How did Kant solve
the problem of "how is a priori synthetic judgment possible"?
According
to Kant, knowledge consists of judgments, which can be divided into two broad
categories: analytical judgments and synthetic judgments. Although analytic
judgment is a priori judgment with universal necessity, it cannot bring us new
knowledge because its object words are extracted from the subject, so it is not
knowledge in a strict sense. Overall judgment of the object is later through
experience and add on the subject, it can bring us new knowledge, but new
content needs not only scientific knowledge, and must have a universal
inevitability is congenital, so overall judgment: "the day after tomorrow
comprehensive judgment" and "innate comprehensive judgment",
only "innate comprehensive judgment" is the scientific knowledge.
According to Kant, the content of knowledge is given to us by experience, and
the form of knowledge is given to us by the subject's a priori form of
cognition; therefore the question is whether we can prove that reason itself
has a priori form of cognition. Therefore, Kant focused his philosophical
research on the analysis and investigation of reason, which he called the
"critique" of reason.
Kant
called the cognitive ability of reason the theoretical reason, the theoretical
reason consists of perceptual, intellectual and rational three links. The apriori form of perceptual intuition is space and time, the
apriori form of understanding is category, and the apriori form of reason is idea. As far as the composition
of knowledge is concerned, sensibility provides the material of experience, and
understanding synthesizes and unifies it, thus forming knowledge. As for
reason, its function is to further synthesize and unify knowledge so that it
can be adjusted into a system, so that it has nothing to do with sense and
experience and has no epistemological function. Therefore, the
"synthesis" of "congenital comprehensive judgment" comes
from sensory experience, while its congenital judgment comes from the category
of understanding.
Therefore,
Kant proved the possibility of a priori synthetic judgment in the way of
empiricism, and the result is that understanding legislates
nature, phenomena are scientific knowledge that can be understood and can form
universal necessity, and things in themselves are unknowable fields.
Briefly summarize
Kant's criticism of metaphysics.
Kant,
a German philosopher, criticized metaphysics deeply and systematically. With
the "Copernican revolution", he divided things into appearance and
the thing in itself. He believed that we could form a universal and necessary
scientific knowledge of phenomena, but we could not have any effective
knowledge of the thing in itself, because we could not form any experience of
it. So far as knowledge is concerned, natural science is possible, metaphysics
is impossible. However, our cognition starts from sensory experience and forms
knowledge through the integration and unification of the categories of
understanding, but human reason is not satisfied with this, it also wants to
make knowledge into a system and pursue the completeness of knowledge. The role
of reason is "adjustment", it has nothing to do with experience but
is only related to knowledge, and its role is only to guide knowledge to
further improve and adjust knowledge into a system, so the unity of idea is
only "ideal unity" rather than "reality unity". However,
because human reason is always searching to the bottom to ask what is the ground behind experience, it mistakenly takes the
"ideal unity" of the idea as the "reality unity", and thus
falls into the "transcendental illusion". For Kant, every conception
is experiential, but the totality of conception is not, and we have only one instrument
of cognition, namely, the categories of understanding, which can only be used
in experience. Therefore, when Reason demands to know the unity of ground
behind the phenomena, it inevitably forces the categories into a transcendental
use, and since we have no experience of it, we cannot form scientific
knowledge.
Kant
proved through his criticism of reason that scientific knowledge is possible
while previous metaphysics is impossible, but this does not mean that
metaphysics itself has no meaning. Although our criticism of the rational prove
transcendental object is unknown, but also proves that they are possible
because of this, our understanding of the object is a phenomenon, the
phenomenon is not the ultimate thing in the world, there must be something
behind it, although we can't know them, but they can be thought for freedom.
Describe Kant's
theory of "antinomies".
Our
cognitive power is valid only within the bounds of experience. When reason
demands to know the totality of the world and thus forces the categories into
transcendental use, there is no empirical basis for the formation of two
opposing theories of the totality of the world, each of which is
self-justifiable. Kant called this dialectics of reason "antinomies."
Kant's thought of
antinomies reveals the limitations of traditional metaphysics and plays an
important role in the formation of Hegel's dialectics.
Briefly describe
Kant's theory of the categorical imperative.
According
to Kant, the natural law is reflected in the narrative form with "is"
as the subject, while the rational law is the imperative form linked by
"ought", so it is shown to man as the moral law that commands him
"what should be done". Moral law is an imperative, but not all
imperatives are moral laws. We have two types of imperatives, the hypothetical
command and the categorical command. The so-called "categorical
imperative" is an unconditional imperative in which the end and the means
are unified. The categorical imperative is a form of moral law. As a categorical
imperative, moral law is a purely formal stipation
with the following formal characteristics:
The first is to "act only in
accordance with principles which you at the same time believe can be universal
laws". This "universal formula" is the most important formula of
the categorical imperative, and Kant sometimes even calls it "the only
categorical imperative".
Second, "Your actions should at
all times regard the humanity in your own personality as the humanity in other
personalities equally as an end, and never as a mere means.
"Kant's "man is the end" means that "reason is the
end".
Thirdly, "the conception of the
will of every rational person is the conception of the universal legislative
will," and thus "every rational being at all times looks upon itself
as a lawgiver in a kingdom of ends made possible by the freedom of the
will." When we act according to the categorical command, we are acting
according to the laws we have made, and we are both law-keepers and law-makers.
These
three formulae are in fact the three conditions which the categorical command
must satisfy: it should be a "universal law" which is valid for the
will of all rational persons; It should be the "in-itself end"
capable of becoming the will of all rational persons; It is the will of all rational
beings, as rational beings, which establishes for itself the law. It is usually
said that Kant's idea of understanding legislating for nature has produced
subject's initiative. In fact, what really reflects subject's initiative is
that reason legislates for itself, because it reflects the freedom of human
reason.
