> "Kant did not advocate taking anything on faith in the sense you are using the term."
Exactly right. The sense in which the parent uses the term "faith" is a fairly modern invention. It's only over the last hundred years or so that "faith" has been thought of as the opposite of reason.
In ancient Jewish and Christian writings, "faith" is typically used to mean "acting on something you know to be true", especially in the face of difficult circumstances. It's typically contrasted with forgetfulness or fickleness. In this usage, "faith" is the triumph of reason, memory/history, and will over the emotions and difficulties that come with temporary adversity.
In Kant's usage, "faith" is sort of an extension of reason that also includes elements of willpower and morality. It's pretty close to the ancient definition, though it also played an important part in the shift from the ancient definition to the modern one.
> In ancient Jewish and Christian writings, "faith" is typically used to mean "acting on something you know to be true", especially in the face of difficult circumstances.
You're talking about ancient religious writings. Religious people have a marked tendency of incorrectly conflating faith and reason. Clearly, whatever they meant by "faith," it had a strong mystical (i.e. otherworldy, not based in this reality) slant.
The exact same point goes for Kant. You call his "reason" the following: "reason that also includes elements of willpower and morality" (which does hint at Nazi ideology). I call Kant's "reason" the following: a flawed, mistaken, weakoned account of reason, plus some mystical aspects to compensate.
> "Clearly, whatever they meant by "faith," it had a strong mystical (i.e. otherworldy, not based in this reality) slant."
A small but vocal subset of religious people within the last 100 years (particularly fundamentalist evangelicals) have a marked tendency of treating faith as a strongly mystical thing which is opposed to, and better than, reason. But within most of the rest of Judeo-Christian history and tradition (including most modern Jewish and Christian intellectuals), faith has been thought of in the way I described it: the triumph of reason and experience and willpower, in opposition to fickleness and forgetfulness and emotion.
The only ancient mysticism I know of surrounding Jewish or Christian ideas of faith is the idea that a person might have a supernaturally strong will, and therefore may be able to continue acting according to reason through remarkably dire circumstances. The concept of faith itself, within those traditions, is not mystical or supernatural.
Kant's morality has mystical aspects, and therefore, by association, so does his faith -- as I said, it was a step toward the modern definition (and it may very well be flawed.) Ayn Rand's definition is particularly 20th-century influenced: "blind acceptance of a certain ideational content, acceptance induced by feeling in the absence of evidence or proof." You will not find this mystical, blind conception of faith prior to about a hundred years ago; it is not what was meant by Kant, Augustine, Paul, or Moses.
Exactly right. The sense in which the parent uses the term "faith" is a fairly modern invention. It's only over the last hundred years or so that "faith" has been thought of as the opposite of reason.
In ancient Jewish and Christian writings, "faith" is typically used to mean "acting on something you know to be true", especially in the face of difficult circumstances. It's typically contrasted with forgetfulness or fickleness. In this usage, "faith" is the triumph of reason, memory/history, and will over the emotions and difficulties that come with temporary adversity.
In Kant's usage, "faith" is sort of an extension of reason that also includes elements of willpower and morality. It's pretty close to the ancient definition, though it also played an important part in the shift from the ancient definition to the modern one.