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KANT’S THEORY OF
KNOWLEDGE:
“Meanwhile, the working scientists, unperturbed by philosophical doubts about the nature of
their subject, had been making advance after advance, and the Hobbesian vision of the
world that was thoroughly mechanistic seemed about to be fulfilled in detail. Hence
Hobbe’s challenge to the traditional religious and teleological view of the cosmos was more
formidable than ever. It had begun to occur to scientists that they might get on very nicely
without the hypothesis of a God; as regards morality, it seemed clear that in a completely
deterministic universe obligation cold be only a vain and chimerical delusion. It was
therefore no longer necessary to protect the infant science of physics from the theologians.
Indeed, the show was now on the other foot. It looked as if traditional values were
becoming subjective illusions in a world of neutral fact” [W.T. Jones, History of Philosophy,
Kant, 16].
Kant’s Epistemological Project is to forge a
third way between dogmatism & skepticism:
Dogmatism Skepticism
Rationalism Empiricism
Synthetic
A Priori
1. A priori present forms are given by the faculties of the human & experience
(what is given in experience).
2. It is the human mind that constitutes the way the world is (tinge of Berkeley)
within space time and time.
3. His project is two=fold: It is both secure & limit knowledge. It is secure
because the human mind brings a priori intuition and concepts to experience
in contrast to Hume who states that our impressions form ideas, thus leading
one to skepticism). On the other, there is a limit for anything that is outside of
space & time is beyond our personal experience.
His Strategy:
The Problems of knowledge and the foundation of science are
addressed with his Critique of Pure Reason (1781).
3. Concept: is in fact nothing other than a power to make judgments of a certain kind. To
possess the concept “metal”, for example, is to have the power to make judgments expressible
by sentences containing the word ‘metal’ or its equivalent).
4 Judgment: To think is to judge in contrast to knowledge which is the end product of judging;
judging is a kind of putting together.
5. Manifold: Expression Kant uses to refer to the data supplied to the mind through sensation. In
the Critique of Pure Reason, he argues that these data are given in accordance with the
mind’s form of sensibility, space and time, and that their unification, which is necessary for
experience, is brought about through the synthetic activity of the imagination guided by the
understanding.
6 Knowledge: “a cooperative affair between the knower and the thing known; it is the end
product of judging.
7. Transcendental logic:
a. Logic is concerned with the kinds of putting together that occurs in judgment;
b. Transcendental: the conditions that make an experience of objects possible.
There is transcendental “Analytic” (proper use of logic whereas the Transcendental “Dialectic” is
concerned with its improper use.
While the forms may be discovered by a consideration of the
Built-in
constant and universal element in our knowledge (e.g., space and
Structure,
time), matter is that which may change and vary. basic rules of
the human
mind (not
That which is produced innate
by external influences is knowledge):
called “matter.”
3 A Priori Present Forms:
(a) Intuition: space & time are
Without concepts of the pure forms of intuition (modes
understanding our intuitions would of ordering):
be blind; but without sensations, our
concepts would be empty. Space is a way in which mind
Experience is always the application orders things; it is a datum of
of the understanding to sensations, outer sense;
and the world as we know it is the Time is temporal order
result. (coming before, after or
simultaneous with other
experiences we have; time is a
That which is given by form of inner sense, that, is
our awareness of ourselves
faculty itself is called and of our inner state).
“form”
(b) Of understanding = concepts
(e.g., Logic, that is, the art of
1. The way we experience the world is conditioned or thinking)
structured by the way we can know (spacial -
temporal conditions): the principles of sensibility. (c) reason: the task of reason
2. Anything beyond space & time is beyond the to form absolute totalities.
domain of the construction of our mind.
The Self and the Unity of Experience: What makes it possible for
us to have a unified grasp of the world about us?
2. This leads Kant to
1. Mind transforms the data given say that the unity of our
to ourselves into a coherent and experience must imply
a unity of the self.
related set of elements.
1. Nozzle is device by which cuts of meat enter into machine (the Forms of Sensibility: Space & Time). Kant denied that space
and time exist independently of the human and are somehow perceived outside the mind. Rather, Kant argued that space and
time are added to our perceptions by the mind. Thus, everything we perceive (sense experience) appears to us as though it were
in space and time.
AN ILLUSTRATION OF KANT’S SYSTEM: COIN COUNTING MACHINE:
If we can know objects only through sensory data they cause in us, then there
is no other route to the objects that would confirm or deny that they are as our
interpretations of the sensory date take them to be.
Thus, to make the restriction “of which we can have cognition” evident, Kant
characterizes the objects of cognition as “phenomenal.” This means that the
natural world described by science is only “phenomenal because although
science allows us to explain and predict the behavior of the objects we
cognize, it has no resources for disclosing the properties of the world
INDEPENDENTLY OF OUR COGNITION.
KANT VS. PLATO:
Noumena: The world as it actually
Noumena are Platonic Ideas and
is. It is what reality is apart from
Forms:
human cognition & perception are
completely unknown & unknowable.
Space and time are the molds into Phenomena are things displaying
which we our experiences are cast. themselves to the senses.
1. For Plato there is the possibility for one to become familiar with the eternal forms
whereas for Kant, there is no possibility. Why? They could not be decided in the
progress of science nor can be revealed as necessary for cognition (B, pg. 827).
2. For Plato we should strive to intimately know the Forms whereas for Kant it is
useless to pursue what we cannot ever know. It is undecidable by human reason.
3. Both agree that we can’t take reality as given in the senses to be ultimately reality.
4. Plato’s theory drives us to mysticism whereas Kant drives us to agnosticism for we
can’t know or deny noumena; it is just impossible for us to know; we just can’t affirm
or deny that ultimate reality is given to the senses because the structure of our mind
is spacially and temporally conditioned.
Hoffding’s comment on Plato and Kant is interesting:
Hoffding writes:
3. Ideas of Reason:
“Space and time are something quite different from all other
familiar entities; they are a priori forms of our (human) outer
intuition and inner sensing.”
WHAT IS THE ESSENCE OF SPACE AND TIME?
Hoffe notes:
3. Synthetical a priori: While all our knowledge begins with experience (as
Locke and other empiricists insists), it does not necessarily follow that it all
arises out of experience. All knowledge contains elements that are not
drawn from experience but supplied by the mind itself.
Example: Collies are Dogs:
Analytical Judgment: The predicate is covertly contained in the
subject and may be obtained by analysis of it.
This, then, is a question which at least calls for closer examination, and
does not allow of any offhand answer: whether there is any knowledge that
is thus independent of experience and even of all impressions of the
senses. Such knowledge is entitled a priori,and distinguished from the
empirical, which has its sources a posteriori, that is, in experience.”
Analytic Synthetic
Judgments: Judgments:
Their predicates are Their predicates are
wholly contained in distinct from their
their subjects. subjects.
For example:
Add new information
“All bachelors are about the subject.
unmarried.”
For example:
“All bodies are heavy.”
Critical Distinctions:
Analytic A Priori:
Analytic Posteriori: warranted by law of
is not a real possibility non-contradiction.
Kant writes:
Once will not merely analyze the concept of a triangle and arrive at
the knowledge that the sum of the interior angles of any triangle is
equal to the sum of two right angles.
1. Our sensations come in a particular temporal order, the order of the sensation is
not another sensation. For example, I see lightening and hear thunder-the order
of the sensations is not another sensation.
1. In opposition to the Empiricists, Kant argues that cognition was possible only
because the understanding combines information “spontaneously,” according to its
own rules whereas the empiricists argue that the senses take in information, which
then becomes “associated” into complex concepts and judgments according to the
patterns in the sensory data.
For example, the complex concept of an apple would be formed by the constant
association of the round, shape, red color, distinctive taste, and smell of it.
Constant association of these properties in sensory experience produces
associations of them in the mind, the concept of an apple, the judgment “apples are
red,” and so forth.
In support of Empiricism:
In support of Rationalism:
– They were right about the need for causes and substances, because
any background system of belief adequate to distinguish objects from
illusions must represent objects of cognition as particular kinds of things
that causally interact in particular ways.
Kant’s Answers to Locke
Kant’s answer to Locke is that substance is not
inferred from properties. It is the principle of
organization according to which we experience a
thing and its properties to begin with.
– We do not choose the sensations that form the basic material of our experiences.
– Nor can we choose any alternative to three dimensions of space and irreversible
one-dimensional time. Nor can there by different sets of categories, different
ways of organizing, interpreting, or constituting or experiences.
– The categories that form the basic structures or rules of the mind are universal
and necessary. There are no options, no alternatives. To prove this Kant offers
us a formidable Transcendental Deduction of the Categories, showing not only
that the categories are necessary for every experience but that there could not
be any alternative view of the world. It is a remarkable combination of radical re-
thinking and conservative support of our common sense and scientific view of the
world.
Metaphysical Deduction of Categories:
A. Kant took from Aristotle the notion of “category.” Aristotle attempt to draw up a
list of different types of things which might be predicated of an individual.
B. The list contained ten items: substance (e.g., human), quantities (e.g., four-
foot); qualities (white or knowledge of grammar); relations (e.g., double),
places (Paris), time (e.g., yesterday); positions (e.g., sitting), havings (e.g.,
having shoes on); doings (e.g., cutting), and sufferings (e.g., being cut).
D. In its place, Kant offers his own metaphysical deduction of the categories
based upon the relationship between concepts and judgments. A concept is
nothing more than the power to make judgments of certain kinds. The
different possible types of concept are therefore to be determined by setting
out the different possible types of judgment.
E. What Kant is doing that is new is that he is deriving from these classification
of judgments is anew and fundamental classification of concepts:
These are
Fixed Forms or Judgments: Categories:
categories of Concepts:
thought which Universal Unity
deal more Quantity
specifically When we assert a judgment of Particular Plurality
quality we have in mind one or
the way the many. Singular Totality
mind unifies
or synthesizes Quality Affirmative Reality
our When we assert a judgment of Negative Negation
experience. quality we make either positive
or a negative statement
The mind Infinite
: Limitation
achieves this
unifying act by Relation Categorical Substance
When we assert relation, we
making think of cause & effect, on the Hypothetical Cause
various kinds one hand, or the relation of
Disjunctive Interaction
subject & predicate on
of judgments another.
as we engage Problematic Possibility
Modality
in the act of
When we assert modality, we
interpreting have in mind that something is
Assertoric Existence
possible or impossible
the world of Apodictic Necessity
sense.
All these ways of
thinking are what
constitute the act of Fixed Forms or Judgments: Categories:
synthesis through Concepts:
which the mind strive Universal Unity
Quantity
to make a consistent
single world out of When we assert a judgment of Particular Plurality
quality we have in mind one or
the manifold of sense many. Singular Totality
impressions.
“Manifold” refers to
Quality Affirmative Reality
the data supplied to
the mind through When we assert a judgment of Negative Negation
quality we make either positive
sensation. These or a negative statement
data are given in Infinite
: Limitation
accordance w/ the
mind’s form of Categorical Substance
Relation
sensibility, space and
When we assert relation, we
time, & that their think of cause & effect, on the Hypothetical Cause
unification, which is one hand, or the relation of
necessary for subject & predicate on Disjunctive Interaction
another.
experience, is
brought about Modality Problematic Possibility
through the synthetic When we assert modality, we
activity of the have in mind that something is
Assertoric Existence
imagination guided possible or impossible
Apodictic Necessity
by the
understanding.
ARISTOTLE VS KANT ON CATEGORIES:
The transcendental indicates that Ann does not experience the self directly
even though such a unity, or self, is implied by her actual experience.
Thus, the idea of this self is a priori as a necessary condition for the
experience Ann does have of having knowledge of a unified world of
nature. In the act of unifying all the elements of experience, Ann is
conscious of her own unity, so that her consciousness of a unified world of
experience and her own self-consciousness occur simultaneously.
Since regulative ideas do not refer to any objective reality about which we
can have knowledge, we must consider these ideas as the products of pure
reason. As such we can’t bring to these ideas the a priori forms of time and
space or the category of cause and effect since these are imposed by us
only upon the sensible manifold.
Science is possible because all people, having the same structure of mind
will always and everywhere order the events of sense experience in the
same way; that is, we all bring to the given of sense experience the same
organizing faculties of understanding. But there can be no science of
metaphysics because there is not the same kind of given when we consider
the ideas of self, cosmos and God as when we consider “the shortest
distance between two points.”
5. Kant believes that both sides of each antinomy are in error: the thesis is the
error of dogmatism and the antithesis is the error of empiricism.
6. The point of constructing the antinomies is to exhibit the mismatch between the
scope of empirical inquiry and the pretensions of pure reason.
7. The thesis represents the world as smaller than thought (we can think beyond
it); it antithesis represents it as larger than thought (we cannot think to the end
of it). “We must match thought and world by trimming our cosmic ideas to fit
empirical inquiry.” ~ Anthony Kenny, The Rise of Modern Philosophy, 3:106.
Kant does not want us to conclude both contradictions
are true: the moral lesson is that reason has not right
to talk at all about the world as a whole.
Thesis represents
the world as smaller
than thought for we
can think beyond it.
How Can the Antinomies be Resolved?
We can reject both claims of the first two and accept both claims of
the last two, if we understand their proper domains.
– Kant argues that this line of reasoning is “taken from judgments, not
from things and their existence,” that the idea of God is made to have
the predicate of existence by simply fashioning the concept in such a
way that existence is made to be included in the idea of a perfect being.
Kant states, “All the trouble and labour bestowed on the famous
ontological or cartesian proof of the existence of a supreme Being from
concepts alone is trouble and labour wasted. A man might as well
expect to become richer in knowledge by the aid of mere ideas as a
merchant to increase his wealth by adding some noughts to his cash
account.”
Kant’s Argument against Ontological Argument:
– Kant argues that this line of reasoning is “taken from judgments, not
from things and their existence,” that the idea of God is made to have
the predicate of existence by simply fashioning the concept in such a
way that existence is made to be included in the idea of a perfect being.
Kant states, “All the trouble and labour bestowed on the famous
ontological or cartesian proof of the existence of a supreme Being from
concepts alone is trouble and labour wasted. A man might as well
expect to become richer in knowledge by the aid of mere ideas as a
merchant to increase his wealth by adding some noughts to his cash
account.”
Kant’s Argument against Cosmological Proof:
The cosmological proof “takes its stand on experience”:
– “I exist, therefore, absolutely necessary being exists” on the assumption that if
anything exists an absolutely necessary being must also exists.
Kant’s problem with this argument is that while it begins with experience, it
moves beyond experience.
Though it is legitimate to infer a cause for each event within the realm of
experience, “the principle of causality has no meaning and no criterion for
its application save only in the sensible world.”
In essence, Kant states that we cannot employ the a priori categories of
the mind in trying describe realities beyond sense experience.
Therefore, the cosmological argument cannot secularly lead us to a first
cause of all things. The most we can infer from our experience of things is
a regulative idea of God. Whether there actually is such a being, a ground
of all contingent things, raises the same question posted by the
ontological argument, namely, whether we can successfully bridge the
gap between our idea of a perfect being and demonstrative proof of its
existence.
Kant’s Argument against Teleological Proof:
The Teleological Proof:
– “In the world we everywhere find clear signs of an order in accordance with a
determinate purpose…. The diverse things could not themselves have
cooperated, by so great a combination of diverse means, to the fulfillment of
determinate final purposes, had they not been chosen and designed for these
purposes of an ordering rational principles in conformity with underlying ideas.”
– Kant replies by saying that it may very well be that of our experience of order
that the material stuff of the world could not exist without an orderer.
– The most this argument from design can prove, says Kant, “is an architect of
this world who is always very hampered by the adaptability of the material in
which he works, not a creator of the world to whose idea everything is subject.”
Central points:
7. Since ‘God, freedom and immortality’ fall outside this field, the
sciences can say nothing one way or the other about them.
8. It follows that God and the free immortal self are neither
substantival nor causally efficacious, for substance and
causality are concepts relevant only within the experiential
field.
9. Nevertheless, God and the free immortal self are real, for
their reality is guaranteed by the facts of moral experience.
Situating Kant In
History:
“Kant’s Philosophical Development” from
Hoffding, History of Modern Philosophy, 2:41-9
Kant observes that the first step in philosophy is “always
dogmatic.” Hoffding observes that nowhere does Kant
appear to be a thorough-going dogmatist (pg. 40).
For example, Kant refers to the concept of “spirit” by Descartes and Leibniz
in their “spiritualistic psychology”.
Another example is the “problem of causality.” How can the causal concept
be valid if itself is incomprehensible (Hume sees the problem insoluble… yet
we claim it as a fact).
Hoffding writes:
…when, and only when, phenomena admit of being united in the ways
specified in our categories which express the forms of our
understanding, are we able to understand. Synthetic unity is the
condition of all understanding as well as of all sensuous perception.
Hence we are able by means of the categories to anticipate experience.
The Copernican principle has now been applied in all spheres; the
impossibility of knowing noumena, things-in-themselves, is, however,
the unavoidable conclusion….Kant’s idea of synthesis as the
fundamental form of activity of consciousness [Ibid., 47-8].
Situating Kant:
Galileo’s dictum: “The book of nature is written in the
language of mathematics.”
– Epistemologically, how could we ever know that all bodies obey Newton’s
three laws of motion?
Situating Kant:
Galileo’s dictum: “The book of nature is written in the
language of mathematics.”
– Where do the “eternal truths”, i.e., First principles of logic” come from and
why are they valid?
Descartes argues that God made them true and they were implanted in
each human mind.
Given this background, Kant addressed three central questions (Critique of Pure
Reason, B [1787] 15-18):
Kant tried to show that we are justified in accepting the claims of math, science,
and metaphysics. But from Hume he recognized that universal and necessary
claims in math, science, or metaphysics could not be justified by appeal to
empirical evidence for sensory experience could only tell us what had been the
case.
But Kant also rejected the claim that claims could be justified by appealing to
definitions. Since sensory evidence is not adequate to justify universal and
necessary claims and rationalists assumed a “lazy hypothesis”, namely, key
concepts and logical principles were innate, having been divinely implanted in the
human mind to harmonize perfectly with the laws chosen by God to govern the
universe, Kant describes his project this way:
Situating Kant:
Galileo’s dictum: “The book of nature is written in the
language of mathematics.”
Kant writes:
There is no doubt that all our cognition begins with experience… But
even though all our cognition commences with experience, nevertheless,
it does not for that reason all originate from experience. For it might well
be that our empirical cognition itself is a composition of what we receive
through impressions and of what our own cognitive faculties give up out
of themselves (merely induced by sensory impressions)… (B 1).
Problem:
– Why? Empiricists attempt to explain the unity of the mind as nothing more
than the result of a “manifold of impressions.” For Kant, life cannot be
explained by external influences only;
Kant’s idea also led him to claim that there is a limit to science
[knowledge]:
– Also led him to claim that there is a limit to science; our knowledge cannot
lead us farther back than the fundamental form and fundamental law of
intellectual life as it is appears in experience.
Situating Kant:
The first critique should be names more exactly as the “Critique
of Pure Speculative Reason.”
Locke derived the concepts of cause and effect from experience and still
ventured forth with knowledge above and beyond experience. Kant
views this as ‘enthusiasm: fundamental presuppositions of experience
such as the principle of causality (“All changes occur according to the
principle of cause and effect”) are neither due to experience nor make
knowledge above and beyond experience possible. The basic
presuppositions do not stem, though, as Hume believes, from
(psychological) habit… They are universally valid, so that Kant ultimately
in contrast to skepticism deems objective knowledge possible. With the
demonstration of conditions of experience themselves free of experience
and hence universally valid, Kant shows that metaphysics is possible-
but in contrast to rationalism only as a theory of experience, not as a
science transcending the sphere of experience, and in distinction to
empiricism not as an empirical but rather as a transcendental thoery of
experience [Ibid., 34-5].
Situating Kant:
Kant not only wants to guide metaphysics
into a “secure path of science, but progress
is possible only if one proceeds in accord
with plans and goals and if representatives of
the field are agreed regarding their
procedures. Unfortunately, a universally
recognized method is lacking; despite the
work of 2,000 years, metaphysics hence still
cannot expect progress. So, Kant wants to
provide the missing method [Ibid., 35-6].
Situating Kant:
Otfried Hoffe writes:
Two cardinal theses: They rejected the idea that man is unique from all the rest of
nature because he alone possesses reason. Because the romantics downgraded
reason, they were disposed to think of man as part of nature, as dependent on
nature not only for bodily sustenance but also for his highest thoughts and noblest
aspiration.
Romantics disliked sharp distinctions of any kind: They rejected the Enlightenment
view of the universe as made up of large number of separate entities (selves, things)
and viewed the universe as one continuous living and dynamic being (e.g., Goeth’s
Faust).
Criticisms and Reactions:
From Anthony Kenny’s, The Rise of Modern
Philosophy, 3:163.