Q&A: “I Hallucinate, Therefore You Exist”
“I Hallucinate, Therefore You Exist”
Question
On page 139 of his book Truth and Not Stable, the Rabbi argues that according to Kantianism (the later version), we are dealing with phenomena that “I hallucinate…” Bergman, in his book The Philosophy of Immanuel Kant, shows quite clearly that the attempt to “accuse” Kant of an illusionist view, in his words (p. 39), does not stem from the use of the concept of the thing-in-itself, and from there the road to Hermann Cohen is not a long one. I do not understand how the Rabbi “accuses” Kant of the conception of “I hallucinate, therefore you exist” (to use his phrase). Kant is not Berkeley, right?! Something here does not add up for me. Also, the Rabbi claims that Kant “did not solve problems.” Kant himself writes that he wrote the Critique in order to “make room for faith”; there is no solution here in the positive sense, but rather clearing the way. If one ignores the later stages (as in the example I gave above) of the schools that came after Kant (for example Husserl, Hermann Cohen, and others), then indeed one can arrive at misleading places???
Answer
I don’t understand the logic of the question. I explained my position there quite clearly. You claim that Bergman writes differently? Good for him. If you have some argument, please present it.