Kant's Philosophy

(II) Kant's Transcendental Idealism

With Kant's claim that the mind of the knower makes an active contribution to experience of objects before us, we are in a better position to understand transcendental idealism. Kant's arguments are designed to show the limitations of our knowledge. The Rationalists believed that we could possess metaphysical knowledge about God, souls, substance, and so; they believed such knowledge was transcendentally real. Kant argues, however, that we cannot have knowledge of the realm beyond the empirical. That is, transcendental knowledge is ideal, not real, for minds like ours. Kant identifies two a priori sources of these constraints. The mind has a receptive capacity, or the sensibility, and the mind possesses a conceptual capacity, or the understanding. In the Transcendental Aesthetic section of the Critique, Kant argues that sensibility is the understanding's means of accessing objects. The reason synthetic a priori judgments are possible in geometry, Kant argues, is that space is an a priori form of sensibility. That is, we can know the claims of geometry with a priori certainty (which we do) only if experiencing objects in space is the necessary mode of our experience. Kant also argues that we cannot experience objects without being able to represent them spatially. It is impossible to grasp an object as an object unless we delineate the region of space it occupies. Without a spatial representation, our sensations are undifferentiated and we cannot ascribe properties to particular objects. Time, Kant argues, is also necessary as a form or condition of our intuitions of objects. The idea of time itself cannot be gathered from experience because succession and simultaneity of objects, the phenomena that would indicate the passage of time, would be impossible to represent if we did not already possess the capacity to represent objects in time. Another way to understand Kant's point here is that it is impossible for us to have any experience of objects that are not in time and space. Furthermore, space and time themselves cannot be perceived directly, so they must be the form by which experience of objects is had. A consciousness that apprehends objects directly, as they are in themselves and not by means of space and time, is possible--God, Kant says, has a purely intuitive consciousness--but our apprehension of objects is always mediated by the conditions of sensibility. Any discursive or concept using consciousness like ours must apprehend objects as occupying a region of space and persisting for some duration of time. Subjecting sensations to the a priori conditions of space and time is not sufficient to make judging objects possible. Kant argues that the understanding must provide the concepts, which are rules for identifying what is common or universal in different representations. He says, "without sensibility no object would be given to us; and without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind." Locke's mistake was believing that our sensible apprehensions of objects are thinkable and reveal the properties of the objects themselves. In the Analytic of Concepts section of the Critique, Kant argues that in order to think about the input from sensibility, sensations must conform to the conceptual structure that the mind has available to it. By applying concepts, the understanding takes the particulars that are given in sensation and identifies what is common and general about them. A concept of "shelter" for instance, allows me to identify what is common in particular representations of a house, a tent, and a cave. The empiricist might object at this point by insisting that such concepts do arise from experience, raising questions about Kant's claim that the mind brings an a priori conceptual structure to the world. Indeed, concepts like "shelter" do arise partly from experience. But Kant raises a more fundamental issue. An empirical derivation is not sufficient to explain all of our concepts. As we have seen, Hume argued, and Kant accepts, that we cannot empirically derive our concepts of causation, substance, self, identity, and so forth. What Hume had failed to see, Kant argues, is that even the possibility of making judgments about objects, to which Hume would assent, presupposes the possession of these fundamental concepts. Hume had argued for a sort of associationism to explain how we arrive at causal beliefs. My idea of a moving cue ball, becomes associated with my idea of the eight ball that is struck and falls into the pocket. Under the right circumstances, repeated impressions of the second following the first produces a belief in me that the first causes the second. The problem that Kant points out is that a Humean association of ideas already presupposes that we can conceive of identical, persistent objects that have regular, predictable, causal behavior. And being able to conceive of objects in this rich sense presupposes that the mind makes several a priori contributions. I must be able to separate the objects from each other in my sensations, and from my sensations of myself. I must be able to attribute properties to the objects. I must be able to conceive of an external world with its own course of events that is separate from the stream of perceptions in my consciousness. These components of experience cannot be found in experience because they constitute it. The mind's a priori conceptual contribution to experience can be enumerated by a special set of concepts that make all other empirical concepts and judgments possible. These concepts cannot be experienced directly; they are only manifest as the form which particular judgments of objects take. Kant believes that formal logic has already revealed what the fundamental categories of thought are. The special set of concepts is Kant's Table of Categories, which are taken mostly from Aristotle with a few revisions:

While Kant does not give a formal derivation of it, he believes that this is the complete and necessary list of the a priori contributions that the understanding brings to its judgments of the world. Every judgment that the understanding can make must fall under the table of categories. And subsuming spatiotemporal sensations under the formal structure of the categories makes judgments, and ultimately knowledge, of empirical objects possible. Since objects can only be experienced spatiotemporally, the only application of concepts that yields knowledge is to the empirical, spatiotemporal world. Beyond that realm, there can be no sensations of objects for the understanding to judge, rightly or wrongly. Since intuitions of the physical world are lacking when we speculate about what lies beyond, metaphysical knowledge, or knowledge of the world outside the physical, is impossible. Claiming to have knowledge from the application of concepts beyond the bounds of sensation results in the empty and illusory transcendent metaphysics of Rationalism that Kant reacts against. It should be pointed out, however, that Kant is not endorsing idealism about objects like Berkeley's. That is, Kant does not believe that material objects are unknowable or impossible. While Kant is a transcendental idealist--he believes the nature of objects as they are in themselves is unknowable to us--knowledge of appearances is nevertheless possible. As noted above, in The Refutation of Material Idealism, Kant argues that the ordinary self-consciousness that Berkeley and Descartes would grant implies "the existence of objects in space outside me." Consciousness of myself would not be possible if I were not able to make determinant judgments about objects that exist outside of me and have states that are independent of the of my inner experience. Another way to put the point is to say that the fact that the mind of the knower makes the a priori contribution does not mean that space and time or the categories are mere figments of the imagination. Kant is an empirical realist about the world we experience; we can know objects as they appear to us. He gives a robust defense of science and the study of the natural world from his argument about the mind's role in making nature. All discursive, rational beings must conceive of the physical world as spatially and temporally unified, he argues. And the table of categories is derived from the most basic, universal forms of logical inference, Kant believes. Therefore, it must be shared by all rational beings. So those beings also share judgments of an intersubjective, unified, public realm of empirical objects. Hence, objective knowledge of the scientific or natural world is possible. Indeed, Kant believes that the examples of Newton and Galileo show it is actual. So Berkeley's claims that we do not know objects outside of us and that such knowledge is impossible are both mistaken. In conjunction with his analysis of the possibility of knowing empirical objects, Kant gives an analysis of the knowing subject that has sometimes been called his transcendental psychology. Much of Kant's argument can be seen as subjective, not because of variations from mind to mind, but because the source of necessity and universality is in the mind of the knowing subject, not in objects themselves. Kant draws several conclusions about what is necessarily true of any consciousness that employs the faculties of sensibility and understanding to produce empirical judgments. As we have seen, a mind that employs concepts must have a receptive faculty that provides the content of judgments. Space and time are the necessary forms of apprehension for the receptive faculty. The mind that has experience must also have a faculty of combination or synthesis, the imagination for Kant, that apprehends the data of sense, reproduces it for the understanding, and recognizes their features according to the conceptual framework provided by the categories. The mind must also have a faculty of understanding that provides empirical concepts and the categories for judgment. The various faculties that make judgment possible must be unified into one mind. And it must be identical over time if it is going to apply its concepts to objects over time. Kant here addresses Hume's famous assertion that introspection reveals nothing more than a bundle of sensations that we group together and call the self. Judgments would not be possible, Kant maintains, if the mind that senses is not the same as the mind that possesses the forms of sensibility. And that mind must be the same as the mind that employs the table of categories, that contributes empirical concepts to judgment, and that synthesizes the whole into knowledge of a unified, empirical world. So the fact that we can empirically judge proves, contra Hume, that the mind cannot be a mere bundle of disparate introspected sensations. In his works on ethics Kant will also argue that this mind is the source of spontaneous, free, and moral action. Kant believes that all the threads of his transcendental philosophy come together in this "highest point" which he calls the transcendental unity of apperception.

(III) Kant's Analytic of Principles

We have seen the progressive stages of Kant's analysis of the faculties of the mind which reveals the transcendental structuring of experience performed by these faculties. First, in his analysis of sensibility, he argues for the necessarily spatiotemporal character of sensation. Then Kant analyzes the understanding, the faculty that applies concepts to sensory experience. He concludes that the categories provide a necessary, foundational template for our concepts to map onto our experience. In addition to providing these transcendental concepts, the understanding also is the source of ordinary empirical concepts that make judgments about objects possible. The understanding provides concepts as the rules for identifying the properties in our representations.Kant's next concern is with the faculty of judgment, "If understanding as such is explicated as our power of rules, then the power of judgment is the ability to subsume under rules, i.e., to distinguish whether something does or does not fall under a given rule." The next stage in Kant's project will be to analyze the formal or transcendental features of experience that enable judgment, if there are any such features besides what the previous stages have identified. The cognitive power of judgment does have a transcendental structure. Kant argues that there are a number of principles that must necessarily be true of experience in order for judgment to be possible. Kant's analysis of judgment and the arguments for these principles are contained in his Analytic of Principles. Within the Analytic, Kant first addresses the challenge of subsuming particular sensations under general categories in the Schematism section. Transcendental schemata, Kant argues, allow us to identify the homogeneous features picked out by concepts from the heterogeneous content of our sensations. Judgment is only possible if the mind can recognize the components in the diverse and disorganized data of sense that make those sensations an instance of a concept or concepts. A schema makes it possible, for instance, to subsume the concrete and particular sensations of an Airedale, a Chihuahua, and a Labrador all under the more abstract concept "dog." The full extent of Kant's Copernican revolution becomes even more clear in the rest of the Analytic of Principles. That is, the role of the mind in making nature is not limited to space, time, and the categories. In the Analytic of Principles, Kant argues that even the necessary conformity of objects to natural law arises from the mind. Thus far, Kant's transcendental method has permitted him to reveal the a priori components of sensations, the a priori concepts. In the sections titled the Axioms, Anticipations, Analogies, and Postulates, he argues that there are a priori judgments that must necessarily govern all appearances of objects. These judgments are a function of the table of categories' role in determining all possible judgments, so the four sections map onto the four headings of that table. I include all of the a priori judgments, or principles, here to illustrate the earlier claims about Kant's empirical realism, and to show the intimate relationship Kant saw between his project and that of the natural sciences:

(IV) Kant's Dialectic

The discussion of Kant's metaphysics and epistemology so far (including the Analytic of Principles)has been confined primarily to the section of the Critique of Pure Reason that Kant calls the Transcendental Analytic. The purpose of the Analytic, we are told, is "the rarely attempted dissection of the power of the understanding itself." Kant's project has been to develop the full argument for his theory about the mind's contribution to knowledge of the world. Once that theory is in place, we are in a position to see the errors that are caused by transgressions of the boundaries to knowledge established by Kant's transcendental idealism and empirical realism. Kant calls judgments that pretend to have knowledge beyond these boundaries and that even require us to tear down the limits that he has placed on knowledge, transcendent judgments. The Transcendental Dialectic section of the book is devoted to uncovering the illusion of knowledge created by transcendent judgments and explaining why the temptation to believe them persists. Kant argues that the proper functioning of the faculties of sensibility and the understanding combine to draw reason, or the cognitive power of inference, inexorably into mistakes. The faculty of reason naturally seeks the highest ground of unconditional unity. It seeks to unify and subsume all particular experiences under higher and higher principles of knowledge. But sensibility cannot by its nature provide the intuitions that would make knowledge of the highest principles and of things as they are in themselves possible. Nevertheless, reason, in its function as the faculty of inference, inevitably draws conclusions about what lies beyond the boundaries of sensibility. The unfolding of this conflict between the faculties reveals more about the mind's relationship to the world it seeks to know and the possibility of a science of metaphysics. Kant believes that Aristotle's logic of the syllogism captures the logic employed by reason. The resulting mistakes from the inevitable conflict between sensibility and reason reflect the logic of Aristotle's syllogism. Corresponding to the three basic kinds of syllogism are three dialectic mistakes or illusions of transcendent knowledge that cannot be real. Kant's discussion of these three classes of mistakes are contained in the Paralogisms, the Antinomies, and the Ideals of Reason. The Dialectic explains the illusions of reason in these sections. But since the illusions arise from the structure of our faculties, they will not cease to have their influence on our minds any more than we can prevent the moon from seeming larger when it is on the horizon than when it is overhead. In the Paralogisms, Kant argues that a failure to recognize the difference between appearances and things in themselves, particularly in the case of the introspected self, lead us into transcendent error. Kant argues against several conclusions encouraged by Descartes and the rational psychologists, who believed they could build human knowledge from the "I think" of the cogito argument. From the "I think" of self-awareness we can infer, they maintain, that the self or soul is 1) simple, 2) immaterial, 3) an identical substance and 4) that we perceive it directly, in contrast to external objects whose existence is merely possible. That is, the rational psychologists claimed to have knowledge of the self as transcendentally real. Kant believes that it is impossible to demonstrate any of these four claims, and that the mistaken claims to knowledge stem from a failure to see the real nature of our apprehension of the "I." Reason cannot fail to apply the categories to its judgments of the self, and that application gives rise to these four conclusions about the self that correspond roughly to the four headings in the table of categories. But to take the self as an object of knowledge here is to pretend to have knowledge of the self as it is in itself, not as it appears to us. Our representation of the "I" itself is empty. It is subject to the condition of inner sense, time, but not the condition of outer sense, space, so it cannot be a proper object of knowledge. It can be thought through concepts, but without the commensurate spatial and temporal intuitions, it cannot be known. Each of the four paralogisms explains the categorical structure of reason that led the rational psychologists to mistake the self as it appears to us for the self as it is in itself. We have already mentioned the Antinomies, in which Kant analyzes the methodological problems of the Rationalist project. Kant sees the Antinomies as the unresolved dialogue between skepticism and dogmatism about knowledge of the world. There are four antinomies, again corresponding to the four headings of the table of categories, that are generated by reason's attempts to achieve complete knowledge of the realm beyond the empirical. Each antinomy has a thesis and an antithesis, both of which can be validly proven, and since each makes a claim that is beyond the grasp of spatiotemporal sensation, neither can be confirmed or denied by experience. The First Antinomy argues both that the world has a beginning in time and space, and no beginning in time and space. The Second Antinomy's arguments are that every composite substance is made of simple parts and that nothing is composed of simple parts. The Third Antinomy's thesis is that agents like ourselves have freedom and its antithesis is that they do not. The Fourth Antinomy contains arguments both for and against the existence of a necessary being in the world. The seemingly irreconcilable claims of the Antinomies can only be resolved by seeing them as the product of the conflict of the faculties and by recognizing the proper sphere of our knowledge in each case. In each of them, the idea of "absolute totality, which holds only as a condition of things in themselves, has been applied to appearances" The result of Kant' analysis of the Antinomies is that we can reject both claims of the first two and accept both claims of the last two, if we understand their proper domains. In the first Antinomy, the world as it appears to us is neither finite since we can always inquire about its beginning or end, nor is it infinite because finite beings like ourselves cannot cognize an infinite whole. As an empirical object, Kant argues, it is indefinitely constructible for our minds. As it is in itself, independent of the conditions of our thought, should not be identified as finite or infinite since both are categorial conditions of our thought. Kant's resolution of the third Antinomy clarifies his position on freedom. He considers the two competing hypotheses of speculative metaphysics that there are different types of causality in the world: 1) there are natural causes which are themselves governed by the laws of nature as well as uncaused causes like ourselves that can act freely, or 2) the causal laws of nature entirely govern the world including our actions. The conflict between these contrary claims can be resolved, Kant argues, by taking his critical turn and recognizing that it is impossible for any cause to be thought of as uncaused itself in the realm of space and time. But reason, in trying to understand the ground of all things, strives to unify its knowledge beyond the empirical realm. The empirical world, considered by itself, cannot provide us with ultimate reasons. So if we do not assume a first or free cause we cannot completely explain causal series in the world. So for the Third Antinomy, as for all of the Antinomies, the domain of the Thesis is the intellectual, rational, noumenal world. The domain of the Antithesis is the spatiotemporal world.

(V) The Ideas of Reason

The faculty of reason has two employments. For the most part, we have engaged in an analysis of theoretical reason which has determined the limits and requirements of the employment of the faculty of reason to obtain knowledge. Theoretical reason, Kant says, makes it possible to cognize what is. But reason has its practical employment in determining what ought to be as well. This distinction roughly corresponds to the two philosophical enterprises of metaphysics and ethics. Reason's practical use is manifest in the regulative function of certain concepts that we must think with regard to the world, even though we can have no knowledge of them. Kant believes that, "Human reason is by its nature architectonic."  That is, reason thinks of all cognitions as belonging to a unified and organized system. Reason is our faculty of making inferences and of identifying the grounds behind every truth. It allows us to move from the particular and contingent to the global and universal. I infer that "Caius is mortal" from the fact that "Caius is a man" and the universal claim, "All men are mortal." In this fashion, reason seeks higher and higher levels of generality in order to explain the way things are. In a different kind of example, the biologist's classification of every living thing into a kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species, illustrates reason's ambition to subsume the world into an ordered, unified system. The entire empirical world, Kant argues, must be conceived of by reason as causally necessitated (as we saw in the Analogies). We must connect, "one state with a previous state upon which the state follows according to a rule." Each cause, and each cause's cause, and each additional ascending cause must itself have a cause. Reason generates this hierarchy that combines to provide the mind with a conception of a whole system of nature. Kant believes that it is part of the function of reason to strive for a complete, determinate understanding of the natural world. But our analysis of theoretical reason has made it clear that we can never have knowledge of the totality of things because we cannot have the requisite sensations of the totality, hence one of the necessary conditions of knowledge is not met. Nevertheless, reason seeks a state of rest from the regression of conditioned, empirical judgments in some unconditioned ground that can complete the series. Reason's structure pushes us to accept certain ideas of reason that allow completion of its striving for unity. We must assume the ideas of God, freedom, and immortality, Kant says, not as objects of knowledge, but as practical necessities for the employment of reason in the realm where we can have knowledge. By denying the possibility of knowledge of these ideas, yet arguing for their role in the system of reason, Kant had to, "annul knowledge in order to make room for faith." 

(VI) Kant's Ethics

It is rare for a philosopher in any era to make a significant impact on any single topic in philosophy. For a philosopher to impact as many different areas as Kant did is extraordinary. His ethical theory has been as, if not more, influential than his work in epistemology and metaphysics. Most of Kant's work on ethics is presented in two works. The Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785) is Kant's "search for and establishment of the supreme principle of morality." In The Critique of Practical Reason (1787) Kant attempts to unify his account of practical reason with his work in the Critique of Pure Reason. Kant is the primary proponent in history of what is called deontological ethics. Deontology is the study of duty. On Kant's view, the sole feature that gives an action moral worth is not the outcome that is achieved by the action, but the motive that is behind the action. The categorical imperative is Kant's famous statement of this duty: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

• Reason and Freedom: For Kant, as we have seen, the drive for total, systematic knowledge in reason can only be fulfilled with assumptions that empirical observation cannot support. The metaphysical facts about the ultimate nature of things in themselves must remain a mystery to us because of the spatiotemporal constraints on sensibility. When we think about the nature of things in themselves or the ultimate ground of the empirical world, Kant has argued that we are still constrained to think through the categories, we cannot think otherwise, but we can have no knowledge because sensation provides our concepts with no content. So, reason is put at odds with itself because it is constrained by the limits of its transcendental structure, but it seeks to have complete knowledge that would take it beyond those limits. Freedom plays a central role in Kant's ethics because the possibility of moral judgments presupposes it. Freedom is an idea of reason that serves an indispensable practical function. Without the assumption of freedom, reason cannot act. If we think of ourselves as completely causally determined, and not as uncaused causes ourselves, then any attempt to conceive of a rule that prescribes the means by which some end can be achieved is pointless. I cannot both think of myself as entirely subject to causal law and as being able to act according to the conception of a principle that gives guidance to my will. We cannot help but think of our actions as the result of an uncaused cause if we are to act at all and employ reason to accomplish ends and understand the world. So reason has an unavoidable interest in thinking of itself as free. That is, theoretical reason cannot demonstrate freedom, but practical reason must assume for the purpose of action. Having the ability to make judgments and apply reason puts us outside that system of causally necessitated events. "Reason creates for itself the idea of a spontaneity that can, on its own, start to act--without, i.e., needing to be preceded by another cause by means of which it is determined to action in turn, according to the law of causal connection," Kant says. In its intellectual domain, reason must think of itself as free. It is dissatisfying that he cannot demonstrate freedom, nevertheless, it comes as no surprise that we must think of ourselves as free. In a sense, Kant is agreeing with the common sense view that how I choose to act makes a difference in how I actually act. Even if it were possible to give a predictive empirical account of why I act as I do, say on the grounds of a functionalist psychological theory, those considerations would mean nothing to me in my deliberations. When I make a decision about what to do, about which car to buy, for instance, the mechanism at work in my nervous system makes no difference to me. I still have to peruse Consumer Reports, consider my options, reflect on my needs, and decide on the basis of the application of general principles. My first person perspective is unavoidable, hence the deliberative, intellectual process of choice is unavoidable.
• The Duality of the Human Situation: The question of moral action is not an issue for two classes of beings, according to Kant. The animal consciousness, the purely sensuous being, is entirely subject to causal determination. It is part of the causal chains of the empirical world, but not an originator of causes the way humans are. Hence, rightness or wrongness, as concepts that apply to situations one has control over, do not apply. We do not morally fault the lion for killing the gazelle, or even for killing its own young. The actions of a purely rational being, by contrast, are in perfect accord with moral principles, Kant says. There is nothing in such a being's nature to make it falter. Its will always conforms with the dictates of reason. Humans are between the two worlds. We are both sensible and intellectual, as was pointed out in the discussion of the first Critique. We are neither wholly determined to act by natural impulse, nor are we free of non-rational impulse. Hence we need rules of conduct. We need, and reason is compelled to provide, a principle that declares how we ought to act when it is in our power to choose. Since we find ourselves in the situation of possessing reason, being able to act according to our own conception of rules, there is a special burden on us. Other creatures are acted upon by the world. But having the ability to choose the principle to guide our actions makes us actors. We must exercise our will and our reason to act. Will is the capacity to act according to the principles provided by reason. Reason assumes freedom and conceives of principles of action in order to function. Two problems face us however. First, we are not wholly rational beings, so we are liable to succumb to our non-rational impulses. Second, even when we exercise our reason fully, we often cannot know which action is the best. The fact that we can choose between alternate courses of actions (we are not determined to act by instinct or reason) introduces the possibility that there can be better or worse ways of achieving our ends and better or worse ends, depending upon the criteria we adopt. The presence of two different kinds of object in the world adds another dimension, a moral dimension, to our deliberations. Roughly speaking, we can divide the world into beings with reason and will like ourselves and things that lack those faculties. We can think of these classes of things as ends-in-themselves and mere means-to-ends, respectively. Ends-in-themselves are autonomous beings with their own agendas; failing to recognize their capacity to determine their own actions would be to thwart their freedom and undermine reason itself. When we reflect on alternative courses of action, means-to-ends, things like buildings, rocks, and trees, deserve no special status in our deliberations about what goals we should have and what means we use to achieve them. The class of ends-in-themselves, reasoning agents like ourselves, however, do have a special status in our considerations about what goals we should have and the means we employ to accomplish them. Moral actions, for Kant, are actions where reason leads, rather than follows, and actions where we must take other beings that act according to their own conception of the law, into account.
• The Good Will: The will, Kant says, is the faculty of acting according to a conception of law. When we act, whether or not we achieve what we intend with our actions is often beyond our control, so the morality of our actions does not depend upon their outcome. What we can control, however, is the will behind the action. That is, we can will to act according to one law rather than another. The morality of an action, therefore, must be assessed in terms of the motivation behind it. If two people, Smith and Jones, perform the same act, from the same conception of the law, but events beyond Smith's control prevent her from achieving her goal, Smith is not less praiseworthy for not succeeding. We must consider them on equal moral ground in terms of the will behind their actions. The only thing that is good without qualification is the good will, Kant says. All other candidates for an intrinsic good have problems, Kant argues. Courage, health, and wealth can all be used for ill purposes, Kant argues, and therefore cannot be intrinsically good. Happiness is not intrinsically good because even being worthy of happiness, Kant says, requires that one possess a good will. The good will is the only unconditional good despite all encroachments. Misfortune may render someone incapable of achieving her goals, for instance, but the goodness of her will remains. Goodness cannot arise from acting on impulse or natural inclination, even if impulse coincides with duty. It can only arise from conceiving of one's actions in a certain way. A shopkeeper, Kant says, might do what is in accord with duty and not overcharge a child. Kant argues, "it is not sufficient to do that which should be morally good that it conform to the law; it must be done for the sake of the law." There is a clear moral difference between the shopkeeper that does it for his own advantage to keep from offending other customers and the shopkeeper who does it from duty and the principle of honesty.(Ibid., 398) Likewise, in another of Kant's carefully studied examples, the kind act of the person who overcomes a natural lack of sympathy for other people out of respect for duty has moral worth, whereas the same kind act of the person who naturally takes pleasure in spreading joy does not. A person's moral worth cannot be dependent upon what nature endowed them with accidentally. The selfishly motivated shopkeeper and the naturally kind person both act on equally subjective and accidental grounds. What matters to morality is that the actor think about their actions in the right manner. We might be tempted to think that the motivation that makes an action good is having a positive goal--to make people happy, or to provide some benefit. But that is not the right sort of motive, Kant says. No outcome, should we achieve it, can be unconditionally good. Fortune can be misused, what we thought would induce benefit might actually bring harm, and happiness might be undeserved. Hoping to achieve some particular end, no matter how beneficial it may seem, is not purely and unconditionally good. It is not the effect or even the intended effect that bestows moral character on an action. All intended effects "could be brought about through other causes and would not require the will of a rational being, while the highest and unconditional good can be found only in such a will." It is the possession of a rationally guided will that adds a moral dimension to one's acts. So it is the recognition and appreciation of duty itself that must drive our actions.
• Duty: What is the duty that is to motivate our actions and to give them moral value? Kant distinguishes two kinds of law produced by reason. Given some end we wish to achieve, reason can provide a hypothetical imperative, or rule of action for achieving that end. A hypothetical imperative says that if you wish to buy a new car, then you must determine what sort of cars are available for purchase. Conceiving of a means to achieve some desired end is by far the most common employment of reason. But Kant has shown that the acceptable conception of the moral law cannot be merely hypothetical. Our actions cannot be moral on the ground of some conditional purpose or goal. Morality requires an unconditional statement of one's duty. And in fact, reason produces an absolute statement of moral action. The moral imperative is unconditional; that is, its imperative force is not tempered by the conditional "if I want to achieve some end, then do X." It simply states, do X. Kant believes that reason dictates a categorical imperative for moral action. He gives at least three formulations of the Categorical Imperative. "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law." "Act as though the maxim of your action were by your will to become a universal law of nature." Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only." What are Kant's arguments for the Categorical Imperative? First, consider an example. Consider the person who needs to borrow money and is considering making a false promise to pay it back. The maxim that could be invoked is, "when I need of money, borrow it, promising to repay it, even though I do not intend to." But when we apply the universality test to this maxim it becomes clear that if everyone were to act in this fashion, the institution of promising itself would be undermined. The borrower makes a promise, willing that there be no such thing as promises. Thus such an action fails the universality test. The argument for the first formulation of the categorical imperative can be thought of this way. We have seen that in order to be good, we must remove inclination and the consideration of any particular goal from our motivation to act. The act cannot be good if it arises from subjective impulse. Nor can it be good because it seeks after some particular goal which might not attain the good we seek or could come about through happenstance. We must abstract away from all hoped for effects. If we remove all subjectivity and particularity from motivation we are only left with will to universality. The question "what rule determines what I ought to do in this situation?" becomes "what rule ought to universally guide action?" What we must do in any situation of moral choice is act according to a maxim that we would will everyone to act according to. The second version of the Categorical Imperative invokes Kant's conception of nature and draws on the first Critique. In the earlier discussion of nature, we saw that the mind necessarily structures nature. And reason, in its seeking of ever higher grounds of explanation, strives to achieve unified knowledge of nature. A guide for us in moral matters is to think of what would not be possible to will universally. Maxims that fail the test of the categorical imperative generate a contradiction. Laws of nature cannot be contradictory. So if a maxim cannot be willed to be a law of nature, it is not moral. The third version of the categorical imperative ties Kant's whole moral theory together. Insofar as they possess a rational will, people are set off in the natural order of things. They are not merely subject to the forces that act upon them; they are not merely means to ends. They are ends in themselves. All means to an end have a merely conditional worth because they are valuable only for achieving something else. The possessor of a rational will, however, is the only thing with unconditional worth. The possession of rationality puts all beings on the same footing, "every other rational being thinks of his existence by means of the same rational ground which holds also for myself; thus it is at the same time an objective principle from which, as a supreme practical ground, it must be possible to derive all laws of the will."

• Kant's Criticisms of Utilitarianism: Kant's criticisms of utilitarianism have become famous enough to warrant some separate discussion. Utilitarian moral theories evaluate the moral worth of action on the basis of happiness that is produced by an action. Whatever produces the most happiness in the most people is the moral course of action. Kant has an insightful objection to moral evaluations of this sort. The essence of the objection is that utilitarian theories actually devalue the individuals it is supposed to benefit. If we allow utilitarian calculations to motivate our actions, we are allowing the valuation of one person's welfare and interests in terms of what good they can be used for. It would be possible, for instance, to justify sacrificing one individual for the benefits of others if the utilitarian calculations promise more benefit. Doing so would be the worst example of treating someone utterly as a means and not as an end in themselves. Another way to consider his objection is to note that utilitarian theories are driven by the merely contingent inclination in humans for pleasure and happiness, not by the universal moral law dictated by reason. To act in pursuit of happiness is arbitrary and subjective, and is no more moral than acting on the basis of greed, or selfishness. All three emanate from subjective, non-rational grounds. The danger of utilitarianism lies in its embracing of baser instincts, while rejecting the indispensable role of reason and freedom in our actions.

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CHAPTER 5

INSIGHT OF SOME OF THE MASTER PIECE WORKS BY KANT

The principal works of Kant's "critical period" are the following: the Critique of Pure Reason, in which he examines human reason and concludes that it is capable of constructing science but not metaphysics. In 1783 he published the Prolegomena or Prologues to any Future Metaphysics, wherein he examines the problem from another point of view. In 1785 his Foundation for the Metaphysics of Ethics appeared, followed by the Critique of Practical Reason, in which he treats the moral problem according to the principles of transcendental criticism. In his Critique of Judgment he examines the problem of finalism in nature and the aesthetic problem. The three Critiques form a single masterpiece and are an exposition of Kant's definitive though and in this research work we will discuss the insight of Critique of Pure Reason; Critique of Practical Reason & Critique of Judgment.

(I) Critique of Pure Reason

Rationalism and Empiricism undertook to resolve the problem: "What value has that which we know (ideas or impressions) in relation to my obtaining knowledge of the physical world, and in relation to what I must do?" The problem was both epistemological and ethical. To solve the difficulty, Rationalism -- from Descartes to Leibniz -- had begun with the assumption that the human mind is endowed with innate ideas. Proceeding by deduction from these innate ideas, Rationalism had constructed a knowledge endowed with universality (since innate ideas are common to all minds) and necessity (a quality which all scientific and philosophical knowledge must possess). But it had not been able to show the validity of this knowledge in reference to the world of nature without falling into pantheism. Furthermore, in any consideration of a transcendent God, the order of ideas remained always separate and distinct from the order of things. Empiricism, on the other hand, had sought a solution to the same question by beginning with sense impresssions, which it declared to be copies of the object perceived and hence valid for a knowledge of the world of nature. However, it had not succeeded in demonstrating the universality and necessity of such knowledge. Every perception, even though multiplied ad infinitum, remains always particular. This criticism, advanced by Hume, can be regarded as conclusive. In order to evade this difficulty, Hume had recourse to a new psychological element, the habit of association, which connects impressions with one another and clothes them with universality and necessity. However, it might be observed that if the intellect can link phenomena to one another and give them the notes of universality and necessity, such an intellect is no "tabula rasa," as Hume asserted it to be; it evidently possesses the innate concept of universality and necessity, which it attributes to the particular phenomena when it links them together in groups or classes. These highly unsatisfactory theories were uppermost in the mind of Kant when he undertook to solve the same problem, namely, that of the objective and ethical value of our knowledge. In his endeavor to present a conclusive solution, Kant composed his three Critiques -- so named because, in the true sense of the word, "to criticize" means to discuss and judge. Thus Kant's entire work is a careful examination and judgment of Rationalism and Empiricism, with a view to determining the merits and deficiencies of the two. According to Kant, Rationalism is a type of "analytic judgment," in so far as it constructs a system of knowledge that is endowed with universality and necessity. However, such knowledge is tautological and sterile; that is, it is unable to lead us to an understanding of nature. To mark an advance of knowledge, according to Kant, a judgment must be "synthetic"; that is, it must be a judgment whose predicate extends our knowledge beyond the subject. On the other hand, Empiricism is a type of "synthetic" judgment, but it is an a posteriori synthetic judgment, one whose predicate is a fact of experience, and consequently deprived of universality and necessity. Such judgments, devoid of universality and necessity, cannot serve to build up true or philosophical knowledge. Kant teaches that there is another type of judgment called synthetic a priori, which leads to true scientific knowledge. It enjoys the universality and necessity of analytic judgments without being tautological, and possesses the fecundity of synthetical a posteriori judgments without being restricted to the particular beings existing in the empirical world. For the formation of any synthetic a priori judgment it is necessary to have form and matter. The form is given by the intellect, independent of all experience, a priori, and signifies the function, manner and law of knowing and acting, which the subject finds in it self prior to all experience. The matter is the subjective sensations, which we receive from the external world. Through these two elements the benefits of Rationalism and Empiricism are united in the same judgment: the form represents the universal and necessary element, while the matter represents the empirical data. The judgment thus resulting (synthetic a priori) is universal and necessary in virtue of the form, and valid for the empirical world in virtue of the matter. It is to be noted that for the formation of a synthetic a priori judgment it is necessary to have both elements: Form without matter is empty and void; matter without form is blind. Clearly, a knowledge obtained through Kant's synthetic a priori judgments is of phenomenal value only; it does not give a valid understanding of the objects "in se" or as they exist in nature (noumena), but only in so far as they are thought by the subject. Kant's thinking ego does not assimilate the object, as traditional philosophy maintains, but constructs it. In fact, both matter and form (sensations) are subjective elements and do not bespeak reality; this remains ever separate and distinct from the subject. Kant presents his study of synthetic a priori judgments in the Critique of Pure Reason. This work is divided into three parts:

In the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant investigates the elements of sensible knowledge in reference to a priori forms of space and time. The object of this study is to justify mathematics as a perfect science.

The Transcendental Analytic is an inquiry into intellectual knowledge. Its object is the physical world, and its scope is the justification of "pure physics" (mechanics) as a perfect science.

Transcendental Dialectic has for its object that reality which lies beyond our experience; namely, the essence of God, man and the world. Kant reduces these objects of traditional metaphysics to "ideas," about which reason fruitlessly revolves, without hope of ever arriving at any definitive result.

1. Transcendental Aesthetic

The beginning of knowledge is in sensibility, in the reception of sensations. In order to constitute knowledge, sensations must be located in space, if they come to us through the external senses; and in time, i.e., succeeding one another, no matter what their origin -- even if they be simple states of consciousness, such as pleasure and pain. Now, for Kant, space and time are not realities existing in themselves, as Newton believed, nor are they realities coming from experience, as Aristotle maintained. They are, instead, a priori forms, that is, exigencies of our knowledge. Sense knowledge (pure intuition) carries within itself the following exigencies; Every sensation must be located in space, i.e., above or beneath, to the right or to the left, and in time, that is, antecedent, subsequent, or concomitant to other sensations. Hence space and time are conditions, not of the existence of things but of the possibility of their being manifested in us. In a word, they are subjective forms. Now, arithmetic and geometry are based on space and time. Consequently, they are based on subjective forms, and the universality and necessity we find in them come through these subjective forms. In other words, arithmetic and geometry are absolute sciences, not because they represent a universal and necessary aspect of the physical world but because they are a priori constructions of the human spirit and receive from it there universality and necessity.

2. Transcendental Analytic

The pure intuitions of time and space give us a manifold but disorganized knowledge of nature. The human spirit, which tends to the unification of knowledge, cannot stop at these confused intuitions. It feels impelled to progress to a higher degree of understanding which is centered in the intellect and whose activity consists in organizing the sensible data dispersed in space and time. This is possible through the a priori forms or categories with which the intellect is endowed. The function of such forms or categories is the following: 

• In the intuition, for example, of a tree, I had certain sensible data (colors, leaves, branches, etc.) existing in space and in temporal succession.
• The intellect sets to work on these data in accordance with its nature -- that is, according to its a priori forms -- and stabilizes, as it were, these sensitive and ephemeral data with the concept of substance. Substance, then, is one of the categories of the intellect. But the intellect does not rest here.
•  It proceeds still further and, placing the present data in relation to the data that have preceded the tree, it associates them in a second concept, that of cause. This is the second category, by virtue of which phenomena are bound to one another by a universal and necessary connection, in such a way that, given the antecedent phenomenon (the cause), another phenomenon (the effect) must follow always and everywhere.

The categories of the intellect are twelve, and are divided by Kant into four classes -- quantity, quality, relations, and modes. These categories, by giving permanence and necessity to sensible data, serve as a framework in reference to which the mechanical laws of nature are understood. It is likewise to be noted that this permanent unification of sensible data is possible only on condition that the unifying intellect remains identical with itself. If the intellect be diverse for every sensible datum, no permanent unification would be possible. Hence the universality and objectivity of science imply the permanence of the intellect in its identity.

3. Transcendental Dialectic

The classification of sensible intuitions, performed by the intellect through its categories, does not attain perfect unity. It remains always in the world of phenomena, in a phenomenal series, which extends itself indefinitely in space and time. Within us, however, there is the tendency to achieve a definite unification of phenomena, and as a consequence there arise in us certain "ideas" which serve as a point of reference and organization for the totality of phenomena. These "ideas" are three:

• Personal ego, the unifying principle of all internal phenomena;
• The External world, the unifying principle of all phenomena coming from without; and 
• God, the unifying principle of all phenomena, regardless of their origin.

The personal ego, the world, and God (the supreme realities of traditional metaphysics), are called noumena, i.e., realities in themselves, suprasensible and unconditioned beings. Kant presents these three entities in the Transcendental Dialectic, the third part of the Critique of Pure Reason. Thus the Transcendental Dialectic brings us to the third grade of human knowledge. The faculty which busies itself with these "ideas" Kant calls reason. The aim of this third part of the Critique of Pure Reason is to see whether the ideas of ego, the world, and God allow us to know the reality they represent, or whether such knowledge is impossible, these ideas being then a kind of empty subjective exigency, and nothing more. Clearly Kant's Criticism ends in Skepticism. Pure reason is always connected with sensible intuitions, and therefore it cannot arrive at the knowledge of the personal ego, of the world, and of God; these are realities which are beyond the data of intuition. In regard to the "personal ego" (substance) -- the object of rational psychology in traditional philosophy -- Kant observes that it vanishes in paralogisms, i.e., in sophisms, false reasoning. Indeed, contrary to Descartes, Kant believed that spiritual substance is not known directly. What we know directly is the action of knowing (phenomenon). A series of these actions, even if extended ad infinitum, will never give us knowledge of a reality such as the personal ego, which must lie beyond this series. Moreover, for Kant, substance is a category of the intellect that has relation only to sensible data, and it is consequently useless in the quest of a knowledge of suprasensible realities. Kant's criticism on this point is directed against Descartes, who maintained that the soul, a spiritual substance, is the first object of knowledge. In reference to the external world, to which traditional philosophy dedicates its studies in cosmology, Kant says that it is lost in antinomies, that is, in contradictory propositions, and that the intellect is not capable of distinguishing which of the opposed propositions is true. These antinomies are four in number, each one being made up of a thesis and its corresponding antithesis. They are the following:

Thesis: The world must have a beginning in time and be enclosed in finite space. Antithesis: The world is eternal and infinite.

Thesis: Matter is ultimately divisible into simple parts (atoms or monads) which are incapable of further division. Antithesis: Every material thing is divisible; there exists nowhere in the world anything that is simple.

Thesis: Besides the causality which is in accordance with the laws of nature (and therefore necessary), there is a causality which is free. Antithesis: There is no freedom; everything in the world takes place entirely according to the laws of nature.

Thesis: There exists an absolutely necessary Being who belongs to the world, either as a part or as a cause of it. Antithesis: Nowhere does there exist an absolutely necessary Being, either in the world or outside it.

The first two antinomies (the opposition existing between a finite and infinite universe and between divisible and indivisible matter) pertain to the physical world. According to Kant, they not correspond to the "thing in itself" (noumenon), for they consist in an illegitimate application of the categories of space and time to the "thing in itself." In other words, in these two antinomies the physical world is considered at the same time as a "thing in itself" independent of the mechanical necessity of nature (space and time) and as a subject of this same mechanical necessity. Any opposition derived from this contradictory position is necessarily false. The other two antinomies are concerned, the first with the spirit (freedom), the second with God; and they may be true from the noumenical and the phenomenal point of view. Indeed, there will be the same contradiction as noted above, if freedom and God are conceived of as beings subject to mechanical causality. But the spirit and God may be affirmed without any consideration of space and time; and in this case the theses of the two antinomies do not imply any contradiction. Thus the theses are true if they are affirmed simply from the noumenal point of view; likewise the antitheses are true if they are affirmed simply from the phenomenal point of view. Hence Kant concludes his criticism, leaving the door open for the affirmation of the existence of spirit and God. However, it has to be noted that such a conclusion cannot be called true knowledge, because it is not based on any intuition; for Kant intuition alone gives origin to true knowledge. Later we shall see that Kant affirms the existence of spirit and of God as postulates of practical reason. Finally, in reference to the idea of God, Kant reduces the arguments which rational theology brought forward to prove the existence of God to the following: 

• Ontological Argument (St. Anselm, Descartes: Kant proclaims this proof inefficacious not only because God is not the object of intuition, but also because the passage from the phenomenal world (thought) to the noumenal world (reality) is illegitimate.
• Cosmological Argument: Kant declares this argument inefficacious because it is based on the principle of causality; and causality is, for him, a category valid only in the world of experience and not for what lies beyond experience.
• Teleological Argument: This argument shows us that where there is finality or purpose there is an Intelligence, an architect. But, as Kant rightly observes, this does not mean the most perfect Being, i.e., God.  

Thus the Critique of Pure Reason concludes that our knowledge does not attain metaphysical realities (noumena). Kant does not deny the existence of God and of the external world, nor the immortality of the soul; but he says that such entities are closed to scientific inquiry. This latter has the phenomenal world as its object, and is utterly incapable of penetrating the supra-phenomenal world, i.e., the world of the noumena, the unconditioned. According to Kant, God, the world and the soul are attainable through another activity, practical reason, which we will now examine.

(II) Critique of Practical Reason

In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant makes the essential elements of all knowledge (universality and necessity) dependent, not on the content of experience, but on a priori forms. Likewise, in the Critique of Practical Reason he makes the universality and necessity of the moral law dependent, not on the empirical act and the end that we might intend in our actions, but on a categorical imperative, in the will itself. For an act to be morally good, the will must be autonomous; it must be determined to act, not in view of the result of its action but only in view of its duty. "Duty for duty's sake": this is Kantian morality in all its rigidity. This means that among all the imperatives that can determine the will to action it is necessary to distinguish the hypothetical from the categorical. Hypothetical imperatives impose a command in order to attain an end and are hence conditioned on that end; for example, you must take the medicine required if you wish to be cured. Categorical imperatives impose themselves automatically, by force of duty, without regard to the good or evil that might result from them -- for example, "Do this because it is your duty." Only categorical imperatives enjoy universality and necessity, and hence only they can be the foundation of morality. An essential difference must be noted between the a priori forms of the intellect (categories) and the a priori forms of the will (categorical imperatives). The former, deprived of their material element, are void; they need an empirical element in order to be determined. The a priori forms of the will, on the contrary, are not empty; they possess the determining element in themselves. In other words, an inversion must be made: It is not the empirical element which determines the form (the imperative); rather, it is the form which determines the empirical element and makes it moral. For example, the command "Do not lie" is determined, not because people do not lie (empirical element), but because this command comes from the will itself as the regulator of the empirical element. The will is an autonomous legislator in the field of action. "So act," says one of the Kantian categorical imperatives, "that your will can be considered as instituting a universal moral legislation." But if we act thus, we are already in the suprasensible and unconditioned world. This conclusion deserves examination. According to the Critique of Pure Reason we cannot attain the suprasensible (noumenon) because our forms of knowledge (categories) are empty: their content is only phenomenal, conditioned matter. Now, instead, the form of the will (categorical imperative) possesses the content independently within itself; it is not conditioned by any material element. It is the will itself which makes the human act morally good, and not vice versa. In fact, according to Kant, the empirical act will be good only on condition that it be done for the sake of duty. Hence the will is beyond the phenomenal and mechanical world; it pertains to the world of noumena, of the unconditioned. Once having attained the world of the suprasensible (note well: through practical exigency, not by way of cognitive reason), Kant undertook to examine what might be the postulates (necessary conditions) that make morality possible. In this investigation Kant maintains that there are three postulates that establish morality, namely, liberty, the immortality of the soul, God. These are the three supreme realities of traditional philosophy; and Kant, who had denied our ability to attain them through theoretical knowledge, believed that he could affirm their existence by practical exigency: 

• First of all, he observes that the will is independent of all allurements that come from the phenomenal world, because the will is autonomous. It could not be such if it were subject to causal mechanism. Therefore, the will is free. (First postulate.)
• Secondly, Kant observes that virtue is the supreme good. But our desires would not be fully satisfied unless happiness necessarily followed upon virtue. Now, in this present sensible world, it is impossible to attain happiness through virtue. From this fact -- that happiness is beyond attainment in the present life -- arises belief in the immortality of the soul. (Second postulate.)
• Lastly, since we are certain that happiness follows virtue necessarily, this certitude gives rise to belief in the existence of God. (Third postulate.)

Thus Kant believed not only that he had reconstructed the world of traditional metaphysics but also that he had established it on a more solid basis, on a foundation above and beyond any doubt. For Kant, the will has primacy over the intellect.

(III) Critique of Judgment

Both the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason have established a dualism -- of phenomenon and noumenon, of the sensible and suprasensible, the conditional and unconditional, mechanical necessity and liberty. No acceptable philosophy can conclude with such a dualism, for the ego is at one and the same time the subject of both the theoretical and the practical world. Hence it is necessary that the two aspects -- theoretical and practical -- through which reality is revealed, be synthesized in a unity centering in the ego. Kant maintains that such a synthesis is possible through the judgment of sentiment, the study of which he presents in the Critique of Judgment. The judgment of sentiment is not to be confused with the synthetic a priori judgment already considered in the Critique of Pure Reason. This latter presupposes an empty or void form of the intellect (category), which is determined by the particular element grasped by the sense. Hence Kant calls the synthetic a priori judgment a determining judgment, and it is that which gives us true and proper but phenomenal knowledge. The judgment of sentiment, on the other hand, consists in referring the apprehended object to a form that is not in the intellect, but in the affective power of the will (emotion). The form which appears in sentiment is intermediate between the theoretical and the practical. Such a judgment of sentiment is possible because the subject (the ego), by reflecting on the apprehended data, judges these data to be adapted to the sentimental activities of the subject. Hence Kant calls this operation a reflecting judgment. It is to be noted that the reflecting judgment has its origin outside the a priori forms of the intellect. Consequently, it does not give us true and proper knowledge, but only manifests an exigency of the ego.

In the Critique of Judgment Kant presents only two reflecting judgments -- that which arises from the finality of nature, and that which is called aesthetic.

1. Teleological Judgment

The creative activity of nature develops itself in a successive series of phenomena connected with one another mechanically, that is, through the laws of causality. Reflecting upon this mechanical succession, one soon notes that the individual elements of the series are harmoniously coordinated toward a common end, as if the parts were disposed by a regulating Mind for the actuation of a determined purpose (finality). Such a finality can be observed especially in living organisms, in which it is easy to note how the parts develop toward the production of the perfect living organism. Kant extends this view to the whole of nature and sees it culminating in the advent of spirituality, which is to be attained through culture and civilization, technical abilities and moral education. This teleological view, in which we consider the world of beings and of events as ordained to an end and ultimately to our spiritual exigencies, finds its reason in sentiment and not in the intellect. As in the Critique of Practical Reason, the solution is found in an exigency of the unconditioned, and not in the knowledge of the unconditioned.

2. Aesthetic Judgment

Aesthetic judgment, by which we judge an object to be pleasurable, begins by our separating the object from every determined concept and from every practical interest, and by referring the object thus freed to the subject. The subject then finds the satisfaction of its spiritual faculties in the object thus referred to it and expresses this satisfaction in an aesthetic judgment: "This field is beautiful." In aesthetic judgment, therefore, there is lacking (1) all judgment of knowledge (e.g., "This field is broad"), and (2) all judgment of interest (e.g., "This field is useful for grazing cattle"). The object of an aesthetic judgment is the "form" of the object considered in itself (e.g., the composition of colors in a landscape) and referred to the subject. The subject finds therein the satisfaction of his spiritual faculties. In becoming aware of aesthetic pleasure, the subject (ego) feels himself free of any theoretical or practical interest; he feels himself to be one, a person, the subject of spiritual activity. Thus we are in the sphere of the unconditioned. It is to be noted that aesthetic judgment is not true knowledge. It is an exigency of the subject expressing his aesthetic sentiment in the manner described.

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CHAPTER 6

CONCLUSION

The only true and proper knowledge, for Kant, is that which is scientific, i.e., that obtained through the categories of the intellect, whose office is to organize sensible data according to their mechanical succession. Ideal reality (noumenon), God, the immortality of the soul, the external world are not objects of sensible intuition, and hence are not objects of that knowledge which is proper to the intellect. Without doubt, for Kant, the existence of the suprasensible, God, and the immortality of the soul are absolutely certain; it is their conceptual determination that is impossible. For this reason, Kant was forced to demonstrate their existence as postulated by practical reason and as an exigency of faculties operating in the sphere of finality and of aesthetics. But once a true and proper understanding of the existence of God and of the soul is denied, who can assure us that the postulates and the exigencies of which Kant speaks so eloquently are not mere illusions of the subject? Will it not appear more logical to present the subject, the human spirit, as creator and absolute legislator, and then derive all reality from man by logical deduction? This is the trend that has gradually followed Kantian Criticism, and for this reason Kant is without doubt the father of modern Idealism.

CHAPTER 7

BIBLOGRAPHY

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