"Phil Roberts, Jr." <philrob@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> reageerde als volgt:
>[quote]
> One of the slipperiest terms in the philosophical lexicon,
>'rationality' is many things to many people (Alvin Plantinga).
>[unquote]
As you post this in the Kant-group, I'll confine myself to Kant.
The beginning of the core of Kantian thinking (critical thinking that
is) does not date from 1781 (his first critique) but from almost 10
years earlier, Kants letter to Herz (1772). (*)
In my opinion he there introduces his opinion about rationalism and
empiricism although he doesn't use those terms there. He uses two
different terms instead: "intellectus ectypus" and "intellectus arche-
typus". I think that those two ways to contemplate the human intellect
correspond to what can be regarded as (respectively) empiricism and
rationalism.
The following is the very heart of that letter, I think. I will try to
translate it literally, though neither English nor German is my mother
tongue (and I was very bad language scholar):
"Ich frug mich nemlich selbst: auf welchem Grunde beruhet die
Beziehung desienigen, was man in uns Vorstellung nennt, auf den
Gegenstand?"
"I asked myself, as a matter of fact: on what grounds rests the
relation****p between what we (on one side) call representation
and (on the other side) the object itself?"
Then some line later he introduces this two types of intellect
mentioned above (one can find the rest on the internet using those
terms)
JH
--
* In German: http://www.ikp.uni-bonn.de/kant/briefe/70.html,
I do not
have an english translation nor do I have a url of it.
|
