Kant’s Critique: Transcendental Analysis of Knowledge
Analysis of Transcendental Scientific Knowledge
1.1. Terms of Scientific Knowledge In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant addresses the problem of knowledge and the possibility of metaphysics as a science, aiming for the rigor of mathematics and physics. Metaphysics, inherited from traditions like scholasticism and rationalism, was considered the foundation of all sciences, values, morality, and politics. It was defined as the science of first principles, universal ideas, and spiritual beings, known a priori, outside experience, through conceptual knowledge. Rationalists believed the mind could know reality without experience, possessing innate principles. Empiricists, conversely, held that all knowledge came from sensory experience. Metaphysics was in disrepute, which concerned Kant, as it dealt with crucial human problems, even without scientific answers. Mathematics and physics had found a secure path, but metaphysics had not, due to a lack of unanimity and stagnation. Kant questioned the possibility of metaphysics as a science and how science itself was possible. He sought the elements of scientific knowledge to compare with metaphysics. Kant subjected metaphysics to critical analysis, with reason analyzing its own limits. Rationalism posited innate principles from which knowledge could be deduced, while empiricism, rejecting nativism, led to skepticism. Hume questioned the certainty of scientific laws, concluding that reason could not provide a foundation for knowledge. Kant believed that only necessity and universality could ensure reliable knowledge. He synthesized rationalism and empiricism, stating that experience is necessary but not sufficient for knowledge. Knowledge requires both external, sensory elements and internal, formal elements imposed by the mind. Kant’s thesis is a synthesis between rationalism and empiricism. He affirms that all human knowledge has its starting point in the experiment, but on the other side denies all knowledge comes from her, because there are a number of elements inherent in the human reason that does not come from the experience. The purpose of Kant was to find and define these elements, ie, find out what’s in a priori knowledge. The importance of these elements a priori is that the universality and necessity of knowledge can only come from them. The critique of pure reason asks. What I can know? There are questions on the principles from which it is possible scientific knowledge, and secondly also wondered about the limits within which that knowledge is possible. 1) Is it possible to metaphysics as a science? 2) How is it possible science?, words, science is possible under certain conditions wondered why What are the transcendental conditions that make scientific knowledge possible? 3rd) If science is a set of trials. How judgments are possible about science?, Is, What are the transcendental conditions that make scientific judgments possible? Analyzed as they occur, causes and consequences, in the two stages of knowledge (understanding and sensitivity), as they provide the degree of universality and necessity of the science.4) What are the transcendental conditions that make synthetic judgments a priori? 5) Do these conditions exist in the judgments of metaphysics? No, then metaphysics is not possible as a science. Science is transcendental, it is clear, and is therefore universal, valid, objective and necessary. “Synthetic judgments a priori” = to make the object you express what you choose to reason, or their demands, is the same as saying that knowledge of the ultimate experience that incorporates elements priori the knower “Metaphysics will deal with transcendent moral world, the metaphysics of morals, it is going beyond experience, and is responsible for ethics and values. It consists of ideals. This establishes what Kant after the critique of metaphysics.
I 2. Classification of Judgments Since science is a set of judgments, the question becomes: what conditions make scientific judgments possible? Kant classifies judgments into analytical and synthetic. Analytical judgments have the predicate contained in the subject, are a priori, universal, and necessary, providing no new information. Synthetic judgments have the predicate not contained in the subject, are a posteriori, and are not universal or necessary, expanding our knowledge. He also classifies them as a priori or a posteriori, based on how their truth is known. A priori judgments are known independently of experience, while a posteriori judgments are known through experience. The most important judgments in science are synthetic a priori, which provide new information, are universal, necessary, and not derived from experience. These are the fundamental principles of mathematics and physics.
I.1. The Possibility of Metaphysical Science Metaphysics, in Kant’s time, aimed for a deductive system based on pure reason, like mathematics. Kant initially supported this but sought a new foundation for metaphysics. Previous attempts had failed, leading to skepticism. Kant proposed a critique of reason itself, to clarify its principles and limits. He believed errors came from reason overreaching its limits, seeking knowledge beyond experience. By setting limits, Kant aimed to avoid failures and secure metaphysical knowledge, while also undermining atheism, materialism, and determinism.
1.2. A Priori Transcendental Conceptions: Transcendental Aesthetic Sensitivity is the ability to have feelings. Aesthetics explains how to have feelings and deals with the transcendental knowledge of the conditions that allow sensitive knowledge. Kant distinguishes between matter and form in perception. Matter is the sensations we have, and form is how the knowing subject orders them, called “pure intuition,” which is a priori. The union of sensations and a priori form is called Phenomenon. The pure forms of sensibility are space and time, which are a priori conditions of sensibility.
Transcendental Analytic: Understanding Understanding is the faculty of concepts and judgments. It refers concepts to phenomena through judgments. Concepts are ideas that identify phenomena, ultimately being “pure concepts” or “categories.” These categories are rules by which we relate data collected by sensitivity. Kant distinguishes between empirical concepts, which come from experience, and pure concepts or categories, which are a priori. Knowledge is possible because categories apply to the manifold given in sensation. The categories are necessary conditions for knowledge, and understanding cannot think without them. The fallacy of dogmatic philosophy is using categories to describe transcendent realities. Physics is possible because the world has a mathematical structure and categories have empirical validity. This is how Kant philosophically legitimized the Newtonian universe.
II.3. Transcendental Dialectic: Reason and the Unconditioned The “Transcendental Dialectic” examines whether metaphysics can be a priori knowledge, concluding it cannot be a scientific discipline. Metaphysics seeks to know things in themselves, but its objects are transcendent, and it uses categories that can only be applied to phenomena. Reason seeks increasingly general judgments, aspiring to the unconditioned. When reason remains within the limits of experience, its use is correct, but it inevitably pushes beyond experience in search of the unconditioned. This leads to metaphysical theories about the world, the soul, and God. These ideas of reason have no objective reference but guide research.
1 3. The Sea-Change Science has found clarity and progress through a change in method. Metaphysics always discusses the same subjects without progress. Kant proposes a new method, reversing the relationship between objects and the subject, calling it the “Copernican revolution.” Metaphysics should follow the method of science to progress. With this method seeks to justify that knowledge and science, having to be experimental can not avoid being universal and necessary, ie constant in time and fixed. Kant exposes a new methodology where objects are made subject to human rationality. Knowledge consists of two components: one outside the subject and to reach sensitivity: intuition Another independent of the perceived object, which provides the knowing subject and the object that allows to know: A priori. Through the A priori, will exceed the contingency of the sensory and experimental to the universal and necessary features required by the knowledge. Premises: The experience can not be universal and necessary because we have particular sensible intuitions. Science is universal and necessary. There are two elements in the development of knowledge: the object and mind. The universality and necessity puts the subject in its own way of knowing, is what a priori, independent of experience. The subject provides knowledge outside the experience, and makes science a universal and necessary knowledge. The subject places a number of conditions of human perception of the object. The turnabout is consistent with the “critical philosophy” (to prosecute the possibilities of knowledge) and “transcendental” (part of the knowledge outside the experience.) Meaning of the word metaphysics: Traditional Metaphysics: science of the supersensible (soul, God ) is a science of objects intended to show that is the soul itself “(free, indivisible, immaterial …) The new metaphysical criticism: theory of rationality, or metaphysics of the subject, which shows (as transcendental) as and because we believe those notions, are to know anything for them. Contains: Metaphysics of Nature: an explanation of how we see the world and its limitations (viewing the world as if it were the work of a rational being). * Metaphysics of Morals: as we know rationally the moral high ground (free beings and Self) * rationalist metaphysics of history * Explanation of “Natural Arrangement” of human reason in the metaphysical problems, which we ask and think, although we can not know the solution.
Critical Transcendental Metaphysics
2.1. Distinction Between Phenomenon and Noumenon Phenomenon is the scope of the senses, what is given to sensitivity. It is the object as it appears to us, ordered under the conditions of space and time. Noumenon is the thing in itself, what we do not know, but assume exists. It is not an object of experience. The negative conception of the noumenon is what is not an object of sensible intuition. The positive conception is that it can be non-sensible intuition, which is not peculiar to human subjectivity, but the intuitive understanding and divine (God), that not need to know that things are given through sensibility. Its object is the intelligible object, the object is not sensible.
2.2. The Negative of Criticism Criticism defines the limits of reason, showing what can be known and thought. Beyond these limits, contradictions arise. Knowledge is only possible through phenomena, so metaphysics cannot be a science of the supersensible. Reason seeks the unconditioned but cannot meet it without conditions. Metaphysics is a natural disposition of reason, but its failure is due to making a constitutive use of ideas. God, the soul, and the world serve to meet the rest of existing things. Metaphysics advances if you use regulative ideas, ideals seek ideas of knowledge. “God, soul and world.” This metaphysics is called the “metaphysics of like it”
2.3. Positive Sense of Criticism: Practical Use of Reason Theoretical reason is concerned with how things are, while practical reason is concerned with how human behavior should be. Kant’s ethics is formal, not material. Material ethics are empirical, a posteriori, and their precepts are conditional. They are heteronomous, receiving laws from outside. Kant’s formal ethics are universal, rational, a priori, categorical, and autonomous. They do not provide a specific goal but a way of acting. Fundamental concepts include goodwill, duty, and the categorical imperative. Goodwill is the only thing that is absolutely good. Duty is the most prominent feature of the moral conscience. The categorical imperative is the universal principle of practical reason, expressed in maxims such as: act as if your actions could become universal law, and treat humanity as an end, not a means. The attitude of the will on the categorical imperative can occur in three ways: • Santa or good will: one that acts out of respect for the law, for the sake of duty. The actions of this will are called “actions on duty. · Of the morality or legal will: Work under the law, or moral law-abiding but respect for her but for other inclinations. These are called “actions under the duty.” • The willingness morally wrong: it violates the moral law. Of these three types of modes of action will, only the first is true moral courage. Postulates of practical reason include freedom, the existence of an immortal soul, and the existence of God. These are not demonstrable but must be accepted for moral order. Freedom is the absence of cases. Being free is not to get carried away by the impulse to do good. This will only happen if we think that freedom is a thing in itself can not know and is not subject to the concept of causality in science. So then, can not be known scientifically.
2.4. Metaphysics, Critique, and Illustration From the 17th to 18th centuries, the “Age of Enlightenment” sought to illuminate society with reason. While metaphysics is impossible in the realm of reason, it is possible on a practical level. The ideas of reason are useful for sorting thoughts and regulating principles of understanding. Metaphysics enters the field of rational faith, grounded in a blameless process. Kant sees metaphysics as a natural disposition, rooted in the rational structure of man. Its objects are eternal questions about God, freedom, and immortality. Man cannot escape its spell, always returning to it.