PART 1: CHAPTER 1

Hello! I hope you are enjoying the book, although only registered members can continue.

Please register to continue the free reading. Thanks.

PLATO, ARISTOTLE AND KANT

1

Cultural Imprint and Different Philosophical Criteria

The cultural imprint of a man derives from the philosophy of his culture.

All culture derives from philosophy, but philosophies that deny reality create cognitive dissonance and anxiety. Philosophy must adapt to reality, not the other way around. Otherwise, life is a journey with a broken compass, and goals remain unreachable.

A man convinced he is heading somewhere but arrives elsewhere faces a bitter surprise. Even worse, if he discovers his philosophy misled him for years. To reach your life goal, you need a working compass and know how to use it. Choosing a philosophy is choosing that compass. It is the most important choice of your life.

Everyone uses a compass. Those who do not choose one have culture choose it for them. Children absorb it unconsciously. Most compasses malfunction, freezing in the subconscious and steering the person into error. To achieve your success and true self-esteem you must choose a philosophy whose compass needle point north, that is, to the objective reality that exists apart from your consciousness. This is how you locate yourself in reality.

At sea, a captain relies on the magnetic needle. To an ignorant person it is trivial, but to the captain it is his only link to reality. The needle aligns with the Earth’s magnetic field, produced by liquid iron moving in the planet’s core — a dynamo effect discovered by Joseph Larmor a century ago. If the needle is not magnetized, it cannot align, and an aluminium needle cannot work. Steel needles work because iron atoms align their electrons in the same direction. Magnetic properties are natural, absolute, and follow the law of identity: each thing acts according to its nature. All of these are facts of reality. Reality exists apart from your consciousness. You need to start thinking from reality.

The compass works because it responds to the reality of liquid iron, to the atoms of that iron, and to the steel needle that reacts to magnetic induction. The needle lines up with the Earth’s field. It works because it recognizes nature’s given and absolute reality, specifically the iron atoms. This is the law of Identity and Causality in action, something you will discover later.

Objective philosophy recognizes reality. It allows you to succeed and gain true self-esteem. It allows you to live in synchronicity with the laws of nature. Your life becomes effective, your decisions align with reality, and your self-confidence grows.

Objective philosophy accepts existence, evidence, and sensory reality. It does not deny the material world.

Aristotle understood this. The true world is the material world, the sensible world, perceptible by the senses. Essence resides in things themselves, in matter and form, like atoms of iron or aluminium. Aristotle distinguished the sensible world from the intelligible world. The sensible world is known through perception; the intelligible through thought.

If life’s success depends on philosophy, then choose one that integrates perception and ideas. Objective philosophy connects the intelligible to the sensible; imagination to reality; concepts to percepts; emotions to thoughts; success to clear thinking.

Objective philosophy works with a criteria based in reality. Criteria can be rational or irrational, right or wrong. “Value” differs for a communist and a capitalist. In Aristotle’s Athens, “truth” meant something different than in the Middle Ages.

History shows science applies objective criteria and drives progress. Knowledge arises from evidence and the scientific method. Physics, biology, and other sciences rest on objective philosophy.

Objective philosophy recognizes that reality exist independently from consciousness. The universe is given, natural, and governed by absolute laws. It alone prevents anxiety and cognitive dissonance.

2

The Three Great Philosophers of the West

All Western cultures derive from the ideas of Plato, Aristotle, and Kant.

The cultures of the West stem from Plato, Aristotle, and Kant. Each philosophy connects perceptions and ideas differently. To illustrate, imagine a bicycle.

If a bicycle is disassembled and its pedals, wheels, chain, and handlebars lie in a pile, it is not a bicycle. The parts are together but not connected.

If the parts are connected incorrectly, for example the chain to the handlebars or the seat to a wheel, it is still not a bicycle.

A bicycle exists only when its parts are logically connected and can function. Thinking works the same way.

A person who integrates concepts correctly connects perceptions to ideas. His concepts are effective because they help him think clearly and act successfully.

3

Plato’s Philosophy

Plato says that the material world derives from the world of ideas.

Plato duplicated the material world and invented an eternal, perfect world in another imperceptible dimension. He called it the world of Forms and claimed material things are its shadows.

Plato was the first Western thinker to offer a complete philosophical system. The problem: he duplicated the world without evidence. He invented the demiurge, an intelligence that orders chaos and creates the sensible world as a copy of the intelligible. The Forms exist in another dimension, eternal, motionless, logical, and hierarchical. At the top is the One, the source of all Forms, a concept that refers to God.

A physical apple is, for Plato, an illusion, a shadow of the eternal Apple Form, perceived only through intuition. To explain this, he created the Allegory of the Cave. His explanation is not science.

Saint Augustine adopted Plato, giving Christianity a Platonist foundation. Before knowing, man must believe; before thinking, he must accept a priori concepts. These concepts do not come from evidence or senses but from imagination or superstition.

They are not anchored in reality. Yet Platonists live guided by this philosophical compass.

Plato asks man to trade certainty in the sensible world for eternal life after death. History offers no example of anyone returning from the grave.

By duplicating the world, Plato doubles identity. The first-self is the eternal, perfect spiritual-self. The second-self is the mortal, imperfect physical-self, treated as irrelevant. This theory arose when pagan gods and animism were common, yet today, science explains natural phenomena without divine intervention. Lightning comes from electrical potential, not Zeus. Self-deception defends Platonism in the 21st century. Given his intelligence, Plato likely would have revised his theory with modern science.

Plato’s two-world philosophy extends to politics. Replace God with the State, and the model works. Stalin becomes the Soviet God, Hitler the Nazi God, Mao the God of China, Mussolini the fascist God. The Earth becomes a shadow of the State, the People a shadow of the authority.

Platonism separates concepts from perceptions. A Platonist cannot think effectively for material success. Leonard Peikoff calls it the One without the Many: characteristics without material things; adjectives without nouns; actions without actors; ideas without brains; the demiurge projecting mind into amorphous matter. Evidence? None.

Plato’s mistake was proposing that ideas exist independently, before brains exist. He imagined a demiurge shaping ideas into matter, like an artisan moulding clay. Forms exist first, then the demiurge shapes them. This ontological dualism gives rise to belief in an eternal, immutable, perfect spirit that reincarnates in a body. Evidence of such a spirit? None.

This metaphysical dualism underpins the superstition of reincarnation. Platonism sustains the opium of the people. It explains the success of religions and totalitarian regimes, where God or the State forbids reason.

4

Aristotle’s Philosophy

Aristotle does not duplicate existence but studies the laws of material nature.

Aristotle’s philosophy begins with evidence. There is only one world. Material things are real, not shadows of a supernatural fantasy. He formulated the laws of Identity and Causality: “A is A.” A thing equals itself and acts according to its nature. These laws order the macro and microcosm, creating harmony and beauty.

Aristotle studied under Plato but later saw his two-world theory was wrong.

A baby’s brain is a tabula rasa. Knowing begins with observing the world. When man learns to speak, he integrates perceptions into concepts and then learns to think logically.

Thinking starts with induction: reasoning from particular to general, from facts to synthesis, from experiment to demonstration. Then comes deduction: reasoning from general to particular, from theses to demonstrations.

Aristotle’s epistemology was completed by Ayn Rand. Leonard Peikoff, in DIM Hypothesis, defines Aristotle’s integration of perceptions into concepts as the One in the Many. The One is the common characteristic of a type of thing; the Many are all things that possess it.

Aristotle’s philosophy is objective. It derives from evidence and works as a compass that guides you to success in the material world. It produces cognitive consonance and leads to eudaimonia.

5

Kant’s Philosophy

Kant says that noumenal reality cannot be known by perceptions or reason.

Kant claims man cannot know reality through senses or reason. Any logical conclusion is therefore invalid. He says perception deforms reality, so sensory organs cannot be trusted.

For Kant, true reality is noumenal, but unknowable. Material reality is phenomenal, but perceptions distort it.

If sensory perception cannot distinguish things, the law of identity fails. Logic loses value. If noumenal characteristics are unknown and concepts rely only on shared phenomena, every concept lacks objective value and becomes a social convention.

To what are concepts anchored? To nothing. Kant is a nihilist. Leonard Peikoff, in DIM Hypothesis, writes: “Kant is the first and greatest nihilist in the history of thought. A nihilist destroys the mind and values of man as an end in itself, for the sake of destruction.”

Peikoff also illustrates this with the daughter of another philosopher. When she asked where her father was, he denied the body, the head, and left her desperate. Kant denies the real daddy, as he is. His philosophy produces inner emptiness.

To relieve anxiety, nihilists destroy, but existence persists. Nature continues indifferent.

Peikoff defines Kant’s philosophy as the Many without the One. The Many are phenomena, not real things. The One, the characteristics of things you can’t know as they are. Concepts become social conventions; thoughts, unanchored to reality.

Kant’s philosophy produces cognitive dissonance and anxiety. It is a compass that works, but to drive you mad.

——

Summary of The Philosophical Roots of The West

Aristotle: One, in the Many.

Plato: One, without the Many.

Kant: Many without the One.

Plato’s and Kant’s philosophies mixed with Aristotle’s also produce a negative mix.

Objective philosophy derives from Aristotle.

——

ONE TIME NOTE:

Remember to read the quotes of selected thinkers, related to the topic of each chapter, in the annex at the end.