Kant's philosophy - Transcendental idealism

The Copernican Revolution in thinking which Kant caused – and which till today has barely been understood in all its depth and width – lies in the turn from transcendental realism, the necessary worldview of all unaufkläred people, to transcendental idealism. This marks the peak of aufklärung, which is much more and something much deeper than being free of prejudice or than criticism of the church to which it is usually reduced. And this is the insight on which the whole of Kant’s philosophy is founded (not to mention here its influence both on the ones who further developed Kant’s thought and on those who betrayed his philosophy, on Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Schiller, Schopenhauer and others). His epistemology, his critique of metaphysics, his concept of freedom, his moral philosophy, his philosophy of religion – all of them can only be understood through his transcendental idealism. It is based on the simple insight: Whatever is in our consciousness is therefore a representation, not a thing existing in itself. Quote: 0:08 Transcendental philosophy as a new mode of philosophizing: 0:18 The place of transcendental philosophy in Kant’s architectonic system: 17:05 Transcendental and transcendent: 23:50 Importance and difficulty of transcendental idealism: 32:08 Transcendental idealism: 43:26 The physical thing in itself and the transcendental thing in itself: 53:43 The “I think” must be able to accompany all my representations: 1:12:09 Common misunderstandings: Transcendental idealism doesn’t claim the world to be a mere illusion: 1:24:14 Without transcendental idealism there is the threat of scepticism: 1:40:23 Without transcendental idealism God and religion are impossible: 1:50:34 Without transcendental idealism laws of nature and natural science are impossible: 1:57:34 Know thyself: 2:12:04 In what sense Kant caused a “Copernican Turn”: 2:20:55 Critical philosophy lets us discover that we are perpetrators, not victims: 2:31:48 Thanks: 2:47:18 I don’t know of a better introduction to transcendental idealism and no explanation of its central thought that is more easy to understand than Fichte’s First Introduction to the Doctrine of Science: https://www.uni-trier.de/fileadmin/fb1/PHI/Fichte_Einleitungen_in_die_Wissenschaftslehre.pdf (English translations exist, but I couldn't find a free one on the internet) and the second book of his Vocation of Man: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Vocation_of_Man Those aren’t works by Kant of course. Whoever wants to read him himself should stick to the reading recommendations I will give under the following lectures, for the same works of Kant’s which are dedicated to the critique of the faculty of cognition, are also the works which deal with transcendental idealism. But not a single one of those works is easy to digest, and not a single one out of them I’d recommend as introduction to a beginner in philosophy, all of them Kant wrote for scholarly philosophers of his day, not for laypeople. The two works of Fichte on the other hand are not just brief and restricted to the main point, the explanation of transcendental idealism, they are also explicitly popular works, i. e. written for laymen interested in philosophy. And since transcendental idealism is precisely the revolutionary thought of Kant’s, which almost his whole value as a philosopher is based on, and on which the understanding of his whole philosophy hinges, I chose to recommend those works which, in my judgment, explain it best, even though they are not written by Kant. Whoever wants to support my aufkläring work can do so via: https://ko-fi.com/jonathanivoloewer https://www.patreon.com/jonathanivoloewer https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=VDDT7T7XHR77U Thumbnail: www.hotpot.ai