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Quote by Allen W. Wood

“What is most remarkable about the philosophy of Kant, in my opinion, is the wide range of topics on which his thoughts repay careful study. In so many areas -- not only in metaphysics but also in natural science, history, morality, and critique of taste -- he seems to have gone to the root of the matter, and at least raised for us the fundamental issues, whether or not we decide in the end that what he said about them is correct. In his brief, five-page essay on the question "What is Enlightenment?" for example, he locates the essence of enlightenment not in learning or the cultivation of our intellectual powers but in the courage and resolve to think for oneself, to emancipate oneself from tradition, prejudice, and every form of authority that offers us the comfort and security of letting someone else do our thinking for us. Kant's essay enables us to see that the issues raised by the challenge of the Enlightenment are still just as much with us as they were in the eighteenth century.”

Quote by Allen W. Wood

Book:Kant
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Kant

This book delves into the profound and influential philosophical ideas of Immanuel Kant, covering topics such as metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and epistemology. more

Author

Allen W. Wood
Allen W. Wood

Allen W. Wood, born in 1942, is a renowned professor in the field of philosophy. He has made significant contributions to ethics and political philosophy, with a rich academic career that spans several decades. Wood's research has influenced scholars worldwide, and his works have provided new insights into moral and political theories. more

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“Could error arise from a true demonstration, and falsehood proceed from duly verified authority? In no domain could this easily happen, and when dealing with religious faith it could not happen at all. To say that religious faith is legitimate as a means of knowledge is to say that it is divine; for it has no value for those who proclaim it except what it derives from this transcendent origin. To say, on the other hand, that the use of the reason is legitimate and necessary, is to take the same thing as understood; for reason has no authority except as far as it represents the eternal order, that is to say, God once more. How could God be divided against Himself, teaching by revelation what He contradicts by the intelligence, and setting up in opposition to each other as two manifestly hostile things on the one side the Gospel, on the other the book of nature and of humanity, when these volumes, which we want to distinguish, are really the three volumes of one work? If the Gospel be properly understood—the living Gospel, I mean, such as the Church offers it—it cannot contradict nature, nor man, nor, consequently, that science which expresses them both. If science is in its own domain and operates according to its law, it cannot contradict the Gospel.”

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Book:The Church
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