134-535: The categorical imperative ( German : kategorischer Imperativ ) is the central philosophical concept in the deontological moral philosophy of Immanuel Kant . Introduced in Kant's 1785 Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals , it is a way of evaluating motivations for action. It is best known in its original formulation: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become
268-460: A de facto official language of Namibia after the end of German colonial rule alongside English and Afrikaans , and had de jure co-official status from 1984 until its independence from South Africa in 1990. However, the Namibian government perceived Afrikaans and German as symbols of apartheid and colonialism, and decided English would be the sole official language upon independence, stating that it
402-431: A rationally self-conscious being with "impure" freedom of choice : The faculty of desire in accordance with concepts, in-so-far as the ground determining it to action lies within itself and not in its object, is called a faculty to "do or to refrain from doing as one pleases". Insofar as it is joined with one's consciousness of the ability to bring about its object by one's action it is called choice (Willkür); if it
536-402: A second language , and 75–100 million as a foreign language . This would imply the existence of approximately 175–220 million German speakers worldwide. German sociolinguist Ulrich Ammon estimated a number of 289 million German foreign language speakers without clarifying the criteria by which he classified a speaker. As of 2012 , about 90 million people, or 16% of
670-587: A "commonly used" language and the Pan South African Language Board is obligated to promote and ensure respect for it. Cameroon was also a colony of the German Empire from the same period (1884 to 1916). However, German was replaced by French and English, the languages of the two successor colonial powers, after its loss in World War I . Nevertheless, since the 21st century, German has become
804-466: A boundary between analytic and synthetic statements simply has not been drawn. That there is such a distinction to be drawn at all is an unempirical dogma of empiricists, a metaphysical article of faith. Although the soundness of Quine's proposition remains uncertain, it had a powerful effect on the project of explaining the a priori in terms of the analytic. The metaphysical distinction between necessary and contingent truths has also been related to
938-589: A cause to produce its effect]. Contrary to contemporary usages of the term, Kant believes that a priori knowledge is not entirely independent of the content of experience. Unlike the rationalists , Kant thinks that a priori cognition, in its pure form, that is without the admixture of any empirical content, is limited to the deduction of the conditions of possible experience . These a priori , or transcendental, conditions are seated in one's cognitive faculties, and are not provided by experience in general or any experience in particular (although an argument exists that
1072-433: A choice that can indeed be affected but not determined by impulses, and is therefore of itself (apart from an acquired proficiency of reason) not pure but can still be determined to actions by pure will. For a will to be considered free , we must understand it as capable of affecting causal power without being caused to do so. However, the idea of lawless free will , meaning a will acting without any causal structure ,
1206-400: A constant state of performing that duty. This is what truly differentiates between perfect and imperfect duties, because imperfect duties are those duties that are never truly completed. A particular example provided by Kant is the imperfect duty to cultivate one's own talents. Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as
1340-410: A distinction between autonomy (literally: self-law-giving) and heteronomy (literally: other-law-giving). This third formulation makes it clear that the categorical imperative requires autonomy. It is not enough that the right conduct be followed, but that one also demands that conduct of oneself. Act according to maxims of a universally legislating member of a merely possible kingdom of ends. In
1474-556: A greater need for regularity in written conventions. While the major changes of the MHG period were socio-cultural, High German was still undergoing significant linguistic changes in syntax, phonetics, and morphology as well (e.g. diphthongization of certain vowel sounds: hus (OHG & MHG "house") → haus (regionally in later MHG)→ Haus (NHG), and weakening of unstressed short vowels to schwa [ə]: taga (OHG "days")→ tage (MHG)). A great wealth of texts survives from
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#17328524883191608-411: A means to an end, but always at the same time as an end. Every rational action must set before itself not only a principle, but also an end. Most ends are of a subjective kind, because they need only be pursued if they are in line with some particular hypothetical imperative that a person may choose to adopt. For an end to be objective, it would be necessary that we categorically pursue it. The free will
1742-453: A native tongue today, mostly descendants of German colonial settlers . The period of German colonialism in Namibia also led to the evolution of a Standard German-based pidgin language called " Namibian Black German ", which became a second language for parts of the indigenous population. Although it is nearly extinct today, some older Namibians still have some knowledge of it. German remained
1876-412: A person cannot decide whether conduct is right , or moral, through empirical means. Such judgments must be reached a priori , using pure practical reason independently of the influence of felt motives, or inclinations. What dictates which action can be genuinely considered moral are maxims willed to action from the categorical imperative, separate from observable experience. This distinction, that it
2010-679: A popular foreign language among pupils and students, with 300,000 people learning or speaking German in Cameroon in 2010 and over 230,000 in 2020. Today Cameroon is one of the African countries outside Namibia with the highest number of people learning German. In the United States, German is the fifth most spoken language in terms of native and second language speakers after English, Spanish , French , and Chinese (with figures for Cantonese and Mandarin combined), with over 1 million total speakers. In
2144-410: A possible kingdom of ends. Therefore, Kant denied the right to lie or deceive for any reason, regardless of context or anticipated consequences. Kant argued that any action taken against another person to which he or she could not possibly consent is a violation of perfect duty as interpreted through the second formulation. If a thief were to steal a book from an unknowing victim, it may have been that
2278-548: A posteriori arguments for the existence of God appear in his Monadology (1714). George Berkeley outlined the distinction in his 1710 work A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (para. XXI). The 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1781) advocated a blend of rationalist and empiricist theories. Kant says, "Although all our cognition begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from [is caused by] experience." According to Kant,
2412-427: A priori and a posteriori knowledge. A proposition that is necessarily true is one in which its negation is self-contradictory; it is true in every possible world . For example, considering the proposition "all bachelors are unmarried:" its negation (i.e. the proposition that some bachelors are married) is incoherent due to the concept of being unmarried (or the meaning of the word "unmarried") being tied to part of
2546-428: A priori cognition is transcendental , or based on the form of all possible experience, while a posteriori cognition is empirical, based on the content of experience: It is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions, and that which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself sensuous impressions [sense data] giving merely the occasion [opportunity for
2680-420: A priori intuitions can be "triggered" by experience). Kant nominated and explored the possibility of a transcendental logic with which to consider the deduction of the a priori in its pure form. Space , time and causality are considered pure a priori intuitions. Kant reasoned that the pure a priori intuitions are established via his transcendental aesthetic and transcendental logic. He claimed that
2814-479: A priori is to "Demonstrate Proper Effects from Proper Efficient Causes" and likewise to demonstrate a posteriori is to demonstrate "Proper Efficient Causes from Proper Effects", according to his 1696 work The Method to Science Book III, Lesson IV, Section 7. G. W. Leibniz introduced a distinction between a priori and a posteriori criteria for the possibility of a notion in his (1684) short treatise "Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas". A priori and
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#17328524883192948-485: A priori would, according to Stephen Palmquist , best fit into Kant's epistemological framework by calling it "analytic a posteriori." Aaron Sloman presented a brief defence of Kant's three distinctions (analytic/synthetic, apriori/empirical and necessary/contingent), in that it did not assume "possible world semantics" for the third distinction, merely that some part of this world might have been different. The relationship between aprioricity, necessity and analyticity
3082-422: A proof for freedom as evidence for a lack of it. The observable world could never contain an example of freedom because it would never show us a will as it appears to itself , but only a will that is subject to natural laws imposed on it. But we do appear to ourselves as free. Therefore, he argued for the idea of transcendental freedom—that is, freedom as a presupposition of the question "what ought I to do?" This
3216-475: A result, the surviving texts are written in highly disparate regional dialects and exhibit significant Latin influence, particularly in vocabulary. At this point monasteries, where most written works were produced, were dominated by Latin, and German saw only occasional use in official and ecclesiastical writing. While there is no complete agreement over the dates of the Middle High German (MHG) period, it
3350-405: A social dimension into Kant's thought. This is the formulation of the "Kingdom of Ends." Because a truly autonomous will would not be subjugated to any interest, it would only be subject to those laws it makes for itself—but it must also regard those laws as if they would be bound to others, or they would not be universalizable, and hence they would not be laws of conduct at all. Thus, Kant presents
3484-525: A statement that one can derive by reason alone. Consider the proposition: "George V reigned from 1910 to 1936." This is something that (if true) one must come to know a posteriori because it expresses an empirical fact unknowable by reason alone. Several philosophers, in reaction to Immanuel Kant , sought to explain a priori knowledge without appealing to, as Paul Boghossian describes as "a special faculty [intuition] ... that has never been described in satisfactory terms." One theory, popular among
3618-447: A system without any thing-in-itself. Consequently, he rejected the assumption of anything that was not through and through merely our representation , and therefore let the knowing subject be all in all or at any rate produce everything from its own resources. For this purpose, he at once did away with the essential and most meritorious part of the Kantian doctrine, the distinction between
3752-536: A universal law." According to Kant, rational beings occupy a special place in creation, and morality can be summed up in an imperative, or ultimate commandment of reason , from which all duties and obligations derive. He defines an imperative as any proposition declaring a certain action (or inaction) to be necessary. Hypothetical imperatives apply to someone who wishes to attain certain ends. For example, "I must drink something to quench my thirst" or "I must study to pass this exam." The categorical imperative, on
3886-437: A universally legislating will . Kant claims that the first formulation lays out the objective conditions on the categorical imperative: that it be universal in form and thus capable of becoming a law of nature. Likewise, the second formulation lays out subjective conditions: that there be certain ends in themselves, namely rational beings as such. The result of these two considerations is that we must will maxims that can be at
4020-688: Is a West Germanic language in the Indo-European language family , mainly spoken in Western and Central Europe . It is the most spoken native language within the European Union . It is the most widely spoken and official (or co-official) language in Germany , Austria , Switzerland , Liechtenstein , and the Italian autonomous province of South Tyrol . It is also an official language of Luxembourg , Belgium and
4154-550: Is a duty to oneself. Thus, it is not willed to make laziness universal, and a rational being has imperfect duty to cultivate its talents. Kant concludes in the Groundwork : [H]e cannot possibly will that this should become a universal law of nature or be implanted in us as such a law by a natural instinct. For as a rational being he necessarily wills that all his faculties should be developed, inasmuch as they are given him for all sorts of possible purposes. Kant's last application of
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4288-580: Is a recognized minority language in the following countries: In France, the High German varieties of Alsatian and Moselle Franconian are identified as " regional languages ", but the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages of 1998 has not yet been ratified by the government. Namibia also was a colony of the German Empire, from 1884 to 1915. About 30,000 people still speak German as
4422-456: Is about deductive logic , which comes from definitions and first principles. Posterior analytics ( a posteriori ) is about inductive logic , which comes from observational evidence. Both terms appear in Euclid 's Elements and were popularized by Immanuel Kant 's Critique of Pure Reason , an influential work in the history of philosophy . Both terms are primarily used as modifiers to
4556-596: Is also notable for its broad spectrum of dialects , with many varieties existing in Europe and other parts of the world. Some of these non-standard varieties have become recognized and protected by regional or national governments. Since 2004, heads of state of the German-speaking countries have met every year, and the Council for German Orthography has been the main international body regulating German orthography . German
4690-546: Is an Indo-European language that belongs to the West Germanic group of the Germanic languages . The Germanic languages are traditionally subdivided into three branches: North Germanic , East Germanic , and West Germanic . The first of these branches survives in modern Danish , Swedish , Norwegian , Faroese , and Icelandic , all of which are descended from Old Norse . The East Germanic languages are now extinct, and Gothic
4824-457: Is between duties that we have to ourselves versus those we have to others. For example, we have an obligation not to kill ourselves as well as an obligation not to kill others. Kant also, however, introduces a distinction between perfect and imperfect duties . According to Kant's reasoning, we first have a perfect duty not to act by maxims that result in logical contradictions when we attempt to universalize them. The moral proposition A : "It
4958-602: Is both necessarily true , because water and H 2 O are the same thing, they are identical in every possible world, and truths of identity are logically necessary; and a posteriori , because it is known only through empirical investigation. Following such considerations of Kripke and others (see Hilary Putnam ), philosophers tend to distinguish the notion of aprioricity more clearly from that of necessity and analyticity. Kripke's definitions of these terms diverge in subtle ways from Kant's. Taking these differences into account, Kripke's controversial analysis of naming as contingent and
5092-472: Is called the "German Sprachraum ". German is the official language of the following countries: German is a co-official language of the following countries: Although expulsions and (forced) assimilation after the two World wars greatly diminished them, minority communities of mostly bilingual German native speakers exist in areas both adjacent to and detached from the Sprachraum. Within Europe, German
5226-430: Is complicated by the existence of several varieties whose status as separate "languages" or "dialects" is disputed for political and linguistic reasons, including quantitatively strong varieties like certain forms of Alemannic and Low German . With the inclusion or exclusion of certain varieties, it is estimated that approximately 90–95 million people speak German as a first language , 10–25 million speak it as
5360-520: Is generally seen as ending when the 1346–53 Black Death decimated Europe's population. Modern High German begins with the Early New High German (ENHG) period, which Wilhelm Scherer dates 1350–1650, terminating with the end of the Thirty Years' War . This period saw the further displacement of Latin by German as the primary language of courtly proceedings and, increasingly, of literature in
5494-595: Is generally seen as lasting from 1050 to 1350. This was a period of significant expansion of the geographical territory occupied by Germanic tribes, and consequently of the number of German speakers. Whereas during the Old High German period the Germanic tribes extended only as far east as the Elbe and Saale rivers, the MHG period saw a number of these tribes expanding beyond this eastern boundary into Slavic territory (known as
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5628-400: Is imperative that each action is not empirically determined by observable experience, has had wide social impact in the legal and political concepts of human rights and equality . Rational persons regard themselves as belonging to both the world of understanding and the world of sense. As a member of the world of understanding , a person's actions would always conform to the autonomy of
5762-457: Is incomprehensible. Therefore, a free will must be acting under laws that it gives to itself . Although Kant conceded that there could be no conceivable example of free will, because any example would only show us a will as it appears to us—as a subject of natural laws—he nevertheless argued against determinism . He proposed that determinism is logically inconsistent: the determinist claims that because A caused B , and B caused C , that A
5896-451: Is independent from any experience . Examples include mathematics , tautologies and deduction from pure reason . A posteriori knowledge depends on empirical evidence . Examples include most fields of science and aspects of personal knowledge . The terms originate from the analytic methods found in Organon , a collection of works by Aristotle . Prior analytics ( a priori )
6030-401: Is instead practical reason itself. Insofar as reason can determine the faculty of desire as such, not only choice but also mere wish can be included under the will. That choice which can be determined by pure reason is called free choice. That which can be determined only by inclination (sensible impulse, stimulus ) would be animal choice ( arbitrium brutum ). Human choice, however, is
6164-559: Is less closely related to languages based on Low Franconian dialects (e.g., Dutch and Afrikaans), Low German or Low Saxon dialects (spoken in northern Germany and southern Denmark ), neither of which underwent the High German consonant shift. As has been noted, the former of these dialect types is Istvaeonic and the latter Ingvaeonic, whereas the High German dialects are all Irminonic; the differences between these languages and standard German are therefore considerable. Also related to German are
6298-533: Is more formally known as Kant's transcendental deduction and it is the central argument of his major work, the Critique of Pure Reason . The transcendental deduction argues that time, space and causality are ideal as much as real. In consideration of a possible logic of the a priori , this most famous of Kant's deductions has made the successful attempt in the case for the fact of subjectivity , what constitutes subjectivity and what relation it holds with objectivity and
6432-470: Is not easy to discern. Most philosophers at least seem to agree that while the various distinctions may overlap, the notions are clearly not identical: the a priori / a posteriori distinction is epistemological ; the analytic/synthetic distinction is linguistic ; and the necessary/contingent distinction is metaphysical . The term a priori is Latin for 'from what comes before' (or, less literally, 'from first principles, before experience'). In contrast,
6566-486: Is not joined with this consciousness its act is called a wish . The faculty of desire whose inner determining ground, hence even what pleases it, lies within the subject's reason is called the will (Wille). The will is therefore the faculty of desire considered not so much in relation to action (as choice is) but rather in relation to the ground determining choice in action. The will itself, strictly speaking, has no determining ground; insofar as it can determine choice, it
6700-399: Is not self-contradictory. Thus, it is said not to be true in every possible world. As Jason Baehr suggests, it seems plausible that all necessary propositions are known a priori , because "[s]ense experience can tell us only about the actual world and hence about what is the case; it can say nothing about what must or must not be the case." Following Kant, some philosophers have considered
6834-407: Is obliged not to treat animals brutally. Pope Francis , in his 2015 encyclical , applies the first formulation of the universalizability principle to the issue of consumption: Instead of resolving the problems of the poor and thinking of how the world can be different, some can only propose a reduction in the birth rate. ... To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on
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#17328524883196968-435: Is one of the major languages of the world . German is the second-most widely spoken Germanic language , after English, both as a first and as a second language . German is also widely taught as a foreign language , especially in continental Europe (where it is the third most taught foreign language after English and French), and in the United States. Overall, German is the fourth most commonly learned second language, and
7102-587: Is one of the three biggest newspapers in Namibia and the only German-language daily in Africa. An estimated 12,000 people speak German or a German variety as a first language in South Africa, mostly originating from different waves of immigration during the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the largest communities consists of the speakers of "Nataler Deutsch", a variety of Low German concentrated in and around Wartburg . The South African constitution identifies German as
7236-401: Is partly derived from Latin and Greek , along with fewer words borrowed from French and Modern English . English, however, is the main source of more recent loanwords . German is a pluricentric language ; the three standardized variants are German , Austrian , and Swiss Standard German . Standard German is sometimes called High German , which refers to its regional origin. German
7370-580: Is permissible to steal" would result in a contradiction upon universalisation. The notion of stealing presupposes the existence of personal property , but were A universalized, then there could be no personal property, and so the proposition has logically negated itself. In general, perfect duties are those that are blameworthy if not met, as they are a basic required duty for a human being. Second, we have imperfect duties, which are still based on pure reason, but which allow for desires in how they are carried out in practice. Because these depend somewhat on
7504-453: Is possible that a universal law of nature could subsist in accordance with that maxim, still it is impossible to will that such a principle should hold everywhere as a law of nature. For a will that resolved in this way would contradict itself, inasmuch as cases might often arise in which one would have need of the love and sympathy of others and in which he would deprive himself, by such a law of nature springing from his own will, of all hope of
7638-510: Is the Sachsenspiegel , the first book of laws written in Middle Low German ( c. 1220 ). The abundance and especially the secular character of the literature of the MHG period demonstrate the beginnings of a standardized written form of German, as well as the desire of poets and authors to be understood by individuals on supra-dialectal terms. The Middle High German period
7772-566: Is the only language in this branch which survives in written texts. The West Germanic languages, however, have undergone extensive dialectal subdivision and are now represented in modern languages such as English, German, Dutch , Yiddish , Afrikaans , and others. Within the West Germanic language dialect continuum, the Benrath and Uerdingen lines (running through Düsseldorf - Benrath and Krefeld - Uerdingen , respectively) serve to distinguish
7906-426: Is the source of all rational action. But to treat it as a subjective end is to deny the possibility of freedom in general. Because the autonomous will is the one and only source of moral action, it would contradict the first formulation to claim that a person is merely a means to some other end, rather than always an end in themselves. On this basis, Kant derives the second formulation of the categorical imperative from
8040-499: Is the true cause of C . Applied to a case of the human will, a determinist would argue that the will does not have causal power and that something outside the will causes the will to act as it does. But this argument merely assumes what it sets out to prove: viz. that the human will is part of the causal chain. Secondly, Kant remarks that free will is inherently unknowable . Since even a free person could not possibly have knowledge of their own freedom, we cannot use our failure to find
8174-481: Is understood in all areas where German is spoken. Approximate distribution of native German speakers (assuming a rounded total of 95 million) worldwide: As a result of the German diaspora , as well as the popularity of German taught as a foreign language , the geographical distribution of German speakers (or "Germanophones") spans all inhabited continents. However, an exact, global number of native German speakers
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#17328524883198308-450: Is what gives us sufficient basis for ascribing moral responsibility: the rational and self-actualizing power of a person, which he calls moral autonomy : "the property the will has of being a law unto itself." Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law. Kant concludes that a moral proposition that is true must be one that is not tied to any particular conditions, including
8442-673: The Ostsiedlung ). With the increasing wealth and geographic spread of the Germanic groups came greater use of German in the courts of nobles as the standard language of official proceedings and literature. A clear example of this is the mittelhochdeutsche Dichtersprache employed in the Hohenstaufen court in Swabia as a standardized supra-dialectal written language. While these efforts were still regionally bound, German began to be used in place of Latin for certain official purposes, leading to
8576-627: The Alamanni , Bavarian, and Thuringian groups, all belonging to the Elbe Germanic group ( Irminones ), which had settled in what is now southern-central Germany and Austria between the second and sixth centuries, during the great migration. In general, the surviving texts of Old High German (OHG) show a wide range of dialectal diversity with very little written uniformity. The early written tradition of OHG survived mostly through monasteries and scriptoria as local translations of Latin originals; as
8710-522: The Early Middle Ages . German is an inflected language , with four cases for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative); three genders (masculine, feminine, neuter) and two numbers (singular, plural). It has strong and weak verbs . The majority of its vocabulary derives from the ancient Germanic branch of the Indo-European language family, while a smaller share
8844-417: The European Union 's population, spoke German as their mother tongue, making it the second most widely spoken language on the continent after Russian and the second biggest language in terms of overall speakers (after English), as well as the most spoken native language. The area in central Europe where the majority of the population speaks German as a first language and has German as a (co-)official language
8978-514: The German states . While these states were still part of the Holy Roman Empire , and far from any form of unification, the desire for a cohesive written language that would be understandable across the many German-speaking principalities and kingdoms was stronger than ever. As a spoken language German remained highly fractured throughout this period, with a vast number of often mutually incomprehensible regional dialects being spoken throughout
9112-514: The Groundwork , Kant goes on to formulate the categorical imperative in a number of ways following the first three; however, because Kant himself claims that there are only three principles, little attention has been given to these other formulations. Moreover, they are often easily assimilated to the first three formulations, as Kant takes himself to be explicitly summarizing these earlier principles. There is, however, another formulation that has received additional attention as it appears to introduce
9246-724: The Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I , and the other being Meißner Deutsch , used in the Electorate of Saxony in the Duchy of Saxe-Wittenberg . Alongside these courtly written standards, the invention of the printing press led to the development of a number of printers' languages ( Druckersprachen ) aimed at making printed material readable and understandable across as many diverse dialects of German as possible. The greater ease of production and increased availability of written texts brought about increased standardisation in
9380-644: The Old High German language in several Elder Futhark inscriptions from as early as the sixth century AD (such as the Pforzen buckle ), the Old High German period is generally seen as beginning with the Abrogans (written c. 765–775 ), a Latin-German glossary supplying over 3,000 Old High German words with their Latin equivalents. After the Abrogans , the first coherent works written in Old High German appear in
9514-640: The Sprachraum in Europe. German is used in a wide variety of spheres throughout the country, especially in business, tourism, and public signage, as well as in education, churches (most notably the German-speaking Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia (GELK) ), other cultural spheres such as music, and media (such as German language radio programs by the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation ). The Allgemeine Zeitung
9648-536: The Standard German language in its written form, and the Duden Handbook was declared its standard definition. Punctuation and compound spelling (joined or isolated compounds) were not standardized in the process. The Deutsche Bühnensprache ( lit. ' German stage language ' ) by Theodor Siebs had established conventions for German pronunciation in theatres , three years earlier; however, this
9782-503: The Upper German dialects spoken in the southern German-speaking countries , such as Swiss German ( Alemannic dialects ) and the various Germanic dialects spoken in the French region of Grand Est , such as Alsatian (mainly Alemannic, but also Central–and Upper Franconian dialects) and Lorraine Franconian (Central Franconian). After these High German dialects, standard German
9916-428: The imperfect duty to further the ends of ourselves and others. If any person desires perfection in themselves or others, it would be their moral duty to seek that end for all people equally, so long as that end does not contradict perfect duty. Thus the third practical principle follows [from the first two] as the ultimate condition of their harmony with practical reason: the idea of the will of every rational being as
10050-415: The logical positivists of the early 20th century, is what Boghossian calls the "analytic explanation of the a priori." The distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions was first introduced by Kant. While his original distinction was primarily drawn in terms of conceptual containment, the contemporary version of such distinction primarily involves, as American philosopher W. V. O. Quine put it,
10184-420: The noun knowledge (e.g., a priori knowledge). A priori can be used to modify other nouns such as truth . Philosophers may use apriority , apriorist and aprioricity as nouns referring to the quality of being a priori . Consider the proposition : "If George V reigned at least four days, then he reigned more than three days." This is something that one knows a priori because it expresses
10318-462: The pagan Germanic tradition. Of particular interest to scholars, however, has been the Hildebrandslied , a secular epic poem telling the tale of an estranged father and son unknowingly meeting each other in battle. Linguistically, this text is highly interesting due to the mixed use of Old Saxon and Old High German dialects in its composition. The written works of this period stem mainly from
10452-714: The Empire. Its use indicated that the speaker was a merchant or someone from an urban area, regardless of nationality. Prague (German: Prag ) and Budapest ( Buda , German: Ofen ), to name two examples, were gradually Germanized in the years after their incorporation into the Habsburg domain; others, like Pressburg ( Pozsony , now Bratislava), were originally settled during the Habsburg period and were primarily German at that time. Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and cities like Zagreb (German: Agram ) or Ljubljana (German: Laibach ), contained significant German minorities. In
10586-718: The Frisian languages— North Frisian (spoken in Nordfriesland ), Saterland Frisian (spoken in Saterland ), and West Frisian (spoken in Friesland )—as well as the Anglic languages of English and Scots. These Anglo-Frisian dialects did not take part in the High German consonant shift, and the Anglic languages also adopted much vocabulary from both Old Norse and the Norman language . The history of
10720-524: The German language begins with the High German consonant shift during the Migration Period , which separated Old High German dialects from Old Saxon . This sound shift involved a drastic change in the pronunciation of both voiced and voiceless stop consonants ( b , d , g , and p , t , k , respectively). The primary effects of the shift were the following below. While there is written evidence of
10854-447: The German states; the invention of the printing press c. 1440 and the publication of Luther's vernacular translation of the Bible in 1534, however, had an immense effect on standardizing German as a supra-dialectal written language. The ENHG period saw the rise of several important cross-regional forms of chancery German, one being gemeine tiutsch , used in the court of
10988-675: The Germanic dialects that were affected by the High German consonant shift (south of Benrath) from those that were not (north of Uerdingen). The various regional dialects spoken south of these lines are grouped as High German dialects, while those spoken to the north comprise the Low German and Low Franconian dialects. As members of the West Germanic language family, High German, Low German, and Low Franconian have been proposed to be further distinguished historically as Irminonic , Ingvaeonic , and Istvaeonic , respectively. This classification indicates their historical descent from dialects spoken by
11122-646: The Irminones (also known as the Elbe group), Ingvaeones (or North Sea Germanic group), and Istvaeones (or Weser–Rhine group). Standard German is based on a combination of Thuringian - Upper Saxon and Upper Franconian dialects, which are Central German and Upper German dialects belonging to the High German dialect group. German is therefore closely related to the other languages based on High German dialects, such as Luxembourgish (based on Central Franconian dialects ) and Yiddish . Also closely related to Standard German are
11256-845: The Italian autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia , as well as a recognized national language in Namibia . There are also notable German-speaking communities in France ( Alsace ), the Czech Republic ( North Bohemia ), Poland ( Upper Silesia ), Slovakia ( Košice Region , Spiš , and Hauerland ), Denmark ( North Schleswig ), Romania and Hungary ( Sopron ). Overseas, sizeable communities of German-speakers are found in Brazil ( Blumenau and Pomerode ), South Africa ( Kroondal ), Namibia , among others, some communities have decidedly Austrian German or Swiss German characters (e.g. Pozuzo , Peru). German
11390-507: The MHG period. Significantly, these texts include a number of impressive secular works, such as the Nibelungenlied , an epic poem telling the story of the dragon -slayer Siegfried ( c. thirteenth century ), and the Iwein , an Arthurian verse poem by Hartmann von Aue ( c. 1203 ), lyric poems , and courtly romances such as Parzival and Tristan . Also noteworthy
11524-408: The aid he wants for himself. Kant derived a prohibition against cruelty to animals by arguing that such cruelty is a violation of a duty in relation to oneself. According to Kant, man has the imperfect duty to strengthen the feeling of compassion, since this feeling promotes morality in relation to other human beings. However, cruelty to animals deadens the feeling of compassion in man. Therefore, man
11658-435: The basis for there to be free rational action at all; it denies the status of a person as an end in themselves. One cannot, on Kant's account, ever suppose a right to treat another person as a mere means to an end. In the case of a slave owner, the slaves are being used to cultivate the owner's fields (the slaves acting as the means) to ensure a sufficient harvest (the end goal of the owner). The second formulation also leads to
11792-512: The categorical imperative in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals is of charity. He proposes a fourth man who finds his own life fine but sees other people struggling with life and who ponders the outcome of doing nothing to help those in need (while not envying them or accepting anything from them). While Kant admits that humanity could subsist (and admits it could possibly perform better) if this were universal, he states: But even though it
11926-411: The concept of being a bachelor (or part of the definition of the word "bachelor"). To the extent that contradictions are impossible, self-contradictory propositions are necessarily false as it is impossible for them to be true. The negation of a self-contradictory proposition is, therefore, supposed to be necessarily true. By contrast, a proposition that is contingently true is one in which its negation
12060-430: The development of non-local forms of language and exposed all speakers to forms of German from outside their own area. With Luther's rendering of the Bible in the vernacular, German asserted itself against the dominance of Latin as a legitimate language for courtly, literary, and now ecclesiastical subject-matter. His Bible was ubiquitous in the German states: nearly every household possessed a copy. Nevertheless, even with
12194-452: The dialect so as to make the work as natural and accessible to German speakers as possible. Copies of Luther's Bible featured a long list of glosses for each region, translating words which were unknown in the region into the regional dialect. Luther said the following concerning his translation method: One who would talk German does not ask the Latin how he shall do it; he must ask the mother in
12328-401: The dialogue Meno , according to which something like a priori knowledge is knowledge inherent, intrinsic in the human mind. Albert of Saxony , a 14th-century logician, wrote on both a priori and a posteriori . The early modern Thomistic philosopher John Sergeant differentiates the terms by the direction of inference regarding proper causes and effects. To demonstrate something
12462-507: The eastern provinces of Banat , Bukovina , and Transylvania (German: Banat, Buchenland, Siebenbürgen ), German was the predominant language not only in the larger towns—like Temeschburg ( Timișoara ), Hermannstadt ( Sibiu ), and Kronstadt ( Brașov )—but also in many smaller localities in the surrounding areas. In 1901, the Second Orthographic Conference ended with a (nearly) complete standardization of
12596-449: The empirical. After Kant's death, a number of philosophers saw themselves as correcting and expanding his philosophy, leading to the various forms of German Idealism . One of these philosophers was Johann Fichte . His student (and critic), Arthur Schopenhauer , accused him of rejecting the distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge: ... Fichte who, because the thing-in-itself had just been discredited, at once prepared
12730-552: The example of a person who seeks to borrow money without intending to pay it back. This is a contradiction because if it were a universal action, no person would lend money anymore as he knows that he will never be paid back. The maxim of this action, says Kant, results in a contradiction in conceivability (and thus contradicts perfect duty). With lying, it would logically contradict the reliability of language. If it were universally acceptable to lie, then no one would believe anyone and all truths would be assumed to be lies. In each case,
12864-402: The first. By combining this formulation with the first, we learn that a person has perfect duty not to use the humanity of themselves or others merely as a means to some other end. As a slave owner would be effectively asserting a moral right to own a person as a slave, they would be asserting a property right in another person. This would violate the categorical imperative, because it denies
12998-407: The form of universality, but do not impinge on the freedom of others: thus each subject must will maxims that could be universally self-legislated. The result, of course, is a formulation of the categorical imperative that contains much of the same as the first two. We must will something that we could at the same time freely will of ourselves. After introducing this third formulation, Kant introduces
13132-435: The home, the children on the streets, the common man in the market-place and note carefully how they talk, then translate accordingly. They will then understand what is said to them because it is German. When Christ says ' ex abundantia cordis os loquitur ,' I would translate, if I followed the papists, aus dem Überflusz des Herzens redet der Mund . But tell me is this talking German? What German understands such stuff? No,
13266-466: The human subject would not have the kind of experience that it has were these a priori forms not in some way constitutive of him as a human subject. For instance, a person would not experience the world as an orderly, rule-governed place unless time, space and causality were determinant functions in the form of perceptual faculties, i. e., there can be no experience in general without space, time or causality as particular determinants thereon. The claim
13400-449: The identity and desires of the person making the moral deliberation. A moral maxim must imply absolute necessity, which is to say that it must be disconnected from the particular physical details surrounding the proposition, and could be applied to any rational being. This leads to the first formulation of the categorical imperative, sometimes called the principle of universalizability : "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at
13534-478: The imperatives on which they are based rely too heavily on subjective considerations. He presented a deontological moral system, based on the demands of the categorical imperative, as an alternative. The capacity that underlies deciding what is moral is called pure practical reason , which is contrasted with: pure reason , which is the capacity to know without having been shown; and mere practical reason , by which we determine ourselves to practical action within
13668-474: The influence of Luther's Bible as an unofficial written standard, a widely accepted standard for written German did not appear until the middle of the eighteenth century. German was the language of commerce and government in the Habsburg Empire , which encompassed a large area of Central and Eastern Europe . Until the mid-nineteenth century, it was essentially the language of townspeople throughout most of
13802-534: The issue of suicide motivated by a sickness of life: A man reduced to despair by a series of misfortunes feels sick of life, but is still so far in possession of his reason that he can ask himself whether taking his own life would not be contrary to his duty to himself. Now he asks whether the maxim of his action could become a universal law of nature. But his maxim is this: from self-love I make as my principle to shorten my life when its continued duration threatens more evil than it promises satisfaction. There only remains
13936-458: The largest concentrations of German speakers are in the states of Rio Grande do Sul (where Riograndenser Hunsrückisch developed), Santa Catarina , and Espírito Santo . A priori and a posteriori A priori ('from the earlier') and a posteriori ('from the later') are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge , justification , or argument by their reliance on experience. A priori knowledge
14070-422: The meaning of the proposition in question. More simply, proponents of this explanation claimed to have reduced a dubious metaphysical faculty of pure reason to a legitimate linguistic notion of analyticity. The analytic explanation of a priori knowledge has undergone several criticisms. Most notably, Quine argues that the analytic–synthetic distinction is illegitimate: But for all its a priori reasonableness,
14204-430: The merely conditional command of hypothetical imperatives: a utilitarian says that murder is wrong because it does not maximize good for those involved, but this is irrelevant to people who are concerned only with maximizing the positive outcome for themselves. Consequently, Kant argued, hypothetical moral systems cannot determine moral action or be regarded as bases for legitimate moral judgments against others, because
14338-402: The mother in the home and the plain man would say, Wesz das Herz voll ist, des gehet der Mund über . Luther's translation of the Bible into High German was also decisive for the German language and its evolution from Early New High German to modern Standard German. The publication of Luther's Bible was a decisive moment in the spread of literacy in early modern Germany , and promoted
14472-630: The ninth century, chief among them being the Muspilli , Merseburg charms , and Hildebrandslied , and other religious texts (the Georgslied , Ludwigslied , Evangelienbuch , and translated hymns and prayers). The Muspilli is a Christian poem written in a Bavarian dialect offering an account of the soul after the Last Judgment , and the Merseburg charms are transcriptions of spells and charms from
14606-509: The notion of the hypothetical Kingdom of Ends of which he suggests all people should consider themselves never solely as means but always as ends. We ought to act only by maxims that would harmonize with a possible kingdom of ends. We have perfect duty not to act by maxims that create incoherent or impossible states of natural affairs when we attempt to universalize them, and we have imperfect duty not to act by maxims that lead to unstable or greatly undesirable states of affairs. Although Kant
14740-493: The notions of "true by virtue of meanings and independently of fact." Analytic propositions are considered true by virtue of their meaning alone, while a posteriori propositions by virtue of their meaning and of certain facts about the world. According to the analytic explanation of the a priori , all a priori knowledge is analytic; so a priori knowledge need not require a special faculty of pure intuition , since it can be accounted for simply by one's ability to understand
14874-425: The other hand, commands immediately the maxims one conceives which match its categorical requirements, denoting an absolute, unconditional requirement that must be obeyed in all circumstances and is justified as an end in itself , possessing intrinsic value beyond simply being desirable . Kant expressed his strong dissatisfaction with the popular moral philosophy of his day, believing that it could never surpass
15008-414: The part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues. It is an attempt to legitimize the present model of distribution, where a minority believes that it has the right to consume in a way which can never be universalized, since the planet could not even contain the waste products of such consumption. German language German (German: Deutsch , pronounced [dɔʏtʃ] )
15142-422: The phenomenal world. Hypothetical imperatives tell us which means best achieve our ends. They do not, however, tell us which ends we should choose. The typical dichotomy in choosing ends is between ends that are right (e.g., helping someone) and those that are good (e.g., enriching oneself). Kant considered the right prior to the good ; to him, the latter was morally dependent on the former. In Kant's view,
15276-416: The pleasures of life instead. The man asks himself how the universality of such a thing works. While Kant agrees that a society could subsist if everyone did nothing, he notes that the man would have no pleasures to enjoy, for if everyone let their talents go to waste, there would be no one to create luxuries that created this theoretical situation in the first place. Not only that, but cultivating one's talents
15410-462: The pronunciation of the ending -ig as [ɪk] instead of [ɪç]. In Northern Germany, High German was a foreign language to most inhabitants, whose native dialects were subsets of Low German. It was usually encountered only in writing or formal speech; in fact, most of High German was a written language, not identical to any spoken dialect, throughout the German-speaking area until well into the 19th century. However, wider standardization of pronunciation
15544-452: The proposed action becomes inconceivable in a world where the maxim exists as law. In a world where no one would lend money, seeking to borrow money in the manner originally imagined is inconceivable. In a world where no one trusts one another, the same is true about manipulative lies. The right to deceive could also not be claimed because it would deny the status of the person deceived as an end in itself. The theft would be incompatible with
15678-439: The question as to whether this principle of self-love can become a universal law of nature. One sees at once a contradiction in a system of nature whose law would destroy life by means of the very same feeling that acts so as to stimulate the furtherance of life, and hence there could be no existence as a system of nature. Therefore, such a maxim cannot possibly hold as a universal law of nature and is, consequently, wholly opposed to
15812-518: The relationship between aprioricity , analyticity and necessity to be extremely close. According to Jerry Fodor , " positivism , in particular, took it for granted that a priori truths must be necessary." Since Kant, the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions has slightly changed. Analytic propositions were largely taken to be "true by virtue of meanings and independently of fact", while synthetic propositions were not—one must conduct some sort of empirical investigation, looking to
15946-472: The same time universal, but which do not infringe on the freedom of ourselves nor of others. A universal maxim, however, could only have this form if it were a maxim that each subject by himself endorsed. Because it cannot be something which externally constrains each subject's activity, it must be a constraint that each subject has set for himself. This leads to the concept of self -legislation. Each subject must through his own use of reason will maxims which have
16080-453: The same time will that it should become a universal law." Closely connected with this formulation is the law of nature formulation. Because laws of nature are by definition universal, Kant claims we may also express the categorical imperative as: Act as if the maxims of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature. Kant divides the duties imposed by this formulation into two sets of two subsets. The first division
16214-541: The states of North Dakota and South Dakota , German is the most common language spoken at home after English. As a legacy of significant German immigration to the country , German geographical names can be found throughout the Midwest region , such as New Ulm and Bismarck (North Dakota's state capital), plus many other regions. A number of German varieties have developed in the country and are still spoken today, such as Pennsylvania Dutch and Texas German . In Brazil,
16348-440: The subjective preferences of humankind, this duty is not as strong as a perfect duty, but it is still morally binding. As such, unlike perfect duties, you do not attract blame should you not complete an imperfect duty but you shall receive praise for it should you complete it, as you have gone beyond the basic duties and taken duty upon yourself. Imperfect duties are circumstantial, meaning simply that you could not reasonably exist in
16482-527: The supreme principle of all duty. How the Categorical Imperative would apply to suicide from other motivations is unclear. Kant also applies the categorical imperative in the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals on the subject of "failing to cultivate one's talents." He proposes a man who if he cultivated his talents could bring many goods, but he has everything he wants and would prefer to enjoy
16616-428: The term a posteriori is Latin for 'from what comes later' (or 'after experience'). They appear in Latin translations of Euclid 's Elements , a work widely considered during the early European modern period as the model for precise thinking. An early philosophical use of what might be considered a notion of a priori knowledge (though not called by that name) is Plato 's theory of recollection , related in
16750-496: The third most commonly learned second language in the United States in K-12 education. The language has been influential in the fields of philosophy, theology, science, and technology. It is the second most commonly used language in science and the third most widely used language on websites . The German-speaking countries are ranked fifth in terms of annual publication of new books, with one-tenth of all books (including e-books) in
16884-426: The victim would have agreed, had the thief simply asked. However, no person can consent to theft, because the presence of consent would mean that the transfer was not a theft. Because the victim could not have consented to the action, it could not be instituted as a universal law of nature, and theft contradicts perfect duty. In the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals , Kant applies his categorical imperative to
17018-404: The will. As a part of the world of sense , he would necessarily fall under the natural law of desires and inclinations. However, since the world of understanding contains the ground of the world of sense, and thus of its laws, his actions ought to conform to the autonomy of the will, and this categorical "ought" represents a synthetic proposition a priori . Kant viewed the human individual as
17152-543: The world being published in German. German is most closely related to other West Germanic languages, namely Afrikaans , Dutch , English , the Frisian languages , and Scots . It also contains close similarities in vocabulary to some languages in the North Germanic group , such as Danish , Norwegian , and Swedish . Modern German gradually developed from Old High German , which in turn developed from Proto-Germanic during
17286-442: The world, to determine the truth-value of synthetic propositions. Aprioricity, analyticity and necessity have since been more clearly separated from each other. American philosopher Saul Kripke (1972), for example, provides strong arguments against this position, whereby he contends that there are necessary a posteriori truths. For example, the proposition that water is H 2 O (if it is true): According to Kripke, this statement
17420-579: The written form of German. One of the central events in the development of ENHG was the publication of Luther's translation of the Bible into High German (the New Testament was published in 1522; the Old Testament was published in parts and completed in 1534). Luther based his translation primarily on the Meißner Deutsch of Saxony , spending much time among the population of Saxony researching
17554-429: Was a "neutral" language as there were virtually no English native speakers in Namibia at that time. German, Afrikaans, and several indigenous languages thus became "national languages" by law, identifying them as elements of the cultural heritage of the nation and ensuring that the state acknowledged and supported their presence in the country. Today, Namibia is considered to be the only German-speaking country outside of
17688-530: Was an artificial standard that did not correspond to any traditional spoken dialect. Rather, it was based on the pronunciation of German in Northern Germany, although it was subsequently regarded often as a general prescriptive norm, despite differing pronunciation traditions especially in the Upper-German-speaking regions that still characterise the dialect of the area today – especially
17822-485: Was established on the basis of public speaking in theatres and the media during the 20th century and documented in pronouncing dictionaries. Official revisions of some of the rules from 1901 were not issued until the controversial German orthography reform of 1996 was made the official standard by governments of all German-speaking countries. Media and written works are now almost all produced in Standard German which
17956-413: Was intensely critical of the use of examples as moral yardsticks , as they tend to rely on our moral intuitions ( feelings ) rather than our rational powers, this section explores some applications of the categorical imperative for illustrative purposes. Kant asserted that lying , or deception of any kind, would be forbidden under any interpretation and in any circumstance. In Groundwork , Kant gives
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