Kant's theory of KNOWLEDGE

Kant's theory of KNOWLEDGE


When asked what I can learn? responds Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason. Try to note 1) the principles that guarantee a scientific understanding of nature and 2) the limits within which such knowledge is possible.

1. Kant to the rationalism and empiricism

Kant's doctrine of knowledge of a fundamental distinction between two sources of knowledge: sensibility and understanding. The two ways of knowledge have opposite characteristics to each other.

a) Sensitivity: is passive and simply receives the impressions from outside, colors, sounds, etc.., equivalent to what Locke called Hume simple ideas and impressions of sensation.
b) Understanding: is active and occurs spontaneously without certain concepts and ideas derive from experience, such as 'substance', 'cause', 'necessity', 'existence', etc..

The consequences of this distinction is important:
1) Early rationalist Kant: If the understanding happens spontaneously derive certain concepts without experience, you can know reality through a system based on such concepts without recourse to the experience-central thesis of rationalism. Combining the concepts of cause, substance, existence and need by adequate reasoning can be taken for certain the existence of a necessary being, substance, and first cause.
2) Abandonment of rationalism upon reading Hume awoke Kant's "dogmatic slumber" after reading the reviews of Hume rationalism, and became convinced that our knowledge can not extend beyond the experience. But concerning the concepts are not from the experience states that are useful to the extent that are not applied outside the limits of experience. P. for example., the concept of "substance" applies to objects that we perceive only qualities or properties isolated, colors, sounds, movements, shapes ... - but we suppose that behind them there is a substrate material that supports them. Concepts and are used only to unify sense impressions that would otherwise be disconnected. Without a concept like substance could not speak of any object in the universe and science and the study of nature would be impossible.

3) Conclusions of Kant on the proper use of the concepts which the intellect has the range of experience: 1 st) understanding the uses to meet the objects of experience, sort and unify, 2nd) can not be legitimately used to refer to something that we have no sensory experience. It would be pointless, for example, applying the concept of substance to God, we have no object of sense experience.

Thus Kant distances himself against rationalism and empiricism against. While empiricism holds that all our concepts come from experience, Kant argues that understanding concepts that have come from experience, but only can be applied in the context of the empirical.


2. Possibility of metaphysics as a science and scientific knowledge conditions

a) In the introduction to KRV Kant asks whether it is possible to obtain a thorough knowledge about God, human freedom and the immortality of the soul-traditional metaphysical questions. These interests are those of a rationalist, and Kant was in its infancy.

The situation of inferiority, endless discussions and stagnation in the Metaphysics that is relative to other branches of knowledge, physics, mathematics, whose progress was evident at the time of Kant has to do, according to Kant, the method used in either case. If it is impossible to find a suitable method for the MF, then you'd better give up all claim to definitively scientific knowledge in MF.

b) The initial problem, therefore, was whether the MF is possible as a science. But the answer to this question required clarification before another: How is science possible? Established and known the conditions that make science possible, we will be able to find out if the MF is complying with them. Where such adjustment is not possible, we would have every reason to abandon the MF.

• Necessary conditions for science:
Empirical: They are the physical, temporal or instrumental that make it possible to obtain useful data for scientific knowledge, for example, to perceive object color, distance, area, volume, etc.. Without such empirical conditions, easily alterable, scientific knowledge would be impossible.

A priori: There are conditions to extract usable data that are not scientifically altered, are strictly necessary and are general in nature: they affect any individual, eg: to perceive the things in certain space-time coordinates: in a particular place in an instant. In other words: the a priori conditions are universal and necessary, and prior to experience. Determine the structure and experiences of the perceiver, but not from the experience. They make possible the experience, observe something must be done in time and space, and knowledge: then are transcendental conditions.

• Strategy to investigate the conditions that make scientific knowledge
The starting point than a science is a set of judgments or claims, propositions, "water is a compound of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom," "the earth revolves around the sun", etc.. The scientific arguments are composed of multiple trials, more or less complicated. Kant concluded that asking about the conditions that make science possible is the same as asking about what are the conditions that make possible the judgments of science. Therefore:
1 st. Can the MF as a science?
2 nd. What are the transcendental conditions that make possible the scientific knowledge?
3 rd. What conditions must satisfy the transcendental judgments of science to be such?
3. Synthetic judgments a priori
What are the judgments of science, mathematics and physics in particular? Kant provides two major distinctions: analytic / synthetic, on the one hand, and a priori / a posteriori, on the other:

i) analytical judgments: those whose predicate is included, at least implicitly, on the subject and analyze the subject enough to know the corresponding predicate, they are not extensive, ie, we do not provide any information about the world, and therefore not expand our knowledge. Eg: "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
ii) synthetic judgments: one whose predicate is not included in the subject. Are extensive and extend our knowledge about the world. Ex: "The banks get richer in times of crisis." To see if this judgment is true or not, is not sufficient to analyze the subject 'bank', because it does not at all the idea-predicate-to increase profits in times of crisis.

The distinction analytic / synthetic down as the predicate whether or not included in the subject. Correspond to the Leibnizian distinction between "truths of reason" and "truths of fact." But if we look at how we can know if a judgment is either true or false, there is another distinction:
iii) a priori judgments: those whose truth can be known independently of experience. Therefore, are universal and necessary: ​​no derogation possible. Eg: "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts."
iv) a posteriori judgments: if they are true we only know from experience, proving the assertion. There are universal and necessary. Eg: "the Pygmies Bushmen are 35 cm. Unless Spanish adolescents. " We can only true if we consider appropriate action made between members of two groups. In addition, there are many possible exceptions will surely be one or many Spanish lower and higher pygmies. Nor can it be a trial necessary, because nothing requires, in principle, to the Spanish must necessarily be higher than some African countries. Therefore, any judgment drawn from experience is always particular and contingent, subject to exceptions.

The ratings above are judgments one way and another already in earlier philosophers. For Hume, this classification would be equivalent to the distinction between "relations of ideas" and "relations of facts." In addition, analytic judgments can also be considered a priori synthetic judgments are also a posteriori. But Kant introduces a new class of lawsuits:
v) synthetic a priori judgments. Ex: "The line is the shortest distance between two points" can not be considered analytic because the concept of straight line does not fit at all the idea of ​​distance. It is, therefore, synthetic. But it can not be considered a posteriori, because we know that is true without having to go by measuring distances between two points without having to resort to any experiment to prove it. It is also strictly universal and necessary, because no derogation possible. And Kant concludes that, contrary to what Hume believed, there are synthetic judgments a priori.
Because they are synthetic, they provide new information about the world that expands our knowledge, and for being a priori, are universal and necessary. His truth does not depend on experience. Kant was convinced that the key judgments of mathematics, physics and geometry are of this type.
A synthetic judgment a priori in geometry, "the angles of a triangle add up to two right angles." Another trial well in physics: "Every event or phenomenon has a cause." Hume considered a judgment and a posteriori and not universal, the result of a generalization from successive observations have created in us the habit of putting the root cause of all phenomena.

Kant's response to these objections of Hume show an apparent confusion: Hume seems to confuse particular laws-such as "Water boils at 100 °" - with the principle of causality. While the former may be contingent, we know that water boils at that temperature, but if the water has a temperature and impurity needs more exceptions can be seen, the principle of causality is not: if the water boils, it must be for some cause, whether they be 100 degrees or 200 needed to do so. Therefore, the principle of causality is a universal and necessary law, which required understanding and universally applied to all phenomena of experience. If we eliminate this law, the experience itself and science would be impossible.

Summarizing the characteristics of synthetic judgments a priori:

• They are extensive, being synthetic, and strictly universal and necessary.

• They are a priori, because their validity is established and known independently of experience.

• The fundamental judgments of mathematics, physics and geometry are of this type.

• Ask for the conditions that make possible the judgments of science raises the question of the transcendental conditions that make possible a priori synthetic judgments.