Understanding Kant’s Philosophy: Historical Context and Ideas
Historical Context, Cultural and Philosophical Influences
Kant belongs to the eighteenth century, which was deeply marked by the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the French Revolution (1789), and the War of Independence of the United States. In the political arena, a pre-revolutionary environment began to forge with enlightened despotism and the ideals of equality and freedom. In the economic sphere, profound changes in industry and new production techniques led to the Industrial Revolution, which gave rise to capitalism. This revolution was led by the bourgeoisie, which achieved its final ascent. It established human rights in the first court of human rights. In art, as in politics, two opposing movements emerged: Rococo and Neoclassicism.
The eighteenth century is the century of rationalism, which had total confidence in reason, despised the senses, defended the existence of innate ideas, supported ideas in mathematics, and viewed God as a guarantee of the right. Its main ideologues were Descartes, Leibniz, and Wolff in Germany. Against rationalism, empiricism emerged in the British Isles, believing in experience as the only source of certain knowledge. Its attitude was anti-metaphysical and defended moral emotivism, viewing science as a probable set of laws. Its main representatives were Bacon, Hume, Locke, and Berkeley. Kant synthesized these two streams, leading to criticism, which seeks to establish the limits of certain knowledge through a systematic investigation of the conditions of possibility of thought.
It is the century in which philosophers sought to guide men to the light of reason. The ultimate expression of this phenomenon was the Encyclopedia, which sought to spread culture, creating a critical and anti-dogmatic approach and collecting all the knowledge of the era. It involved Voltaire, Diderot, D’Alembert, and Rousseau, among others. However, the Enlightenment was a broad movement of ideas of a natural character, not just philosophical; it was a state of mind, developing mainly in three areas: English (Hume), French (Rousseau), and German (Kant).
Kant’s Philosophical System: Transcendental Idealism
Kant, in his work, seeks to solve the problems of philosophy of his time: What can I know? What should I do? And what can I expect?
To answer the first question, he presents his theory of knowledge. His answer is determined by the physical-mathematical science of Newton. For scientific knowledge, it is necessary to establish the principles that make possible scientific understanding. These are called a priori or transcendental conditions, which the subject imposes. Among these are the spaces that sensitivity and understanding provide. The first includes space (as a priori external) and time (as a priori internal). These two forms give rise to phenomena. However, understanding requires transcendental conditions to know. These conditions are called categories, without which the intellect cannot think of phenomena. These categories are empty and must be filled with data from sensitive knowledge.
There are 12 types of categories, of which the most important are causality and substance. For Kant, causality is not derived from experience; it is a structure that makes understanding a priori, not sensitive or perceptible by the senses. Substance can also be known empirically.
It is also necessary to know the limits of scientific knowledge. Kant was a rationalist, but after hearing Hume’s claim that if we rely solely on experience, we cannot know for sure, he understood that concepts are applicable only in the realm of experience. If we go beyond this, we fall into illusion, a form of non-scientific knowledge.
Finally, the elements of knowledge are two: the subject and the object. Realism (prior to Kant) considered the subject and the object as realities outside of it. But Kant argues that knowledge occurs when the subject is active, imposing a priori conditions. Idealism is Kant’s position, which takes precedence over realism, emphasizing the subject’s role. This new theory of knowledge, in which the subject is of great importance, will be compared by Kant to the Copernican revolution. Just as Copernicus reversed the positions of the earth and the sun, Kant reverses the importance of subject and object in knowledge.
Therefore, regarding whether metaphysics can be a science, we cannot conclude that it can, as it seeks to know reality independently of the subject, and its objects (the self, God, and the world) are not sensible realities. However, metaphysics has a positive role, as reason has an inevitable trend to know the unconditional. These ideas, although not able to be fully realized, serve as a guiding ideal for scientific progress.
In answering the second question (What should I do?), Kant critiques ethical issues. These are a posteriori. We offer standards, material imperatives that must be followed to achieve an ultimate end (happiness, God, money, etc.). Instead, he proposes a formal ethics without content and without rules, rational and a priori. This will not tell us what to do but how to act, based on the dictates of reason. For this reason, it is autonomous: the subject gives itself the law by recognizing its own right. We must act solely out of duty, respecting the law, even if it means not being happy. He also proposes a categorical imperative: a formula by which we know how to act. At this point, he recovers the ideas of God, freedom, and immortality. These are noumena (things in themselves) and cannot be scientifically understood, but they are assumptions needed to explain morality. Therefore, we postulate their existence.
In response to the last question, Kant explains what we can expect in terms of religion and the march of history. He expects that religion will lead to death beyond compliance with the moral law. As for the march of history, he will show a moderately optimistic view: the real progress of humanity is moral progress. This moral progress is based on conflicts until it finally achieves a perpetual peace through the union of states.