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C H A P T E R 22

IMMANUEL KANT

The Limits of Reason

Immanuel Kant

(1724–1804)

Immanuel Kant
"Dare to Know"

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and polymath. His other interest were logic, theology, mathematics, physics, geography, anthropology, law, and history.

List of Polymaths

LIFE

Kant was born in Konigsberg - capital of East Prussia Germany.
His was a student and teacher at the University of Konigsberg.
He never married.

It is said that his neighbors could set their clocks by him.
He never doubted the progress made by science.

PHILOSOPHY

The Critique of Pure Reason (1781 revised in 1787)
Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783)

"I freely admit that the remembrance of David Hume was the very thing that many years ago first interrupted my dogmatic slumber and gave a completely different direction to my researches in the field of speculative philosophy."

How did David Hume awaken Kant from his dogmatic slumber?

Hume believed that there were two kinds of statements. Truths of reason are necessary because they are true by definition. Then there are truths known by experience.

Hume saw this as a threat to philosophy because it isn't a science - or restricted to reason. He didn't see this as a threat to science; science just didn't provide necessary truths.

Kant saw deeper implications that threatened philosophy, science, and even mathematics.

TYPES OF STATEMENTS:

A Priori Proposition:
A proposition whose justification doesn't rely on experience.
Universal / Necessary Truth

Examples:
All bachelors are unmarried.
"I think; therefore I am."
7 + 5 = 12.

A Posteriori Proposition:
A proposition whose justification relies on experience.
Contingent Truth / Never Certain

Examples:
All bachelors are unhappy.
Some dogs are black.
Tables exist.

Analytic Proposition:
A proposition whose predicate is contained in its subject.
The conclusion is contained in the subject.
You don't need to consult experience. They are true by definition.
There is no problem knowing these propositions.
They are all known a priori.
They don't add to knowledge.

Examples:
All bachelors are unmarried.
All triangles have three sides.
All tricycles have three wheels.
All bodies are extended.

Synthetic Proposition:
A proposition whose predicate is not in its subject.
The conclusion is not in the subject.

Examples:
All bachelors are unhappy.
All creatures with hearts have kidneys.
All bodies are heavy.
The rose is red.

FOUR TYPES OF PROPOSITIONS: notes

Analytic A Priori	Known by reason alone - by extracting the predicate from the subject. Uncontroversial, Universal, and Necessary Example: Physical objects are extended. Every effect has a cause.
Synthetic A Priori	True by the mind's structure. They are universal and necessary, yet not known by experience or logic; the predicate adds to the subject? Example: 7 + 5 = 12 Every event has a cause. A straight line is the shortest distance between two points.
Analytic A Posteriori	Self-Contradictory (They would need to be, and not be, based on experience.) Uncontroversial Example: A waste of time.
Synthetic A Posteriori	Known by experience. Example: Physical objects have weight. Physical objects fall at 32' per second.

HOW ARE SYNTHETIC A PRIOIRI PROPOSITIONS POSSIBLE?

There are things-in-themselves; we can't know them. We only know appearances. Objects of experience conform to the mind; the mind doesn't conform to objects. How we experience things depends on our mental apparatus. He wasn't concerned with our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin. It is by the form of experience that the necessary connections exist that Hume couldn't fathom.

What is required for any possible experience?

THE STRUCTURE OF THE MIND

THE FORMS OF SENSIBILITY (sense perception)
How objects are presented to us.

SPACE AND TIME

Space and time are modes of experience; they don't exist outside of experience. These are structures of the mind; they mind uses these structures to organize our sense data. We can imagine empty space, but we can't imagine objects without space.

A Sunday Afternoon On The Island Of La Grande Jatte, by Georges Seurat

THE FORMS OF THE UNDERSTANDING
How we think about objects that are presented to us.

THE TABLE OF CATEGORIES

	Quantity	(Unity, Plurality, Totality)
	Quality	(Reality, Negation, Limitation)
	Relation	(Substance, Causality, Community or reciprocity)
	Modality	(Possibility-Impossibility, Existence-Nonexistence, Necessity-Contingency)

SUBSTANCE

Hume was right; there is no underlying perception for substance, it doesn't exist in the mind or outside the mind as Lock and Descartes thought. It is a logical category that the mind uses to unify objects.

CAUSALITY

Hume was right; there is no underlying perception for a necessary connect between events. Causality doesn't exist in the mind or outside the mind. Again it's a logical category that the mind uses to understand experience.

THE TABLE OF JUDGMENTS

Quantity
Universal
Particular
Singular
Quality
Affirmative
Negative
Infinite
Relation
Categorical
Hypothetical
Disjunctive
Modality
Problematical
Assertoric
Apodictic

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785)

HYPOTHETICAL AND CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVES

HYPOTHETICAL IMPERATIVES

If you want X, then do Y.
If you want a better life, then get a degree and an education.

Ignore the motive, and consider the consequences.
Teleological or Consequentialist Ethics.
Telos means end or purpose in Greek.

We always want pleasure and avoid pain.

If happiness = pleasure, then happiness is subjective.
Subjective standards lead to relativism. They aren't objective and universally binding. Some are immoral.

THE CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE

Do X.

Two versions of the Categorical Imperative:

    a. "Act only according to a maxim by which you can at the
        same time will it should become a universal law."
        (FMM 39 / 368)

    b. "Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own
        person or in that of another, always as an end and never
        as a means only." (FMM 47 / 369)

Morality is not grounded in experience.

Ethical standards must be grounded in rationality; they must be objective and universally binding.

Moral agents are rational animals.

Only a good will is good without qualification. 366

Your will is good when you:

   a. Act on a rule that you can will for everyone.

   b. You act from duty alone. 367
      Deontological Ethics - deon means duty in Greek.
      It must conform to, and be done for the sake of, the
      moral law. We're obligated to the categorical imperative
      because it's intrinsically right.
      Ignore the consequences.
      Acting for pleasure and consequences has no moral worth.

c. You don't use people.
    A rational being is an end in itself.
     Always treat people as an end - never as a means.
     Man is not an inanimate thing.

		My Means < Your Means is a Beautiful Act
		My Means = Your Means is a Moral Act
		My Means > Your Means is an Ugly Act

PROBLEM

John Stuart Mill argued that Kant is considering the consequences, but Kant is referring to the inconsistency and contradiction of irrational rules only. 369

Happiness is the satisfaction of the sum total of your desires.

... in this idea of happiness all inclinations are combined into a sum total. ... yet men cannot form under the name of 'happiness' any determinate and assured conception of the satisfaction of all inclinations as a sum, (p1066, sec399)

Intuition (not reason) is the best faculty for happiness
(p1063, 1078).

... if ... happiness, were the end of nature ..., then nature would have hit upon a very poor arrangement in having ... reason ... carry out this purpose. ... [Happiness] could have been attained much more certainly by instinct ... . The more a cultivated reason devotes itself to ... happiness, the further does man get away from true contentment. Because of this there arises in many persons ... a certain degree of misology, i.e., hatred of reason. This is especially so in the case of those who are most experienced in the use of reason ... they ... find that they have only brought more trouble on their heads ... they come to envy, rather than despise, the more common run of men who are closer to the guidance of ... instinct and who do not allow their reason much influence on their conduct (p1063, sec 395).

"Instinct never suffers the confusion of reason," said Joe Weider.

Is the examined life worth living?

ONLINE BOOKS

He published his chief philosophical work A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge in 1710. After its poor reception, Berkeley rewrote it in the dialogue form, and he published it under the title Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in 1713.

The Critique of Pure Reason (1781, revised 1787)

Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals

SPARKNOTES

CANONICAL READING LIST IN PHILOSOPHY

VIDEOS:	Bryan Magee & Sir Geoffrey Warnock on Kant
Section 1 \| Section 2 \| Section 3 \| Section 4 \| Section 5

Immanuel Kant "Dare to Know" Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and polymath. His other interest were logic, theology, mathematics, physics, geography, anthropology, law, and history.

Immanuel Kant
"Dare to Know"

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and polymath. His other interest were logic, theology, mathematics, physics, geography, anthropology, law, and history.