Kants Philosophie - Was ist der Verstand?

a concept is a reflected idea the matter of all concepts is the object the form of all concepts is the generalness in the latter is abstraction of what distinguishes the mannigfaltic

Immanuel Kant. If you remember the two types of knowledge that are given to Kant, I have already mentioned this in my lecture "What is Philosophy?" that there is discursive knowledge for Kant, namely in our thinking, the knowledge of terms, and intuitive knowledge,

in the view, the knowledge through sensuality. And the first, the discursive knowledge, is what belongs to the mind. Because a view, an intuitive knowledge, a view is a single idea, as Kant says. So I look at a single thing, for example a single certain dog that I have in front of me,

On the other hand, the discursive knowledge is the knowledge of terms. And a term is a general idea, as Kant says. Because a term does not represent a specific individual thing, i.e. this dog, but rather a thing based on general characteristics. So then I think to myself: what is a dog?

A dog is an animal, a pet, has four legs, has fur, bark and so on. So I think the general characteristics. And in this respect Kant characterizes the mind as the property of the terms. Whereby the property of the rules, the property of the terms, that's basically one thing. Because a term is

a rule. I use a rule with it. If I have the term, for example, gold, then I formulate a rule that applies to all single things that this term applies to. So for everything gold. Then I just say, what do I know, metal, shiny,

does not rust, can conduct heat. I say that's the rule of gold, so to speak, and that now applies to everything that is gold. The mind thinks in this respect to the special, i.e. to the individual, always the general, the concept. And that's why Kant sometimes says that the mind

Through sensuality we come to the things that appear to us. The mind thinks the things as they are. This "are" should not be equated with the thing itself in the transcendental sense. I talked about this in my lecture about the transcendental idealism, what that means. What the thing itself is, I can't know.

I can't get to that with my mind. I can think of it as empty thoughts, but because I miss the look, because this thought is not filled with a look, I can't say anything more about it. If Kant now says:

the mind thinks the thing as it is, then it is first of all the thing in physical terms, the thing itself, the physical thing itself. So then it is meant sensually, for example, when I look at a person, then I don't see that he has organs. I don't see that he has a brain or a lung or a heart or something. Or when I walk along the street, walk past houses, I don't see that it's not just facades, that they have rooms.

Mit dem Verstand aber denke ich das, weil ich eben eine Regel denke. Ich weiß eben, das liegt in meinem Begriff vom Menschen. Nochmal, der Begriff ist eine allgemeine Vorstellung.

where I think of a thing based on general characteristics. And in my concept of human being lies as such a characteristic that he has a brain or that he has a heart. That means I see a human being, I don't see him cut up now, but I think that this special individual thing that I'm looking at here somehow,

is a human being, falls under my term "human" and thus falls under a rule and thus all general characteristics that belong to this rule, to this term, of this particular thing that I am looking at, of this individual human being. Kant also says that the view

recognizes little from little, the mind on the other hand recognizes little from much. Because if I have a single dog in front of me, then that's little. I don't see a thousand dogs at once, I see this single dog right now.

But in this particular dog I can see a lot through the sight. I can see which color his fur is, how big he is, how loud he barks, etc. However, through the mind I can see very little. Because if I don't look at a single dog, but I just think of the term dog,

then I think of a lot. Then I think of tens of thousands or millions of dogs that exist in the world. But I don't recognize much of these many. I don't recognize, for example, the color, because that's not in the term dog, whether he has a brown fur or a black or a white or something. I don't recognize the size, because that's not in the term dog either. There are very small and very large. That means I only recognize a few things. For example, that

that they are mammals, that they all come to life and are not born from eggs, that they are bred by their mothers. That is in my term as a general rule. This now applies to many, so to all dogs as individuals. But knowledge can only take place in the term. Insofar as knowledge means:

or "verstehen" means to understand what something is. This "what" is the term, is that I assign it to a certain rule of my mind. And without a term I might have a view,

But I didn't even know what I was looking at. Here we are again with the example that Kant has already mentioned several times, that a picture of a house, he might see it very clearly in all its details, but he doesn't know it. Building, architecture, houses, and in this respect he doesn't even know what it is. This is how Kant's famous expression explains that looking

without the term "blind". I see, hear, smell, taste, feel things, but I don't know what I have in front of me if I don't have a term for it. Conversely, that's the other half of the famous expression, but of course thoughts are empty without content, as Kant says. And thoughts can actually be equated more or less with terms at this point.

That means, terms that are not filled with looking are empty terms. I can of course make a term for myself without looking. That means, I can think of a rule with my mind. I can, for example, make the term...

have angels, I have a certain rule, I say that are somehow spiritual beings, they serve God and so on, they are good, so I have general features that now apply to all individual things, to all individual individual angels that fall under this term. Or I can think of an extraterrestrial.

So I have a living being as a term, which lives on another planet than the earth. But these terms are empty terms because the view is missing.

because I don't know if there is a thing in the world that corresponds to this rule. I can set up the rule in my thinking, I can come up with other rules. I can also somehow...

fantasy stories with magicians or magicians who have their own laws, how these spells work there. I can think of everything. These are all rules that the mind sets up. These are terms that the mind makes. But these are not insights. Because again, an insight means that I place an idea on its object.

The term is a general idea, the view is a single idea. Both as an idea are first in me, are first subjective. I have to refer to it as an object so that it can become a knowledge. And Kant's great insight in the "Critique of Pure Reason" is that view and term have to come together. If I just look at things,

sensually perceive, then I don't know what I'm dealing with. Then I have a continuous perception, from which there is no experience, from which I learn nothing, through which I don't understand how the world works. On the other hand, I can think of terms, general rules with my mind, if there is no insight,

which belongs to this rule, on which I can apply this term, I do not know whether it is a term of something or whether it is just a thought thing, as it was called in the then philosophical language. So now we have the three syntheses that take place through the mind. So we have an apaception,

synthetic unit that is brought into the subject by the mind. We have with apprehension a synthetic unit that is brought into the object by the power of the imagination, transmitted by the mind.

With that we have a self-awareness of an object and with that we have an idea of an object that is being perceived. And thirdly, a synthetic unit of the idea of this subject with the object must be created by the mind, so that it is not just a subjective, but an objective idea.

These are the three stages or the three parts that belong to the experience and without which no experience is possible.

I have to, however, where I am talking about terms and about the mind as the property of terms, I have to make something clear, because our present superficial, everything mumbling and always unclear age does not know what a term is. In everyday language, the term is

as a synonym for word and I have to fear that many will do that too, who listen to this and therefore have to clarify: "Begriff" in the philosophical language has nothing to do with word. The word

is a sign, yes, whether it is a sound sign, if it is the spoken word, or whether it is a writing sign, if it is the written word, or whether it is a hand sign in the sign language, the word is a sign which, so to speak, points to the term, which expresses the term, which, so to speak, is supposed to trigger the thoughts of this term in us.

but the word is not the term itself. It might help to translate the word "begriff" because Kant has this Marotte that he puts a Latin translation behind his important names, his central expressions, when he introduces them in brackets. And the Latin translation for the word "begriff" is "conceptus", so "concept".

There you can see that only the German of today mixed up these words. In German, the term and word are the same. An Englishman would not so quickly come to the conclusion that word and concept should mean the same thing.

The concept of a thing, for example the concept of the dog, the concept of the house or something like that, is the concept that I have of this thing. Again, it's just a general idea that

contains general features. It is the rule for this thing. A term is a thought. It is what I think when I think of this thing. It is what I understand this thing by. That's why there are synonyms in the language, which means I have two different words

that describe the same term. For example, "jahrzehnt" and "dekade" are the same term. The term is named by different vowels, but the term, what I think of these vowels, namely a unit of ten years, the term is both the same. Conversely, there are homonyms

where the word is the same, but the term is completely different. So when I say "Hahn", then that can be both the term of a male chicken, as well as the term of a device that you can turn on and off, from which liquid or gas can be released or retained.

And it's the same when we think of different languages. Different languages have different words, so they don't necessarily have different terms. So whether I say "water" or "water" or "aqua" or "agua" or "sou",

The term is always the same. I don't mean that someone who hears the word "Wasser", if he is of German language, someone who hears the word "Water", if he is of English language, or in my opinion, they are closely related, even a completely different word. Who can speak Turkish and listens to the word,

I don't mean that these people think something different, but the rule. What is water? It is liquid at room temperature, it is a molecule of hydrogen and oxygen, it can become ice and then expand, it can conduct electricity, yes, just the rule, what water means.

It's always the same. Of course, there are different terms in different languages. That can be. Because if a term is a thought, it doesn't mean that all people think the same. And so it is quite possible that certain peoples, certain language communities

have certain thoughts, have a concept of a thing that others don't have. That's why not all words are as easily translated as the word "water", which is common in most languages. Especially when we think of more abstract terms, there are quite differences. And that can also be exactly one reason

not the only one, for leant words, for a language to take over a word from another language. If it comes to this new term, maybe learns this term from another people for the first time, then it will perhaps in many cases not form a word for this term, but take over the stranger.

So you can see that in philosophy, which in various languages, European languages, Arabic languages, as philosophy, philosophy, philosophy, it always goes back to this Greek philosophy, because maybe different peoples before already had a concept of wisdom.

but had no concept of philosophy as this systematic scientific search for wisdom and teaching of wisdom, because he didn't have that. There were maybe wise people who were perhaps also called wise because they might have had a concept of wisdom, but there were no philosophers like that.

came into contact with this Greek philosophy and took over the word together with the term. A lot of misunderstandings don't arise because people think something different, meaning that they really have different terms, but a lot of misunderstandings arise because they describe the terms with different words. A very simple example: I believe in UFOs.

And if someone thinks "What a crazy person, how can you believe in UFOs?" Then he believes exactly the same as me. Because if I say I believe in UFOs, I don't mean that I believe that the earth was visited by flying subspecies, by extraterrestrial spaceships.

But I mean, what the word UFO actually means, unidentified flying object. That means something that flies that you have not identified.

And hopefully no one will argue that there is something like that, that sometimes something flies around in the sky where you don't know what it is and what somehow flew on again before you identified it. But in the end it was maybe just a bird or a weather balloon or something. That means, it can definitely be that the person who says, I believe in UFOs and the one who says, I don't believe in UFOs, believe the same thing.

and then only seemingly contradict each other, if they connect the word UFO, which is not a term, with a different term. Namely, one the term of a flying object that was not identified and the other the term of an extraterrestrial spaceship. And at this point I can also say, that's also an example of it, so I mean, why do you say UFO to an extraterrestrial spaceship?

UFO is not called "externaerobic spaceship", it is called "unidentified aircraft". And it is not like we have no other word for an "externaerobic spaceship". We have a word for this term, "externaerobic spaceship". We even have other words for this term, we can also say "flying saucer". So there is actually no reasonable reason to say UFO here.

And therefore I would like to use this as a reminder that the inaccuracy

and the unreflectivity in speaking, because most people don't reflect on it, they don't think about it, what a word like UFO means, but they pick it up like that, from childhood on, just like people around them use a word and that's how we use it. But this unreflectivity in speaking, not thinking about what my words should actually mean,

And this inaccuracy and inaccuracy in speaking, just throwing words apart, that leads to and promotes an inaccuracy and inaccuracy in thinking. Because thinking takes place in terms. The mind is the property of terms.

The terms are just called by words. So if I mumbling my words, then I'm probably mumbling my terms too. And especially we Germans are actually lucky to have a language that is very suitable for thinking and for philosophy. It has already been noticed, not the only one.

And Kant also says that there are very, very many words in the German language to describe similar things. So I can say someone is brave, someone is brave, someone is cool, someone is awake. And that's exactly what allows us to be very differentiated in terms, namely we will not use these words as just synonyms.

And Kant was convinced that there are very few real synonyms in the language, but that there are usually always small differences in meaning between the words that should not be hidden. And he also put a lot of value on it, especially his not critical writings, but

in his lectures or in his anthropology or something, he often has a way of defining what the different words mean, what is the difference between arrogance and arrogance and courtesan and so on, that he tries to differentiate and nuance. And especially we, who have a language that is so suitable for thinking and for philosophy,

um

...

And then you have on the other side again those who say positivistically: No, language can not be lost, language is always as it is and if it changes, then it is different and that is not better or worse. But that's just nonsense.

Sprache kann sehr wohl besser oder schlechter sein, nur wird meistens von Sprachverfall falsch geredet oder wird der Sprachverfall in Form

wrong things. People think it would be a language failure if a few foreign words were used. If someone uses an English expression instead of a German expression. That is not necessary. Language failure. That is nothing wrong in itself. The word philosophy, as I said, comes from Greek. That's not bad. The language is promoted by promoting its clarity.

their differentiatedness, their ability to express as many as possible, as clear terms, i.e. thoughts, and it just sinks down when, on the contrary, the different words are mumbled and when the speaking and thus the thinking in this language becomes more and more unclear.

Unfortunately, it is obviously the case that most people speak or write that and that also applies to the so-called educated people, who are usually not educated with us. That would also be a word that you can use correctly. These are teachers, these are students, these are educated people, but they are not

really educated and cultivated people who educate themselves, who want to create on their own. It is the case that most people, even the so-called educated ones, do not associate speaking or writing with responsibility.

On the one hand we have the right-wing scoundrels who don't want to know anything about responsibility anyway, who may have the cheek to call themselves patriots, which is also a completely wrong and abused word that is then simply used synonymically for nationalist.

But they always prove that they are not patriots, that they don't want to take responsibility for their mother tongue.

but whose so-called patriotism is just about being able to hate others and being left alone by others. And they get upset every time they are given any responsibility for the language. Then they are moaning about language bans and other things.

And on the other hand we have leftists who seem to be talking about responsibility in the language in a certain sense. If they say you should gender or you should use certain words that could be racist or anti-abortion or something like that, you shouldn't use them. But that's not responsibility for the language as something alive that we think through.

And I mean, these leftists are the last ones who want clear thinking. They are, as I have already mentioned in this presentation, they are rationalists, they are enemies of thinking. They just want everything to be based on subjective identities and not on concepts of understanding.

That means, when they talk about something they are responsible for, they don't mean to take responsibility for the language itself and for the thinking that takes place in this language, but they just mean that you should do a few things.

...

He has completely different problems than I do when I say this word. Then he has to take care of himself and clarify himself. I'm just talking about the responsibility to think clearly. I'm just talking about the fact that there is no good reason

For example, to call a braver person brave. The braver overcomes his fear. If he were brave, he wouldn't have to be braver, because then he wouldn't have any fear that he would have to overcome. Or I mean that there is no good reason to call a hypothesis a theory. That...

There is only a template for some weak heads to present foolish arguments. Then the creationist says, evolution is also just a theory.

Yes, of course it is a theory, but what should only a theory mean? Theory is not a hypothesis, it is not an opinion. A theory, yes, that comes from the Greek, it means as much as "look". It is a certain way of looking at the world that can be very well justified. Not only evolution is a theory, but I can also say that gravity is a theory. That shouldn't mean that it's somehow not sure whether there really is gravity.

Or someone who uses the language consciously won't notice it. On the contrary, someone will be surprised when someone calls the self-confident or the self-confident person a self-conscious person. Self-consciousness means: I am self-conscious. That's not the opposite of being shy.

By the way, funny enough, the English speakers use the word "self-conscious" wrong too, but they use it exactly the other way around. So, with them it means "shy" and "unconfident". With us it means:

"Selbstsicher" and "selbstzuversichtlich" both are wrong. It means what it means: "Selbstbewusst" - "Mir, meiner, Selbstbewusstsein" And my point is: There is simply - if you have different words - our language is not poor, our language is very rich - then there is simply no good reason

to use a wrong, an inappropriate word at this point. So if I want to say, oh, someone is holding himself back or someone is not shy or something, then I can say, he is self-confident or he is self-confident. Yes, I have two appropriate words. There is no justification for using the word self-consciously here instead.

and thus to remove it from its actual use. Then I have no word for the actual self-awareness, if I want to talk about it. Or rather, I have to use the same word and then misunderstandings arise. Then there are ambiguities that shouldn't exist. Then nobody understands me, even though I'm the one who speaks clearly. That means, so that we understand each other,

should be clear to everyone. But this requires, which can only be done by an enlightened person, that someone is willing to take responsibility and that someone is willing and able to reflect and practice self-criticism, i.e. to think about the words at all, instead of just speaking thoughtlessly.

And even then it's still very, very difficult. I don't want to say that I always use all words completely correctly. Because we just...

in a society where words are constantly being used wrongly, because we are now growing up with it. And it is, so to speak, work. You have to force yourself to reflect at first, to notice at first how a word should actually be used. And then again, even if you have seen it,

And I'm sure some words didn't even notice that they should be used differently. But even if you noticed it, you have to get used to using the word "fort" more correctly and more precisely than people do. But back to the terms.

I said two people can use the same word, for example in UFO, to connect different terms. It may even be that they use the same word for the same thing, but nevertheless have a different term for this thing, at least in parts. So let's take a simple word like water. My term for water

is another than the one a child has of water or the one a person 500 years ago had of water. We obviously mean the same thing with the word "water" and

The term, again, which is a general study of certain rules, of general features, the term also contains the same in parts. So even the child thinks that water is wet or can become ice or something like that. But

The child may not know that water can conduct electricity yet. That it may not somehow... ...punch into the socket with wet fingers. Or the child does not know yet, or the people in earlier centuries did not know yet, that water consists of H2O molecules. That means...

My concept of water is different from their concept of water, even if it is the same thing and if the concepts overlap. And my concept of water is not complete either. In fact, Kant says, empirical concepts, i.e. concepts of experience, they can never be complete. We could potentially

learn more and more about one thing. We can never completely reason a thing according to its inner being. So it can still be that water has some other properties, whether it is on the subatomic level or something, that we don't know yet. But in any case, it is also the case that

There are probably no two people on earth who have ever had exactly the same terms. One knows this and that about water, the other doesn't.

One knows that the water is wet, the other also knows that it is a power line, the third knows how much percent of the earth's surface is covered with water, and so on. And no two people have exactly the same concept of the same thing. And that can often become a problem, that can often cause misunderstandings.

when you have discussions about something. Often people talk to each other and often enough they don't notice it. And especially those who have a less clear or less comprehensive term of the matter often notice it least, because they have a different term of the matter. So, for example,

Let's take a thing like God. You have to say, for example, even as a religious person: "The atheist is right." The god that the atheist usually declares, certainly does not exist.

So it would be an albany fable to believe that there is a man sitting on a cloud and looking down or giving us some rules or something. In this respect, it can be that a religious person in a discussion with the atheist should actually agree with him. Because the atheist denies the god, because he doesn't believe in him either.

But the religious has maybe a completely different concept of God than the atheist. And I have to say, especially on this topic, I have always found that atheists have denied the primitive possible concept of God, that they have denied the concept of God to some children or some fundamentalists, which is nice and good.

But I have not met a single atheist in my life who had only known the term of God, a Master Eckart or an Ibn Arabi or a Fichte, and if he didn't know him, then he can of course not speak of it in a judgment whether this term is a teacher term or whether this term corresponds to something.

I'll take a term like racism. You often have the case that if you say to some right-wing racists, if you say to some AfD-ers that they are racists, which is not true,

is very clear. There is no way to discuss it and to have different opinions. It is very clear that without any exception, every single person who votes for the AfD is a racist, otherwise you wouldn't vote for a racist party. But the problem is that

People often get upset and say "No, I'm not a racist, what's your problem?" "That's typical, there's no freedom of opinion here." "Once you say something, you're a racist and you're put in the right corner." And so on and so forth. The usual sayings that come up. Where you have to say:

This outrage is usually real. I mean, there are a few who are secretly Nazis and only act as if they are not racists, but most of them really don't think they are racists. The thing is, they are right based on their concept, because they hear the word "racist"

They think, for example, of the 19th or early 20th century Nazi race theory. And then they think: "No, wait a minute, I'm not a fan of a race theory, so I'm not saying that there is an Aryan race and a Mongolian race and a Negro race or something."

And I don't mean that the blacks are genetically inferior in any way. Consequently, what the one who calls me a racist is wrong. Consequently, it is embarrassing and insulting that he calls me that.

But that's just a very, very primitive term of racism. And that's where we are today, actually. Yes, I mean the thinking people, I mean the humanities. We're a lot further away from that. And we know that racism, I would say in my language, from my philosophy, it's less a

opinion and more a attitude that racism doesn't have to be connected to a racist biological theory or something like that. In that context, one should also make clear that most wrong opinions, most wrong actions of people are quite right if you base your respective terms that you have.

Because, well, nobody can be that stupid without realizing it, standing in opposition to his simplest concepts. That's why you have to say, even with something as terrible as the crimes of the Nazis,

That was consistent, what they did, based on their terms of the Jew. If, according to my terms, the Jew is an underman and the Jew is a parasite that damages the German people's body, then it is quite consistent to remove the Jew like a parasite.

Obviously, this term has been completely wrong and that's the problem. But you have to see that if you accept this term, the rest is quite logical.

Or if you think that in the early 2000s some American evangelicals were hysterical because there was Harry Potter to read in school libraries and somehow said that it seduces their children to black magic and demon slander and so on.

and therefore tried to ban Harry Potter books from school libraries, then we might find that completely stupid and stupid books. But if you share their terms, in their view, that's not stupid hysteria, but

They really think that it's something like demons that could be dangerous to their children. And they really think that it's something like black magic that could summon these demons. And then it is quite understandable that you are afraid that your child will be seduced by it. Or if you think of all the people who have been

climate activists are accusing alarmism. For years they think climate activists would exaggerate, they have even gone so far as to get excited. The climate activists, yes, they would be undemocratic and totalitarian, yes, if they stick to the street, that's necessary.

then that is obviously completely wrong. But then you would have to, if you have the right concept of the climate crisis, so if you really know what is happening there and what will happen there in the next few years, then you would have to say it is surprising how moderate the climate activists are.

I mean, there was polemic talk about climate terrorists. To be honest, I'm surprised that there are no climate terrorists yet, that we don't have a climate RF. By the way, I don't want to say that we should have one, that would be terrible. But I still find it surprising that there are no people who are so desperate and so extremist that they are now attacking and killing people because of the climate crisis.

But anyway, this talk about alarmism comes from the fact that these people who talk like this have a completely wrong concept of the climate crisis. That they just think, well, if they don't deny the climate change all around, well, then it gets a little warmer. Then it's a little warmer in the summer. And if you have this concept,

then the further judgment is quite right. Then it is quite understandable that certain actions of climate activists are exaggerated or an attempt to somehow force their private opinion and ideology of society. But if you had a more correct concept of the climate crisis and knew that our civilization is threatened,

then you wouldn't be mad that some climate activists are anti-democratic or something like that, because then it would be clear to you, well, if...

If we can't live here anymore, for example, we have already lost 80% of our insects. There are already harvest delays. That's not a top headline. Another thing is more important, that you don't get upset about refugees again or some kind of celebrity stories or something. It comes under far-reaching. But we already have harvest delays because we have fewer insects. And if all the insects are gone and we don't harvest anything anymore,

will probably not be that far away with our democracy either. So you have to make yourself clear: People judge and act quite rightly based on their respective terms. So if I don't agree with their judgments and their actions, it's not enough to tell them these.

that won't work so well as long as they stick to their terms that demand these judgments and actions, but then I have to somehow get there that they change their terms. The stupid thing is, however, that unacclared people are usually very much guided by sensuality and therefore this

this logical, correct thinking, which follows the single case from a rule, i.e. a general idea, that it is very difficult for them, but they like to stick to this single case and to whether they agree or reject it.

I had a conversation with my grandma, who got excited, she had heard the story of Alan Turing, the mathematician, the British, who helped the British in the Second World War to crack the Nazi lock codes and thus made a great contribution to the war.

who then became a homosexual, because homosexuality was illegal at the time, and was chemically forced to castrate a few years later, after the Second World War. He became depressed about it,

committed suicide and then my grandmother got terribly excited what they would have done to him, yes, he would have been such a war hero, yes, he would have done so much for his country and still they would have treated him like that and I said please, it was right that they treated him like that according to their laws. The laws themselves were of course terrible and despicable, so

Homosexuality should not be persecuted and no one should be forced to castrate because they are homosexual. But I would like that if a law is in force, a law is a general rule, that it is also valid for everyone. I don't want certain people, just because they have done something in the past, because they are war heroes, to have a leave certificate.

So I said: "What would you say if he had done something that we also see as a crime? If he had committed a murder, for example. Then you wouldn't have said, if he had come to prison: "Oh, yes, how can they put their war heroes in prison, even if he broke the law here?" "Yes, he did so much for his country, you should be a little grateful." That means:

They have, before the law, they have behaved correctly and consistently, just like a legal state should behave. No exceptions, just because someone has earned a living in the past. Everyone is equal before the law. The injustice was not a formal injustice, but a material one. The law itself was an injustice according to its content, but formally one behaved correctly.

in a way the unacclosed people again because they are so taken in by the sensuality they then only hear oh something bad was done to him which is also really bad and condemnable but they are taken in by it

that it is very, very difficult for him to get rid of it and to think in general rules and to recognize exactly what is wrong here and what is not wrong. And the wrong thing was not that he, when he...

...

...

In history, for example, most people have completely wrong historical terms. Let's take the term of the Middle Ages. What general characteristics are in this term? Many people will think of dirty, mud-soaked streets.

didn't exist. Why should it exist? Why would people want to live in the dirt? They obviously also cleaned their streets. Or many people will think of people with thick armor in plate armor. Didn't exist in the Middle Ages. They only appeared in the New Age. They also appear at the end of the Middle Ages. Or many people will think of witch fires. Again,

is a matter of the present. This whole witch-hysteria only comes to the fore in the course of the Reformation, so that there are different battles and mutual inclinations at all. And the witches are more

16th and especially in the 17th century burned where the Middle Ages is long gone in the Middle Ages witches have played no role and were usually no witches and so on and so forth that means

There are few people who have any idea about this epoch, but the majority of people, whose knowledge or ignorance comes from some films or from some bad documentaries that tell a lot of nonsense, where they say that the earth would have been kept for a disc in the Middle Ages or something like that,

It was known since ancient times that the earth is round. It's only today that there are a few weak heads who walk around as flat earthlings. So it's like that, that a large part of the people, as I said, live in a fantasy world. So they believe in a past that never existed.

Among other things, I emphasize very often that enlightenment consists of self-criticism. Because the thing is, I can't know everything, of course. I can't have comprehensive terms for every matter. I don't know a lot of things either. An animal that lives somewhere in the rainforest, let's say a hummingbird that flies around there or something.

I don't have a real concept of it, I don't know what their food is, what their mating behavior is and so on. But the thing is, at least I know that I don't know anything about this bird. And then I don't mean to know anything about it either. And in that respect you can't say that I live in a fantasy world in terms of this bird, but

I just don't know anything about it. It's a difference when I have a map, whether there are white spots on the map or whether the spots are painted out, but with some fantasy countries that don't even exist. And it's a matter of self-reflection to notice: Do I have any idea about a thing? Do I have any idea about a thing that I judge?

a clear concept or not. And if not, then I should be held accountable for a judgment. So, as I said, I called the example of climate activism: All the people who think that climate activists are alarmist or

all the people who think that there is any single relevant political topic except the climate crisis. So everyone who knows about the climate crisis

He can only hold his head and despair when he realizes that people are still seriously talking about migration or even bigger elephants, about genders or something like that, while our civilization is just going down the drain. It's as if you're sitting in a burning house and you're arguing about what you want to watch on TV tonight. You can talk about it when the house is destroyed.

But before that, it's madness. It's pure madness. And that would be the point. All the people who don't take the climate crisis seriously, who say things like "You're too alarmistic" or something like that, could just reflect for a moment: "Wait a minute, what do I actually know about the climate crisis?" And then they would have to notice, because I don't know everything, but

I can always know one thing when I practice self-reflection: what I know and what I don't know. You have to notice: I don't know anything about the climate crisis. I somehow heard: because of emissions, the climate is getting a little warmer. And that's all I know. Who of the people who have an opinion on the climate only knows what a CO2 budget is?

what are the tipping points, what is the albedo effect, what are the feedback loops. You could have fun doing it, you could go to anyone who says: "You are too alarmistic, just say: Take three tipping points." Or "Tell me how long our CO2 budget is still enough." Or "What is a CO2 budget at all."

Most of them wouldn't have an answer to that. Or even if you look at other topics, people who say, what do I know, Islam is dangerous, you could also reflect for a moment, what do I know about Islam?

Apart from a few prejudices, apart from a little bit of hatred in the media, coincidentally exactly the media that I like to criticize as a lie press, but when they spread racist hatred, then they obviously don't lie. But what do I really know? For example, I read the Quran once.

Do I know anything about the origin of Islam? And I don't mean just that there was a Mohammed, but in what context did it come about? By the way, even the self-proclaimed Muslims don't know that. They believe, for example, that in old Mecca, all of this would have been polytheists and then suddenly this one Mohammed came with his monotheism.

Today you know it's complete nonsense. There are already monotheistic ideas prevailing. There were many Christians, there were also Moseans, general monotheists. But anyway, this Islam enemy

We could ask him the same question: "Do you know anything about Sunnis, Shiites, Ibadites? Do you know what the Sunnah is? Do you know what a law school is?" Usually not. And I could come to that question myself and ask myself: "Wait a minute, if I don't have any idea about a thing,

What justifies a verdict? That can only be a completely blind prejudice. That is not a justified verdict. And the task of philosophy is to largely clarify our terms.

That's also what Kant says. Metaphysics at the time should of course judge synthetically. I've already made a lecture about the synthetic and the analytical judgments. Synthetic judgments are those that expand our knowledge. Analytical are those that explain our knowledge.

Before Kant, one thought that metaphysics should be synthetic. It should lead us to new insights. It should, for example, prove that there is a god, prove that there is a life after death, whatever. And Kant's "Sense Criticism", his critical project, basically shows that synthetic

we won't get very far in metaphysics. For example, we can't prove that there is a god. We can't deny that there is a god either. Both would be synthetic judgments. Both would teach us something new.

But what metaphysics can and should still do is to analyze our terms more analytically, for example to take the term "God" and analyze what is in it.

What can't be in there? What would contradict the concept of God? So that we can understand what we mean or what we should mean when we talk about God.

And for Kant this is the result of the criticism, that he says that metaphysics should largely, it contains only very few synthetic sentences, largely it should be analytical. He even says in the practical philosophy, where it is about morality,

basically completely analytical, there is only one synthetic sentence, that is exactly the sentence: "You should act morally", but what is moral now, what is good, what is our duty, that is all completely analytical. Only that we can then just break down this duty that we can analytically break down, that we should really do it, only that it is synthetic.

But I will come to moral philosophy in the future, probably only next year. But especially in philosophy or in the reception of philosophy, you often have the problem that people completely misunderstand philosophers because they have very different terms. Because often

because there is not necessarily a single terminology, but often every philosopher has his own language and with a certain word a different term is used than another philosopher. And then you just say: "Nietzsche was against morality, that's quite clear, he's constantly writing against morality." Yes, he does, but you have to ask: "What term does he have of morality?"

You can't just stick to that word and say, yes, he was against any morality, but you have to ask, what did he specifically call this word? And then you can see there is something else, which is not called morality in Nietzsche, but for example in Fichte is called higher morality, where it is quite clear in the term.

are very close to each other, just not in the used word. Nietzsche doesn't reject this other. And that's just what makes people difficult, because they are often not really able to do it. That also puts the precedence on the rise, that puts the precedence on the rise that

can break free from myself, can step out of myself. People are often not able to really rely on another person and rely on their own world of thought, so to speak, on their own terms. And that's why it's so that they often, when they read or listen to another person, don't really ask: What are his terms? Which

which terms he uses, which terms he connects with a word, but they hear a certain word and they automatically think of the term they connect with this word, which may be a completely different term than the other person connects with it. And so it can also happen that what this other person says may sound completely nonsense. A large part of what is said

... of misunderstanding, rejection, making fun of and making fun of and angering about the words of other people, especially of philosophers, ... ... only comes from the fact that you have not heard their terms, but that you have heard your own terms. And then you find the terms that you are so used to yourself, ...

... have now been brought into a completely strange order, where they no longer fit together. And then you have the right to reject this order. You just have to understand: the philosopher is not actually talking about my terms, he is talking about his terms.

And that's where this order that seems so strange to me, when I put my terms in there, then it might make sense. And that's the difficulty that people don't use very critical methods here.

which I talked about in a previous lecture. Because the critical method would be, if the other person says something that seems nonsense to me, not to reject it right away or make fun of it or get angry and say: "What nonsense is he talking about?" But the critical method consists of saying: "Wait a minute, if I think it's nonsense,

How can it be that the other person who represents it, for whom it is obviously not nonsense, that it seems right to him? And if I would ask myself this critical question, then I would perhaps rather come to the conclusion that it seems right to him because it is only then that it is nonsense.

If you interpret these words in my sense, if you combine my terms with them, but based on his terms, it is quite consistent. So if he says: "Climate crisis is the only politically relevant topic at all",

I think that's nonsense, because I only think about the climate crisis, "Well, it's getting warmer, we might have to take care of it a little bit, but there are other important things." But then I have to understand, if he says "climate crisis", he doesn't mean a little warmer, but he means the complete collapse of our ecosystem. And then it makes more sense to say, "Everything else is actually completely identical and only distracts us from the essential."

This circumstance, that especially in our German "Holzer Tage" the term is confused with "Wort", with the mere name of the term, that might also have to do with the fact that the unacclared people here

like to play victims and like to hide their own crime against themselves. So just hide that the term is something done, a judgment of the mind. The word is just a description. That means then people act as if the thoughts they have come directly from the perception. As if the words

would be nothing but a term for the perceived. So to speak, I have no idea of the animal, but

that I made myself through my own judgement and that can be right or wrong but I directly perceived animals as they are in the world and I just stuck the word "animal" on this perception or I don't have a concept of a human but I perceive the human as he is and then I describe it as human or as human or whatever and this word is not more than a description

for what I have already perceived. But then you have to make yourself clear: No, the terms are made by us and the terms have often grown historically. The unacclared, of course, is always oriented towards being. He doesn't know "becoming". Only the enlightened knows "becoming". That's why he likes to think that the terms he had would be like a stone,

would simply only describe the perception of reality. It is not yet clear, with seemingly very fundamental terms, that they have grown historically. This is exactly what the last century discovered. One can almost say that this is one of the most important developments, perhaps the central development in the history of the mind in the last century.

that you have seen more and more, that starts at the beginning of this century or rather the end of the previous century with Nietzsche and that culminates then at the end of the last century with someone like Foucault that you have seen how much our terms are actually made. So for example Foucault has

sexuality and truth. We think that there is sex. And you can behave differently. You can be of the opinion that you are not allowed to have sex before marriage or you are allowed to have sex before marriage. But at least there is this sex as a fact. First of all, it's the same thing for all of us. Only the opinions go apart. But

I mean, the fact that the word for it is not an original word of our language, that we had to use a foreign word for it, somehow indicates that this may not be true. In fact, sex is a very, very young concept.

That doesn't mean that people in earlier centuries didn't have the "sleep-in" that they didn't live out their desire with each other, that they didn't have children. But this term "sex" with everything that goes with it, sexual orientation for example, that there is something like homosexuality, that's something quite new.

That's why it's a completely stupid anachronism if some people, whether it's fundamentalists who believe in it or atheists and religious enemies who take that as an argument for the attack, if some people think: "Yes, the Bible or the Quran prohibits homosexuality." It can't be. It's, unfortunately, impossible, simply because there was no homosexuality for people back then.

There were certainly men who slept with men rather than women. But this term of sexual orientation as a kind of own identity or something like that, they didn't have that. A Jesus or a Mohammed couldn't even understand what you meant if you tried to talk to him about homosexuality. Also other things.

For example, when it comes to Islam, you hear from fundamentalists again and again: "Music is forbidden." Apart from the fact that there is really nothing of it in the Quran, so not even a place that could be interpreted remotely. In homosexuality there are still one or two verses that can be interpreted in the direction of the text if you apply a lot of violence, but in music that is simply not the case. But even there

We think today that music is just a fact, it's something that exists in the world. There was probably already a rock era, they already sang and drummed and so on. And that's why everyone has to have a term for music, because this word simply only describes the thing that we perceive, right? But it's not that natural to talk about music. And it's a relatively young term.

It has been around for a few centuries, so I say relatively, but in antiquity, for example, it didn't exist yet. Even in late antiquity or in the transition to the Middle Ages, where Mohammed lived and where the Quran came from, there was no music. And all the ten thousand years before, in copper age, stone age or so, there was probably no concept of music.

Of course people sang or drummed or had strings or instruments or something like that, but they didn't put all these things together under one term "music" and didn't necessarily have a common word for it.

They might have had a term and therefore also a word of singing. They might have had a term of the lute game. But these are two quite different, two heterogeneous things.

That requires a work of the mind, which can take centuries and millennia, to discover that there is a commonality between these things. I can find a common rule and I can sum it up under one term. And that's just a problem in many, many cases. That we, as I said, with the things that seem to us to be most self-evident, these things are done.

I can also say the term "Kindheit" , even there we think: "Well, children are just something that exists." "Kind" is just a word that describes it. You can also call it "child" or "enfant" or something like that. But it's something that just exists. No, that's something we think now. And even there you have

in the last century, especially French thinkers and historians, there is a history of childhood. You didn't always behave the same as you did in childhood. And that's still a relatively short time ago, so 500 years or so.

the relationship to childhood was quite different. It could be that a boy, not even ten years old, with the knowledge and blessings of his parents, breaks up alone from home to go to school somewhere else in a completely different city far away. He has to go around alone as a country boy, has to beg, has to steal to feed himself.

Or it could be that a child of 12 years could go to a pub in the evening and participate in the dice game. That a child of 12, 13 years could be an officer in the war. Where we are perhaps inclined today to say:

That's irresponsible. What kind of rabid parents would let a 7-8 year old child go out into the world alone? Why doesn't anyone care? And that's exactly an example of what I said before. As long as I subject my terms to other people, it's very easy to think that the others are all stupid. If I assume that

They would have had exactly the same concept of childhood as we did. They would have seen the children as selfless, innocent, and need protection. And now I hear: "Oh, they let their little child go out into the world." Then I think: "Okay, rabid parents didn't love their child."

But I could also think the other way around. I could think: "Wait a minute, maybe people weren't all heartless and irresponsible raving parents in the past. Or at least they didn't see themselves that way. But they have to have been according to my terms. So I should assume that they had other terms from childhood. That would be exactly a very critical method. That I don't, if someone else apparently says or does something wrong,

Not just saying: "Well, that's obviously wrong." But asking: "What kind of perspective does he have? What kind of terms does he have that he thinks are right?" But we have the problem, most people are completely without history, that we often project our terms back into the past.

And of course, if we look back with our terms today, we can find things that correspond to these terms. So we can of course say, what do I mean, the old Greeks had politics, they had sports, they had religion. But these are all our terms. The old Greeks

didn't necessarily have these terms. They didn't even necessarily have words for these things. And if I look at something like the Olympic Games, then maybe today I can say: That was sport what they did there. And if I look at their temple cult, then maybe today it will be said that was religion. But these are two things that the Greeks didn't separate at all.

Sport as something secular, that the Olympic Games are simply a sporting event. These Olympic Games were a cult event. Of course, according to our terms, sport took place, but according to our terms it was also somehow religious. And according to the terms of the time, it was not separated from each other at all. And there you can see how important spiritual work is.

that can be fulfilled over centuries, to develop terms, to differentiate terms, to clarify terms. And maybe there are thinkers or whole age groups, whose great, great achievements are basically in a single term from the, so to speak, diffuse, mannig-folded,

to have raised the idea. Because where we have clear terms, we can then act clearly. We can act on these terms, we can judge, we can then somehow change the things that we have now recognized as "so-being". Where our terms are not even clarified,

you can hardly change things or just talk about these changes. So, for example, it was in the Kant era, in the age of the Enlightenment, that he and other Enlighteners basically took part in the separation of church and state. And I mean, that was obviously not done from the moment you took part in it, but it was a long fight that has not been completed in many states to this day, among other things not in Germany, keyword church tax and so on.

But that they could even demand that church and state be separated in the world, that was only possible because they had already been separated from previous centuries.

If this separation in thinking, that church and state are different things, had taken place, if I had thought of them as one, then I couldn't have asked for separation. If we look back in past millennia,

There was not even a literal separation of church and state. There was the king who was at the same time the high priest or was worshiped as god in ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia or something. And there I would have

not even be able to formulate this demand for a separation of church and state or not even be able to think. Simply because state and church were one, because there was no understanding of what it should be as something separate. And if it was obviously possible over time,

terms, for example, of church and state or, for example, of sport, of religion, of politics, to separate from each other so that they are no longer mixed, then it should be basically possible to separate

...

a common ground to distinguish that, or at least that at least the experts, the professors who deal with philosophy, that they at least know that enlightenment and enlightenment are different, as they should know, what do I know, that materialism and idealism are different. Well, they don't know either, but whatever.

Or you could say, just as it was possible to separate the term religion from the state, or from sports, for example, it should hopefully be possible,

already knew or other educators like Fichte tried, but what has not yet reached people to the term of religion from that of cult to separate. To say religion as attitude that I have as a connection to God and as a God-friendly and God-enlightened life has not the slightest to do with cult, with

go to churches, pray, fast, whatever. Today, this is part of the thinking of most people, whether they are believers or atheists, this is part of it, which leads to such wrong opinions,

There are religious scholars who think, for example, the Japanese society, although it is largely atheistic, would still be a very religious society, because they regularly go to their Shinto shrines and pray there or light incense sticks or something, before they write a class work or have an advertisement or something. If you would differentiate the terms more there.

and especially by scholars like the religious scholars, one should demand that, then one would say: "No, Japanese society is not religious, but it is still a strong cultic society." That certainly. But I will talk about religion and cult when I am at Kant's "Religion Philosophy". Also my book, which will be published in a few months, will first turn around Kant's "Religion Philosophy", which will also deal with that.

But back to Kant. He knew how important terms are, how difficult it is to form terms, which is a work of art. Here you can really take the word "forming" in all its weight. I would even say that it is more difficult and requires more genius than any other kind of invention. Insofar as other

When I invent a machine or something, I already have a term and basically turn on terms, turn on rules. But to even get to a term first, that's a great achievement every time. Most people never spend such an achievement in their lives. They use terms that are already given to them by their environment.

and that too often only very bad and superficial. But even sharp-minded people, they make it less superficial. But

create new terms. You sometimes have great thinkers, even great philosophers who have created one term in their entire work. Kant also likes to note that it marks a lack of spiritual culture to have a more visual and symbolic language.

That's why he didn't like it when there were people who said that there was a deep wisdom in the symbolic, picturesque, poetic language of the Ori and the older mysteries, the old mystery cults that the Greeks had, the old myth of gods and so on. Kant didn't deny

that there is any truth or wisdom to be found in it. But

This finding would mean to bring the pictures to clear terms and if you have the clear terms, then you don't need to say the pictures anymore. That means he would say that humanity in its beginnings, in its youth, still had to think in pictures, still had to think poetically, precisely because the terms were missing. In this respect, he also says that Greek thinking, with the Orphic or with Hesiod, is still a very picture-like thinking.

But that philosophy has developed in Greece in particular, that has to do with the movement that you today, at that time there was this term not yet, but that you today almost under the slogan from myth to logos. So that you have come to clearer terms. And he praises

someone like Aristotle, who has been trying to train terms. And then you can easily make it clear that many terms that are quite natural to us today, that they are still relatively young.

Even terms that have become a part of everyday life and are used by everyone without thinking, are sometimes relatively young. Some are very young. For example, if you think of the vocabulary of psychoanalysis, where today people who don't care about psychoanalysis say: "It was all very unscientific, it's all nonsense." Nevertheless,

today terms like "extradition", "narcissism" are used quite naturally. A term like "unconsciousness".

It wasn't introduced by Freud first, it was already a bit before in the 19th century, but in any case it is a very young term that we talk about something unconscious. Or as people in their old age like to say subconsciously, but it's a nonsense term, Freud has already been against it.

under the consciousness, as if it had a deeper place in the brain or something, but it is unconscious, it is not conscious. Who says subconsciously, only shows that he has never read a writing from psychoanalysis. But anyway, that would be something very young.

But also terms that were coined by ancient Greek or Latin philosophers 2000 or 2500 years ago. If you consider that the civilization, that agriculture is about 11,000 years old,

And that there were people a lot longer time before that, who weren't that sassful, then you can notice that for a long time people didn't think with such terms. Kant talks about terms like in Latin "realitas", so reality.

For us today a very natural term, you don't have to be a philosopher, you don't have to have studied to use the word reality. But that had to be created first, this term and a suitable word for it. "Res" is actually "sache" in Latin. So it's the "sachheit" or the "dingheit". You had to get to that first. Or "qualitas", so "quality".

or "possibilitas", so possibility. For us it is also quite natural today that you say something is possible. Or in English, they have it from the Latin "possible". But "posse" is actually in Latin "können".

Also, I can do something, I am able to do it. And that's where you had to come to say it is possible, so to speak. Possible is possible. So it can happen.

And so you have to make it clear that probably the first people had very few very rudimentary terms, as well as a small child has very rudimentary terms. And that it was a work that has been going on for thousands of years, which is never finished either. It can go on and on. We can become more and more differentiated in our terms, to form terms.

Kant also agrees with other thinkers like Fichte or Heidegger that German and also Greek are particularly and more than many other languages suitable for philosophizing and he just reasons that with their concept richness.

with the word "richness", which expresses the richness of the terms. Kant also asks how this comes about and he raises the opinion that this has to do with the Christianization, that missionaries who first spoke Latin came to the Germans and then

many things they couldn't express correctly and had to use new words as translations of their Latin words.

It may be as he wants, whatever the historical background is, it is in any case the case that in German, if you will, very, very many seemingly synonyms, but still slightly different words have in their meaning and therefore, if you will, can be very precisely distinguishable in the terms.

For Kant, how differentiated the terms are an expression of the spiritual culture. If I don't have a special spiritual culture, if I don't think much, if I only use language to get through everyday life, well, I can also use a few hundred words

I never thought about using exact meanings. That's enough to order bread at the bakery in the morning and complain about the one up there in the evening. But if I want to clarify myself, if I want to think clearly, then I have to work on my terms and thus on my language.

And that's why I already spoke about how important it is that we take responsibility for our language.

that we also don't let them fall and come to us, which should have nothing to do with the usual whining about alleged language decay, but with which I become a poor and an inaccurate language and thus mean that this language takes place in thinking. And this kind of language decay can be very, very

and you can observe it in some internet comments, in social media, but you can also observe it in newspaper articles, in student people in the foietong, that they are very, very inaccurate with their words and with their terms.

And as far as you can, yes, that is a patriotic duty, that is a moral duty, that is a task of education, counter-steering. But so much in general about the terms and about experience and about understanding as the property of the terms and thus the one through which we first make experience, because they are

is done first, not by simply having an perception, but by bringing this perception into terms, by bringing rules into it. Now certain questions remain. The question remains: how do we get to our terms, which I would like to address next.

And then afterwards I would like to talk about some special terms, namely about the pure concepts of understanding or about the categories that guide all our thinking of understanding to Kant and which are very central to his philosophy. My deepest thanks to my supporters: Thomas Deuringer, Garnhau Klaufen, Benjamin Lehning, Oblomoff,

samet öskilic elef össün jacin össün christoph spai alexander reuter lisa rinner as well as all those who support me and my educational cause