Jeg har læst den engelske udgave af filosoffen Jean Paul Mongins bog Professor Kant’s Incredible Day. Bogen egner sig til børn fra ca. 11 år og opefter. Den er også god til voksne. Jeg er imponeret over bogen. Den var virkelig spændende at læse. Den har givet mig en bedre forståelse af mennesket Immanuel Kant og hans filosofi end andre bøger, artikler eller videoer. Bogen er illustreret af Laurent Moreau. Billederne er med til at lette forståelsen. Det visuelle element er rart at have med og gør på en måde bogen mere spændende og vedkommende.
Kants punktlighed
Kants kammertjener Lampe vækker med udpræget punktlighed Kant hver morgen 5 minutter i 5: ‘”Time to get up!” Lampe grumbled at his master. As a former Prussian soldier, Lampe had pretty rustic manners. Nonetheless, he awoke the Professor every day at five to five with unfailing punctuality, and that was really mattered.’ Et andet eksempel på Kants præcision er, da han af en eller anden grund ikke går sin ‘digestive walk‘. En fortælling går på, at det var pga. hans optagethed af annonceringen om Den franske revolution. En anden fortælling går på, at han blev tilkaldt af den søde Maria Charlotta, og at han faktisk havde en meget romantisk eftermiddag. ‘What we do know, however, is that Professor Kant did not go on his digestive walk. For this stroll, usually so regular, had virtually become Königsberg’s time reference. For the longest time, the people of Königsberg set their clocks by the philosopher’s after-lunch promenade.’
Vigtigheden af videnskab og lovmæssighed for Kant
Kant opdager et for ham nyt lavpunkt, da han læser aviserne. En eller anden svensker lod som om, at han kunne forudsige fremtiden og kommunikere med de døde. Swedenborg, som svenskeren hed, hævdede, at han kunne tale med spøgelser. Kant mumler: ‘”I’ll show you and your Dutch ghost flying around with its trinkets – I’ll teach it to march in line, I will…”’ Kant tænker: ‘All these efforts to raise humankind up to science, to reject prejudices and superstitions, to spread the light of reason, so much rigor and sacrifice … and then still to read such quackery!’
Historien husker Kant som en en ret trist person. Hans hjem blev aldrig oplyst af bare en enkelt ung kvinde, der kom for at besøge ham. Så huset synes ikke at rumme andet end ensomheden og savnet i hans alvorlige meditationer. Det var imidlertid gennem arbejde, at livet for Kant bedst kunne værdsættes: ‘Upon brilliantly restoring the empire of reason, such as this morning, Kant couldn’t‘ prevent himself from feeling a burst of excitement, giving way to sweet ecstasy. After making sure that no one would bother him, he had a quick twirl around his astrolabe. In fact, nothing delighted Professor Kant as much as the regularity of his astrolabe which, when its springs and needles were triggered, could shift the tiny planets in order to calculate the predicted position of a celestial body.’
Kants kopernikanske vending
‘“This is what science is!” Kant reflected. “Each day we se the Sun rise and set if it were revolving around the Earth. And yet Anatole Copernikus demonstated that it is truly the Earth which revolves around the Sun!”’ Kopernikus lod sig ikke bedrage af almindelig erfaring. Han indsamlede data og beregnede stjernernes bevægelser. ‘By his experiments, he subjected the cosmos to questioning, as a judge compels witnesses to testify.’ At Kant er i kategorien ‘de tidligt moderne’ ses i og med hans kopernikanske vending. Vi skal kende subjektets erkendelsesevner, før vi indsamler viden om objekterne uden for subjektet dvs. verden omkring os: ‘It is the Sun, and not the Earth, which is at the center of the universe. It is my mind, and not an object, which is the center of knowledge … What a revolution!’
Kants ven, den schweizisk-franske filosof Jean-Jacques Rousseau
I slutningen af Kants gåtur til Königsberg universitet møder han sin ven Jean-Jacques Rousseau: ‘”Good day to you, Jean- Jacques, the Newton of morals!” he called out. Professor Kant used to despise ignorant people, placing knowledge above all else, even if he never refused a game of pool or a glass of wine. Jean-Jacques had shown him that within the diversity of races and cultures resides the unity of human nature, and had taught him to respect it.’
Kant som en blanding af rationalismen og empirismen
Kants kombinerer de to retninger rationalisme (Descartes m.v.) og empirisme (Locke, Hume m.v.): ‘”Human knowledge,” he hammered out to his students squeezed about him and spilling out into the hallway, “is of two sorts: on one side, you have what can be learned by experience, such as the peculiar taste of eel soup; on the other side, you have what is universal and necessary, what can be learned by the use of reason, as in mathematics or philosophy. In mathematics, one starts from indisputable definitions, for example, equations.”’
Kants kritik af fornuften
Fornuften stiller spørgsmål, som er umuligt at skubbe til side, som f.eks. at vide om Gud eksisterer, om vores sjæl er udødelig, om vi er frie. Her befinder vi os sammen med filosofferne før Kant i den overnaturlige arena: ‘I can prove that God exists; I can prove that He does not exist. Admit that it’s really rather confusing!’
Kant siger, at vi før vi tilgår sådan et problem, da må vi udsætte fornuften for en kritik! ‘Science must be called to appear in court, in order to reveal its legitimate claims and its limitations. Then we discover that science cannot provide answers to all questions.’ For at vide noget skal jeg kunne placere det i tid & rum. Tid og rum er den ramme, som mit sind giver al erfaring. Det er umuligt at undersøge Gud i tid og rum. Det er vigtigt, at du er opmærksom og ikke falder i søvn over dine overbevisninger. Ellers kan du tro alverdens ting og sager, der ligger uden for erfaringen. Det er i tid og rum, at min erfaring foregår, for går fornuften uden for tid og rum, er vi uden for erfaringen. Dette er netop Kants kritik af fornuften, og hans syn på hvad viden er for noget.
Udover anskuelsesformerne tid & rum taler Kant også om forstandskategorierne årsag & virkning. ‘”I am not speaking of faith here, I am speaking of knowledge. Take liberty, for example, a free act,” he continued. “Have you ever done anything completely freely, absolutely unselfishly? It could be doubted. We will never know. A free act cannot be explained, or else it is no longer free. Because we cannot conceive of something happening, just like that, out of nowhere. There is no beginning in nature, only a series of causes and effects.”’
Ifølge Kant er vi borgere i 2 verdener: naturlovene og moral
Verden med naturlovene eller videnskaben er forklaret ovenfor. Kants anden verden er moralens: ‘”Rest assured,” he said with a little smile. “It is not because we cannot prove liberty, the existence of God, and the immortality of the soul that we cannot think them. These questions may, while having no answer of scientific nature, be able to be resolved from a moral point of view. If we accuse the liar I evoked earlier of having lied, it can only be because we consider him responsible for his crime! And thus free!”’
Kants morallov
Kant sidder til bords hjemme hos sig selv med den engelsk købmand Joseph Green og en fransk filosof: ‘”Professor,” interrupted the French philosopher, “is one more or less moral by constitution?” “I’m only talking about predispositions,” Immanuel Kant responded in a very serious voice. “So long as you possess reason, you are always absolutely free to act morally, no matter your constitution or the circumstances.”’
Kant hævder, at ‘den gode vilje’ er det eneste, der er iboende godt: “No, I’m telling you, the only thing absolutely good is the will to do the good.”
Kant pointerer, at man ikke behøver viden for at være ærlig og god: ‘”One needs merely to act as everyone should act. I speak the truth because I want all men everywhere to always speak the truth. I treat humanity, whether myself or another, always as an end in itself, and never simply as a means.” “What a beautiful moral law,” acknowledged the two guests.”’
Den franske revolution
Mens Kant og hans to gæster den engelske købmand og den franske filosof sidder ved bordet, kommer der nyheder fra Paris. Den franske revolution er startet. Kant er delt på spørgsmålet om den franske revolution: ‘On the one hand, all of this forecast wide-spread anarchy, something which Kant loathed above all. Interrupt a game of royal tennis! Who could imagine a more appalling crime? One the other hand, even if this revolution had begun in the greatest disorder and illegality, the new order which was beginning to take shape received his undivided sympathy.’ Kant er stor tilhænger af magtens tredeling formuleret af den franske forfatter og politolog Charles-Louis de Secondat Montesquieu: ‘The perspective of equilibrium and a clear distinction between the legislative power, which makes the laws, the executive power, which governs according to these laws, and the judicial power, which guarantees that these laws be respected, appeared to him to be progress.’
Konklusion
Alt i alt en glimrende bog. Jeg vil anbefale den til alle fra ca. 11 år og opefter. Den giver Kants filosofi jordforbindelse ved at fortælle den i en dagligdags ramme. God læselyst!
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