Kant Dictionary

Morris Stockhammer

• Editorial: Philosophical Library/Open Road
• Año: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781504076333
• Categoría: Philosophy
• Categoría: History & Theory of Philosophy

An accessible A-to-Z reference guide to the complex works of the eighteenth-century philosopher.

A great thinker of the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant was born in Königsberg, Prussia, in 1724. He rarely left his hometown and never left his country. He did, however, frequently venture into the spiritual and boundless realm of human thinking, from which he brought back his great philosophical works.

In the Kant Dictionary, editor Morris Stockhammer brings together essential concepts, terms, meanings, and definitions from Kant's vast body of work. The goal was to provide a concise reference tool that penetrates Kant's complex system of thought and elucidates his philosophy. Now students and laypeople may have easier access to works once limited to scholars.

S

SABBATH The true sense of ‘Sabbath’ is not rest in general, but solemn rest.

LE.

SACRIFICE It is better to sacrifice one’s life than one’s morality. To live is not a necessity; but to live honorably while life lasts is a necessity.

LE.

SAGE The sage is happy in himself, he possesses all things, he has within himself the source of cheerfulness and righteousness, he is a king because he is lord of himself and, being his own master, he cannot be mastered. Such perfection could be attained only by strength in overcoming obstacles, and so a sage was regarded as even greater than the gods themselves, because a god had no temptations to withstand and no obstacles to overcome.

LE.

SAVAGE Savages prefer senseless freedom to rational freedom.

PP.

Savages who go about stark-naked, are cold towards each other.

LE.

SAVING A man ought to be less saving in his old age than he was in his youth because he has fewer years of life to look forward to and will consequently need less.

LE.

SCEPTICAL OBJECTION The sceptical objection places assertion and denial side by side, as of equal value, taking one or the other now as dogma, and now as denial; and being thus in appearance dogmatical on both sides, it renders every judgment on the object impossible.

CPuR.

SCEPTICISM The sceptics are like nomadic tribes, who hate a permanent habitation.

CPuR.

Scepticism is that artificial and scientific agnosticism which undermines the foundations of all knowledge, in order if possible to leave nothing trustworthy and certain anywhere.

CPuR.

Scepticism makes short work with the whole of metaphysics.

CPuR.

The sceptical manner of avoiding a troublesome business seems to be the shortest way out of all difficulties.

CPuR.

Scepticism is a resting place of understanding, where it may reflect for a time on its dogmatical wanderings and gain a survey of the region where it happens to be, in order to choose its way with greater certainty for the future: but it can never be its permanent dwelling place.

CPuR.

SCHOLAR For a scholar, thinking is a kind of food without which he cannot live, whether he learns from books or contemplates or invents.

QuF.

Man is certainly not intended for learning only, and all of us cannot be scholars. Life is too short for that, and just as some are soldiers and some sailors, it is only some of us who ought to devote and dedicate ourselves to scholarship.

LE.

Only scholars can judge of scholars.

QuF.

Scholars follow their calling for the love of learning and not as a means of earning a fortune; they recognize that their profession is not a profitable, money-making business.

LE.

One scholar will not form a friendship of taste with another; because their capacities are identical; they cannot entertain or satisfy one another, for what one knows, the other knows too. But a scholar can form such a friendship with a businessman or a soldier. Provided the scholar is not a pedant and the businessman not a blockhead, each of them can talk entertainingly to the other about his own subject.

LE.

The learned are seemingly the only class to observe the beauty which God has placed in the world. Can they not, therefore, claim superiority over their fellows? But listen to Rousseau; he turns the argument round and says: ‘Man was not made for erudition, and scholars by their learning pervert the end of humanity.’ What, then, are we to say? Rousseau is right up to a point, but when he goes on to talk of the damage that science does, he is badly at fault.

LE.

SCHOOLS The ridiculous despotism of the schools raises a loud clamor of public danger, whenever the cobwebs are swept away of which the public has never taken the slightest notice, and the loss of which it can therefore never perceive.

CPuR.

SCIENCE Without any love of honor, the sciences would lose their incentive.

LE.

If science is to be advanced, all difficulties must be laid open, and we must even search for those that are hidden, for every difficulty calls forth a remedy, which cannot be discovered without science gaining either in extent or in exactness; and thus even obstacles become means of increasing the thoroughness of science.

CPrR.

Vide Concealment.

The sciences are principles for the betterment of morality.

LE.

We do not enlarge, but we only disfigure the sciences, if we allow their respective limits to be confounded.

CPuR.

SCIENTIFIC DIFFICULTIES If the scientific difficulties are intentionally concealed, or merely removed by palliatives, then sooner or later they burst out into incurable mischiefs, which bring science to ruin in an absolute scepticism.

CPrR. Vide Disclosure.

SCOFFER The scoffer may be either scornful or mocking. An habitual scoffer betrays his lack of respect for others and his inability to judge things at their true value.

LE.

SCORN Scorn is malicious.

LE.

SECOND NATURE Place and custom form a second nature of which men are not conscious.

A.

SECRETS Secrets have a way of coming out, and strength is required to prevent ourselves betraying them. A secret told is like a present given.

LE.

Men who are not very talkative as a rule keep secrets well, but conversationalists who are at the same time clever, keep them better. The former might be induced to betray something, but the latter’s gift of repartee invariably enables them to invent on the spur of the moment something noncommittal.

LE.

SECTS There are religious sects. These are associations formed by men for the cultivation of their common religious views and sentiments. This is on the face of it a laudable purpose, but it tends to harden the heart against and to ostracize those who stand outside the pale of the particular sect.

LE.

SELF Just as an innkeeper gives a thought to his own hunger when his customers have finished eating, so a man gives a thought to himself at the long last for fear that he might forget himself altogether.

LE.

The moral self elevates man above himself.

CPrR.

SELF-COMPULSION The more a man practices self-compulsion the freer he becomes. Some men are by nature more disposed to magnanimity, forgiveness, righteousness. It is easier for these to compel themselves and they are to that extent the freer. But no man is above self-compulsion.

LE.

SELF-CONCEIT Self-conceit and dejection are the two rocks on which man is wrecked if he deviates, in the one direction or the other, from the moral law. On the one hand, man should not despair, but should believe himself strong enough to follow the moral law. On the other hand, he should avoid self-conceit and an exaggerated notion of his powers.

LE.

SELF-CONFIDENCE We ought to show self-confidence and an air dégagé.

A.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS Man is raised high above all other creatures by having the notion I; this is what makes him a person.

A.

SELF-CONSTRAINT The concept of duty can contain no constraint except self-constraint, as far as the inner determination of the will is concerned.

MM.

SELF-DEFILEMENT The thought of self-defilement is so revolting that even calling such a vice by its proper name is considered a kind of indecency.

MM.

SELF-DESTRUCTION Man alters his ideal of happiness so often that nature could hardly cope with it. Moreover, with so many self-devised plagues, tyrannies, barbaric wars, he works at his own self-destruction. Our constitution is not made for happiness.

CJ.

SELF-ESTEEM The...