Thursday, March 30, 2017

Psyche and Reason

Three types of concept of the individual human Psyche are: 1. Essentially unrelated to an external environment; 2. Essentially related to the natural world; and 3. Essentially related to the human world.  Correspondingly, there are three types of Reason: Theoretical, Instrumental, and Social.  Accordingly, Kant's Rationalist response to Hume's subordination of Reason to the Passions can be understood as being based on the assertion that Psyche #3 can control #2, and, thus, that Social Reason can control the drives that Instrumental Reason serves as their means.  However, complicating this response is his ambition to systematize Theoretical Reason and Social Reason, with Pure Practical Reason the result of combining them.  In the process, the essential Social function gets obscured, and Kant opens Pure Practical Reason to Schopenhauer's charge that it is no different than Instrumental Reason.

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