The Critique of a Postmodern Trope continues...

“[Hayek produced] a terrific steam hammer in order to crack a nut—and then he does not crack it.”—Piero Sraffa’s critique of Friedrich von Hayek’s book “Prices and Production,” (1932).

The Fallacy of Equivocation between the terms Doubt and Skepticism 

Hicks completely missed the different types of skepticism. Skepticism can be a methodological technique to engage in doubt for testing hypotheses, and/or skepticism can be an attitude of doubt “toward all the beliefs of man, from sense experience to religious creeds”(Tillich, Dynamics of Faith, p.19, pdf.). Hicks’ initial look at Kant suggests skepticism in the first methodological sense, but then the book equivocates to the attitudinal sense of doubt, and then later creeps over into nihilism. Hicks states, “Kant’s point was deeper, arguing that in principle any conclusion reached by any of our faculties must necessarily not be about reality. Any form of cognition because it must operate a certain way, cannot put us in contact with reality”(Loc: 1130). And he writes, “Earlier skeptics had their negative conclusions, continued to conceive of truth as correspondence to reality”(Loc: 1163). So there are philosophers that are not pure skeptics such as Descartes. But yet, Hicks points to Kant as the archetypal skeptic. Kant is not the lone skeptical “all-destroyer”(Loc: 1157).

Kant understood his transcendental criticism of speculative metaphysics as necessary to avoid falling into harmful dogmatic philosophies motivated by mere philodoxy, or in Greek ϕιλόδοξος (ϕιλό-love; δοξος- belief), meaning love of belief, or opinion. Kant argues a critical philosophy is needed to avoid dogmatism.

”It is only by criticism that metaphysicians (and, as such, theologians too) can be saved from these controversies and from the consequent perversion of their doctrines. Criticism alone can strike a blow at the root of materialism, fatalism, atheism, free-thinking, fanaticism, and superstition, which are universally injurious—as well as of idealism and skepticism, which are dangerous to the schools, but can scarcely pass over to the public (Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant, trans., Meiklejohn, 1781, p. 21)(pdf)."

Kant was not a theist in the traditional sense, but likely a non-theist for his goal in the Critique was to make room for faith whereas Hume was a faithless atheist because natural-scientific positivism forces him there—another difference between Kant and Hume that the generic term skepticism does not acknowledge. Hicks uses the label of skepticism, and other labels, in the most generic sense such as relativism. 

The Fallacy of Equivocation between Barroom Relativism with Relationalism 

And yet another Fallacy of Equivocation is committed with the term relativism which claims all judgments have no universal validity. Hicks wrote, “Hegelian dialectical reason also differs from Enlightenment reason by implying a strong relativism, against the universality of Enlightenment reason”(Loc: 1336). Hegel is categorized by philosophy as an absolute idealist---not as a relative idealist. Hegel is best known as the philosopher that affirmed universal reason as the necessary condition for freedom.  A relative idealist believes there are many interpretations of many different realities; and like a solipsist, think only their own experiences and thoughts are real with no objective standard by which to judge any one worldview as more real than another. Absolute idealists believe in one reality because there is only one mind. This is another case of equivocation of the concept relativistic idealism with absolute idealism.

Another version of relativism is the belief there is no absolute truth since the concept of truth itself is relative to space and time. The relativist’s flawed argument is the following: “It was once true that the capital of Brazil was Rio de Janeiro, but now it is false since the capital of Brazil today is Briazilia. Therefore, truth is not absolute, but relative to time.” In another example the relativist might argue, “’The light is above John’ is a true proposition; however, in a different location Y the proposition is false; therefore, truth is not absolute, but is relative to space.” The problem with these arguments is the relationships of space and time are omitted from the propositions themselves. It is true the capital of Brazil in 1960 was Rio de Janeiro, and it will always be true. And for today’s date, it will always be true that the capital of Brazil is Briazilia. There is no contradiction here as the relativists claim. That the light was above John at location X is true regardless of what new location Y he has moved to later. There are no sane philosophers that hold to this crude version of relativism--not Kant, Hegel, and certainly not Einstein. Hicks is confusing this un-sophisticated version of epistemological relativism (Loc: 1088) with relationalism. Relationalism, however, only holds that all elements of meaning in a given situation refer to other elements of meaning in a reciprocal historical interrelationship. Relationalism is a term coined by sociologist Karl Mannheim (Ideology and Utopia, 1936, Harvest books, p. 86).

The Fallacy of Ambiguity between the terms Kantian Idealism and Berkeleian Idealism

“Can this be called idealism? It is the very opposite of it!… This doctrine of mine doesn’t destroy the existence of the thing that appears, as genuine idealism does; it merely says that we can’t through our senses know the thing as it is in itself.”—Kant, “Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics,” p.21-22(pdf.).  

Kantian Transcendental Idealism is the critical science of the logically necessary conditions for the possibility of experience. The term “transcendental” is used by Kant to mean a priori, or before experience. For example, the pure forms of sensibility are space and time which are necessary a priori conditions to have sense experience (intuition) of any object of knowledge. Berkeleian idealism holds that “to be (exist) is to be perceived.” Kant absolutely did not hold this version of idealism, but instead confirmed the thing-in-itself which cannot itself be perceived (Ibid., p.77). Kant wrote, “the unconditioned does not lie in things as we know them, or as they are given to us, but in things as they are in themselves, beyond the range of our cognition”(Critique, p.15). Hicks’ use of the term idealism to describe Kant is very misleading because he again never goes beyond their generic meaning except to equivocate. Kant wrote (italics in original text):

"...it would be an unpardonable misunderstanding—almost a deliberate one—to say that my doctrine turns all the contents of the world of the senses into pure illusion."--Kant, Prolegomena, p. 22).

Post hoc Explication is Not Refutation

“Dispute the validity of a definition, and he is completely at a loss to find another. He has formed his mind on another’s; but the imitative faculty is not the productive”--Kant in Critique, p. 466.

The best counter-argument that directly refutes Hick’s epistemology is the second edition fifteen-paged Preface to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1782) then compare it with Hick’s chapter on ”Kant the Turning Point.” You can get a free preview of Hicks’ book online. Kant’s second edition preface to the Critique is aimed precisely at critics similar to Hicks who are often referred to by Kant as metaphysical dogmatists. Kant defined dogmatism as “… the dogmatic procedure of pure reason without previous criticism of its own powers….”(Critique, p. 22). These metaphysical dogmatists include the religious thinkers of his day who were stunned by Kant’s devastating refutation of the traditional proofs of the existence of a supreme being in the Critique, “Transcendental Logic: Second Division. Transcendental Dialectic: Introduction. I. Of Transcendental Illusory Appearance,” ([A:292-294; B:349-350], Ibid., p. 209).

Post hoc explication alone is not a refutation. However, Hicks refutes himself constantly. He makes a statement and then walks it back by reciting limited summative statements of Kant’s so called radical relativistic skepticism distantly scattered throughout the book without actually integrating them into his assessment of Kant. Throughout the entire book he makes academically obligatory boilerplate acknowledgements to some of Kant’s concepts as a post hoc camouflaged repair patch job, but then jumps out in the open to interject Maoist like anti-Kantian slogans. Bare assertion is not refutation. Hicks never engages Kant’s arguments, but only gives short-change summaries of Kant’s epistemology. Hicks noted that “Kant did not take all the steps down to postmodernism, but he did take the decisive one” (Loc: 1157). But, he then states, “Kant is a landmark…Kant went a step further and redefined truth on subjective grounds” (Loc: 1157). Kant’s landmark status is not for being an irrational subjective relativistic skeptic, but for other important reasons such as defeating all the traditional arguments for the existence of a supreme deity, and resolving the problem of the origin of knowledge, which hounded Rationalism and Idealism. Kant wrote to the religious dogmatists,

“These unavoidable problems of mere pure reason are God, freedom (of will), and immortality. The science which, with all its preliminaries, has for its especial object the solution of these problems is named metaphysics—a science which is at the very outset dogmatical, that is, it confidently takes upon itself the execution of this task without any previous investigation of the ability or inability of reason for such an undertaking”(Critique,[A:3-4; B: 4-8]). 

The Fallacy of Equivocation between the terms Real₁ and Reality₂

Take for example Kant’s concept of noumenon and phenomenon, which are the foundational concepts of Kantian epistemology. Hicks wrote after reviewing Kant,  “Abstracting from the above quotations yields the following. Metaphysically, postmodernism is anti-realist, holding that it is impossible to speak meaningfully about an independently existing reality”(Loc: 526).

"He has learned this or that philosophy and is merely a plaster cast of a living man."--Kant in Critique, p. 466. 

He only mentions the term noumenal, but doesn’t go into detail of what noumenon means. Kant’s epistemological dichotomy of appearance and reality is the foundation of Representational Epistemology: there is mediation between the thing-in-itself, and the thing as it appears to the observer—a distinction that can be traced back to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. The thing-in-itself can only be known indirectly through appearances (phenomena) as experience, which is the domain of Reason.

Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

Hick’s refuses to seriously examine the concept of noumenon that can be traced back to ancient Platonic epistemology.

For Plato, empirical observation was the lowest of all states of mind of which there are two: lowest level of knowledge is opinion Doxia (δόξα) “belief” as in orthodoxy, and the higher level is scientific knowledge (ἐπιστήμη, epistēmē) related etymologically to the “Epistles,” or letters, for example.

The lowest form of knowledge is opinion based on empirical image (εἰκών, icon), and observing biological life (ζωὴ, Zoa, or 'life' as in the word ‘Zoo’).

The higher levels of knowledge include mathematics (μαθηματικά, method) and the highest level of knowledge is of the Forms (ἀρχή, archetype). Only in the state of mind of Noesis (νόησις) meaning “understanding, concept, or notion” is there intelligibility of the invisible (Forms) as opposed to opinion, and belief based on visible empirical images.

The allegory of the cave found in Plato’s Republic (514a–520a) is about epistemological progress and transformation of human worldviews. Plato has Socrates describe to Glaucon, the brother of Plato, a story of a group of prisoners within a cave who are chained to a low wall for their entire lives while only facing the cave’s opposing wall which has moving shadows projected on it by firelight burning behind the prisoners. Persons behind and above the prisoners make sounds and move patterned shaped shadow images across the cave wall. This shadow-world of (εἰκασία) or “apprehension by images and shadows” is reality₁ for these chained prisoners who even give names to the shadows (see lecture: Dr. Harrison Kleiner lectures on Plato's Allegory of a Cave).

Socrates imagines what would happen if a prisoner were released to freely walk out of the cave. Socrates thought the prisoner may have to be forced away from the shadows of their reality₁, and would even try to kill the man that tried to release them. Reality₁ is the reality of the empirical images and shadows (Doxia). Plato is subtly drawing an analogy to Socrates as the man executed by the Athenian State for attempting to release its citizens from ignorance. As the freed slave walks out of the cave, they enter the sunlight. This walk to sunlight could be interpreted as religious and/or a historical-epistemological journey from mere Doxia, or belief, to Noesis,(νόησις), meaning understanding, concept, or notion.

What does the sun symbolically represent? The sun is “…the domain where truth and reality shine….”(508d). The cave’s firelight provided the shadow show and is historically interpreted allegorically as deceptive rhetoric, distorted politics, and sophistry posing as wisdom. The second light is the noumenal sunlight of ultimate reality₂. Interestingly, Plato described the human eye as “…the most sunlike of all the instruments of sense”(508b). However, he also said, “Neither vision itself nor its vehicle, which we call the eye, is identical with the sun”(508a). Socrates may be implying to himself there is mediation between the subject and object of knowledge. Plato seems to have recognized the meaning-bestowing activity of consciousness in shaping the objects of sense perception. This is typical of Plato to foreshadow an entire Western philosophical school of thought in one summary sentence. However, Hicks seems to have forgotten about Plato's hierarchy of knowledge when he wrote that Kant's, "...arguments based on the relativity and causality of perception, the identity of our sense organs is taken to be the enemy of awareness of reality”(Loc: 1102).

The cave firelight could also be interpreted ontologically as Nature itself. For the ancient Greeks, “phusis” (meaning “Nature,” or “physics”) characterize both Logos (Reason) and of what-is (all things). Nature gives what-is the ability to manifest itself, but does not show itself as the activity of manifesting” (see “Heidegger and the Greeks,” by Dr. Carol J. White, p.127)[Pdf].

We may interpret the Kantian term phenomenon as the reality₁ of the shadows, and noumenon as reality₂ of the thing-in-itself. The shadows are empirically real₁, but they are not reality₂. The categories of reason only apply validly to the shadow play reality₁; however, nothing can be said conditionally, or objectively about the noumenal reality₂ according to Kant: “…the unconditioned does not lie in things as we know them, or as they are given to us, but in things as they are in themselves, beyond the range of our cognition”(Critique, p.15). This heterogeneous division between, “cognition of things as phenomena, and of things in themselves”(Ibid., p.15) is known as the “Kantian Block.” Plato believed the forms are within the realm of intelligibility. Hegel’s objection to Kantian epistemology is that knowledge of the noumenal realm is possible, but only after human consciousness has traveled up the long suffering road of historical experience passing through the hierarchies of knowledge to the complete holistic Notion—or in Hegelian language—to Calvary. The “notion” could be interpreted to mean paradigm.

Hicks continually equivocates between the two meanings of reality throughout the book. To remain consistent Hicks could have written, ”Plato has no concept of objective reality! He only acknowledges the shadows within the cave!” For both Plato and Kant there is an epistemological noumenal sun. Hicks conveys an anti-Classical sense of reason by failing to clearly address the appearance and reality distinction in Western Representational Epistemology, and specifically Kantian Transcendental Idealism. Instead, he carefully avoids the noumenon concept, and endlessly repeats anti-realist anti-Kantian slogans. There are classic philosophical arguments critical of Kant’s concept of noumenon, but Hicks does not seem to know any of them.

For some philosophers the problem of knowledge is not that we cannot know reality₂, but that we can know reality₂ in so many ways.  

...to continue with lots more.

The Ayn Randian Propagandistic Trope Concerning Postmodernism

“…the whole system of reason finally leads to some point at which reason does not deny itself, does not abdicate, but transcends itself within itself. “- Paul Tillich

By chance I discovered a video, Critique of Stephen Hicks’ “Explaining Postmodernism,” which is a critique of the book “Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault,”(2010) authored by the writer Stephen R. C. Hicks who refers to himself as a Randian Objectivist. The video is well versed in Kantian epistemology and critiques Hicks’ attack on a philosophical school known as postmodernism. I want to go into greater detail than the video to give additional counter-arguments against Hicks’ understanding of postmodernism.

I never liked generalized philosophical labels such as Idealism, Libertarianism, Socialism, or Rationalism since there is nearly always some mixture of these views influencing a philosopher’s thinking with close analysis. These terms are useful as tools for topical organization, but are limited at a certain level of granularity especially while examining specific logical arguments of an intellectual tradition. The term and concept of postmodern seems particularly ambiguous and I have wanted to investigate this issue for sometime now because it is often used as an ad hominem truncheon in discussions today.

The Fallacy of Circular Reasoning:

The most important step of philosophical analysis is to methodologically define the term postmodern, which turns out to be a big problem for this book. Since Hicks is authoring a book on postmodernism the burden of proof is on him to define how this term is used. Hicks refers to postmodernism as “anti-realist,” “denies reason,” “subjective,” and “radical.” Early in his book Hicks wrote, “The term “post-modern” situates the movement historically and philosophically against modernism”(Loc: 546). In other words postmodernism is bad since the opposite, modernism, is good.

Hicks describes his methodology as, “…understanding what the movement sees itself as rejecting and moving beyond will be helpful in formulating a definition of postmodernism. The modern world has existed for several centuries, and after several centuries we have good sense of what modernism is”(Loc: 546). Defining any group by what they think of themselves might not be the best methodological approach anymore that judging the moral character of a person by what they say about themselves. Do we really have a good sense of what modernism is?

However, there is a second even more serious methodological problem by using how “the movement sees itself,” as a definition since we are faced with the problem of deciding which movement we will select as postmodern. Hicks already presupposes what postmodernism is otherwise how else could Hicks identify any group as a member of the movement! How can one recognize postmodernism independently of Hicks’ judgment?  It seems that the term postmodernism has no essence. Wittgenstein used the word “game” as an example of a concept that had no essential meaning. The word’s meaning is how it is used. Likewise, the meaning of postmodern is whatever Hicks points to since it has no essence. Omnium-gatherum as a methodology for collecting the particulars of a universal concept will not work if one does not already have a universal concept of postmodernism. So the reader must rely on Hicks to point at any particular group he declares as postmodern. This behavior suggests that Hicks has an unstated criterion for identifying postmodernism that precludes his identifying some group as postmodern. And, Hick consciously and unconsciously carries out this circularity through out the entire book.

The Fallacy of False Dilemma:

This problem of an essential definition gets worse for Hicks. His concept of postmodernism is extremely vague so that its scope of meaning can be expanded, or contracted by mere pointing depending on the effectiveness of any criticism. To better understand Hick’s use of the term postmodern-ism we can divide speculative philosophy into two general types of theories of knowledge: The realistic theory of knowledge and the idealistic theory of knowledge. In the realistic theory knowledge meaning is receiving. In the idealistic theory meaning is bestowing. Hicks names everything “objective” as realistic, and everything subjective is “postmodern.” The problem with this crypto-definition of postmodernism is that objective and subjective elements cross over into both philosophies of knowledge. Hicks uses an array of synonyms to describe the realistic epistemologies as the following:

Realistic: Modern, Enlightenment, rational, competent, universal, absolutist, individualistic, conservative, and objectively true.

On the other hand Hicks describe postmodernism with synonyms such as:

Idealistic: Non-realist, postmodern, anti-Enlightenment, anti-reason, incompetent, contingent, relativistic, collectivist, extremist, and subjective.

With this matrix of dialectical polarities Hicks can setup pre-constructed fallacies presented as false dilemmas, “Either P, or Q, and ~P, therefore Q.”

Or symbolically written: [(P v Q) * ~P ] ⊃ Q. 

“Either P, or Q” can be expressed as disjunctive propositions: “either accept Kantian relativism, or embrace objectivism; either accept postmodernism or embrace the Enlightenment; either embrace Objective truth or accept postmodern relativism.”

Interestingly, these false dilemmas can be rhetorically disguised giving the impression that an additional sound argument is being offered:

“Either not P, or not Q, and P; therefore not Q.”

Or symbolically written: [(~P v ~Q) * P] ⊃ ~Q

This expression can be disguised as “Either reject all truth with skeptical subjective Kantian relativism, or reject realism based on universal objective reason. Obviously, those who accept Kantian relativism are in fact rejecting Objective truth which realism is based.”

The argument’s fallacy is not that its disjunctive argument form is invalid—that is why it is called an Informal Fallacy, but that other disjuncts [(P v Q) v (R v S) v (Φ v ψ)] are excluded by definition, or oversight, or to logically force a false conclusion based on false disjunctive choices.

Objectivists mindlessly repeat this trope ad infinitum.

And yet another disguise for [(~P v ~Q) * P] ⊃ ~Q,

is the expression: [ P * (~Q v ~P) ] ⊃ ~Q

Which reads as,"For all those that accepted skepticism, they failed to understand the problem of knowledge as essentially rejecting objective science as the key to knowing reality, or avoiding relativism that denies the possibility of all knowledge. Consequently, they fell into relativism."

Now this sophistry is repeated over, and over again throughout the book. Just change Kant's name to Hegel, Kuhn, Heidegger, or whoever is associated with these philosophers for any reason. The author simply pours different content into the same form to reach the same distorted false conclusion.

The Insidious Metaphor Logical Fallacy: Φ

Hicks wrote, “Kant was the decisive break with the Enlightenment and the first major step toward postmodernism” (Loc: 1139). These synonyms are as ambiguous and misleading as the term postmodern itself. For example, the term “Enlightenment” has a positive meaning that is unconsciously imported through a metaphor influencing the reader’s thinking. Not everything that happened in the Enlightenment was Enlightening; not everything modern is good; nor was everything in the “Dark Ages” conceptually backwards; and the “Cold War” had millions of human casualties; and even “Realism” can be an idealist theory of knowledge subjectively biased. What Hicks referred to as the “Modern Era,” Kant and Hegel a history of errors. Even if the belief in objectivism is objective, then that belief provides no evidence whatsoever for the truth of objectivism. Beware of bare assertions based on insidious metaphors that unconsciously influence critical thinking.

The Fallacy of Ambiguity: ψ

Hick’s critique of postmodernism is based on the thesis that Kant’s epistemological skepticism is irrational. “Kant was thus different from previous skeptics and religious apologists…But earlier skeptics had never been as sweeping in their conclusions.”(Loc: 1130). If Hicks’ thesis is false, then the book’s entire philosophical narrative collapses.  Hicks wrote, “Thus, the argument runs, Kant should be placed in the pantheon of Enlightenment greats.[27] That is a mistake“ (Loc: 897). And again he writes, “His [Kant’s] philosophy is thus a forerunner of postmodernism’s strong anti-realist and anti-reason”(Loc: 1191). In another passage he writes, “Any thinker who concludes that in principle reason cannot know reality is not fundamentally an advocate of reason” (Loc:1130). This is just one of Hick’s shocking summary judgment of Kantian epistemology.

Hicks wrote, “Bacon, Descartes, and Locke are modern because of their philosophical naturalism, their profound confidence in reason, and especially in the case of Locke, and their individualism,” (Loc: 574). Hicks avoids any in-depth look at Locke and Descartes because they are counter-examples to his claims that Kant (1724-1804) is an extreme skeptic. Kant was a skeptical philosopher of the Enlightenment, but so was the Enlightenment philosopher Descartes (1576-1650) famous for emphasizing methodological doubt; and the empiricist David Hume (1711-1776) is the most famous Enlightenment skeptic of the Western World. Hicks claims “With Kant then, external reality thus drops almost totally out of the picture, and we are trapped inescapably in subjectivity—and that is why Kant is a landmark.” (Loc: 1157). Descartes most famous argument in the “Mediations” is “I think; therefore, I am,” which is a subjective argument. Would Descartes’ anchoring all knowledge in the subjectivity of “I think,” be as irrational as Kant? I believe Hicks has his philosophers mixed up, or his concept of postmodern is simply empty.

In fact, radical skepticism can be traced back all the way to ancient times such as the Greek philosopher Pyrrho (360 B.C.- 270 B.C.). “Pyrrhonism is credited with being the first Western school of philosophy to identify the problem of induction”(Wiki). Pyrrhonism dealt with the same problems of induction as the radical empiricist skeptic Hume. A strong current of skepticism can be found throughout the history of Western ideas.

Science today has fundamental questions going back to Isaac Newton (1642-1726) that are still unsolved today. Newton understood that the machine paradigm of nature and the absurd observable phenomena of interaction at a distance such as the non-physical interaction of gravity, or magnetic repulsion and attraction were scientific mysteries. During Newton’s era these phenomena were believed to be occult ideas yet modern scientific mechanical philosophy concluded that there could be no physical interaction without physical contact. Newton, Hume and Locke agreed that the scientific machine paradigm could not explain non-physical interaction. Newton wrote, “The notion of action at a distance is inconceivable. It’s so great an absurdity, I believe no man who has in philosophical matters that competent faculty of thinking can ever fall into it…we concede we do not understand the phenomena of the material world….”(see Chomsky lecture, “The Machine, the Ghost, and the Limits of Understanding”). Newton’s conclusion is nothing works by machine principles—there are no machines!

The empiricist, John Locke (1632-1704), wrote further concerning these scientific mysteries:

“It being, in respect of our Notions, not much more remote from our Comprehension to conceive that God can, if he pleases, superadd to Matter a Faculty of Thinking, than that he should superadd to it another Substance, with a Faculty of Thinking; since we know not wherein Thinking consists, nor to what sort of Substance the Almighty has been pleased to give that Power, which cannot be in any created Being, but merely by the good pleasure and Bounty of the Creator” (Locke, John. 1823: The Works. Ed. by Thomas Tegg, London, IV.III.6).

Consequently, the “modern” scientists lowered the standard of scientific intelligibility by adopting the machine paradigm of nature regardless of the non-material interaction at a distance theoretical problem thereby reducing science to pragmatic object-manipulation. Pragmatism is the epistemological foundation for the denial of knowledge (Tillich). The history of modern science is the very opposite of Hicks’ thesis that modernism is the paradigm of realism. Hicks assumes modern scientific reasoning had no theoretical problems explaining reality. “Epistemologically having rejected the notion of an independently existing reality, postmodernism denies that reason or any other method is a means of acquiring objective knowledge of that reality” (Loc: 546). By ignoring the history of modern Western Science, Hicks’ concept of science is a philosophical caricature of scientism rendering him incapable to understanding the most fundamental ideas of Kantian epistemology.

And there are many more serious logical problems with this book’s thesis…to continue!