Kant is interested in his work, Critique of Pure Reason, in finding out what it is the mind (reason) alone can discover without recourse to the senses. He is not the first, obviously, to undertake an epistemological pursuit of such nature. Plato, in the Theaetetus, is interested in what the soul in itself, by itself and with itself can know without recourse to sense perception, which at best can only lead us to opinion. And opinion of course is not knowledge. Kant said he undertook his work because he was awakened from his dogmatic slumber by Hume. For those of you that do not know Hume, he was the most radical empiricist ever. He so extended Locke’s empiricism that philosophers have said that Hume took empiricism to its logical limits. To attempt, in other words, to be more empirical that Hume would be to become a mad person. Indeed, some people think Hume is pretty absurd. But this post is about Kant, not Hume.
Kant makes distinctions between apriori and aposteriori knowledge, as well as between analytic and synthetic judgments. Aposteriori knowledge is that which we get from experience, whereas apriori knowledge is independent of experience, such as arithmetic or math. In an analytic judgment, the concept in the predicate is contained in the concept in the subject. For example, “A bachelor is an unmarried man.” In a synthetic judgment, the predicate contains concepts that are not in the subject concept, and so the synthetic judgment is categorial (here, don’t confuse this word with “categorical”) and not simply definitional: in other words, it says something more about the subject. Association is made between aposteriori knowledge and synthetic judgments, while association is made between apriori knowledge and analytic judgments. In any case, a crossover is possible, such as in subjects like math and the principles of science, where we can have apriori synthetic knowledge.
And the fact that we can have synthetic apriori knowledge shows that our minds can know some crucial truths. Furthermore, Kant believes that our intellectual processes shape our reality. In other words, our thoughts can cause our experience. How cool is this for proponents of positive thinking! Time, space, and other physical realities are simply the intuitive operations of the mind, for Kant. The fact that sensory experience makes sense is simply because our sensory faculties accord them intelligibility based on the limiting construct of time and space possessed by the mind. Extensions of this reality are true for math and geometry (compare this with Descartes’ views as contained in his first meditation. Recall in this regard how, for Descartes, only math could survive the dream argument.)
For Kant, events that take place in space and time would still not make sense, if it were not for the power of our mind organizing and shaping them in a coherent fashion capable of making sense. But then, if it is just our mind conditioning and shaping reality based on intellectual faculties and principles (for example causation), what can we really know of what is out there, then? For Kant, we cannot know for sure (compare this view with Berkeley’s view of immaterialism.) The “things-in-themselves” which stimulate the mind are for Kant the noumena. We cannot really know these things. But we can know phenomena, which is the way these things are for us in our minds.
Kant goes further to state that the task of metaphysics is a critique of pure reason. Like Locke, he calls for modesty in our concept of the knowable. For Kant, we should not even bother to apply reason to things in themselves, because we can never know these things. For Kant, the role of reason instead is to try to understand itself. Again think here of Berkeley and what he says concerning spirits, and how these are all we can properly have notions of, and speak coherently about, because these are all that truly exist. It is when, according to Plato in the Theaetetus, the soul in itself through itself and by itself engages in a dialog with itself that we can even begin to have a chance at knowing truth.
Kant makes distinctions between apriori and aposteriori knowledge, as well as between analytic and synthetic judgments. Aposteriori knowledge is that which we get from experience, whereas apriori knowledge is independent of experience, such as arithmetic or math. In an analytic judgment, the concept in the predicate is contained in the concept in the subject. For example, “A bachelor is an unmarried man.” In a synthetic judgment, the predicate contains concepts that are not in the subject concept, and so the synthetic judgment is categorial (here, don’t confuse this word with “categorical”) and not simply definitional: in other words, it says something more about the subject. Association is made between aposteriori knowledge and synthetic judgments, while association is made between apriori knowledge and analytic judgments. In any case, a crossover is possible, such as in subjects like math and the principles of science, where we can have apriori synthetic knowledge.
And the fact that we can have synthetic apriori knowledge shows that our minds can know some crucial truths. Furthermore, Kant believes that our intellectual processes shape our reality. In other words, our thoughts can cause our experience. How cool is this for proponents of positive thinking! Time, space, and other physical realities are simply the intuitive operations of the mind, for Kant. The fact that sensory experience makes sense is simply because our sensory faculties accord them intelligibility based on the limiting construct of time and space possessed by the mind. Extensions of this reality are true for math and geometry (compare this with Descartes’ views as contained in his first meditation. Recall in this regard how, for Descartes, only math could survive the dream argument.)
For Kant, events that take place in space and time would still not make sense, if it were not for the power of our mind organizing and shaping them in a coherent fashion capable of making sense. But then, if it is just our mind conditioning and shaping reality based on intellectual faculties and principles (for example causation), what can we really know of what is out there, then? For Kant, we cannot know for sure (compare this view with Berkeley’s view of immaterialism.) The “things-in-themselves” which stimulate the mind are for Kant the noumena. We cannot really know these things. But we can know phenomena, which is the way these things are for us in our minds.
Kant goes further to state that the task of metaphysics is a critique of pure reason. Like Locke, he calls for modesty in our concept of the knowable. For Kant, we should not even bother to apply reason to things in themselves, because we can never know these things. For Kant, the role of reason instead is to try to understand itself. Again think here of Berkeley and what he says concerning spirits, and how these are all we can properly have notions of, and speak coherently about, because these are all that truly exist. It is when, according to Plato in the Theaetetus, the soul in itself through itself and by itself engages in a dialog with itself that we can even begin to have a chance at knowing truth.
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