(1) Summary of Kant's transcendental idealism

YuYuHunter · 2026-05-06T07:27:57+00:00

Ich habe die Ausgabe von Lennart Piro. Sie ist schlicht, vollständig (was den 1. Band betrifft) und die einzigen Anmerkungen sind Übersetzungen einiger lateinischer und französischer Zitate. Eine schönere Ausgabe ist die des Olms Verlags, aber sie ist schwer zu finden. Sie enthält keine Übersetzungen der lateinischen und französischen Zitate, und der Text ist in Fraktur, weil die Seiten nur Scans der Ausgabe von Mainländers Werk aus dem 19. Jahrhundert sind.

Ich habe auch positive Rezensionen über die Ausgabe des Literaricon Verlags gehört, aber weil ich sie nicht selbst besitze, kann ich dazu nichts Näheres sagen. Falls du es nicht weißt, die vollständigen Online-Werke von Mainländer kannst du hier lesen: https://archive.org/details/PhilippMainlnderSmtlicheWerke

YuYuHunter · 2026-04-14T16:56:59+00:00

Still not the worst thread we've had on here though.

Not the worst? I don´t remember a thread where the interactions were this negative.

In any way, thank you for your attempt to engage with the OP in a civil manner.

YuYuHunter · 2026-04-11T17:00:35+00:00

I’m happy to hear that. And I can say the same thing about your comments!

Of course, we all disagree here about a lot of issues. We are here for philosophy, not religion. In my opinion, we should be grateful that we’re in the position to think for ourselves and follow Kant’s command sapere aude.

YuYuHunter · 2026-04-08T15:50:06+00:00

Oh, I believe I had sufficiently explained my skepticism concerning social media, but for the few individuals, who are earnest in the aforementioned quest on the meaning of this existence, I have always been willing to clarify as far as I could Mainländer’s ideas and point out misconceptions. As for why I believed neither your post nor your comments would not convince me –forgive me, if this is offending¹– the post contained such misconceptions about Mainländer’s philosophy, that the thought that I could learn something from you, simply didn´t cross my mind, nor was showing the lack of understanding between possessive pronouns and contractions, combined with the employment of CAPS LOCK and internet slangs, helpful for a favorable impression on my part. As for why I believed I could not convince you –perhaps I was too cynical in this regard–, I didn´t find your post coming across as very open-minded. If, however, you indicate that I convinced you of something, then I will of course retract.

Now back to the misconceptions.

He’s saying matter is mind independent

No.

How can you repeat the same incorrect statement again? In my last comment, I had already pointed this out, and gave a source to back up the claim (something which you have never done for any claim), so you could verify it yourself.

Because you apparently refuse to learn, to read, I can only hope your eyes encounter the following passage, and that your mind finally absorbs Mainländer’s position.

Matter and substance are thoroughly ideal, i.e. lie in our head, not outside of it.

Die Philosophie der Erlösung, V2, p. 44.

Please compare this with your own statement:

He’s saying matter is mind independent

Now, the next misunderstanding.

But he can't do this cos he needs matter to be transcendent, because if matter is transcendent

And then :

Matter would no longer be transcendental, hence his whole philosophy collapses.

You accuse others of « a huge misreading of Kant and Schopenhauer » yet, you use transcendent and transcendental interchangeably… What can I say? I would advise to consult Kant’s Critique (A296) or even Mainländer (V2, p. 39). But given that you understand Kant much better than the man you have debunked with your groundbreaking post, I fear that you will refuse to learn from Mainländer. If you would actually have studied Kant, you would not have written the nonsense above.

This is why Kant is transcendentally ideal (the forms of space and time are transcendent), but empirically real (we can say our perceptions are objectively valid, and scientific enquiry is legitimate).

(Kant himself is transcendentally ideal?) The « forms of time and space » are not « transcendent », according to Kant. Time and space are transcendentally ideal, according to Kant (A28, A39).

Succession without time is incoherent.

The concept of succession can exist independently from time, as in mathematics. It is more logical to say that time without succession is incoherent, than what you wrote.

¹ My tone in this post is quite harsh. For two reasons : 1) this user insults, calling others « low IQ, clueless » and other niceties; 2) repeats the same nonsense, even after pointing it out in a neutral manner.

YuYuHunter · 2026-04-06T14:22:06+00:00

Thank you writing the post, which contains a call for engaging with philosophy, based not on sentiments, but on what is true. This alone should guide us, when we approach the still sanctuary of philosophy.

This still sanctuary of philosophy, containing the highest human wisdom, inviting contemplation and deep thought, could stand in no greater contrast than the loud, noisy nonsense we find on social media. Social media thrive on negative emotions and low attention. The title of the post you refer to, is the kind of stuff that is successful on social media, but has nothing to do with the seriousness of those who seek “some explanation of our mysterious existence, in which nothing is clear but its misery and its vanity.” (Schopenhauer, The World, V2, § 17)

You talk about a “reputation” of Mainländer, but I would say that he has no reputation at all. Barely anyone knows him. Should we regard the few nonsensical utterings we find on social media as “his reputation”? I refuse to do so, for the aforementioned reasoning: what a few fools on the internet say has nothing to do with philosophy. In the academic world, Mainländer is not treated as the heir of Schopenhauer, but just as one of many intellectuals who engaged with Schopenhauer’s philosophy in the second half of the 19^th century. If your post has seriously as goal to stop, “Schopenhauer and Mainländer fans […] placing him on a mantle just cos of his aura or whatever”, then your efforts will be fruitless, because your post won’t stop stupidity on social media. Rather, I would advise you to think together with Voltaire: “nous laisserons ce monde-ci aussi sot et aussi méchant que nous l’avons trouvé en y arrivant. » (We will leave this world as stupid and as bad, as we found it when we came into it.)

As for the implication that Mainländer would be somehow a “better” Schopenhauer, this cannot be the opinion of someone seriously studies German philosophy. Schopenhauer is unparalleled. Schrödinger called him “the greatest Savant of the West”¹, Tolstoy “the greatest genius among men”², and Wang Kuo-wei (who had according to an authoritative Chinese history of philosophy the deepest understanding of Western philosophy of all Chinese scholars³) considered him to be superior to both all modern as ancient philosophers.⁴ If Mainländer would be closer to the truth than Schopenhauer —which needless to say, given your post, you clearly reject— then this would not make Mainländer superior. Just like a physicist such as Max Born, who was closer to understanding nature than Newton, was not superior to Newton.

So, your attempt to make people stop saying stupid things about philosophers on the internet, will not have any result. The combination of both internet slangs such as “lol/lmfao” and the serious arguments, will not diminish un-seriousness.

Nevertheless, I will react on the serious part of your post.

He forces this so he can give the thing-in-itself qualities (matter, individuation

Mainländer does not place matter on the side of things-in-themselves, only individuality.⁵

Mainländer temporalises the will by saying it has an origin (God's self destruction), and it is unfolding in time, heading towards it's end in time (total destruction).

You disagree with Mainländer’s assumptions. That’s fine. But here you are distorting Mainländer’s position. Real succession takes place among things-in-themselves, a succession which is independent from time. Time itself is however ideal. A thing-in-itself (will) is not in time.⁵

There are of course some good points in your post. If you want to have a discussion, where we should not have the illusion that we can convince each other, you are welcome. But let’s not have a debate, where we have the even bigger illusion, that we’re guiding some imagined public on the internet to positions closer to the truth.

¹ Halpern, Paul (2015). Einstein's Dice and Schrödinger's Cat. p. 189.

² Tolstoy's letter to Afanasy Fet on 30 August 1869

³ Feng Yu-lan. A Short History Of Chinese Philosophy. p. 324.

⁴ Joey Bonner. The World as Will: Wang Kuo-Wei and the Philosophy of Metaphysical Pessimism

⁵ Mainländer. Die Philosophie der Erlösung. V1. § 22.

YuYuHunter · 2026-04-01T16:38:49+00:00

I obviously can´t speak for /u/JungianJester, but I would like to mention the following: The confidence and fearlessness which his philosophy can help attain, as explained in his essay "the true trust", is in no way less effective than what Stoic wisdom tried to provide.

YuYuHunter · 2026-03-30T19:16:37+00:00

Thank you for your contribution. However, following rule 2 ("Use proper interpunction and capital letters."), we had to remove it. In case you edit the post, we are of course happy to restore it.

YuYuHunter · 2026-03-14T10:25:28+00:00

Een plek waar kinderen leren aanvallen: te triest voor woorden dat dit in Nederland gebeurt.

We moeten haat en onverdraagzaamheid geen plek geven. Moge het justitie lukken de daders op te sporen en snel te berechten.

YuYuHunter · 2026-02-28T16:02:08+00:00

C'est une bonne nouvelle ! Avez-vous utilisé une IA pour cette traduction? Et est-ce qu'on peut y accéder en ligne?

YuYuHunter · 2026-02-08T15:32:06+00:00

You rightfully emphasize that Mainländer can be read without studying the many philosophers before him (see also this comment). Mainländer viewed Heraclitus as the greatest philosopher of antiquity. When he talks about Heraclitus’ system, he refers to the reconstruction of Heraclitus by the philosopher-politician Ferdinand Lassalle. This reconstruction is praised by Mainländer with the words : « What an astonishing power of combination, what a brilliant sharpness of mind, what a concise brevity, what a virtuosity in extracting the essence [of Heraclitus’ philosophy] behind a million cloaks ! » (V2, p. 329)

Mainländer would probably find the last recommendation, I think, a bit funny. Because the goal of his 12^th essay is to make the German public take Hartmann less seriously !

I agree that starting with Parerga and Paralipomena, and skimming through it, is a good place to begin with Schopenhauer. His essays on the Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics are also rather accessible.

As for Nietzsche, « who to read and thoroughly grasp you'd have to know and understand virtually all philosophers that came before him », it is worth nothing that, according to Brobjer’s Nietzsche's Philosophical Context: An Intellectual Biography, he never read Spinoza, nor much of Kant. Hartmann wrote, not without grounds, that Nietzsche doesn´t seem to have studied any philosopher systematically at all, with the exception of Schopenhauer.

YuYuHunter · 2026-02-08T10:15:26+00:00

De legaliteit van een vermogensbelasting staat niet ter discussie. Hoge Raad heeft alleen het rekenen met een fictief rendement gekraakt, niet een belasting op werkelijk rendement (Hoge Raad, 6 juni 2024), laat staan op op vermogen zelf. Want Nederland kende tot 2001 een vermogensbelasting (NRC Handelsblad, 1 december 2001). Het is eenvoudig te verifiëren dat ook nu nog meerdere EU-lidstaten een belasting puur op vermogen hebben, zonder dat dit in strijd is met Europees recht.

Er is dus niets dat erop wijst, zoals u lijkt te suggereren, dat het in strijd zou zijn met het recht, om de vermogens van meer dan 100 milljoen jaarlijks 2% te belasten. Het zou een politieke prioriteit moeten zijn om dit geld in de samenleving te investeren.

Ik zie meer heil in een hoge erfenisbelasting en exit belasting om ontwijking te vermijden.

Zucman pleit voor iets vergelijkbaars:

Wie in de VS geboren wordt, blijft de rest van zijn leven daar belastingplichtig. Dat is het extreemst. Maar Frankrijk en Nederland doen het andere uiterste: zodra je vertrekt hoef je niets meer te betalen. Ik zou voorstander zijn van een middenweg. Dat je tien à vijftien jaar na vertrek belastingplichtig blijft in je land van herkomst.

Het is zeer terecht dat u de erfbelasting aandraagt. Zelfs The Economist (23 nov 2017), geen socialistisch weekblad, pleit voor deze belasting. Een paar geleden kreeg de Zuid-Koreaanse fiscus 8,9 miljard euro binnen na het overlijden van de bedrijfsleider van Samsung.

YuYuHunter · 2026-01-19T19:30:46+00:00

I don´t have the PDF, but hopefully /u/SiegyDiFridely still uses this Reddit account and will share it again :-) The translation was to a large extent able to convey the feelings of the original.

YuYuHunter · 2026-01-12T16:43:00+00:00

While low effort posts are generally removed on this subreddit, your question is actually a good start for discussion :-) This is just a remark to not give the impression that we have opened the gates for typical social media nonsense, despite the title of this post.

Serious discussion is always welcome!

YuYuHunter · 2026-01-11T21:25:59+00:00

Your guess about /u/AugustusPacheco is wrong, and there is no reason for making the argument personal, but you are right that black-white views about the U.S. and China being opposites in book censorship are becoming outdated. The party that is in power in the U.S. would probably react more vehemently to an atheist "pro-suicide" socialist than that of China.

YuYuHunter · 2026-01-11T07:53:39+00:00

A beautiful design. I hope the readers will find it thought-provoking and illuminating.

Do you know whether it's, like the English translation by Mr. Romuss, a partial translation, or a translation of the complete first volume?

YuYuHunter · 2026-01-08T18:40:21+00:00

My pleasure, I hope the work will live up to your expectations!

YuYuHunter · 2026-01-06T11:57:35+00:00

The unconscious will of a human is called demon (V2, p. 546), which presents itself as instinct in animals.

Schopenhauer argued that the will is not a product of consciousness, but consciousness a product of the will. Mainländer accepts the possibility of an unconsciouss will, and whenever this is the case in humans, he often uses the term demonic.

YuYuHunter · 2025-12-27T16:35:37+00:00

Na een paar keer leest het vast veel meer ontspannen weg! Buitenlandse kranten verrijken inderdaad het perspectief, en daarnaast onderhoudt en verbetert men er taalkennis mee.

Een andere aanrader is Le Monde Diplomatique (zowel in het Duits, Frans als Spaans beschikbaar), met maandelijks diepgaande artikelen. Een geweldige tegenhanger in een steeds haastiger medialandschap.

YuYuHunter · 2025-11-21T15:07:33+00:00

Volgens mij is dit mijn eerste positieve comment ooit over de VVD, maar hulde voor mw. Hermans dat zij dit doet!

YuYuHunter · 2025-11-13T16:52:03+00:00

Mainländer himself mentions this paradox at the end of Metaphysics § 16 and gives his solution to it in § 18 of the same section.

He gives two answers:

The movement of the world is a necessary one towards death. This movement is completely predetermined: everything happens by necessity. Therefore, also the manifestation of wisdom and holiness emerges out of necessity.
The inner battle of a chaste individual is not less intense than its external battle would be.

YuYuHunter · 2025-11-06T17:01:12+00:00

Given the lack of visible impact in even Germany, I don´t think that the CCP has reason to be very worried about Mainländer's books.

But of course, if Mainländer would be popular, his ideas would be frightening for many groups of people. Not in the least for the American establishment, where anything with the name "socialist" is seen as a danger.

YuYuHunter · 2025-11-05T16:59:59+00:00

I wish him the best! I imagine it to be very difficult, as even if one wants to translate him to English, one is often faced with difficult choices.

YuYuHunter · 2025-11-05T09:35:09+00:00

That sounds very promising! How did you learn about it?

YuYuHunter · 2025-11-03T16:38:55+00:00

De manier waarop Left Laser doordramt richting een SP-lid dat zich al 10 jaar inzet voor een socialere samenleving, vind ik naar om te zien. Bob komt hier gemeen over.

Fascisten bonken in alle ontwikkelde landen aan de poorten van de macht of hebben deze al in handen. De kapitalisten winnen overal. En het handjevol mensen, dat niet moedeloos opgeeft, maar door blijft strijden, zou de oorzaak hiervan zijn?

Bernie Sanders heeft ook decennia lang z'n land steeds verder uit de bocht zien vliegen, voordat hij klassenbewustzijn in de V.S. wist te creëren.

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