Kant’s Philosophy: A Copernican Revolution in Epistemology
Kant’s Copernican Revolution
Kant called his “Copernican revolution” a radical change which states in its conception of the process of knowledge.
Knowledge is a process between man (subject) and the world (objective reality or object), a process by which man captures and interprets the world, that is, perceives reality and explains it. We call the man who knows the “knower” and the reality that is known the “object known.”
Knowing is not that the subject grasps the object as it is, making it an image or concept in your mind. That object “as is” is inaccessible to us. We, subjects, perceive reality because we perceive through the senses, and space and time are intuitions that are in us, not things. We, individuals, interpret or explain reality because we relate what we perceive by causality and the rest of the categories, which are also in us, not things.
Therefore, knowledge is an intersection between subject and object, so that the object is concerned, “dyed,” “dipped,” or “contaminated” by space, time, and categories, which are mental structures, inevitable filters that the subject projects onto the object. Who determines, then, the world’s knowledge is the subject, because if the filters through which we perceive and explain reality were others, our understanding of the world would be different.
This view of knowledge, which in the modern age has a precedent in Descartes, is idealistic. Idealism and realism are two opposing views:
a) According to the realism of the world as we know it, then let us know is in the mind an accurate picture of things. It is the world, the object, which determines knowledge; the subject is passive, not involved in things, is limited to grasp.
b) In idealism, our ideas or our mental structures influence the configuration of things. He is the man who knows the subject, who determines knowledge, as it influences things, affects your mind to know the forms, not captured “as is.” Thus, the philosophy of Kant is known by the name of “Transcendental Idealism.”
Kant said that his way of understanding knowledge, transcendental idealism, is a complete turnaround compared to the previous philosophy. Copernicus turned the image of the universe, why did a sort of somersault, a radical shift in the interpretation of the movement of the stars with respect to geocentric, even so, Kant makes a radical change in his conception of knowledge. Indeed, common sense is realistic, as is geocentric, common sense tells us that we know the truth because we get an objective picture of things, a kind of internal picture of external reality. By contrast, Kant said it was impossible to know things as they are because we inevitably influence them, we affect our mental structures to know. The knowledge center is not, therefore, objective reality, but we, as individuals we know. Kant, in his preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, says his philosophy is a “Copernican revolution” in the field of epistemology.
Transcendental Illusion
“Transcendental illusion” is a term used to refer to Kant’s metaphysics, which seeks to know noumena. Kant distinguishes between phenomena and noumena. Phenomena, which are events in nature, are objects that are outside of me but not independent of me, because I love with my senses and my mental structures: space, time, and categories. Instead, noumena, such as soul or God, are objects outside of me and independent of me, transcendent to me, since I cannot cover them with the senses or space, time, and categories. Kant calls noumena “pure objects” and phenomena “objects of knowledge.”
Having made this distinction, Kant adds that we can only know phenomena, as the senses, space, time, and the categories are the conditions that make knowledge possible. Noumena are unknowable, and claim to know Kant called “transcendental illusion.” Metaphysics is an illusion as a form of knowledge is not a form of knowledge, not a science, we cannot know the soul, nor can we know God, or any other noumenon. Empiricists, Kant says, are right when they claim that metaphysics does not give us any knowledge. However, Kant still does it follow that metaphysics is useless and we can throw into the fire? Can we not get another way noumena than knowledge?
This is the question that Kant settles in his Critique of Practical Reason, and concludes that the existence of noumena is clear from our moral life. The moral life is a reality, because we exercise conscience continually, continually cherish, choose, that’s a fact. And this fact requires a range of conditions without which our moral life, that there would not exist. These conditions are:
1) We are free. If we were not free, we could not choose, and it is a fact that we chose. If we were not free, we would not be worthy of merit or blame, praise or blame, but in fact, we are. Without freedom, we would not have moral life, but we have it. Therefore, freedom must exist.
Freedom is not perceived by the senses, or senses fitting into the space and time, or represent the causal and other categories. Freedom is not therefore a phenomenon, it is a noumenon. We cannot know freedom, and we can only know phenomena, but there is freedom, is a necessary requirement in order to have the moral life that we do have.
2) You have in us something universal and eternal. The categorical imperative by which we govern ourselves as moral beings is universal and eternal, and it would be pointless if there were in us something of this nature. That something universal and timeless that has to exist within us as moral beings is the soul. Like freedom, the soul is a noumenon. No one can know the soul, but have to exist, is a necessary requirement to carry out the moral life that actually carry out.
3) That the ideals that move us in the moral life can be realized, it must be to actually be, it can become a reality. We do not have the ability to fully realize the ideals not always be adjusting to what should be. For us, there is always a gap between real and ideal, between what is and what it should be, between the existing and improved, including our real imperfection and perfection we seek as moral beings. But we would move for ideals, and would act out of duty, or would seek to improve, that is, we would have no moral, if there was no possibility that any overlap between the ideal and real, what is and what it should be.
Well, the real and ideal, what is and what should be agreed in God. God is a being in which the ideal is real. In God bind or synthesize the existing and the perfect, real and possible, what is and what it should be, the real and ideal. Well-understood God must exist because otherwise, there would have no incentive to carry out the moral life that actually carry out. And God is not a phenomenon, is a noumenon. You cannot know God, but have to exist, it is a requirement that we deploy as we do our moral life.
Consequently, the noumena, these things in themselves do not cover the senses, do exist: these are the conditions of possibility of moral life. If space, time, and the categories are the conditions that enable us to know, freedom, soul, and God are the conditions that enable us to act. Hume is right that the objects of metaphysics are unknowable, but not, says Kant, we must shed the metaphysical fire. The objects of metaphysical freedom, soul, God-over when to meet, but are essential to your acting.
Imperative
Humans act as our moral conscience or the will is moved by principles, values, or moral judgments is governed by these judgments and behavior accommodates them. Moral judgments to obey our will is imperative, and there are two types of imperatives: hypothetical and categorical.
Hypothetical imperatives say “if you want such a thing, you do such other.” Contain a command, “do this,” “you do this,” but that term is subject to a condition – “if you want …” – so that if the condition does not interest us we do not have to meet the mandate.
Categorical imperatives say “do this” so roundly and universal formulate a duty is not subject to conditions, a moral law must be obeyed always and in any case. Fulfill the mandate of the hypothetical imperative if we want something outside the duty, but we fulfilled the mandate of the categorical imperative only because of duty.
Well, good will is one that is always guided by the categorical imperative: “do this,” “do this” without conditions. And what the “it” mandates, “that is, what is the content of the duty? What are the steps we must do and what we should not do?
No concrete action, says Kant. What is relevant for good or bad call to action is not its content, its form, its intention, which moves us to do it. Therefore, any action is good if we make it with good intentions, goodwill, and goodwill is governed by a formal imperative: “Whatever you do, do it so that you want the reason that led you to act is a universal law.” This is the categorical imperative, a formula applicable to any action. To take any action, says Kant think if the reason that leads us to act can be universally desirable, if so, the action is good and we should do it, and if not, the action is bad and we should not do it. This is the way it works good will.
Another formulation of Kant’s categorical imperative is: “Never treat a human being as a means, always treat it as an end.”
Cosmopolitan Law
Cosmopolitan law is the basis of world citizenship whereby individuals consider each other as global citizens. This cosmopolitan law is based on the Earth belongs to everybody, is common property in it are all part of one group, all belong to the human community. From the perspective of one Earth where everyone there is no “us” and “them”: we are all citizens of the world.
Being aware of this and build the global political reality from these bases involves establishing a universal hospitality. This universal hospitality in turn implies the right to visit any country in the world in peace, and be treated there without the hostility and distrust that often greeted the foreigners and the right to move freely throughout the world.
Cosmopolitan law overthrows the right of conquest in Kant’s time was valid, since any state could invade another to extend their territory and jurisdiction arguments without force. The Right of Conquest law violates her hospitality, for making the visit to another state appropriation and violence.
The establishment of Cosmopolitan Law is a prerequisite for peace does not consist in the cessation of hostilities or omission or shorter or longer periods between wars. That way of thinking about peace is really talking about war and with reference to the war. So Kant says that peace is ongoing, perpetual, and not peace.
Kant asks what we can do for perpetual peace is not a slogan inscribed on the stones of the cemetery or a dreamy philosophers crazy idea but a reality on Earth. And his answer is that peace is not the result of the reform of the heart, much less than divine intervention, but the consequence of applying the law with Cosmopolitan, the following policy:
“Each of the states of the world is to have a republican constitution, not despotic. There is a direct relationship between the republic and peace. In a republic, the legislators are considering laws that citizens should be, what the citizens decide for themselves, while in a despotic state laws will meet the head of state and serve their interests.
-Create a State of states, a federation of states or world republic, or at least move towards it. If each state is governed by the Constitutional Law, under which members of that state cannot be damaged, the federation of states governed by the law of nations, which is what we mean today by international law. According to the law of nations states are in the world as citizens within a State, and, like them, are forbidden to hold each other harm.
“The political life should be transparent and public. State secrecy is illegitimate. All proceeds secret that there is something to hide, and therefore is a sign that an injustice is being exercised. Any shares not resist the light and advertising are necessarily unfair to someone.
Social Contract
The social contract allows individuals to leave the state of nature to enter the marital status. It is a historical fact but a hypothesis that tells us how it should be administered by the State. The social contract is typical of a republican constitution if it means equality or absolute submission of individuals to an authority, which Kant thought about Hobbes and at the same time, guarantees freedom or that the individual legislator, that is that no law can be adopted without his consent and that, therefore, the ruler has to make laws as if they emanated from the general will, which Kant approaches the thought of Rousseau. The original social contract must also respect the principle of citizenship, which involves the election of representatives. Unlike Rousseau, for whom all men are citizens, Kant distinguishes between active and passive citizens following the criterion of land ownership.
Legal Freedom
Legal freedom is opposed to natural liberty, the latter is itself the state of nature and the first it is the registrar. Legal freedom is what men get after the pact or social contract, which renounce the unlimited freedom that have Natural Law.
According to Kant the state of nature is wild, a state of hostilities and war can be declared or threatening. The engine of individuals in nature is to meet your goals and desires without any hindrance, using the other as medium or even destroyed if necessary to achieve their desires. In nature, there is no morality, no moral beings are by nature, have by nature hostile sociability Kant called “unsocial sociability.”
Moved by reason and by the desire for security, the men leave the state of nature and natural law and enter into the civil state through an agreement or contract: voluntarily renouncing the natural freedom and instituted the rule, which are governed by positive law, which Kant called Constitutional Law, a set of laws which all depend and to which all must obey, either internal or consent required by external coercion. Coercion is morally legitimate, says Kant, because it is the result of a pact, a free and rational decision taken by all. The effect of the pact or social contract is peace.
In marital status men lose their natural freedom and acquire legal freedom. Legal freedom is the ability to do what you want on condition of not harming anyone, and also the ability not to obey any law rather than as it has been able to give consent, consent has been inside with her. According to the latter, it would seem that Kant justified civil disobedience, that is, disobeying a law because we do not agree with it, such as refusing to go to the barracks because it rejects war as an act of civil disobedience. However, Kant explicitly denies the right to civil disobedience, all laws must be complied with by the fact that they are established. It is the legislator who has to think, to the enactment of laws, these laws may require the consent of all, but once a law is in force, all citizens without exception are required to obey.
The agreement or contract is not a historical fact or a scientific hypothesis is likely to be confirmed, is an idea of reason, a guiding idea which should be guided by the legislator, who legislate, who makes the laws “in a society should do as if the laws emanating from the will of all, that is, putting in place of all thinking and making laws that could be chosen freely and independently by any citizen.
Rationalism and Empiricism
Empiricism is the philosophical theory according to which the origin and limits of knowledge is sensory experience. The best known empiricists are Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Berkeley.
Rationalism is the philosophical doctrine that is not recognized as a source of knowledge rather than reason, refusing, therefore, revelation, faith, and the senses. In the history of philosophy, rationalism is a more restricted and commences on the s. XVII with the figure of the mathematician R. Descartes. Others are known rationalists Leibniz and Spinoza.
It is interesting to compare empiricism and rationalism:
- Empiricism as the source of knowledge is experience while for rationalism is the reason. According to rationalism, from innate ideas advanced knowledge in a necessary and a priori: for example, Descartes, God is an innate idea that works as evidence standard as the foundation of all our knowledge. For empiricism, the mind is like a “tabula rasa” and, therefore, any idea that you can find in it comes from experience, makes, therefore, a systematic critique of metaphysics.
- According to empirical human knowledge has limits, is limited by sensory experience, while rationalism had absolute confidence in the powers of reason to know everything.
- Rationalism sought a method to unify the knowledge and taken as a model for modern science only in its mathematical aspect, while empiricism, drawing on the physics of Newton, has a more critical and would have collected the other aspect: the importance experience.
- Empiricists and rationalists defend phenomenalism, which directly knows the mind are your ideas (not things), and thinking is reduced to link ideas together. For this reason, empiricists attach great importance to the analysis of the psychological mechanisms that explain the association of ideas between themselves and the isolation of the subject facing reality. The phenomenon leads to the classic question of the existence of the external world. Descartes have to resort to God as a guarantee of the existence of the external world. Locke considers absurd to prove certain things and assume that our ideas of sensation, at least those that relate to primary qualities, are an exact copy of the real world. Hume believes that the only guarantee of the external world is the habit or custom which produce in us the consistency and coherence of our perceptions, and their survival value.