The Birth of Nothingness From the Spirit of Enlightenment

2018

The question of Nothingness was always asked in the history of philosophy at the sidelines of philosophical thought. Yet there is another tradition beginning with Plotinus and ending with Mainlander, where Nothingness is given priority or is instrumental in making other concepts like being, essence and God distinct. The intention of the text is to demonstrate that nothingness, through its denial or its affirmation, plays an important role in the conceptualization of being and occupies a central place, which is necessary to recover, in the philosophical tradition.

Kant defines ‘enlightenment’ as ‘humankind’s emergence from its self-imposed immaturity’. This essay considers the meaning, role, and novelty of this definition, while also examining its relation to the Enlightenment slogans: ‘sapere aude’ (‘Dare to be wise!’) and ‘Think for yourself’. It is argued that there are two subtly different aspects to the ‘immaturity’ from which Kant, insofar as he endorses the transformative process of enlightenment, is urging us to ‘emerge’. These aspects correspond to his two images of immaturity: first, confinement within a kind of baby walker (Gängelwagen), and, second, attachment to ‘leading strings’ (Leitbande). It is argued that the first is a matter of thinking only ‘by courtesy’, the second a matter of thinking under the guidance of another – one’s guardian. It is asked whether Kant’s slogan ‘think for yourself’ might not be pragmatically self-defeating, and whether his insistence that one think for oneself can be made consistent with his permitting belief formation on the basis of the testimony of another. Finally, Kant’s concept of enlightenment is situated with respect to his distinction between the public and private ‘uses of reason’, on the one hand, and his defence of ‘freedom of the pen’, on the other.

Philosophical and Humanistic Postmodern Views INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC CONFERENCE 2012, 2012

This paper aims to understand Kant’s conception of Enlightenment and, in particular the idea of “Sapere Aude” (dare to think for yourself), described in his article published in 1784 An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment ? where he defines pre-enlightened people as living in a self-imposed “minority”. In the first part of the article, I will develop this notion, along with a process of domestication of human beings. In the second part, I will examine the solutions proposed to overcome this situation, with particular emphasis on the development by the State, of the so-called “public use of reason”.

Cosmos and History, 2017

The objective of this article is to refer to and identify the implicit presence of the concept of nothingness in the central philosophical proposals of last century's French philosophy. Even though the authors are not considered Nihilistic in themselves, there does exist in them an identification contained in their reflections that point towards a particular conception of nothingness, or to one of its analogies. The study commences arguing the idea of a great puppet master as a metaphor of nothingness that is implicit in Sartre's thought; following, that unseen region that man cannot come to contemplate, according to Merleau-Ponty, will be boarded; afterwards, .reference will be made to the idea of shadow contributed by Levinas and its implications in philosophy that were passed on to us; lastly, the focus will be on what Derrida denominated as " veils " , which do not allow us to see what is.

Prajña Vihara, 2018

The question of Nothingness was always asked in the history of philosophy at the sidelines of philosophical thought. Yet there is another tradition beginning with Plotinus and ending with Mainländer, where Nothingness is given priority or is instrumental in making other concepts like being, essence and God distinct. The intention of the text is to demonstrate that nothingness, through its denial or its affirmation, plays an important role in the conceptualization of being and occupies a central place, which is necessary to recover, in the philosophical tradition.

2017

The objective of this article is to refer to and identify the implicit presence of the concept of nothingness in the central philosophical proposals of last century’s French philosophy. Even though the authors are not considered Nihilistic in themselves, there does exist in them an identification contained in their reflections that point towards a particular conception of nothingness, or to one of its analogies. The study commences arguing the idea of a great puppet master as a metaphor of nothingness that is implicit in Sartre’s thought; following, that unseen region that man cannot come to contemplate, according to Merleau-Ponty, will be boarded; afterwards, .reference will be made to the idea of shadow contributed by Levinas and its implications in philosophy that were passed on to us; lastly, the focus will be on what Derrida denominated as “veils”, which do not allow us to see what is. Normal 0 21 false false false ES-MX X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTabl...

Con-textos Kantianos: International Journal of Philosophy, 2015

I urge here that Kant’s essay “What is Enlightenment?” be read in the context of debates at the time over the public critique of religion, and together with elements of his other writings, especially a short piece on orientation in thinking that he wrote two years later. After laying out the main themes of the essay in some detail, I argue that, read in context, Kant’s call to “think for ourselves” is not meant to rule out a legitimate role for relying on the testimony of others, that it is directed instead against a kind of blind religious faith, in which one either refuses to question one’s clerical authorities or relies on a mystical intuition that cannot be assessed by reason. Both of these ways of abandoning reason can be fended off if we always submit our private thoughts to the test of public scrutiny: which is why enlightenment, for Kant, requires both free thinking, by each individual for him or herself, and a realm of free public expression in which individuals can discuss...

Journal of Research in Philosophy and History , 2019

This article offers a strategy of human liberation centering itself on an open attitude before nothingness, its recognition, and valuation for personal life. Far from being a religious, fundamentalist, or proselytizing proposal, the text presents an argument against the attitude of searching for the Truth, understanding it as the absolute certainty. It starts off from the idea that man must relativize all processes of interpretation, this is to say, all hermeneutic exercises; with this, it is warned, it will be possible to liberate oneself from the exclusively linguistic search and from the linear or univocal learning. From this will be derived the contemplation of the option of being concerned for oneself, such as Foucault suggested, and of finding audible traces in silence which invite towards the comprehension of a nihilistic logic that is liberating from enslaving structures.

A Companion to Adorno, 2020

This chapter examines the traditional understanding of Horkheimer and Adorno's dialectic of enlightenment (exemplified by Jürgen Habermas and others), arguing that the traditional reading – with its stress on instrumental rationalization and a regressive or self‐destructive history – misses Horkheimer and Adorno's deepest aspirations, which are to offer an argument against a particular conceptualization of human agency (as apperceptive). Stressing instead, that Kant is the central interlocutor, the chapter shows how understanding this Kantian inheritance allows us to bring into focus the radical nature of Horkheimer and Adorno's argument: that it is meant to bring into focus the problematic nature of conceiving human agency as dependent on apperception. In presenting this problem, the chapter shows how the ontogenetic origin of self‐consciousness becomes a crucial issue, and the thought of Sigmund Freud is marshaled both to make this clear and to show how Horkheimer and Adorno's account can benefit from making explicit its potential debt to Freud.

2018

This paper deals with a brief account of the life of Immanuel Kant, elaborates upon his theory of epistemology, in which he merges the tradition of rationalism and empiricism, and how he responds to the question placed froth by David Hume, the famous Scott. The paper, also explicates the ethical stand of Kant, his Deonotological Ethics.