Kant’s Four Questions and What a Fundamentalist Would Do with Them

I guess that every educated person has at least heard about the four basic questions of humanity as formulated by Immanuel Kant (known in German as “Die Kantischen Fragen”):

1. What can I know? – Epistemology
2. What should I do? – Ethics
3. What may I hope? – Religion
4. What is Man? – Anthropology

 
Yesterday I thought about how a fundamentalist would re-formulate these questions, and I realized that he would probably get rid of the third question altogether. A fundamentalist, in my understanding at least, is someone who has very little uncertainty about things that are uncertain to most. That means “hope” is not really a concept he can relate to. He knows that he knows that he knows that he is right. Hope is swallowed up by knowledge – or what the fundamentalist deems to be knowledge.

That is equally true of the religious and the anti-religious fundamentalist.

Here, then, are the questions and corresponding areas of study as a religious fundamentalist might see them:

1. What can I know? – Divine revelation
2. What should I do? – Divine commands
3. What is Man? – Divine revelation

And here’s the anti-religious fundamentalist:

1. What can I know? – General science
2. What should I do? – Ethical science
3. What is Man? – Anthropological science

As for me, I don’t want to turn from the wisdom displayed by Kant when he differentiated between knowledge and hope.

Tolkien’s Tragedy

 

The Children of Húrin

by J.R.R. Tolkien

 

Those who approach this book with the expectation of getting some kind of sequel (or rather prequel) to The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, or even an add-on to the Silmarillion, will be disappointed. 

This is much more a classic tragedy than a work of Fantasy literature. I was reminded of the Greek tragedies by Sophocles, Euripides, and Aeschylus. As with those authors, it is best to read The Children of Hurin with the expectation of a “bad” ending. In a classic tragedy, it does not spoil one’s reading to know that most of the main characters are going to die in a most tragic way, just like it’s no spoiler to know that there’ll be a murder in a mystery novel or jokes in a modern comedy. 

Reading The Children of Hurin in any other way is like watching a serious WWII drama and waiting the whole time for a bunch of fluffy jokes to crack you up.

If you haven’t developed a taste for tragedies, don’t read this book. 

But as a tragedy, it absolutely delivers the goods of its genre. It makes you step into another time, feel with other hearts, and taste death – and through it, grow more appreciative of the life that has been given you. 

By the end of the book, I felt enriched. Somberly enriched.