Understanding Kant’s Philosophy: Knowledge and Ethics
(1724-1804) lived all his life in Königsberg (in former Prussia). He was a professor at the University of his city, and his thinking was influenced by rationalism and empiricism, making him the most important philosopher of the eighteenth century. In favor of liberal ideals of the Enlightenment, he defended the American Revolution and the French Revolution. He was peaceful and free from all forms of nationalism. His constitution was weak and very methodical, with the accuracy of his schedule allowing his neighbors to calculate the time.
– MAJOR WORKS: Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, Critique of Judgment, Response to the question: What is Enlightenment?
THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE: EPISTEMOLOGY
According to Kant, given the antagonism that emerged between rationalism and empiricism, it is necessary to critique reason. To this end, he proposed an analysis of pure reason, our ability to know, in his Critique of Pure Reason. Thus, philosophy, as a critique of pure theoretical reason, must answer the question: What can I learn? To answer this question, Kant established the principles from which scientific knowledge is possible because, for him, this is certain knowledge, and from it, we can establish what conditions any other knowledge must have to also be true. The conditions that make scientific judgments are two possibilities: either empirical and transcendental or a priori, with the latter being the focus of our study. In turn, he classified all possible types of judgments: analytic, synthetic a priori, or a posteriori. Kant asserted the existence of synthetic judgments a priori, which extend and bring new knowledge, but their truth does not depend on experience, as is the case with scientific judgments. Now, we must consider what conditions enable the realization of these trials, and this study involves the three faculties of reason: sensitivity, understanding, and reason.
In the transcendental aesthetic, sensitivity studies and mathematics. Sensitivity is the ability to perceive passively, and its transcendental conditions (which make it possible) are the pure intuitions: space and time, which belong to reason, not reality. The perceiving subject applies these pure intuitions spontaneously, thus creating the phenomenon that is perceived and not the thing itself. This will give, according to Kant, the Copernican revolution in knowledge: it is the object that, to be known, must be adapted to the conditions of the subject’s own reason. The pure intuitions also allow for synthetic judgments a priori in mathematics.
In the transcendental analytic, studies and physical understanding are examined. The transcendental conditions that make it possible to understand what is perceived by the understanding are pure concepts or categories of understanding, which must always apply to the perceived sensitivity to the phenomena of experience in order to understand them. The categories allow for synthetic judgments a priori in physics and are therefore universal.
Thus, at the end of the analytic, Kant distinguishes between the phenomena, what we perceive and understand using pure intuition and categories, and the noumenon, which we have no experience of and cannot be known, but can only be conceived by our reason. Thus, all reality, including humanity, has a phenomenal level, what we perceive, and another noumenal level, which is the thing itself.
Science, as certain knowledge, can only know phenomena, as noumena are unknowable and can only be thought but not known. Kantian philosophy is called transcendental idealism, indicating that we know they are not real things, but ideas or phenomena constructed from the a priori elements of reason.
Finally, in the transcendental dialectic, Kant examines reason and whether metaphysics is possible as a science. He studied metaphysical realities that exist in the noumenal field, beyond experience, such as the transcendent God, the soul, and the world as a whole. For this reason, he applies the categories and intuitions to objects that are not experienced, on the noumenon, and therefore their knowledge is illegitimate and always leads to contradictions. However, there is a trend in the search for a reason to know the unconditioned (not limited by experience). Metaphysical ideas of God, the soul, and the world as a whole express the ideal of reason by which progress is possible in scientific knowledge.
THE PROBLEM OF MORALITY: ETHICS
Kant addresses the moral issue by responding to the questions What should I do? and What do I expect? in his work Critique of Practical Reason. He begins by making a distinction between two types of ethics: material ethics and formal ethics. Kant criticizes material ethics as they are empirical; their precepts are hypothetical and thus dependent on established norms, maintaining a heteronomous moral that does not arise from the rule of reason itself but is determined by something outside the subject. However, formal ethics, which Kant defends, is devoid of empirical content, does not seek any purpose, nor does it have specific rules, and must be universal and independent, as determined by reason a priori. According to Kant, this ethic is based on the idea of duty that exists in the consciousness or reason of men, formed a priori. The performance of duty for its own sake, respect for reason itself, constitutes goodwill. Actions are not moral if they comply with duty but are not done out of duty; of course, actions contrary to duty are not moral either. Only actions performed from duty are morally right. The requirement to act morally, by duty, is expressed in the categorical imperative, which establishes the form of the maxim of moral action, is universal, and is determined by reason a priori. This imperative has several formulations, but two stand out: always act so that our action can be regarded as a mandatory and universal law, and always treat every rational being as an end in itself and not merely as a means. Fulfilling the categorical imperative, according to Kant, would lead to the establishment of the Kingdom of Ends, where each person is always treated as an end, not a means.
Furthermore, Kant proposed three postulates of practical reason: the first, which is only proven in practice, is the freedom to act, as the requirement of respect for duty is freedom as something prior; the second, which has not been demonstrated, is the immortal soul, as the line of duty never ends and therefore demands the immortality of the soul; and the third, which is not shown, is the existence of God, because the rational demand in the identification of virtue and happiness requires their existence for this to be possible.