Immanuel Kant’s Philosophy: Key Concepts Explained
1. The Social Contract
The social contract facilitates individuals’ transition from the state of nature to a structured society. While historically debated, it serves as a hypothetical framework for governance. This contract entails complete individual submission to an authority, a concept explored by Hobbes. Simultaneously, it implies individual legislative power, aligning with Rousseau’s perspective. No law can be enacted without individual consent, and the ruling power must govern as if laws emanate from the general will.
2. Rationalism vs. Empiricism
Empiricism posits that knowledge originates from and is limited by sensory experience. Notable empiricists include Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Berkeley.
Rationalism, conversely, recognizes reason as the sole source of knowledge, rejecting revelation, faith, and sensory perception.
3. Legal Freedom
Kant and Rousseau consider freedom a natural right. Kant advocates for positive political freedom, where individuals are co-authors of state laws. This aligns with Rousseau’s “general will” and diverges from Hobbes. The ruler should legislate as if the unified will of the people consented to the laws.
Legal freedom does not imply civil disobedience. Kant, like Hobbes, believed that submission to state power is essential for social order. To prevent governmental overreach, Kant champions freedom of expression.
4. The Copernican Revolution in Philosophy
Mathematics and physics, as sciences, yield universally valid knowledge. Science both expands our understanding of the world (synthetic) and provides necessary, universal, and experience-independent knowledge (a priori). Kant concludes that we possess necessary knowledge about the world prior to experience. To explain this, he proposes a “philosophical revolution” mirroring the scientific revolution—a Copernican revolution in philosophy. This involves placing the subject and object (experience) at the center of knowledge, aiming to overcome Hume’s skepticism.
5. Transcendental Illusion
While ideas allow us to contemplate the totality of phenomena, they provide no actual knowledge. Knowledge requires intuition (experience) of the Ideas of Reason, which is impossible. Thus, metaphysics as a science is unattainable, as our knowledge is limited by sensory experience. However, Kant acknowledges the Faktum—the fact that humans are inherently metaphysical, naturally questioning their existence, the world’s meaning, and God’s existence, despite the impossibility of definitive answers. This inherent tendency towards error is termed transcendental illusion.
Despite the limitations of pure reason, Kant suggests a new approach to metaphysical questions through practical reason. The postulates of practical reason are conditions presupposing the existence of morality—propositions necessary to assume if morality and duty are not to be deemed absurd. These postulates—God, immortality, and freedom—are not phenomena but noumena, unprovable and unknowable. The postulates of practical reason allow us to believe in them through “rational faith,” a belief grounded in reason. The culmination of Kant’s critiques is “suppressing [metaphysical] knowledge to make room for faith.”
6. The Categorical Imperative
Moral materials are insufficient to support universal duties. They contain universal moral laws but only maxims that cannot bind everyone. Formal morality, however, contains no “material” dictating action. It has a single requirement defining the “form” of any moral imperative: universal duty.
This is a categorical imperative, not subject to conditions (unlike hypothetical imperatives). It is formal, not prescribing specific actions (unlike material imperatives). It states that for a personal “maxim” (a particular material conduct) to be considered a moral duty, it must be universally applicable. What is a must for oneself must be a duty for all.
Kant’s moral imperative is thus: 1) formal, 2) categorical, 3) unique. It is not empirical but established by pure reason, making it 4) rational and 5) a priori.