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The Reciprocal Grounding of Freedom and Moral Law in Kant's Critique of Practical Reason

I Introduction: The Problem of Transcendental Freedom In Immanuel Kant's practical philosophy, transcendental freedom and the moral law are established not as independent concepts but as reciprocally determinant principles. This blog examines the central thesis of the Critique of Practical Reason, which posits that the moral law serves as the ratio cognoscendi (the reason for knowing) of freedom, while freedom is the ratio essendi (the reason for being) of the moral law. We become aware of our freedom only because we are first conscious of the moral law as an unconditional command; the "ought" reveals the "can." Conversely, the moral law itself could not exist as a binding principle were freedom not a real property of the will. Through a critical analysis of Kant’s text, this paper traces his argument from the rejection of all empirical moral theories to the establishment of a purely formal law, known as a "fact of reason." This analysis reveals how Ka...

Formal Legality and Substantive Justice: The Evolution of Law in Modern Societies

"Whenever the certainties of interactional law begin to dissolve, human beings seem relegated to the situation of the nonhuman primates-denied the experience of an unreflective order, they are yet powerless to create another. But there is a crucial difference between the nonhuman and the human predicament: what other primates encounter as an unspeakable fate, men must confront in the terror of consciousness”.~ Roberto M. Unger I Introduction The "rule of law" is not a universal ideal but a historically specific legal form born from the unique conditions of liberal society. Roberto Unger argues that liberal society creates an unsolvable crisis of legitimacy, which the rule of law attempts to manage through a commitment to formal legality, the impartial application of general and autonomous rules. However, as liberal societies transition into a post-liberal phase, the rise of the welfare state and corporatism prioritizes substantive justice and direct social management, ma...

The Architecture of Cognition: Kant on Typology of Judgment

  “A man abandoned by himself on a desert island would adorn neither his hut nor his person; nor would he seek for flowers, still less would he plant them, in order to adorn himself therewith. It is only in society that it occurs to him to be not merely a man, but a refined man after his kind (the beginning of civilization). For such do we judge him to be who is both inclined and apt to communicate his pleasure to others, and who is not contented with an object if he cannot feel satisfaction in it in common with others. Again, every one expects and requires from every one else this reference to universal communication of pleasure, as it were from an original compact dictated by humanity itself”.~ Immanuel Kant I Introduction In the intricate philosophical system of Immanuel Kant, the power of judgment—the Urteilskraft (power of judgment)—occupies a role of singular importance. It is neither a mere subordinate of the Verstand (understanding) nor a simple tool of the Vernunft (reason...

Colonization of Social Sphere: “Communicative Rationality” as Therapeutic Action

We live in a paradox. Our world is built on a foundation of incredible scientific achievement and technical rationality. We can calculate, predict, and control our environment with a precision unimaginable to previous generations. And yet, for many, the Modern society feels fragmented, meaningless, and governed by forces that are anything but rational. We have more tools for reason than ever, but our shared social life often seems to be falling apart. The “Age of Artificial Reason” is witnessing the disintegration of lifeworld for symbolic money and imaginative power. Fraternal bond is being replaced by a relationship of hierarchy and domination. Our world is fragmented into various  values spheres, namely epistemic, moral, and aesthetic, each of them demands different actions and convictions and in particular the individual life seems to be at odds with social cohesion, our knowledge is meant to produce skills for the fulfillment of material life, our goal is to have “appetite for...

Human's Rationality: Its Unfree-Freedoms

Cosmic energy is moving into various forms and patterns, its quest is to become, what Arthur Schopenhauer called 'will to live'.  (Arthur Schopenhauer, 1818). He is explicit that: “Thus the will to live everywhere preys upon itself, and in different forms is its own nourishment, till finally the human race, because it subdues all the others, regards nature as a manufactory for its own use. Yet even the human race...reveals in itself with most terrible distinctness this conflict, this variance of the will with itself…”. Every ‘will to become' is a movement, encompassing the history of past and future; the degree of rationality and its gradation are normativized by thoughts as hierarchy of souls and monads. Human being as likeness and image of God possess the highest truth, indeed! In fact, human being is the only species who possess and owns the truth, it is the only mode of being who puts truth at stake, constructs its horizons and claim of legitimacy and illegitimacy, defi...

Listen

Listen with care Your real nature is compassion Your ignorance beclouds you Your ego entraps you In little business and messy affairs Listen with love The melody of hearts The agony of forefathers The hope of future Listen with compassion The story unlived  The forgotten dreams The suffering of samsara Listen, listen, listen! Like never before Have you heard this tune And will never again  It will comeback Listen, once again This very moment  Carrying forward The symphony of past And the possibilities of future Listen, you please listen! 

Flowering

O mind, running after what? Longing for whom? Look inside your mystical darkness That light is effulgent In every form and function O mind, anxious for what? Trembling in the ocean of desires Let those waves witness  The inglorious height and its downfall Stop! Realise the eternity Within vibrations of time Know that constant The first principle  Blooming and bursting In various rhythms and patterns Of being and becoming of existence O mind, longing for whom? A past that never was  And a future that never will be Witness time in eternity And eternity in time O mind, angry for what? Wishful for which progress A linear lifeline Unreal to our mental eyes Look at the circularity of existence That cosmic dance and vibrations Imagine sacred in profane  And profane in sacred Matter knows everything The dark secret of nous And its all pervasive love Flowering! Flowering! Flowering!

Imagination

Student: I want to excel in my life. Over the years, my graph of success is achieving a new height. I am doing hard work to become one of the smartest and richest persons on the Earth. Teacher: Wonderful! Who is  achiever and what is achieved? Student: I am the achiever. My name and fame are shining day by day.  Teacher: Who is this ‘I’? What is the material by which it is produced? Student: I is the ego which is the agent achieving successes and facing failures. Teacher: Whether ego is real or imaginary? Student: It is made of name, form, and function. Teacher: Whether name, form, and function are eternal?  Student: No, they are changing. Teacher: Anything changes does it exist? Whether these are real or merely fictitious images appearing and disappearing before the sightscreen of mind? Student: They are the images constructing my identity as a person. Teacher: Well said! What is the stuff by which these images are made of? Who is maker and what is made? Student: They ar...

Ghost of Careerism

Careerism is a ghost haunting the prospective world of spontaneous living. Whole life people invest to make a straight, soothing, and decent image with no avail. The life of a career is nothing more than a speck of dust blown away by storms. Yet, human beings are trained to create a career, to live and die for it. The whole life is wasted for running after an image which is simply a creation of mind, an assemblage of external stimulus, and fixation of identity around symbolic representations and their meanings. This symbolic rationality is deeply embedded in the collective psyche of society like a smokescreen hiding the eternal truth. Every action is evaluated on the scale of career and the price of a person is evaluated on the parameter of its utility in terms of functioning as a career, within the career, and for the career. In the end, retirement gives a sense of loss of the economic and professional values accumulated by economic man, a sense of imaginary losses, which imprisons th...

फ़ितरत

आदत नहीं हमें कि चंद सिक्कों पे लूट जाना है ज़मीर के सौदागर हमने पग-पग पे देखे हैं उल्फ़त की आँधी हो या बेचैनी का शैलाब जो राह पकड़ के चल पड़ा उसे कश्ती मिल ही जाना है देखे है हमनें बड़े पत्थर दिल वाले जो दिल को छू जाए वही जीवन को जाना है जो बात तोड़-जोड़ कर निकले उन्हीं बांतों में जमाना है अदा जब अश्क़ बन जाए सदायें ख़ुद से ख़ुदा हो जाना है ये कैसी नादानी है कि खिलौनों को खिलौने का शौक है तेरा गुरुर एक बुलबुले सा है कुछ पल में ही मिट जाना है तूने मन के लिबास पे  जो कलिखें पोत रखी है उस मलिन मन के भीतर वो बच्चा जो शांत सा बैठा है क्या तुमने कभी उसे पहचाना है?

Birth of Name

Name, you are chasing and chased by You, do you really matter? What if you don’t exist? What if you’re a funny fiction; Invented by a few, fallen from spontaneity? Your fictitious glory is taken for granted As if, you are the beginning and the end You, the first and the final dogma The weaver of the life-stories The gene of romance and tragedy You, the fulcrum of human power The traces of memories  Whose erasure is truly a liberation From the burdening flashes of thy presence! Yet, you are blooming In an Age of Reason and Anxiety!

Time and Love

Time passes by Like moving in a train of thoughts Its sequence is always forward Vibrating like a cosmic dance of Shiva Time is creating and engulfing The little waves of the ocean Going where? Nobody knows Like a dream does not have a destination It is as true as any absurd play With friends of pleasure It moves like speed of light With friends of need It is felt like a moving river Allowing a little moments of thoughts Before everything becomes a history With friends of virtue Time becomes a sublime touch Soothing and healing the pain Becoming a spectator To watch the cries and follies Beauty and ugliness The rainbow of joy And an album of suffering Time touches Yet it remains aloof Like Purush is witnessing The colours of prakriti Yet remains unblemished And untouched The union of two is always mystical Their touch is a source Of creation and transformation Time is witnessing everything In its sequential movements Who is witnessing time? What is independent of the originatio...

Silence

At the juncture of the silence, The cosmos reveals its sublime beauty, The truth, the substratum of the Witness,   The holy mixture of atoms and their alchemy. Silence reveals the communion of matter and space,   Their constant dialectics,   Appearance and disappearance of forms,   By which the potency of matter is realised and unrealised. Silence lets the voice of nature,   To Blossom and reveal its potential meanings. Silence heals the wounds of speech,   Its therapeutic effects cement the social bonds,   In its profoundest horizons,   Individuality submerges into; The holistic union of finite and infinite. Silence is the mirror,   Which reflects the cosmic dance,   Of light, darkness, and their convergence. In the glory of silence,   Words move and produce,   The cacophony of prayers and meditations, The liturgical magic of religions,   The baffling discourses of academia,   Only encircle in a s...