Kant’s Transcendental Philosophy: An In-Depth Analysis
Transcendental Aesthetics
Kant realizes that solving this problem is necessary to develop a new theory of knowledge, according to which objects must conform to our knowledge. This hypothesis is analogous to that made by Copernicus. Because of its similarity to Kant’s hypothesis, it is called the Copernican Revolution in Kant. Kant states that we cannot know things in themselves, but only to the extent that they are subject to certain conditions of a priori knowledge brought by the subject.
Kant distinguishes two sources of knowledge: sensibility and understanding.
- Through sensibility, we are given objects, so that what is given is already a synthesis of matter and form.
- Knowledge consists of a matter that is outside (noumenon) and an internal form that is space and time, considered pure intuitions.
Once the noumena has been governed by space and time, the individual can know the object (phenomenon).
By understanding, phenomena are conceived; that is, once the phenomenon is understood, the categories are applied.
Space and time are pure institutions; therefore, they are a priori forms of sensibility.
Since the validity of mathematics is based on the institution, in advance, of the spatial relations of figures and numbers, space and time are the logical foundation of mathematics, and in them, synthetic judgments a priori are possible. Thus, mathematics is pure knowledge.
Transcendental Analytic
This section discusses the conditions under which we think about the objects given by sensibility.
By understanding, objects (phenomena) are designed; that is, understanding synthesizes data of sensible intuition according to their categories.
Sensibility by itself does not provide any knowledge; it needs understanding, or the ability to think, so that the objects in sensibility can be known. Understanding a phenomenon means that it can be referred to a concept.
In a trial, representations are synthesized by means of concepts. One can determine the number of possible ways of judging, that is, the number of logical types in the form of considered judgments. Each form of trial is determined by a pure concept or category. Knowing the logical types of trial, we will know the categories.
Without the synthetic activity of understanding, knowledge of objects is not possible. Therefore, the categories are a priori conditions of the possibility that objects are designed, and if they are designed, we can say that objects are actually known.
With space and time, and categories, the intellect produces the objects of pure physics. The validity of pure physics does not depend on experience, and within its sphere, synthetic judgments a priori are possible. This is the result of the Transcendental Analytic: pure physics is possible.
Transcendental Dialectic
In this part of the book, Kant examines the power of reason and the possibility of metaphysics as a science.
Reason is the ability to link some trials with others to find the unconditional, and it does so by reducing the multiplicity of pure concepts of understanding to a larger unit called the unconditioned transcendental idea.
All human knowledge is encompassed and unified in the concept of being that is dismembered into three transcendental ideas:
- World: The idea that unifies all the phenomena of external experience.
- Soul: The idea that unifies all phenomena of inner experience.
- God: The idea that unifies all phenomena of inner and external experience, the cause and origin of both, their point of convergence.
When reason applies the categories of phenomena beyond what is given, it falls into transcendental illusion.
Metaphysics as a science is impossible because the categories can only be used legitimately in their application to phenomena, and the ideas of God, soul, and world are beyond phenomenal experience. Therefore, a priori synthetic judgments are impossible in metaphysics; a priori judgments are non-synthetic but have only the formal element.
Kant calls metaphysics the logic of appearance since the trials established therein are only of logical appearance. The arguments are analyzed theologically: the ontological proof, the cosmological proof, and the physico-theological proof.
Since none of the three themes of traditional metaphysics has a real foundation, knowledge from metaphysics is impossible. But metaphysics has a methodological and regulatory function.