Final Exam- CPHL 110 1) Critique of Pure Reason: In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant splits everything into

two different worlds or dimensions, one is the world of appearance which is called phenomena and the other is the world of things as they are which is called noumena. In the world of phenomena there is empirical knowledge which is known to be true or false by observation alone. Noumena is a world which we are unable to know because it goes beyond anything that we can comprehend, Kant places them outside the power of our mind, it is the world of things outside us, the world of things as they really are, the world of things that are really real. However our minds are created in such a way that we cannot comprehend this world as it really is. Instead what we perceive is like an altered version of this world which Kant called the phenomenal world. The phenomenal world is the world that we perceive or the view we have of the world that is inside our heads. Our knowledge is constrained to the empirical world. It is near impossible to extend knowledge to the super sensible realm because the mind plays an active role in limiting the minds access only to the empirical world of science. There are two truths that Kant recognizes: a priori and a posteriori. A posteriori is knowledge dependent on experience or emotions, it is empirical and it is the view you have after an experience occurs. On the other hand a priori is knowledge that is independent of experience, it requires a logical conclusion and is more likely to be believed, it is the view before an experience occurs. Analytic judgements are judgements in which the predicate (the affirmation about the subject) is found in the subject so that the truth of the proposition is determined entirely by the meaning of the terms themselves however synthetic judgements are judgements in which the predicate is not found in the subject, the terms alone are insufficient to determine the truth of the proposition. Judgements of experience are all synthetic. A synthetic a priori claim adds to what is contained analytically in a concept without appealing to experience. Kants argues that experience of a world is only possible if the mind provides an organized arrangement of its characteristics. Kant used what he calls a transcendental argument to prove synthetic a priori claims. Transcendental is all knowledge which is occupied, not so much with objects, as with the mode of our knowledge of objects in so far as this mode is possible a priori. We must reconstruct the way we think about our relationship to objects. According to Kant objects conform to our knowledge. It is the mind itself which gives objects at least some of their characteristics because we must adapt to its structure and abilities. The minds active role in helping to create a world that we are able to experience makes it an interesting subject of investigation, in the analysis of the minds transcendental contributions to experience we must use the mind to investigate the mind. The mind is devoid of content until interaction with the world actuates these formal constraints. The mind possesses a priori templates for judgments, not a priori judgments. We cannot have knowledge of the realm beyond the empirical. That is, transcendental knowledge is ideal, not real, for minds like ours. It is impossible for us to have any experience of objects that are not in time and space. Furthermore, space and time themselves cannot be perceived directly, so they must be the form by which experience of objects is had. A consciousness that captures objects directly, as they are in themselves and not as it is known through perception is possible (God) but our apprehension of objects is intervened by the sensibility through which objects are given to us. Kant reconstructs distinction between reality and appearance; this limits knowledge to make room for faith. He also concludes that space and time are forms of intuition. Transcendental dialectic arguments go beyond the area of sensibility and have three subdivisions which are thought to

verify the immortality of the soul, the freedom of the will and Gods existence. Kant claimed these three were transcendental assertion which can neither be proved nor disproved, so for this reason they can be believed by people with faith which belongs to the world of noumena. Practical Reason: This critique is concerned with human behaviour, which concerns the will to do good and the preference to bend to our desires. Kant addresses the problem of the completeness of the highest good, morality; since this problem can be solved only in eternity, it led to the postulate of immortality. Kant regards happiness as the condition of a rational being in the world, in whose whole existence everything goes according to wish and will. People are seeking to be morally good for it is thought that this goodness will bring them happiness however that is not always the case in the world, as Kant points out, people who are good and are deserving of happiness do not always get it and people who dont deserve it might end up getting it. This may argue that there is no God, however it does not make sense that one person who cannot control nature expects nature to change its ways in order to reward that person. Kant insists that despite this we should still be striving for the highest good. According to Kant it is morally necessary to assume the existence of God, to assume its existence is connected with the consciousness of our duty. Kant does not consider freedom to be part of the phenomenal world that we live in due to the constraints we face; therefore it is part of the noumenal world. In this critique it is interesting how Kant uses the word postulate to possibly replace the word God while claiming the existence of a higher cause/being. God as postulate by Kant is not the God of religion. This postulate of God is based in ones own reason which would mean that submitting to will of God is submitting to ones own reason. The need of God arises because the relationship between moral law and happiness is not guaranteed in this world. So here God comes to the rescue and so requires the compatibility of virtue and comprehension of highest good. The postulate of immortality is interwoven with the postulate of God. It is very difficult for a man to be virtuous without hope. Immortality guarantees this hope and ensures that there is a place appropriate for the calculation of happiness in proportion to the worthiness to be happy. Freedom is an a priori that we dont understand, it can be considered as the keystone of the structure of pure reason. A man is free in the form of a moral being. Man is autonomous so his aim is to be self-controlled. People are a sensible being and an intellectual one. Kant had rejected certain religious views of God in which God needs humans to serve him, rather since Kant believed God is moral perfection, God would not require anything from the humans, and rather God is pleased by people who choose to chase after the highest good. Kant considers religion and God to be a part of morality rather than the opposite and believes that there is only one true religion of morality but there are a number of different beliefs. 2) Soren Kierkegaard: Religious faith in the sense that Kierkegaard considers it is not open to objective thinking for it involves a relationship with God. He believes it is not whether God exists or not that is of importance but rather the decision is the leap of faith. He has a huge disdain for many churchgoers for he believes that none of them feel the intensity of the experience. He believes being a Christian is not merely a matter of accepting a few doctrines, he holds that establishing a relationship with the creator is a lifelong task. He agreed that we cannot have knowledge of God but we have faith as the only way of having access to a relationship with God. God cannot be grasped objectively because God is an uncertainty. He believed that religion is not characterized by objective truths or rational standards

instead by subjective truths. He believed that God did not create morality rather it is the autonomous individuals choice to create their own morals and values. He recognized that morals could get in the way of pleasure however he still believed in the highest good because he believed we still have an ethical obligation. Also in order to be religious according to Kierkegaard you must also be ethical. Nietzsche: Whereas for some belief in God provided the foundation for morality and culture, Nietzsche argues that this is no longer the case. He claimed that God is dead, which is a very big contrast to the atheist view that there is no God, because to announce that God is dead implies that God must have been alive at one time. He believed that even though people no longer generally believe In God in the sense of a deep religious commitment, they nonetheless continue to follow a value system put together by God. Whereas for some belief in God provided the foundation for morality and culture, Nietsche argues that this is no longer the case. He claimed that God is dead which puts in question whether Nietzsche was an atheist but to announce that God is dead implies that God must have been alive at one time. He believed that even though people no longer generally believe In God in the sense of a deep religious commitment, they nonetheless continue to follow a value stem for which God is the metaphysical basis. Once society finally recognizes that the metaphysical basis for its value system is gone Nietzsche suggests that we must become God, that is, we ourselves will be the source of meaning and value. Life will have no other meaning than that which we give to it. Nietzsche sees the problem in this way: when the full implications of the death of God are realized, the loss of the existing morality will lead to an era of nihilism- the absence of any values at all. Nietzsche talks of master morality from which great people arise, it is the morality through which what is good is helpful and what is bad is damaging. The goal of life is to create greatness in all human endeavours. Within every society however there are numerous people not capable of greatness so hey console themselves with a slave morality that resents those who are creative and powerful. What the master morality considers evil, the slave morality exalts as virtue and what slave morality considers despicable, master morality honours as good. Nietzsche went on to say that these two moralities cannot coexist, slave morality drags down the superiority and results in a general unproductivity in society. 3) D.T. Suzuki was a strong believer in Zen and cared very much for the experience of Zen. Zen is unexplainable. This mystical experience is only understood when one enters Zen practice and achieves an altered state of enlightened consciousness. It accepts only one reality, everything is an illusion, and it is all in our minds which Zen claims does not exist. Zen involves denying everything; it stresses the importance of the mind however it denies that our mind exists. He sees oneness as a result of satori (nirvana) experience, everything is connected, and nothing is separate. Everything is impermeable and Zen is the unknown, he teaches on oneness as a center of being. Through the use of koan (mental puzzles) and zazen (sitting meditation) the Zen beginner initiates the journey toward enlightenment. Everything as one supports multiplicity of matter because that could mean that the divine is everywhere and everything.