Kant and Aristophanes- Dangers of Philosophy, Essay Example

Rationalism is a way of making decisions or arguments based on reason and the activity of the mind. Rationalism is characterized by its focus on reason and the activity of the mind to attain knowledge from sources outside of the immediate scope of experience and sense of perception. The opposite of rationalism is empiricism where drawing of conclusions and gaining of knowledge based on experience.

Aristophanes is a philosopher born in Athens who produced plays with different themes during the famous war between Athens and Sparta. One of his popular old comedy is the Cloud was political and satirical and rude in the extreme. Aristophanes play involved an indebted father who was disturbed by creditors and wanted his son to enroll in Socrates school, the Phrontisterrion in the neighborhood to go and learn cleverness to confuse and keep away creditors. The son declined and the father decided to enroll himself despite his age. In school, he bothered other students wanting o meet Socrates who finally met him and tried to instill some knowledge but could grasp them. The farther was chase out of the school and finally his son was persuaded to join the school and on going to see his son he found him doing exceptionally well and he was put to debate with him and the son won it.

Aristophanes’ play is loaded with many issues that can be categorized into rationalism and empiricism philosophical views. The whole play surrounded issues of old verses new and the battle of ideas using different approaches and conclusions made based on reason or experience. The key issues regarding reason and experience is highlighted in Aristophanes play as follows;

Rationalism philosophy is manifested in Aristophanes play where his son refused to enroll in school for fear of losing his tan and the father enrolled himself because he wanted to gain cleverness on how to keep off his creditors. Another instance is when he enrolled in school and accepted the reasons that the clouds were divine and also when his son justified to beating his farther as a revenge for previous beatings. All these happenings illustrate the actions justified by reason.

A blend of empiricism and Rationalism philosophies are manifested prominently when Socrates requested the father to lie under a blanket in order to think clearly. Socrates later kicks the farther out of school for bad memory and foolishness after confessing that his mind was fixed on how to outwit his creditors. It is clear that, the farther was not interested in truth for its own sake but wanted a practical or sophisticated knowledge and making the weaker argument win (false reasoning).

Another instance in the play where both philosophies were evident is during the debate between the father and the son which was in the nature of right logic (just cause) advocated by the father in the play verses wrong logic-right logic (unjust cause) by the son. Right logic entailed;truth,justice and honesty which supported traditional education, morality respect for elders and discipline, whereas wrong logic-right logic favored material success and modern thinking that was supported by arguments like; winning argument by cleverness, taking advantage of legal loopholes and pleasures. The verdict of the debate was that right logic was defeated on legal technicality.

The lessons that are learned from the play as per Aristophanes is that, rationalism should not be the sole philosophy of decision making as exemplified in the play when his son’s behaviours laden with rationalistic philosophy turned and beat his father who observed that his son had been ruined and resorted to burning the school in the play.

Kant a philosopher too was wrestling with the rationalism and empiricism philosophies. Kant in his quest to solve the conflicts between the two schools of thought came up with the theory of transcendental idealism. The theory held that, the extent of our knowledge and decision should be determined by both empirical and rational principles. His theory is based on the delineation of the types of the knowledge that are possible. Kant in his theory formed a priori analytic, a priori synthetic and posteriori synthetic conclusions as the ultimate sources of knowledge.

According to Kant, ‘analytic’ judgments are merely explicative as they do not add any new content to the existing one. Mathematical judgments was seen by Kant as independent of experience and also derive new knowledge and therefore are a priori synthetic.

Kant and Aristophanes had similar concerns about social and personal consequences of rationalism philosophies. These concerns are exemplified by the agreement by Kant that knowledge ought to be derived through a mixture of empiricism and not based on rationalism alone. Kant in his conclusions about his theory appreciated that human beings cannot know a thing-in -itself since there is no such a thing as non-sensual perception and consequently human knowledge is fundamentally limited in its ability to know external reality.

Kant reservations in the reliance of rationalism philosophies is evident when he took the trouble to come up with the theory of  transcendental idealism, which marries the two schools of thought in order to avoid grave consequences of overreliance on one view. On the other hand, Aristophanes in his play exposed range of issues that supported not only the rationalism philosophies but also empiricism views.

In conclusion, Aristophanes play was so informative on how the olden ways or philosophies were being challenged by new ones and that the battle for ideas ought to be incorporating both rationalism and empiricism philosophies. This came out clearly in the play debate where we experience right logic verses wrong logic-right logic. Kant was also very influential in bringing the two schools of thought together and developed transcendental idealism theory. It is important that the focus on reason and the activity of the mind to attain knowledge from sources outside of the immediate scope of experience and sense of perception be adopted at all times. Both Aristophanes and Kant were influential in shading light about the two schools of thoughts. Furthermore, the warnings of Aristophanes about the consequences of rationalistic philosophies are echoed also echoed by Kant and therefore both philosophers had similar concerns about the personal and social consequences of rationalist philosophy. It is therefore evident that rationalism is the only way of making decisions or arguments based on reason and the activity of the mind and should always be exercised. Conversely, empiricism, which involves the drawing of conclusions and gaining of knowledge based on experience should be discouraged in that it may lead to making of irrational decisions. This may be detrimental to the cause being pursued.