Kant’s Theory of Knowledge: Exploring Reason’s Limits
Kant’s Critical Philosophy
The Knowing Subject
Kant’s critical thinking emphasizes the active role of the knowing subject. For Kant, objects of knowledge conform to the subject’s way of understanding, revolving around the subject’s cognitive framework. He argues that concepts derived from experience are only applicable within the realm of experience.
Kant’s revolutionary perspective, akin to Copernicus’s shift in astronomy, positions the subject as the shaper of the object of knowledge. His philosophy aims to reconcile the conflicts between rational, empirical, and irrational interpretations. He defines philosophy as “the science of the relation of all knowledge to the essential ends of human reason.”
Key Philosophical Questions
Kant’s philosophy addresses these fundamental questions:
- What can I know? (Pure Reason)
- What should I do? (Practical Reason)
- What may I hope for? (Religion)
These questions converge on the overarching question: What is man?
Critique of Pure Reason
The Possibilities of Knowledge
In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant explores the limits of knowledge attainable through our cognitive faculties. He investigates the possibility of rigorous scientific knowledge, especially concerning realities beyond our sensory experience. This leads him to question the viability of metaphysics as a science, since it seeks knowledge of such realities.
Conditions for Scientific Knowledge
The conditions for scientific knowledge are twofold:
- Empirical: Science must be based on data derived from experience.
- A Priori: Science relies on pre-experiential content.
Science consists of judgments. Judgments can be:
- Analytic: The predicate is contained within the subject (e.g., all bachelors are unmarried). These are universal and necessary but not extensive.
- Synthetic: The predicate adds something to the subject (e.g., the sky is blue). These can be a priori or a posteriori (derived from experience).
For Kant, only synthetic a priori judgments are the foundation of science, being necessary, universal, and independent of experience.
Three Parts of the Critique
Transcendental Aesthetic
This section examines the a priori principles of sensibility, our capacity to be affected by objects. The effect of an object on our sensibility is called sensation. Intuition is the immediate apprehension of objects. Empirical intuition refers to objects through sensation. The phenomenon, the object of empirical intuition, consists of matter (corresponding to sensation) and form (allowing the organization of sensory input). Pure intuition, the a priori form of sensibility, corresponds to the form of the phenomenon. Space and time are the two pure intuitions, the transcendental conditions of sensibility, justifying synthetic a priori judgments in mathematics.
Transcendental Logic
This section explores the a priori principles of understanding, our capacity for thought. Understanding allows us to grasp objects through representations derived from sensibility. It uses concepts to unify the diversity of sensory input. Knowledge involves synthesizing the manifold of sensibility with concepts provided by understanding. Concepts refer to objects indirectly through shared characteristics. Empirical concepts arise from experience, while pure or a priori concepts (categories) are given by understanding and are the conditions for the possibility of experiencing objects. Categories apply only to phenomena, making knowledge of the noumenon (the thing-in-itself) impossible.
Transcendental Dialectic
This section critiques reason’s attempts to know things-in-themselves or supersensible realities. Reason seeks increasingly general judgments to find principles governing phenomena. It strives for unconditional principles to understand reality.