asaris

Well, I might as well throw in another .02$

This isn't quite right. The 'phenomenal' world (the world we create through the categories and the schemata) is real, it's just not reality in itself. This is why Kant spends so much time trying to prove the validity of the categories, among other things. If they are not valid, then the phenomenal world isn't real, and that's a consequence he wants to avoid.

I don't think this is right (though it is the most common reading of Kant.) It seems to me that the important thing for Kant is whether or not we would act morally if we were not so inclined, so that, in order to show this more clearly, he uses cases where we are acting against our inclinations.

This can be seen from Kant's discussion of the 'holy will' later in the Second Critique. He writes that the ideal will is the holy will, a will that always acts according to the categorical imperative both out of duty and inclination. Not that any human beings have a holy will, but it is clearly set up as a goal.

Well, guilty as charged -- I was raised in the analytic tradition, though I've since left it. I suspect, though, that our disagreement here is simply regarding the use of the word 'pessimistic'. I only mean that Sartre does not think it possible to unify the 'in-itself' and the 'for-itself', while Hegel thinks that it is possible to do so. Whether or not Sartre is pessimistic overall is a different question. (Actually, my suspicion is yes here as well. See my sig file.)

It's always unclear exactly what's Plato and what's Socrates in the early to middle Plato. I was taught, ages ago, that early Plato is pretty close to Socrates and middle Plato is a bit more muddled. But the Republic is middle Plato, so it still, as far as I know, bears Socratic fingerprints. "The Statesman" would be Plato's own, mature views on the subject.

Eh, not all of it is junk. His views on choice are as good as any I've come across, and his views on ethics better than most. But you're right that he's very important. He's really, more than Plato even, the founder of Philosophy as a discipline.

Oh, don't dismiss me so quickly. I'm aware he's more complex than that, but I was trying to describe him in one sentence. And no, I'm not a political philosopher, but I'm more of a political philosopher than, say, an epistemologist.

I like Husserl's better. "I think, therefore there is thought."

Thanks felonius! It's nice to think about some of these thinkers I haven't thought about in a while.

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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche