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Originally Posted by roachboy
baraka guru: but in other posts, you're also a kantian.
how does that work, an existentialist humanist kantian?
one way to square them is that the operation of the a priori is essence, yes?
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I think Kant could be considered a precursor to existentialist humanism, could he not? He valued free will and reason. Consider his categorical imperative: "I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim should become a universal law." But he also states that "All imperatives are expressed by an 'ought'. By this they mark the relation of an objective law of reason to a will that is not necessarily determined by this law in virtue of its subjective constitution." To me this reads as an embracing of moral ambiguity based on a social collective of individual experience. This is certainly a step towards what we understand as existential humanism.
I am not a Kantian, per se, but I see his views as a critical foundation of the modern mind.