Kant: Science, Metaphysics, and the Limits of Knowledge
Kant: Conditions of Science and Metaphysics
Analyzing the Limits of Knowledge
Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason analyzes the limits of our knowledge of reality. He compares the advancements of modern science with the stagnation of metaphysics.
Metaphysics grapples with questions crucial to humanity. Kant sought to determine whether metaphysical claims could be supported by scientific knowledge. His approach involved identifying the conditions that enabled the success of mathematics and physics, then assessing whether metaphysics could meet those same conditions.
Conditions of Scientific Knowledge
Kant’s research into the conditions of scientific knowledge moved beyond simply describing scientific disciplines. He viewed science as composed of judgments, aiming to classify these judgments and determine which qualify as scientific.
Kant proposed two criteria for classifying judgments: the relationship between subject and predicate, and the relationship of the judgment to experience.
Subject-Predicate Relationships
The subject-predicate criterion distinguishes between analytic and synthetic judgments. Analytic judgments are those where the predicate’s information is already contained within the subject; their truth is thus necessary. Synthetic judgments, conversely, involve a synthesis between unrelated subject and predicate, expanding knowledge but not guaranteeing truth.
Judgment and Experience
The criterion of a judgment’s relationship to experience distinguishes between a priori and a posteriori judgments. A priori judgments are known without experimental verification, independent of experience, and universally true. A posteriori judgments, however, require experimental verification, depend on experience, and are contingent and not universal.
Analytic judgments can be either a priori or a posteriori. Kant introduces synthetic a priori judgments—those that expand knowledge yet don’t require experimental verification for their truth. Mathematics, physics, and metaphysics contain such judgments. However, mathematics and physics have become sciences, while metaphysics has not. Why?
Synthetic A Priori Judgments
A priori analytic judgments rely on the principle of non-contradiction, while a posteriori analytic judgments are grounded in experience. What, then, underpins synthetic a priori judgments? This question leads to Kant’s theory of knowledge, as outlined in the Critique of Pure Reason.
Structure of the Critique
Kant’s work is divided into two parts:”Transcendental Aestheti” and”Transcendental Logic” “Transcendental Logi” further divides into”Transcendental Analyti” and”Transcendental Dialectic”
Transcendental Aesthetic and Logic
Kant argues that knowledge involves two processes: information gathering and the processing of that information. These correspond to the cognitive powers of sensibility and understanding. Sensibility, addressed in the”Transcendental Aesthetic” receives information. Understanding, the focus of”Transcendental Analytic” constructs new knowledge.
Phenomena and Intuition
The object of sensible intuition is a phenomenon—distinct from the”thing-in-itself” A phenomenon is a composite of matter (from the object) and form (imposed by the subject). This form of intuition is a priori.
Our sensibility structures sensations, shaping the phenomena we perceive. This structure consists of space and time, which are a priori forms of sensibility. Space and time are pure intuitions.
Geometry studies spatial properties, while arithmetic deals with temporal series. Thus, space and time are the basis of mathematics’ synthetic a priori judgments.
Understanding and Concepts
In”Transcendental Analytic” Kant examines understanding, which constructs judgments and reasons. This involves analyzing concepts. Phenomena are understood through sensibility, but understanding uses concepts to unify diverse information.
Kant distinguishes between empirical concepts (a posteriori, derived from experience) and pure concepts (a priori, inherent to understanding). These pure concepts, also called categories, are general ways of unifying experience.
Categories function in understanding similarly to how pure intuitions function in sensibility. Just as space and time underpin mathematics’ synthetic a priori judgments, categories underpin physics’ synthetic a priori judgments.
Metaphysics and the Limits of Reason
Kant then compares the foundations of mathematics and physics with those of metaphysics.
Transcendental logic studies understanding. Kant describes human reasoning through syllogisms. Syllogisms, given true premises, guarantee true conclusions. The pursuit of absolutely certain premises leads reason beyond the limits of experience.
Kant argues that applying categories beyond the realm of sensible intuition leads to errors: fallacies, contradictions (antimonies), and ideals of pure reason.
Conclusion
Metaphysics cannot become a science because its objects lie beyond the limits of human knowledge.