Kant’s Philosophy: Transcendental Analytic & Practical Reason
Transcendental Analytic
Once you grasp the phenomenon, you must understand it through the faculty of understanding, which resides in the subject. A priori, there are elements that enable us to understand reality through judgments. These elements are categorical, and there are 12 of them.
Categories are empty concepts that we fill with phenomena to understand reality. Categories without phenomena are worthless, but phenomena without categories are blind.
Are there any a priori synthetic judgments in physics? The answer is yes, because the mind is concerned with the phenomena that come from experience and understands the phenomena through the categories. What is the limit of my knowledge? Experience. Beyond experience, there is no knowledge. I know what is phenomenal.
Transcendental Dialectic: Impossibility of Metaphysics as a Science
The next step in understanding the human person encompasses comprehension through the power of reason (the subject). Reason has certain elements that make it possible, a priori, for me to know: ideas.
There are three ideas: God, soul/man, and the world.
Ideas are like categories, but they refer to a whole. There is one problem: there are no phenomena of God, the soul, or the world. If I use these ideas to understand phenomena, I commit paralogisms (errors in the argument) and antinomies (contradictions). Is metaphysics a science? The answer is no, because a priori synthetic judgments are not possible in metaphysics, as there are no phenomena of God, the soul, or the world; experience is lacking. Metaphysics as a science of extrasensory realities is not possible. Metaphysics is a natural human tendency.
Scientific knowledge ends in the mind, but the synthesis process continues to the right.
Practical Use of Reason
Material and Formal Ethics
The first thing is an analysis of Kant’s ethical theories before him. Characteristics of “material” ethics:
- They have content; they tell you what to do.
- A posteriori: you know if it’s good or bad after committing the action.
- Hypothetical: they set conditions.
All this means that ethics is particular, but Kant aims at a universal ethics for everyone. Kant wants a formal ethics that is applicable to any situation, a priori, where you know the law before taking action, and that is categorical as well as autonomous. The origin is in the subject, rather than heteronomous.
The Good Will and the Moral Law
Reason dictates the moral law to the will. The will is the ability to act according to principles. The moral law, or categorical imperative, is an unconditional mandate.
Categorical imperative -> act without a reason, without a purpose, acting according to duty. Three ways to act:
- For duty: morally good.
- Contrary to duty: morally bad.
- In accordance with duty: morally neutral.
Moral Autonomy
One of the most important features of Kant’s ethics is autonomy, that is, being capable of self-deduction. Moral autonomy is directly based on freedom -> the rationale of morality.
The Postulates of Practical Reason
A postulate is a proposition that is not obvious, is unprovable, but is necessary. Kant needs to postulate three truths for the moral system to be maintained. The three principles are:
- Freedom: without freedom, there is no morality. It is necessary.
- Immortality of the soul: a postulate to overcome the antinomy (contradiction) of practical reason.
- God: the guarantee that I will achieve the good of virtue and happiness.