Kant’s Critical Philosophy: Reason, Ethics, and History

Posted on Nov 24, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

REASON

Kant, or critical or transcendental realism, studies the synthesis of data and experience, structured by our mind. Phenomena result from this synthesis. We put reason to trial to assess its problem-solving capacity.

Three Questions:

  1. What can I know? (Conditions, transcendental or a priori forms: theory of knowledge) – Critical Pure Reason: Part of what is already established science. We study the conditions that make the existence of science possible. It makes synthetic a priori judgments: synthetic knowledge because they help us understand our world, and a priori because they are universal and necessary. Trials are receiving increasing knowledge from experience: a priori.
  2. What should I do? (Categorical Imperative: ethics) – Critical Practical Reason must be stated as the human condition is a novelty within the history of Western ethics. Before Kant, ethics had been material; Kant’s is formal. In material ethics, the rightness or wrongness of human behavior depends on what is considered the ultimate good for man; acts are good when they approach the supreme good and bad when they move away from it. There are two elements in material ethics: a) the part that defines and determines the supreme or ultimate end of man (God, happiness, pleasure); b) setting the highest good. Material ethics sets standards for achievement, conditional or hypothetical rules.
  3. What can I expect? (Ideal orientation of Nature: Philosophy of History) – Universal story idea: linking the past.

Two Critiques:

Relate phenomenal nature (known by a priori laws) and moral action (regulating the right in its practical use). They review judgments of taste and beauty, as well as theological judgments, which serve two functions: introducing order and explanation to nature, and giving a sense of history where the natural world is not alien to moral progress. Man is under the moral law; the final order is unique and cannot occur in nature. Consider man as noumenon, a being recognized only by its supersensible capacity (freedom) and higher end. When it finishes with the critical analysis of reason, it leaves the door open to developing a scientific philosophical system.

TRIALS

All scientific judgments are in a state where all science is a sequence of trials.

Trial Classification:

  • No dependence on experience:
    • a priori: Not derived from experience, characterized by necessity and universality. These trials advance science.
    • a posteriori: Related to experience and come from generalization.
  • Subject-predicate:
    • Analytical: The predicate is contained in the subject; they are explained.
    • Synthetic: The predicate is not contained in the subject; they are extensive.

Trials of experience (a posteriori) are expanded, which is synthetic knowledge. Analytical judgments (a priori) are universal and necessary but do not serve to support science.

THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE: SCHEMA

  1. TRANSCENDENTAL AESTHETIC: SENSITIVITY
    • Outsourcing: a priori synthetic judgments, a priori data.
    • Extenso (external geometry: shape) a priori synthetic, a priori view (fenomenoo arithmetic). Geometry and Math (Arithmeticae).
  2. Transcendental Analytic: UNDERSTANDING
    • A priori form (condition) conceptualized to phenomena, a priori synthetic judgments (object) to PHYSICS.
  3. Transcendental Dialectic: REASON
    • Logical use (universal ideas, a priori) to Science (universal laws of synthetic a priori judgments).
    • Pure use (transcendental universal ideas, a priori) to false METAPHYSICS (noumenal field), all-encompassing in the phenomenal or empirical field.

1. Sensitive Knowledge: Transcendental Aesthetic

We cannot doubt the knowledge from experience. We begin with sensitivity, which receives impressions of things. These impressions produce empirical intuition. Things are in relation with sensitivity and constitute the phenomenon. Kant distinguishes between sensation (subject: empirical data) and form (what sorts the data). All critical material contains a double meaning: material ethics (heteronomous) and formal ethics (autonomous). Kant rejected material ethics because: 1. They are empirical, a posteriori. They depend on experience, demanding universal ethics rather than ethics of desire. 2. Their precepts are hypothetical or conditional, not universally binding. 3. They are heteronomous, proposals from someone independent of reason. He proposed formal ethics insofar as they have no content in the sense that materials do not provide a concrete ultimate end. In this formal ethics, Kant locates transcendental ideas on ethics rejected by Pure Reason: God, soul, world, etc., as suspected morality (not as phenomena).

2. Intellectual Knowledge: Transcendental Analytic

This is the second level of knowledge. Its function is to think of objects. Kant called his critique of pure reason “transcendental analytic.” Understanding organizes phenomena (matter) through concepts (form). There are two pure forms: space (pure a priori external sensitivity) and time (pure a priori inner sensitivity). There is nothing in them from experience; they are a priori, implying they are applied to sensible intuition by the subject. The union of empirical data and pure forms constitutes the phenomenon.

3. Transcendental Dialectic: Reason

Reason unifies the knowledge of understanding; pure reason applies concepts. It expresses the unconditioned. Kant’s images: transcendental ideas: soul, world, and God. We have no knowledge of them because they do not refer to objects of experience.

HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

Men are in an intermediate state of progress toward morality; they are cultured and civilized but not moralized. Morality is made by the rule of law, which will be autonomous. Man moves in accordance with the law. Law rests on the power of coercion. The State of the Kingdom of Rights has senses of freedom: political philosophy. Nation-states and individuals aspire to the rational idea of a peacemaking community of all peoples and lands, governed by law (universal legal systems, cosmopolitan law). The state of law involves the anticipation and absolute domination of moral law in practice. Moral philosophy leads to history. Kant says reason aims to unite people under one world power. Cosmopolitanism is a partnership between a plurality of organized states. It proposes a single criterion for everybody. Cosmopolitanism, as conceived by Kant, fell into the federal space training of a European power to eliminate violence between states. But it did not define a dialectic between the states, aimed at overcoming the consequences of the Peace of Westphalia. The goal of Kant’s cosmopolitanism was peace between states within the classic international relations system.

INFLUENCES
  • Montesquieu, Locke, and Rousseau: The separation and balance of three powers. It differs from despotism.
  • Rousseau: Transforms social contract theory into an idea based on the reason of political authority. The idea of equality of men and the general will theory. Kant is a Republican, not a Democrat.
  • German Enlightenment.
  • Francisco de Vitoria: Traditions of legal philosophy.
RELATED: SIMILARITIES
  • Critique of Pure Reason
    • “Rationalism of Wolff”: Dogmatic slumber.
    • Empiricism of Hume: Dogmatic slumber awakening.
    • Physics of Newton: Synthetic a priori judgments as basis.
  • Critique of Practical Reason
    • “Luther”: 1. Conception of faith without theoretical or field-independent scientific phenomenal basis. 2. Doctrine of free inquiry, autonomy of morality.
    • Rousseau: Morality lies in the purity of intention, which Kant stated in his categorical imperative. Morale is in good condition.
  • Philosophy of History
    • Montesquieu: Separation of powers; the powers of the state must be in separate hands.
    • Locke-through-Rousseau constitutionalism: A transfer of the social pact.
    • Principles of Enlightenment.
    • Salamanca naturalist-school (Francisco de Vitoria): Rights of people.
    • Marx.
DIFFERENCES

: “Critique of Pure Reason d” raciioinalimo wolf: Kant needs to explain the empirical reality. Need impressions dl d negaciondl nativism and axiomatic method. -Empirimo Hume Kant knowledge fits the data a priori. Affirms q q impressions are to accommodate the a priori forms. Newton-Fisika: space, time in newton are magnitudes, in Kant a priori forms. Philosophy history * d “Russeau: the social compact d d Rouseau is a working hypothesis, in Kant is an idea q is the same reason. Russeau is a Democrat, Republican kan. Salmantica-school artwork: the artwork is more practical utilitarian q.