Re: Unusual line of reasoning in Kant's response to the antinomy of free will

Hey Scott
To summarise he seems to be saying that infinity is incomprehensible.
That there has to be a starting point (with a god?), an origin for
change to be comprehensible. That is you ignore a start and accpet an
infintite universe then you have also to reject change.
infinte implies changeless.

The second paragraph seems to suggest the same. It asked that, having
ignored the puzzle and finding no change you would not be able to
understand being and not being.

I don't think there is a problem here between paragraphs. Two merely
reasserts one.
You might like to take issue with the viewpoint that infinite is
incompatible with change, however.


On Nov 9, 7:19 pm, Scott H <zinites_p...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> In response to determinism, Kant explains how the antinomy of free
> will arises from a misuse of reason:
>
> "The possibility of an infinite origination, without a first member in
> regard to which everything else is merely subsequent, cannot be made
> comprehensible. But if you want to dismiss this puzzle of nature, then
> you will find yourselves compelled to reject many basic synthetic
> characteristics (basic forces) that you are just as little able to
> comprehend, and even the possibility of a change as such must then
> become objectionable to you."
>
> Up to here, I followed him. But then he says,
>
> "For if you did *not* find through experience that change is actual
> [my emphasis on "not"], then you would never be able to excogitate a
> priori how such an unceasing sequence of being and not-being is
> possible."
>
> If instead of "for" he had written "however," I wouldn't have
> considered it unsound writing. But then I would need a definition of
> "change as such."
>
> I would have expected a proof by contradiction, i.e., "If you *did*
> find through experience that change was actual, then..."