Kant’s Transcendental Philosophy: Aesthetic and Analytic
Transcendental Aesthetic: Sensory Knowledge
The Aesthetic is the part of Kant’s work devoted to analyzing the functioning of our sensory knowledge capacity. Furthermore, Kant calls transcendental the knowledge we possess of a priori intuitions and concepts, and how these are related, allowing experience to organize knowledge. Joining these concepts, the Transcendental Aesthetic is the transcendental knowledge of how our sensibilities operate. It demonstrates how our sensitivity utilizes elements that do not come from experience (space and time) but are used to apply experience.
Sensitivity, Mathematics, and A Priori Forms
Through sensitivity analysis and the application of mathematics, Kant sought to explain how the analysis of our capacity for sensory knowledge leads to mathematics and science. Kant first analyzes the operation of sense knowledge (sensation). Since sensitive knowledge is the perception of objects and how these are given to us, we can draw the following conclusions:
- Space and time are not derived from experience, but result from it. Thus, they are a priori.
- Every object given to us must comply with the a priori conditions imposed by space and time.
Matter, Form, and Phenomena
In summary, Kant states that what is given to us by empirical intuition is matter, and what is given by pure intuition (space and time) is form. The union between matter and form gives rise to phenomena, in which the diversity of empirical data is unified under the a priori forms of sensibility.
Mathematics and the A Priori Forms
Having established the distinction between pure and empirical intuition, we can apply this knowledge to the world of mathematics, proving that:
- Geometry defines pure space. It is not concerned with other impressions (e.g., if we calculate the volume of a cube, the material it is made of does not matter).
- Arithmetic establishes sequences of numbers, which share the same structure as time, as the essence of both is pure succession.
The laws obtained from the analysis of space and time cannot be invalidated by experience; they are universal and necessary. Although space and time are not derived from experience, they are applied to organize the impressions of experience.
Understanding Analysis (Transcendental Analytic)
Sensitivity and understanding are the two phases that constitute knowledge itself. Through sensitivity, objects are given to us; through the understanding, we can comprehend them. Kant argues that we understand something when we can subsume it under a concept. Therefore, the understanding is the faculty of concepts or the power of judgments.
The understanding, as the faculty of knowledge, has two branches: one for the a priori concepts and one for the a posteriori concepts (derived from experience).
A Priori Concepts: The Categories
The a posteriori concepts are produced by sensory experience. With them, we can make judgments of experience, but we cannot substantiate physics universally. For this reason, these judgments are not Kant’s primary focus.
The a priori concepts are not derived from experience. This stands in opposition to empiricism, which holds that judgments originate solely from experience. For Kant, a priori concepts are the pure forms of understanding. These concepts are the Categories, which are a priori laws of thought through which we can think and construct judgments.
The union of a priori and a posteriori concepts (the second synthesis of the Transcendental Analytic) ensures that the diversity of phenomena is unified under the pure forms of understanding.
Phenomena and Noumena
Kant calls the phenomenon that which is given to sensitivity and is therefore subject to the conditions of space and time. Intuition is the manner in which sensitivity apprehends objects—how they are known. As established, sensitivity operates according to mathematical laws, defining its objects based on space and time.
Kant calls the noumenon the “thing-in-itself”—that which is not given to us and therefore lies outside the conditions of space and time.