Kant Touch This
Duffy rose to the occasion with an erudite reply to my posting yesterday on my favorite subject: the way we are witnessing a betrayal of Enlightenment ideals of democracy and open debate, and a reversion to faith and authority as the organizing principles of government. I was going to put this in the comment field, but it was getting too long.
Here’s Duffy’s post in full, in case you missed it. Those parts in bold are germane to my reply.
Your assumption that Bush's thoughts and actions are not well thought out is absurd. Bush has vetted his thoughts through the prism of history, and his actions, while greatly weighted in his moral beliefs, are a result of those observations. And his goals are truly secular-Freedom and liberty, freedom of religion, free markets. It is you who refuses to acknowledge and open your mind to the possibility that a free Iraq greatly changes the landscape of tyranny and corruption in the Middle East. It is you who refuses to acknowledge the thirst for freedom of all human beings regardless of their religious beliefs. It is you who refuses to acknowledge the fact that once having tasted freedom, mankind tends not to reverse away, back to tyranny and oppression. It is you who refuses to acknowledge that free markets have created tremendous wealth and societal benefits, especially when compared to the results of unfree, restricted markets. I say it is you, rob, and all of your loyal readers who need to open their minds.
Why? Your argument about secular humanism is a nice try. Yesterday's WSJ editorial page had a wonderful rebuttal to your continued use of this argument, and as I stated above, Bush's actions are completely secular. The piece by Dinesh D'Souza titled "Not So 'Bright'" shoots holes all through your concerns.
Perhaps you are familiar with Immanuel Kant? D'Souza writes, "The Fallacy of the Enlightenment is the glib assumption that there is only one limit to what human beings can know, and that limit is reality itself. In this view, widely held by atheists, agnostics and other self-styled rationalists, human beings can continually find out more and more until eventually there is nothing more to discover. The Enlightment Fallacy holds that human reason and science can, in principle, unmask the whole of reality.
In his "Critique of Pure Reason," Kant showed that this premise is false. In fact, he argued, there is a much greater limit to what human beings can know. The only way that we apprehend reality is through our five senses. But why should we believe, Kant asked, that our five mode instrument for apprehending reality is sufficient for capturing all of reality? What makes us think that there is no reality that goes beyond, one that simply cannot be apprehended by our five senses?"
He goes on to say, "Kant isn't arguing against the validity of perception or science or reason. He is simply showing their significant limits."
Perhaps you, Rob, are limiting yourself to your own enlightenment?
To which, I retort:
- As far as Bush's goals and methods, I take him and his supporters at their word. Bush talks about his faith every chance he gets. His religious right supporters loathe the idea of secular humanism, which they believe is diabolically-inspired (in the link, you will see that the rejection of Enlightenment philosophy is quite explicit). There is no evidence that he disagrees with them, either in his words or his policies. Bush has said to interviewers that he doesn't read much, and gets his news from advisors rather than the press. His White House was characterized by John DiUllio (pardon spelling) as rabidly anti-intellectual and completely uninterested in non-political policy details and context. If Bush has any awareness of history, he has not demonstrated it. If you value a leader who “has vetted his thoughts through the prism of history” and whose “goals are truly secular,” I suggest you look elsewhere.
- Where do you get this idea that I’m against free markets? Free market economics is one of the great triumphs of Enlightenment philosophy, but as even Adam Smith will tell you, all markets need regulation to function properly. There’s also a point at which trusting the market to take care of everything lapses into idiocy. Markets exist to serve people, not vice versa. However, I’d venture to say that I’m more pro-free-trade than our President, with his protectionist steel tariffs and budget-busting farm subsidies.
- In the case of Iraq, I am not saying that the people’s “thirst for freedom” is inhibited by their religious beliefs, but rather that the whole culture of the Middle East, of which religion (Islam, Judaism and early Christianity) is part, sees the idea of freedom very differently than we do. Consequently, the attitude of the people towards the promise of freedom in the Western political sense is somewhat less enthusiastic. That’s not their failing: it’s ours for not properly understanding the cultural context. Then there’s the whole idea that religious people in general are looking for limits and rules, not freedom, but that’s a different subject entirely and probably not what you were talking about.
- I was forced to read Kant in school and am familiar with his arguments, but must admit that he is too boring even for me, who reads 900-page histories of the Inquisition for fun. Suffice it to say that suggesting that there are limits to human knowledge strikes a blow against some conceits of the radical empiricists, but the point I was trying to make is not quite that strong. It’s one thing to suggest that there are natural forces we will never understand; it’s another to imply that there is something wrong with trying to use proven, sensible methods of observation and deduction to guide our behavior in social/political (e.g., human) situations, rather than relying on guidance from inflexible dogma.
- Some people are impressed with d’Souza. I’m not, generally speaking. Plus, I can’t find a copy of the article to read – it doesn’t seem to be on the OpinionJournal site. Can you send it to me somehow? And regardless, I doubt that d’Souza – an admirer of the traditional Liberal Arts curriculum – is somehow making a case against the Western intellectual tradition.
11:21:23 AM 
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