack job, appropriately issued by Hackett Classics.

From an astute negative review:

Top critical review
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43 people found this helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars

Warning! Abridged!

By Gerry Rzeppaon October 27, 2007

The editor says, "The present edition is an attempt to 'let Reid speak for himself.'" Yet he deletes the first two sections of Reid's primary essay and begins with the third! And he continues this practice throughout the work. Unacceptable. Get the whole story in an unabridged edition - Reid is worth reading.

And the well-meaning fools, Keith Lehrer, author, and Ronald E. Beanblossom ( !!!! ), editor, add insult to injury by asking 16 USD for this piece of bowlderized garbage.

In the words of a famous somebody, prophet or poet:

"Pray ye, avoid it."


Amazon summary, interesting because of the naming of this Hamilton person, who may be yet another well-meaning fool:

Reid’s previously published writings are substantial, both in quantity and quality. This edition attempts to make these writings more readily available in a single volume. Based upon Hamilton’s definitive two volume 6th edition, this edition is suitable for both students and scholars.

Beanblossom [!!!!] and Lehrer have included a wide range of topics addressed by Reid. These topics include Reid’s views on the role of common sense, scepticism, the theory of ideas, perception, memory and identity, as well as his views on moral liberty, duties, and principles. Historical as well as topical considerations guided the selection process. Thus, Reid’s responses to Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume are included. Through the resulting selections Reid’s influence and impact upon subsequent philosophers is manifested.

- um, NO, not really. Reid's actual words have been modernized, and their meaning confused, by well-meaning but utterly, hopelessly silly, university graduates, who have not a speck of understanding of what in the actual holy as all hell fuck they are talking about. But, it's not their fault, as a lot of the universities, especially in the US (and especially UCLA & Berkeley), have been nothing less, or more, than ultra-leftist, Stalinist, "unpersoning" sh.t holes, responsible for more deliberate, inexcusable, thoroughly systemic brainwashing than any religious loony.

****

I really hate to say this, but if I had another kid, I'd almost rather he went to a good private, Christian university, than to UCLA or Berkeley.

Antifa Schmantifa. If you stoop to the level of a nazi (uncapitalized on purpose, in the same way & for the same humanist reasons I say shitler instead of hitler), you run the risk of becoming a nazi yourself.

Bicycle locks bashing heads in is fascism. Starting fires and destroying property is fascism.

Free speech is, manifestly, not fascism. Nor is the defense of free speech. Even if you actually are a nazi defending free speech.

A silly & brainwashed college student recently said: "People who defend free speech are automatically suspect", thereby making herself, in any rational person's mind, deeply suspect.

By the by, my avatar shows my extremely beautiful ex-wife, who is the best mother in the world, a professional [med-tech & ER team leader/CNA/telemetry clerk, etc...] who now owns four cars, a notary public, and all around wonderful person. Far better person than I could ever hope to be.

The babe in her arms is my 2nd boy, Jordan, now a brilliant musician & guitarist, and I forgot what belt in Karate. He has the unfortunate bad luck of looking like his Pop instead of his Mama.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Sorry, Will, I wasn't even aware of the existence of this fine Scottish gentleman. Still, I just downloaded his book, well, the pdf of it, the whole 12 megabytes of it, thanks to Microsoft Co. and to the University of California Southern Regional Library Facility (or to Acrobat Reader, too).

It really looks beautiful on my laptop screen as it seems almost exactly like the actual thing would in my hands, complete with the yellowed paper, the stamped return dates for the few readers over there who did borrow the book at some point in a recent but just as well gone forever past. That's almost too much of a good moving thing to me right now. Bless you! I knew learning English would be a good investment! And it's beautifully written, too. And, he's actually acknowledged "De Cartes"! I'm close to tears here! I can almost see him holding a copy of the Meditations in his freezing and badly lit Scottish home in the dead of winter!

Still, I won't be reading it right now. Too emotional. I'll wait a bit (and I have a workload of serious business on my mind).

And I also can't comment on things I really know too very little about, like Kant and Scottish gentlemen of the past. I tend to lean on forgiveness these days, though. The incident just shows Kant was a human being, with all the usual flaws I already know too well just looking into myself and from watching other people, including those nearest to me.

Still, thanks again for this gift

And hold on tight in there.
EB

 

[WAB]

Sorry, Will, I wasn't even aware of the existence of this fine Scottish gentleman. Still, I just downloaded his book, well, the pdf of it, the whole 12 megabytes of it, thanks to Microsoft Co. and to the University of California Southern Regional Library Facility (or to Acrobat Reader, too).

It really looks beautiful on my laptop screen as it seems almost exactly like the actual thing would in my hands, complete with the yellowed paper, the stamped return dates for the few readers over there who did borrow the book at some point in a recent but just as well gone forever past. That's almost too much of a good moving thing to me right now. Bless you! I knew learning English would be a good investment! And it's beautifully written, too. And, he's actually acknowledged "De Cartes"! I'm close to tears here! I can almost see him holding a copy of the Meditations in his freezing and badly lit Scottish home in the dead of winter!

Still, I won't be reading it right now. Too emotional. I'll wait a bit (and I have a workload of serious business on my mind).

And I also can't comment on things I really know too very little about, like Kant and Scottish gentlemen of the past. I tend to lean on forgiveness these days, though. The incident just shows Kant was a human being, with all the usual flaws I already know too well just looking into myself and from watching other people, including those nearest to me.

Still, thanks again for this gift

And hold on tight in there.
EB

You are so welcome, dear friend.

Once you get into Reid, you may still be blinded by tears, but they will often be because he's so damn funny!

Okay, let's forget about Kant, and my silly thread.

Thanks for making that goose-egg disappear (in my silly brain, at least).

Hey - a zero into another number! Hip-hip-hoo-fricken-ray!