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Kant attempted to work out a view of religion and religious belief according to which existing religions could be brought into harmony with modernity, science and reason.

Allen W. Wood

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Allen W. Wood
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: January 1
Academic
Philosopher
Professor
University Teacher
Seattle
Washington
Allen William Wood
Science
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Reason
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Kant
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Modernity
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Religions

More quotes by Allen W. Wood

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It seems to me self-evident that it is worthwhile to understand the best thoughts of the past, to appropriate them, to criticize them.
Allen W. Wood
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The Russian revolution did not occur until a generation after Marx's death. He was not involved with it, or with what came after it. His works do not describe post-capitalist society, and a fortiori they do not recommend any part of what the Soviet Union did.
Allen W. Wood
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In general, those who defend capitalism are basically out of touch with reality.
Allen W. Wood
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The moral law is simply the way we think our own freedom as self-determination.
Allen W. Wood
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Kant says that we may regard ourselves as legislator of the moral law, and consider ourselves as its author, but not that we are legislators or authors of the law.
Allen W. Wood
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Marx is thought of as an implacable foe of capitalism. But go back and read the first section of the Communist Manifesto. Notice how it contains a paean of praise for the way capitalism and the bourgeoisie have both enriched the human powers of production and also enabled us to see with clear vision the nature of human society and human history.
Allen W. Wood
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Since we cannot know too much about the long term effects of our particular lives, and since success and fame are not good measures of the value of what we have done, it should be enough for any of us that as far as we can tell, in some small way we have made humanity's future better rather than worse.
Allen W. Wood
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I don't think Kant's approach to religion is any longer viable in its original form. But that does not mean it is simply wrong or that we cannot learn from it.
Allen W. Wood
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Kant thinks we can show that there is no contradiction in supposing we are free.
Allen W. Wood
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It was an important part of Mendelssohn's philosophical and religious view that the traditional rationalist proofs for God's existence should be sound an convincing. Kant thought they were not. So Kant's critique was world-shaking for Mendelssohn.
Allen W. Wood
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Kant takes a free will to be a being or substance with the power to cause a state of the world (or a whole series of such states) spontaneously or from itself.
Allen W. Wood
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Surely the world will be a better place, at least marginally, if people have a better understanding of Kant and Hegel, if Marx's thought its studied and appreciated, if people gain a better understanding of Fichte, whose philosophy is far more important than people realize.
Allen W. Wood
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There is a lot in Adam Smith that reflects the insights of Rousseau and anticipates those of Marx.
Allen W. Wood
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For the utilitarian, there is a fact of the matter about the good (the general happiness, or whatever conception of the good the utilitarian adopts) and about which actions or moral rules would contribute to maximizing the good. For the rational intuitionist, there are truths about which actions should be done and not done.
Allen W. Wood
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Kant was a rational theologian. He did not pretend to be a biblical or revealed theologian.
Allen W. Wood
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Those who employ their modest talents as best they can do make a contribution to a better human future.
Allen W. Wood
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It would be nice, wouldn't it? if we could get comfortable about the problem of freedom. Kant thinks that we can't.
Allen W. Wood
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I think the contribution people make is not proportionate to their fame or success. In fact, I think the relation is often inverse.
Allen W. Wood
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Notice that tearing oneself out of the insensible state is the opposite of remaining in it the man who is beneficent from duty nevertheless acts with feelings, if not with empirical inclinations.
Allen W. Wood
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I think it is clear that what we ought to do has to be independent of our decisions about what to do, and independent of any procedures we might use in making such decisions.
Allen W. Wood