Abstract for the Kant in Asia International Conference

at Hong Kong Baptist University

20-23 May 2009

Park Chan-goo, “Self-Knowledge and God in the Philosophy of Kant and Wittgenstein”

There are some merits of comparative study in the philosophy of Kant and Wittgenstein. The two understood well the limitations as well as the competence of modern science. In addition, they were commonly more interested in 'the unlimited' or 'the mystical', to which belong the self and God. Because they don’t belong to the phenomenal world, they are ‘what cannot be said’(recognized), but only can be premised or postulated. They can be approached only in negative way such as the Socratic way of awakening that I don’t know what I am.

When we really understand the self as ‘a limit of the world’, we meet God who already exists as sanctity within the self, the personhood with dignity. And It can be appeared through a certain form of life, or a conviction of the meaning of life. Here we find in the thought of Kant and Wittgenstein something in common with Zen-Buddhism.

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