Difference between revisions of "Immanuel Kant"

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Immanuel Kant is best remembered for his attempts to combine classical empiricism and classical apriorism into a unified method of scientific change. His numerous distinctions, between analytic and synthetic propositions, between a priori and a posteriori knowledge, and between noumena and phenomena (i.e. between the unknowable state in which things are in actuality, and the observed state as filtered by the human mind), would become central points of discussion for decades, changing the understanding of scientific change irrevocably.
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{{Author
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|First Name=Immanuel
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|Last Name=Kant
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|DOB Era=CE
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|DOB Year=1724
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|DOB Month=April
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|DOB Day=22
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|DOB Approximate=No
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|DOD Era=CE
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|DOD Year=1804
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|DOD Month=February
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|DOD Day=12
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|DOD Approximate=No
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|Brief=a German philosopher who is considered a central figure in modern philosophy
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|Summary=Kan revolutionized classical apriorism and empiricism during the Age of Enlightenment. His contributions towards metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics inspired much of our contemporary philosophy, and helped guide our epistemological discourse away from classical empiricism and rationalism.[[CiteRef::Rohlf (2016)]] In his ''Critique of Pure Reason'', Kant makes several key distinctions and introduces new terminology that would ultimately revolutionise the way modern philosophers view the epistemological nature of the world.
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|Historical Context=Born in 18th century Europe, Kant was thrown into a time where the emergence of Newtonian science sparked a social and cultural revolution – The Enlightenment. With his revolutionary discoveries, Newton inspired the society to challenge the norm of Roman Catholicism and evoked an intellectual epiphany where people began to attempt explaining nature without consulting religion.[[CiteRef::Bristow (2011)]] As a result, two epistemological schools of thought surfaced: classical rationalism and classical empiricism. The dispute between these two views dominated the 17th century, where rationalists such as René Descartes (1596-1650) and Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) and empiricists such as John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-1776) were in a stalemate with regards to the epistemological nature of the world.[[CiteRef::Samet (2008)]] Rationalism, or apriorism, is the view that it is possible to attain knowledge independent of experience, i.e. there exists “a priori” innate knowledge that we know as part of our rational nature or through our intuition.[[CiteRef::Markie (2015)]] It holds that through the attainment of synthetic a priori knowledge outside of our sensory experience, we can deduce further theories from those axioms that will allow us to make sense of the world – that is, we are able to rationalise nature without necessarily consulting our senses. Two of its most well known proponents, Gottfried Leibniz and René Descartes, both believed that since: a) senses were unable to provide us with the ‘truth’ due to an irreconcilable level of uncertainty with our perceptions, and b) the world is intelligible and understandable, innate universal knowledge must exist.[[CiteRef::Samet (2008)]] Indeed, retrospectively we now know their respective a priori axioms were unsound, but their theories nonetheless provided more insight on the epistemological issues that both empiricism and itself shared, which will soon be explained. Empiricism, on the other hand, holds the opposite view that only our senses provide us with an accurate description of the world, and only through sensory experiences are we able to capture the objective world that we live in, make sense of each individual observation and of the world through inductive logic.[[CiteRef::Samet (2008)]] Empiricists such as Locke believed that empiricism is superior to rationalism for two distinct reasons. Firstly, Locke argued that classical rationalists often retreated to non-factual (i.e. non-empirical) claims for support: namely intuition and ‘innate’ knowledge. Secondly, empiricist arguments were preferred for their simplicity. However, despite this divide, empiricism and rationalism both suffered from the same 2 criticisms that are proposed by skeptics such as David Hume (1711-1776) and Pyrrho (360-270BC) who brought up the problems of induction and sensations respectively.  
  
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== Historical Context ==
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A brief summary of these problems, which is needed as Kant offers an ingenious solution to the criticisms that both the empiricists and rationalists faced, is as follows. The ‘Problem of Sensations’ stems from Pyrrho’s skepticism about the reliability of our senses and whether they are adequate in providing us with the “truth”, due to the possibility that reality is not what it seems. This is important because it implies that we cannot ever make claims of truth (or lie) about the world solely based on our observations,[[CiteRef::Annas and Barnes (Eds.) (1985)|p. 11]] thus directly dismantling classical empiricism. Secondly, Hume’s ‘Problem of Induction’ stipulates that it is impossible to attain a rationally certain synthetic statement from a collection of individual observations through inductive logic, no matter how large the sample size.[[CiteRef::White (2015)|p. 275]] This is because one refuting instance is enough to dismantle the whole generalisation, and that a refuting instance is always possible with a synthetic statement. Together they imply that it is impossible to make objective statements of the world through empiricism. For example, empiricists have attempted to answer the problem of induction by appealing to past occurrences, but this simply results in a circular argument. Likewise, the rationalist axiomatic system was equally unable to provide an adequate solution to these problems. Leibniz attempted to formulate a principle that aims to show the necessity of the “uniformity of nature”. Named “The Principle of Sufficient Reason”, Leibniz states that it is irrational for something to happen – and conversely, for something not to happen – without reason  and establishes this as an a priori axiom that any rationalisation of nature must be contingent upon.[[CiteRef::Belot (2001)|p. 62]] However, Hume’s problem persists, as this axiom is still inevitably synthetic and simply cannot guarantee the certainty of inductively obtained conclusions.
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|Major Contributions=Kant, in his first Critique, responds to both these problems, along with revitalising Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason (hereafter referred to as PSR) in light of its criticism. He aimed to reconcile rationalism with empiricism by devising a system that validated our sensations as means to rationalise nature, whilst also reformulating the PSR based on his ideas of intellect being the preconditions of our experience, resolving both the aforementioned problems. Kant develops the rationalist stance by asserting that there are fundamental synthetic a priori statements that are not only independent of experience, but actually precedes sensation as a precondition that sensory experience is contingent upon. He coined a few terms, as previously mentioned, that aided the articulation of his overall case.
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Before Kant’s ideas would come to the fore of the epistemology, the prevailing philosophy of his time was a form of classical apriorism or rationalism, such as that proposed by Gottfried Leibniz (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2006). In brief, the prevailing form of rationalism held that reasoning from the human mind was the only source of true knowledge, in opposition to the empirical belief in the sensory basis of knowledge. It was believed that the rationalist philosopher could come to prove, with the absolute certainty of a mathematician or logician, the existence and nature of the world around them. A philosopher could arrive at absolute certainty by starting with the fundamental analytic propositions that were assumed to inherently exist in the human mind, independent of any experience, and then applying rigorous use of deductive logic until the desired proof was thus elucidated.  
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To address Pyrrho’s problem of sensations, Kant developed the noumena/phenomena distinction, and asserted that our senses only explained the world of phenomena rather than make objective claims about the world of noumena. Thus, Pyrrho’s problem is irrelevant because Kant simply doesn’t assert that our empirical statements refer to the objective ‘truth’. This distinction divides the world of forms (the “intelligible world”) with the world of appearances (the “sensible world”).[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)]] The former, which he calls the noumena, is the objective reality: a reality representing objects “in themselves” behind our perceptions. To Kant, the world of noumena merely puts up a façade of appearances to the senses,[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)|p. 356]] and what we perceive collectively form the world of phenomena.[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)|p. 177]] Since our perceptions pertain only to our subjective world of phenomena, Pyrrho’s skepticism regarding the certainty of synthetic statements is avoided – or rather, simply tacitly accepted by Kant, as the Kantian system now simply states that all observational statements don’t make objective claims.  
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== Main Contributions to the Philosophy of Scientific Change ==
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To tackle Hume’s problem of induction, Kant first asserted that there were synthetic a priori forms that preceded experience. Those are: space, time, conservation of substance, and causality. Kant believed he deduced those 4 forms based on 3 premises: Classical empiricism/rationalism does not guarantee absolute certainty, and absolute certainty does exist in the form of Newtonian physics. The former 2 are the forms of sensibility – the transcendental aesthetic,[[CiteRef::Guyer (Ed.) (1992)|p. 13]] and they are a priori as their existences are independent of any properties, objects or subjective conditions.[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)|p. 177]] Space is simply the collection of all external appearances; an intuition that rationalises our reception of the outer world. Time, on the other hand, is the formal a priori condition that governs all appearances by relating it to the agents “inner state”.[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)|p. 180]] The latter 2 are forms of pure reason – the transcendental dialectic.[[CiteRef::Guyer (Ed.) (1992)|p. 15]] Wanting to confirm and extend the validity and success of Newtonian mechanics, Kant aimed to deduce the certainty of causality and conservation of substance by postulating that they must be preconditions of experience, and that the world must follow strict causality, or else the world wouldn’t be knowable.[[CiteRef::Friedman (1992)|p. 180]] The “totality” of objects is the unity of the limitations the object has in reality, the causal relationships it participates in with other objects, and its necessary existence implied simply by the possibility of its existence.[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)|p. 212]] All three aspects form the totality of an object, and collectively the totality of nature.[[CiteRef::Friedman (1992)|p. 167]] With these concepts in mind, he developed what was essentially Leibniz’s PSR as the Principle of Universal Causation – which necessitates that the principle of universal causality be a priori. If it’s not a priori, our perceptions will be insignificant and baseless in an unorderly world, and it simply directly contradicts the contemporary successes with rationalising the world through mathematical and mechanistic laws, as well as the notion of totality within nature.
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Kant's primary contribution to our understanding of scientific change is his attempt to merge facets of the two opposing views of the time - classical empiricism and the then-contemporary rationalism - into a singular theory on the nature of knowledge (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2010). In order to do so, he had to distinguish key concepts which had not previously been made explicit. These distinctions, alongside his efforts to amalgamate rationalism and empiricism, left lasting impressions and opened new fields of inquiry in epistemology as well as other branches of philosophy.

 
  
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'''Analytic and Synthetic Propositions'''
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Furthermore, with these 4 a priori forms of experience Kant restored the belief that valid synthetic a priori statements may exist, after the setbacks of Descartes and Leibniz. None of these a priori forms are analytic intuitions, as they are not simply a clarification of definitions. Nor are these forms a posteriori, as they precondition experience. Kant provided an incredibly complex yet ingenious way of viewing reality, and his epistemological distinctions of statements as well as the metaphysical distinction of objective and subjective realities has influenced discussions up until the 20th century.
  
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Immanuel Kant was not satisfied with rationalism as the commonly accepted method of justifying human knowledge. In the introduction of his Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1929), Kant defines analytic propositions as those which could be arrived at independently from an initial set of definitions; synthetic propositions are those which could not (p. 48). In other words, to Kant, a given proposition is analytic if it does not introduce information beyond that present in its very definition. By contrast, a given proposition is synthetic if it does. To illustrate the analytic-synthetic distinction, Kant makes statements on the physical properties of matter:
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===Analytic/Synthetic distinction===
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If I say, for instance, ‘All bodies are extended’, this is an analytic judgment. For I do not require to go beyond the concept which I connect with ‘body’ in order to find extension as bound up with it… But when I say, ‘All bodies are heavy’, the predicate is something quite different from anything that I think in the mere concept of body in general; and the addition of such a predicate therefore yields a synthetic judgment. (p. 48-49)
 
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According to Kant's example, it is inherent to the definition of ‘body’ that it be extended, that is, occupy space; likewise, it is not inherent that it should carry considerable mass, as ‘heavy’ implies. Hence the latter statement is synthetic. Kant’s distinction made clear that empiricists up until then had tried, without success, to justify the knowledge of the natural sciences despite the problems of justifying the synthetic propositions of these sciences. There were two problems in particular: one Kant’s contemporary, David Hume, had identified as a fatal flaw to the method of inductive reasoning, known simply as the problem of induction, and the other, the problem of sensation, had been well-known since at least the time of the ancient Greeks. Synthetic propositions, and classical empiricism as a whole, rely upon both the method of inductive reasoning as well as on the senses. Yet Kant found that classical empiricists had regularly employed synthetic propositions without recognizing their errors. Meanwhile, the rationalists had avoided both problems entirely in their belief that justifying scientific knowledge could avoid the use of synthetic propositions altogether. While it may seem as though the analytic-synthetic distinction supports the tenets of rationalism, they are in fact undermined in the Critique of Pure Reason in the following way: since no new knowledge can be encompassed by propositions which are bound strictly to their definitions, there can be no way to demonstrate that one concept can be connected to any other concept that lies outside either concept’s definitions; being unable to connect one concept to another precludes causality (p. 50-51). As such, since rationalism cannot state that one idea can cause another, no purely rational statement can make any specific observations about any specific phenomena. Thus it is reasoned that rationalism on its own is inadequate to providing justification for the knowledge of the natural sciences, as these sciences pertain to making statements with a degree of certainty.

 
  
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'''A Priori and A Posteriori'''
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Kant also most notably distinguishes analytic statements and synthetic statements in Critique of Pure Reason . His definition of an analytic statement is as such: in a statement containing subject A and predicate B, if the definition of predicate B belongs to the concept of subject A, such that subject A contains the whole definition of predicate B, then this statement is analytic. A synthetic statement, on the contrary, is when the predicate B is not contained within the concept of subject A. He realised that for analytic statements, the concept of the subject is further explicated and analysed by the concept of the predicate, but no new concept is added.[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)|p. 141]] On the other hand, synthetic statements are called “judgments of amplification” as the concept of the predicate adds onto the concept of the subject. An example of an analytic statement would be: “All bachelors are single”, where the concept of “being single” is simply a further explication of the concept of a “bachelor”, which is just a single male. An example of a synthetic statement would be: “All flowers are red”. The concept of “flower” does not contain the condition “red”, and thus the predicate “red” adds onto the concept of “flower” to amplify the concept of the subject. All statements regarding experiences are synthetic,[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)|p. 142]] for no analytic statement requires extraneous factors outside of the concepts in its formulation.
  
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Kant continued in Critique of Pure Reason to make another classification of propositions, independent of his distinction between analytic and synthetic knowledge. His distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge is, simply put, whether or not a proposition can be known independent of any experience (a priori) or is dependent on experience (a posteriori) (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy).  
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By defining analytic and synthetic statements and the worlds of noumena and phenomena, Kant has driven epistemological discourse regarding natural sciences into a new era, where the dispute began to circulate around the epistemological nature of synthetic statements in particular and how crucial it is for the notion of testability.[[CiteRef::Friedman (2002)|p. 176]] To this day, Kantian influences can be seen in much of modern philosophy of science, such as in the theories of logical empiricism, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn and more.
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Kant crossed the a priori-a posteriori division with the analytic-synthetic classification to produce four possible categories a proposition could belong to: a posteriori analytic; a priori analytic; a posteriori synthetic; and a priori synthetic (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2013). Regarding the a posteriori analytic category, Kant had little to say except that it is not possible, as a posteriori is, by definition, empirical and thus not analytic. Of the other three categories, since synthetic a posteriori propositions are empirical, and analytic a priori propositions are purely rational, Kant regarded proving the existence of synthetic a priori propositions as being vital to his justification of scientific knowledge, as it could be the only category left that could avoid the problems inherent to both classical empiricism and pure rationalism. 

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|Criticism=One of the main criticisms Kant received was targeted towards the premises he used for the deduction of the Principle. To recall, the premises were: Absolute certainty exists, and a world with no strict causal relationships is unknowable. For the first premise, fallibilists dismantled the view that absolute certainty in science exists after the acceptance of Einstein’s theory of general relativity which replaced Newtonian mechanics. Fallibilism was further exemplified with the acceptance of quantum mechanics along with general relativity by the scientific community despite the irreconcilable contradictions that arise when examining extreme conditions, which illustrated that the scientific community itself does not operate by assuming absolute certainty.
  
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'''Transcendental Idealism'''
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Another criticism of Kant was again, targeted at one of the premises of the Principle. Kant held a strict determinist perspective when devising his Principle, and in light of more recent advances in quantum theory, we know that a certain cause does not necessarily yield a certain outcome. Using the example of a radioactive molecule and its half life, we know that by the definition of “half life” being “the time period where the probability of a radioactive atom decays is 50%”, and as such the atom may or may not decay at a specific time (i.e. at the exact half life value) but rather any time within that timeframe.
  
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Kant’s attempt to prove the existence of synthetic a priori propositions is manifested in his theory of “transcendental idealism”, whereby he stated that only phenomena can be experienced and not the world as a “thing-in-itself” (noumenon)  (Schopenhauer, 1818/1886). Following this, he reasoned in his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783) that experience of the outside world through sensations is not possible “after the fact” or a posteriori, thus it must be a priori; yet, considering that the forms these phenomena take cannot be controlled by the observer, Kant deduced that there must exist some elements of perception that are a priori, yet independent of phenomena. 
In essence, Kant argued that there are two components to one’s ability to perceive phenomena. Firstly, there exists the world as a “thing-in-itself”, which one does not experience and thus cannot know about, from which phenomena are perceived, and for which no preconceptions exist. Secondly, the phenomena are received by one’s senses and made cognizant through a priori concepts. Such a priori concepts can be thought of as empty forms through which phenomena must be processed for one to perceive them as they do. That these phenomena are not known beforehand, but rather, must be processed, is the justification for the synthetic nature of “synthetic a priori propositions”. It is through this process that Kant justified the existence of knowledge in the natural sciences.

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A third criticism was presented by A.J. Ayer (1910-1989),[[CiteRef::Ayer (1952)]] where he criticised Kant for conflating the psychological and epistemological criteria of evaluating analytic/synthetic statements. In the example Kant gives of “7+5=12” being a synthetic statement, and “all bodies are extended” being an analytic statement, Kant employs 2 different criterion and equates the two without clarification. In the first statement, Kant deems it synthetic as the definitions of “7” and “5” are not contained in “12”. On the other hand, Kant evaluates “all bodies are extended” as analytic simply because it would be contradictory if otherwise. However, a person with knowledge of the symbol “+” would understand that when put together, “7+5” does indeed share the same concept as “12”, and this statement would be analytic if evaluated as the second statement has been.
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Kant's explanation of the theory of transcendental idealism is not without a degree of vagueness. Later philosophers are divided on their interpretations of his theory, especially with regard to the idea of the world as a “thing-in-itself”. It may be interpreted that there are two distinct forms: of the world as a thing-in-itself and of phenomena. Only one of such forms is perceivable, while the other is unknowable to the senses. This is the two-objects interpretation. Alternatively, there may be only one object, with two aspects, for which only one aspect of the same object can be perceived (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2010). Part of the reason for these different interpretations lies in the fact that Kant himself seems to have wavered in his own stance, or at least, was not precise enough in his writing. In any case, either interpretation is not without criticism.
 
  
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== Criticisms & New Directions ==
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Furthermore, Ayer amongst other philosophers have shown that Kant was incorrect in assuming Euclidean geometry was a priori and held factual content about physical space i.e. is synthetic,[[CiteRef::Ayer (1952)||pp. 45-46]] as the discovery of non-Euclidean geometry and application by Einstein in his general theory of relativity disproved of this entirely. Consequently, philosophers now see that axioms of geometry do not “hold factual content”, but are merely definitions. This criticism directly dismantles Kant’s a priori form of space as a necessary precondition for rationalising the world.
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In the centuries after Kant introduced his ideas, there have been a number of notable criticisms of his philosophy, such as those of Karl Popper. Popper and others highlighted some of Kant’s underlying assumptions, such as the ideas of absolute certainty and infallibility. Criticisms were laid, too, on Kant’s distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions, as well as towards his two-object interpretation of transcendental idealism.
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|Related Topics=Theory,
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Even regarding these later criticisms, the analytic-synthetic distinction is just one of those effects that still frequent contemporary dialogue. As one of the earliest philosophers to frame a scientific method that addressed the problems presented by both Hume and Pyrrho, as well as one of the prime philosophers behind the movement to end of pure rationalism, the significance of Kant’s work is not only historically evident, but also realized in the present: Kant’s framework around the problems of induction and sensation remain workable models for current theories of scientific methods, and his writings provide some of the arguments against pure rationalism for later philosophers to employ. Thus it can be said that the effect of the conceptual framework derived from Kant’s work on the epistemology of scientific change can still be felt to the present day.
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== Related Articles ==
 
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== Notes ==  
 
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Baehr, J.S. A priori and a posteriori. (n.d.). In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy online. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/apriori/
 
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Immanuel Kant. (2006, June 2). In Encyclopaedia Britannica online. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/biography/Immanuel-Kant
 
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Immanuel Kant. (2010, May 20). In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/#CriEnl
 
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Kant, I. (1997). Prolegomena to any future metaphysics. (J. Fieser, Trans.). (Original work published in 1783).
 
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Kant, I. (1929). Critique of pure reason. (N. Kemp Smith, Trans.). Palgrave Macmillan. (Original work published in 1781).
 
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Schopenhauer, A. (1886). The world as will and idea (Vol . 2). (R.B. Haldane & J. Kemp, Trans.). Trübner & Company: London. (Original work published in 1818).
 
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The analytic/synthetic distinction. (2013, August 30). In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analytic-synthetic/#ProDis
 
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Transcedental idealism. (2015). In Encyclopaedia Britannica online. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/topic/transcendental-idealism
 
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== Authors ==
 
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Donna Lee, 2015
 

Latest revision as of 03:47, 7 October 2017

Immanuel Kant (22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher who is considered a central figure in modern philosophy. Kan revolutionized classical apriorism and empiricism during the Age of Enlightenment. His contributions towards metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics inspired much of our contemporary philosophy, and helped guide our epistemological discourse away from classical empiricism and rationalism.1 In his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant makes several key distinctions and introduces new terminology that would ultimately revolutionise the way modern philosophers view the epistemological nature of the world.

Historical Context

Born in 18th century Europe, Kant was thrown into a time where the emergence of Newtonian science sparked a social and cultural revolution – The Enlightenment. With his revolutionary discoveries, Newton inspired the society to challenge the norm of Roman Catholicism and evoked an intellectual epiphany where people began to attempt explaining nature without consulting religion.2 As a result, two epistemological schools of thought surfaced: classical rationalism and classical empiricism. The dispute between these two views dominated the 17th century, where rationalists such as René Descartes (1596-1650) and Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) and empiricists such as John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-1776) were in a stalemate with regards to the epistemological nature of the world.3 Rationalism, or apriorism, is the view that it is possible to attain knowledge independent of experience, i.e. there exists “a priori” innate knowledge that we know as part of our rational nature or through our intuition.4 It holds that through the attainment of synthetic a priori knowledge outside of our sensory experience, we can deduce further theories from those axioms that will allow us to make sense of the world – that is, we are able to rationalise nature without necessarily consulting our senses. Two of its most well known proponents, Gottfried Leibniz and René Descartes, both believed that since: a) senses were unable to provide us with the ‘truth’ due to an irreconcilable level of uncertainty with our perceptions, and b) the world is intelligible and understandable, innate universal knowledge must exist.3 Indeed, retrospectively we now know their respective a priori axioms were unsound, but their theories nonetheless provided more insight on the epistemological issues that both empiricism and itself shared, which will soon be explained. Empiricism, on the other hand, holds the opposite view that only our senses provide us with an accurate description of the world, and only through sensory experiences are we able to capture the objective world that we live in, make sense of each individual observation and of the world through inductive logic.3 Empiricists such as Locke believed that empiricism is superior to rationalism for two distinct reasons. Firstly, Locke argued that classical rationalists often retreated to non-factual (i.e. non-empirical) claims for support: namely intuition and ‘innate’ knowledge. Secondly, empiricist arguments were preferred for their simplicity. However, despite this divide, empiricism and rationalism both suffered from the same 2 criticisms that are proposed by skeptics such as David Hume (1711-1776) and Pyrrho (360-270BC) who brought up the problems of induction and sensations respectively.

A brief summary of these problems, which is needed as Kant offers an ingenious solution to the criticisms that both the empiricists and rationalists faced, is as follows. The ‘Problem of Sensations’ stems from Pyrrho’s skepticism about the reliability of our senses and whether they are adequate in providing us with the “truth”, due to the possibility that reality is not what it seems. This is important because it implies that we cannot ever make claims of truth (or lie) about the world solely based on our observations,5p. 11 thus directly dismantling classical empiricism. Secondly, Hume’s ‘Problem of Induction’ stipulates that it is impossible to attain a rationally certain synthetic statement from a collection of individual observations through inductive logic, no matter how large the sample size.6p. 275 This is because one refuting instance is enough to dismantle the whole generalisation, and that a refuting instance is always possible with a synthetic statement. Together they imply that it is impossible to make objective statements of the world through empiricism. For example, empiricists have attempted to answer the problem of induction by appealing to past occurrences, but this simply results in a circular argument. Likewise, the rationalist axiomatic system was equally unable to provide an adequate solution to these problems. Leibniz attempted to formulate a principle that aims to show the necessity of the “uniformity of nature”. Named “The Principle of Sufficient Reason”, Leibniz states that it is irrational for something to happen – and conversely, for something not to happen – without reason and establishes this as an a priori axiom that any rationalisation of nature must be contingent upon.7p. 62 However, Hume’s problem persists, as this axiom is still inevitably synthetic and simply cannot guarantee the certainty of inductively obtained conclusions.

Major Contributions

Kant, in his first Critique, responds to both these problems, along with revitalising Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason (hereafter referred to as PSR) in light of its criticism. He aimed to reconcile rationalism with empiricism by devising a system that validated our sensations as means to rationalise nature, whilst also reformulating the PSR based on his ideas of intellect being the preconditions of our experience, resolving both the aforementioned problems. Kant develops the rationalist stance by asserting that there are fundamental synthetic a priori statements that are not only independent of experience, but actually precedes sensation as a precondition that sensory experience is contingent upon. He coined a few terms, as previously mentioned, that aided the articulation of his overall case. To address Pyrrho’s problem of sensations, Kant developed the noumena/phenomena distinction, and asserted that our senses only explained the world of phenomena rather than make objective claims about the world of noumena. Thus, Pyrrho’s problem is irrelevant because Kant simply doesn’t assert that our empirical statements refer to the objective ‘truth’. This distinction divides the world of forms (the “intelligible world”) with the world of appearances (the “sensible world”).8 The former, which he calls the noumena, is the objective reality: a reality representing objects “in themselves” behind our perceptions. To Kant, the world of noumena merely puts up a façade of appearances to the senses,8p. 356 and what we perceive collectively form the world of phenomena.8p. 177 Since our perceptions pertain only to our subjective world of phenomena, Pyrrho’s skepticism regarding the certainty of synthetic statements is avoided – or rather, simply tacitly accepted by Kant, as the Kantian system now simply states that all observational statements don’t make objective claims.

To tackle Hume’s problem of induction, Kant first asserted that there were synthetic a priori forms that preceded experience. Those are: space, time, conservation of substance, and causality. Kant believed he deduced those 4 forms based on 3 premises: Classical empiricism/rationalism does not guarantee absolute certainty, and absolute certainty does exist in the form of Newtonian physics. The former 2 are the forms of sensibility – the transcendental aesthetic,9p. 13 and they are a priori as their existences are independent of any properties, objects or subjective conditions.8p. 177 Space is simply the collection of all external appearances; an intuition that rationalises our reception of the outer world. Time, on the other hand, is the formal a priori condition that governs all appearances by relating it to the agents “inner state”.8p. 180 The latter 2 are forms of pure reason – the transcendental dialectic.9p. 15 Wanting to confirm and extend the validity and success of Newtonian mechanics, Kant aimed to deduce the certainty of causality and conservation of substance by postulating that they must be preconditions of experience, and that the world must follow strict causality, or else the world wouldn’t be knowable.10p. 180 The “totality” of objects is the unity of the limitations the object has in reality, the causal relationships it participates in with other objects, and its necessary existence implied simply by the possibility of its existence.8p. 212 All three aspects form the totality of an object, and collectively the totality of nature.10p. 167 With these concepts in mind, he developed what was essentially Leibniz’s PSR as the Principle of Universal Causation – which necessitates that the principle of universal causality be a priori. If it’s not a priori, our perceptions will be insignificant and baseless in an unorderly world, and it simply directly contradicts the contemporary successes with rationalising the world through mathematical and mechanistic laws, as well as the notion of totality within nature.

Furthermore, with these 4 a priori forms of experience Kant restored the belief that valid synthetic a priori statements may exist, after the setbacks of Descartes and Leibniz. None of these a priori forms are analytic intuitions, as they are not simply a clarification of definitions. Nor are these forms a posteriori, as they precondition experience. Kant provided an incredibly complex yet ingenious way of viewing reality, and his epistemological distinctions of statements as well as the metaphysical distinction of objective and subjective realities has influenced discussions up until the 20th century.

Analytic/Synthetic distinction

Kant also most notably distinguishes analytic statements and synthetic statements in Critique of Pure Reason . His definition of an analytic statement is as such: in a statement containing subject A and predicate B, if the definition of predicate B belongs to the concept of subject A, such that subject A contains the whole definition of predicate B, then this statement is analytic. A synthetic statement, on the contrary, is when the predicate B is not contained within the concept of subject A. He realised that for analytic statements, the concept of the subject is further explicated and analysed by the concept of the predicate, but no new concept is added.8p. 141 On the other hand, synthetic statements are called “judgments of amplification” as the concept of the predicate adds onto the concept of the subject. An example of an analytic statement would be: “All bachelors are single”, where the concept of “being single” is simply a further explication of the concept of a “bachelor”, which is just a single male. An example of a synthetic statement would be: “All flowers are red”. The concept of “flower” does not contain the condition “red”, and thus the predicate “red” adds onto the concept of “flower” to amplify the concept of the subject. All statements regarding experiences are synthetic,8p. 142 for no analytic statement requires extraneous factors outside of the concepts in its formulation.

By defining analytic and synthetic statements and the worlds of noumena and phenomena, Kant has driven epistemological discourse regarding natural sciences into a new era, where the dispute began to circulate around the epistemological nature of synthetic statements in particular and how crucial it is for the notion of testability.11p. 176 To this day, Kantian influences can be seen in much of modern philosophy of science, such as in the theories of logical empiricism, Karl Popper, Thomas Kuhn and more.

Criticism

One of the main criticisms Kant received was targeted towards the premises he used for the deduction of the Principle. To recall, the premises were: Absolute certainty exists, and a world with no strict causal relationships is unknowable. For the first premise, fallibilists dismantled the view that absolute certainty in science exists after the acceptance of Einstein’s theory of general relativity which replaced Newtonian mechanics. Fallibilism was further exemplified with the acceptance of quantum mechanics along with general relativity by the scientific community despite the irreconcilable contradictions that arise when examining extreme conditions, which illustrated that the scientific community itself does not operate by assuming absolute certainty.

Another criticism of Kant was again, targeted at one of the premises of the Principle. Kant held a strict determinist perspective when devising his Principle, and in light of more recent advances in quantum theory, we know that a certain cause does not necessarily yield a certain outcome. Using the example of a radioactive molecule and its half life, we know that by the definition of “half life” being “the time period where the probability of a radioactive atom decays is 50%”, and as such the atom may or may not decay at a specific time (i.e. at the exact half life value) but rather any time within that timeframe.

A third criticism was presented by A.J. Ayer (1910-1989),12 where he criticised Kant for conflating the psychological and epistemological criteria of evaluating analytic/synthetic statements. In the example Kant gives of “7+5=12” being a synthetic statement, and “all bodies are extended” being an analytic statement, Kant employs 2 different criterion and equates the two without clarification. In the first statement, Kant deems it synthetic as the definitions of “7” and “5” are not contained in “12”. On the other hand, Kant evaluates “all bodies are extended” as analytic simply because it would be contradictory if otherwise. However, a person with knowledge of the symbol “+” would understand that when put together, “7+5” does indeed share the same concept as “12”, and this statement would be analytic if evaluated as the second statement has been.

Furthermore, Ayer amongst other philosophers have shown that Kant was incorrect in assuming Euclidean geometry was a priori and held factual content about physical space i.e. is synthetic,12 as the discovery of non-Euclidean geometry and application by Einstein in his general theory of relativity disproved of this entirely. Consequently, philosophers now see that axioms of geometry do not “hold factual content”, but are merely definitions. This criticism directly dismantles Kant’s a priori form of space as a necessary precondition for rationalising the world.

Publications

Here are the works of Kant included in the bibliographic records of this encyclopedia:

  • Kant (2007): Kant, Immanuel. (2007) Critique of Pure Reason. London: Penguin.
  • Kant (1781): Kant, Immanuel. (1781) Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridge University Press.

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Related Topics

Theory


References

  1. ^  Rohlf, Michael. (2016) Immanuel Kant. In Zalta (Ed.) (2016). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/kant/.
  2. ^  Bristow, William. (2011) Enlightenment. In Zalta (Ed.) (2016). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/enlightenment/.
  3. a b c  Samet, Jerry. (2008) The Historical Controversies Surrounding Innateness. In Zalta (Ed.) (2016). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/innateness-history/.
  4. ^  Markie, Peter. (2015) Rationalism vs. Empiricism. In Zalta (Ed.) (2016). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/rationalism-empiricism/.
  5. ^  Annas, Julia and Barnes, Jonathan. (Eds.). (1985) The Modes of Scepticism: Ancient Texts and Modern Interpretations. Cambridge University Press.
  6. ^  White, Roger. (2015) The Problem of the Problem of Induction. Episteme 12 (2), 275-290.
  7. ^  Belot, Gordon. (2001) The Principle of Sufficient Reason. Journal of Philosophy 97, 55-74.
  8. a b c d e f g h  Kant, Immanuel. (1781) Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridge University Press.
  9. a b  Guyer, Paul. (Ed.). (1992) The Cambridge Companion to Kant. Cambridge University Press.
  10. a b  Friedman, Michael. (1992) Causal Laws and Natural Science. In Guyer (Ed.) (1992), 161-199.
  11. ^  Friedman, Michael. (2002) Kant, Kuhn and the Rationality of Science. Philosophy of Science 69 (2), 171-190.
  12. a b  Ayer, Alfred Jules. (1952) Language, Truth and Logic. Dover Publications.

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