Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason: Key Concepts Explained
Kant’s Theory of Knowledge: A Breakdown
5 – Theory of Knowledge (Tema): The structure of the Critique of Pure Reason (KRV) has three parts: transcendental aesthetic, transcendental analytic, and transcendental dialectic.
- Transcendental Aesthetic: “Beauty” refers to sensitivity, a faculty of knowledge. More precisely, the Transcendental Aesthetic examines the sensitive conditions of knowledge. We receive a tremendous amount of sensitive intuitions, information packets that are not themselves knowledge. At this point, we must clarify two aspects: first, we know that Kant read Hume’s Treatise in its French translation. Kant himself tells us that Hume served “to awaken me from my dogmatic slumber.” This means that Kant’s master, Wolff, was a famous Cartesian. Hence, Kant’s principle was strongly influenced by the philosophy of Descartes. When he speaks of “dogmatic,” he refers to the philosophical tradition, including Descartes, that posed philosophical discourse without critically considering the foundations of this discourse – as Kant does. So, “awakening from dogmatic slumber” introduces sensitivity within the operation of knowing, unlike Descartes, who emphasizes the cognitive role of sensitivity.
As sensible intuitions, Kant tells us that to make them possible, we need two pure intuitions a priori: space and time. It is possible to imagine an empty space and time without events, but it is unthinkable that an object does not occupy space. Similarly, it is impossible for an event not to happen in time. Therefore, space and time are outside experience, beyond experience; they make it possible. However, sensitive intuition is not knowledge itself (though they make it possible) but requires another element to constitute knowledge.
- Transcendental Analytic: If the Transcendental Aesthetic discusses the sensitive conditions of knowledge (sensible intuitions, space, and time), the Analytic examines the intellectual conditions: the categories or pure concepts. In this case, the power of knowledge is understanding. What are the categories? To explain this, we will examine the Transcendental Deduction of the categories. In a single moment, we receive an enormous amount of sensible intuitions, but we know that by themselves, they are not knowledge. Understanding rearranges the sensitive information into simple and ordered structures, giving rise to a priori categories or concepts, so a sensible intuition becomes a knowledge concept. The “concept work” (as Hegel said) does not end here, but there is a higher synthesis (a summary of the synthesis), which Kant calls the pure apperception unit, i.e., the “I think,” the centralization of all our cognitive activities.
- Transcendental Dialectic: If the Aesthetic examines sensitivity (and insights) and the Analytic examines Understanding (and concepts a priori), Kant analyzes Reason (Vernunft, reason for non-instrumental).
Keep in mind that the only powers that provide us with knowledge are sensitivity and understanding. Reason is not a faculty of knowledge. Reason is concerned with ideas, marking boundaries. Kant tells us that there are three ideas: the idea of God, the soul, and the world. These do not contribute to our knowledge. The ideas mark the boundaries of reality, beyond which is the Unknowable. Reason marks the ideal (Kant speaks of the “ideal of reason”), that is, although you can only learn from experience, I must act “as-if” I could go beyond its boundaries. In conclusion, Kant establishes the limits of knowledge (what can and cannot be known), but one of Kant’s great contributions is that setting such limits is at the same time setting the limits of experience. By distinguishing between the knowable and unknowable, I am distinguishing between reality and what I have not heard (the thing itself).