Kant’s Philosophy: Knowledge, Ethics, and the Path to Autonomy
Thinking of Kant
Kant’s philosophy begins influenced by Newtonian physics and rationalism, known as the pre-critical period. However, his focus on philosophy and reading Hume shifted him towards metaphysics as a science, moving away from rationalism to enter his critical period, aspiring to “Sapere aude” (dare to know, to think for yourself). He sought human emancipation through reason, urging individuals to leave their self-imposed immaturity.
Kant’s philosophy revolves around four key questions, addressed through a critical method analyzing reason’s uses and limitations:
What do I know?
Led to the theory of knowledge and metaphysics.What can I do?
Addressed by practical philosophy (ethics and politics).What am I allowed to hope?
Concerns religion.What is man?
Explored through anthropology.
Problem of Knowledge
Kant examined scientific knowledge, distinguishing three terms:
- Thinking: Pure reflection on concepts, the union of ideas, which may not lead to conclusions.
- Knowledge: Understanding and learning through trial.
- Useful: True and universal knowledge.
The question “On what things can we establish true judgments?” led Kant to set three conditions for science:
- Science must increase our knowledge.
- It must be necessary and not contingent.
- It must be universal and valid for all human beings.
From these principles, Kant concluded that science must work with synthetic a priori judgments (e.g., the force of gravity existing before experience). Unlike analytical judgments, synthetic judgments connect and expand our knowledge.
Kant then questioned whether metaphysics could be a science. Knowledge is a composite of experience and reason’s spontaneous contributions. The a priori is what the subject possesses before experience, pure reason, which then interacts with experience and the object. Space and time are necessary for knowledge but are not objects themselves. Reality differs for each person because individual reason organizes sensory chaos.
Knowledge comprises reason and experience, leading to the distinction between phenomenon (object of experience) and noumenon (the thing itself). Through our senses (sensitivity), we perceive objects as intuitions. The understanding then transforms these into concepts, both empirical (a posteriori, from experience, e.g., heat, a table) and categorical (a priori faculties of the mind). Thus, while all knowledge begins with experience, not all of it originates from it; some structures are set by the mind.
Kant synthesized rationalism, empiricism, and transcendental idealism (Kantian synthesis), emphasizing the subject’s mind as the decisive factor in organizing sensory data, a concept he compared to the Copernican revolution. We can think about the soul, world, and God (metaphysics’ basic concepts) but cannot know them without experience. Metaphysics, lacking synthetic a priori judgments, cannot be a science because it cannot grasp the essence of things (noumenon).
Although metaphysics is not a science, it is essential as a natural human tendency. It has a regulatory value, guiding our understanding of phenomena. Kant saw a negative value in metaphysics, marking its limits, but also a positive one, expanding research to new experiences.
Ethics
Kant’s ethics is an ethics for autonomy, starting from a “Faktum” to clarify how we should behave. Moral judgments must be universal and necessary, with ethical standards existing a priori. Kant rejected hypothetical judgments, which are conditional, and proposed two ethical principles:
- Maxims: Subjective judgments valid for the individual will.
- Law: Objective principles valid for all rational beings, thus universal.
Kant criticized material ethics, which are dependent on experience and private ends. He advocated for a formal, universal ethics where we act out of duty, not self-interest. Formal ethics should be governed by a single a priori and universal imperative: the categorical imperative. “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” Maxims should become universal laws.
We should treat every human as an end, not a means, respecting each individual and humanity as a kingdom of ends. Kant aimed for Sapere Aude and achieving our own moral law, abandoning ethical and moral heteronomy (ex post) for autonomy and human freedom.
Although God cannot be proven or known through metaphysics, Kant was a believer, a pietist who based religious doctrine on personal reflection and virtue. He posited three postulates of practical reason, necessary for ethics but unprovable:
- Freedom: A requirement for ethics; one cannot be ethical without being free.
- Immortality of the soul: Necessary for infinite progress towards virtue.
- Existence of God: Someone capable of punishment or reward.