Kant’s reason holds utopia and calculation in unresolved contradiction

Evidence

By his bold identification of doing one’s duty with freedom, Kant ruled this character of duty out of court, but thereby confused the negative side of freedom with its positive side. We are apparently free to do or not to do the duty we feel above us as an ideal; but, actually, complete freedom exists only in regard to not doing it, since to do it follows from a psychic imperative, from a coercion which is the inner equivalent of the legal coercion of society. — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 9374 (#expands, via linked claim)

The difficulty arises from the fact that understanding (Verstand), ‘the unity of a possible experience’, and reason (Vernunft), ‘resting on the understanding and its judgements’, seem to be two separate instances. Because of this, reason does not enter into any constitutive relations with experience, nor with a posteriori knowledge. While Kant did posit the principle of the understanding, he retreated from ‘the still purer Idea of an understanding (Verstand) which would be at the same time a posteriori, the idea of an absolute middle term formed by intuitive understanding’. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 893 (#qualifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Kant separated understanding from reason so reason never touches experience — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 893; Kant absolutized historical contradictions into nature, thereby affirming the status quo — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 215; Kant’s critical idealism planted seeds for later ideology theory without historicizing knowledge (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Kant conflated negative freedom with its positive side in duty #expands (0.78) — Georg Simmel, The Sociology of Georg Simmel, 9374
• Kant separated understanding from reason so reason never touches experience #qualifies (0.75) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 893
• Kant’s critical idealism planted seeds for later ideology theory without historicizing knowledge #expands (0.72)
• A non-dialectical contradiction stays unresolved and without solution #expands (0.72) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 98
• Kant absolutized historical contradictions into nature, thereby affirming the status quo #complicates (0.70) — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 215