Kant’s Philosophy: Rationalism, Empiricism, and Ethics
Relationship Between Rationalism and Empiricism
While not accepting the dogmatic rationalist metaphysics, Kant gives great importance to reason, including the concepts of the soul and God. He also rejects radical empiricism, which led to skepticism. Kant addresses emotivism, stating that moral imperatives are not driven by reason alone. He acknowledges Newton’s important contributions to physics, which influenced his understanding of knowledge. Rousseau argued that humans are not just intelligent but also have a moral conscience that helps them discover freedom. Rousseau believed that education should align with autonomy and freedom, although he preferred the English method of schooling. Rousseau located the individual in nature, while Kant placed them in society, similar to Hobbes’s description of human nature.
1. Critique of Pure Reason and Kantian Conception of Knowledge
Kant’s questions:
- What can I know?
- What should I do?
- What can I hope for?
- What is man?
Criticism: After awakening from dogmatism, Kant analyzes the possibilities and limits of reason.
The Transcendental Ideal: Kant proposes that knowledge adapts to us, both internally and externally. The subject shapes the content of knowledge.
Judgments:
3 Parts of the Critique of Pure Reason
- Transcendental Aesthetic: Critiques sensibility.
- Transcendental Analytic: Critiques understanding.
- Transcendental Dialectic: Critiques reason.
2. Space, Time, Categories, and Metaphysics
Judgments: Statements made by a subject committed to truth.
Subject-Predicate Relationship:
- Analytical judgments: The predicate is contained within the subject; truth is necessary.
- Synthetic judgments: The predicate is not contained within the subject; knowledge is extensive, but truth is not necessary.
Relationship Between Judgment and Experience:
- A priori judgments: Truth is evident, independent of experience; they are universal and necessary.
- A posteriori judgments: Truth requires experimental proof and depends on experience.
While analytical judgments are a priori and synthetic judgments are a posteriori, there are also synthetic a priori judgments, which combine the advantages of both. They expand knowledge and are necessary to verify their truth.
The Three Parts of the Critique of Pure Reason:
Transcendental Aesthetic: Space and Time
This part deals with sensibility, the first power of knowledge. It reflects how things appear to us, not as they are in themselves. Space and time are a priori forms of sensibility, necessary for experience. Mathematics, such as geometry and arithmetic, uses a priori judgments.
Transcendental Analytic: Categories
Understanding establishes how we are affected by the external world, judging and establishing categories. These categories make the world comprehensible to humans. There are 12 categories, with causation being fundamental to empiricism. Understanding has an a priori structure, such as causation, which connects phenomena.
Transcendental Dialectic: Ideas
Reason unifies knowledge into general and abstract concepts, leading to the first principles: soul, world, and God.
Metaphysics is not possible as a science, but its concepts (freedom, God, soul) should be admitted as postulates of practical reason.
3. Critique of Practical Reason and Ethics
Practical and Ethical Reasons: When we cannot scientifically answer questions about the soul, God, or the world, we turn to practical reason, which guides us in practice.
Characteristics of Kantian Ethics:
- Autonomous: The moral standard is self-imposed.
- Formal: The standard is universalizable.
- Deontological: Actions are based on duty.
Autonomy: Begins with freedom, the starting point. Unlike nature, which is defined by its laws, autonomy is the capacity to obey the law one gives oneself. Formal: The reason for acting should be universal. Deontological: Moral acts are done out of respect for duty.
Categorical Imperative: Actions should be universally followed, even if they go against our inclinations. Moral decisions should be universalizable. Kant proposes different formulations:”Your will should be considered universal””Act as if you were a legislator” and”Do not treat your actions as a means but as an end”
4. The Moral Categorical Imperative
Characteristics of Kantian Ethics
5. Postulates of Practical Reason
General Postulates: Practical reason states that the immortality of the soul guarantees the supreme good, which is happiness. Freedom guarantees the autonomy of the will, and the existence of moral law. The existence of God guarantees a rational world where there is a supreme good.
Postulates: Kant explains that postulates are something that cannot be demonstrated but are reasonable. They include immortality, God, and freedom. Happiness is achieved by being virtuous, and after death, the immortality of the soul and the existence of God allow for freedom in our actions.