Transcript Critical Social Theory

Critical Social Theory
“Enlightenment is man’s release from his self-incurred
tutelage. … Sapere Aude! ‘Have the courage to use your
own reason!’—that is the motto of enlightenment.”
Kant, “What is Enlightenment?”
Answering Hume: Kant and the synthetic
a priori
 Hume’s empiricist starting point: there are
only two kinds of propositions—‘relations of
ideas’ and ‘matters of fact’.
 What do ‘relations of ideas’ and ‘matters of
fact’ mean?
 How do we know that propositions belonging
to those categories to be true?
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Answering Hume:
 Kant: “Although all cognition begins with
experience, not all of it springs from
experience.” (Introduction, 7)
 Perhaps there are truths about the world that
can known without reference to experience.
 We need to make one more distinction: ‘a
priori’ and ‘a posteriori’
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A priori and a posteriori
 Both terms are used in relation to how
statements are known to be true
 A priori means without reference to
experience—e.g. ‘the sum of the interior
angles of a triangle is 180 degrees’ is known
to be true a priori
 A posteriori means with reference to
experience—e.g. ‘grappa tastes like ___’ is
known to be true a posteriori
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Kant’s response: synthetic a priori
A priori
A posteriori
Analytic
‘All bachelors are
unmarried adult
males’
Synthetic
Hume: not possible ‘The beaches in the
Kant: ‘every event Caribbean are white
and the water blue’
has a cause’
Impossible
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Synthetic a priori
 Kant: by submitting Reason to critique, we
can find out how much our reason can know
apart from experience.
 Synthetic a priori propositions represent the
conditions of the possibility of knowledge of
the phenomenal world (the world as it
appears to us).
 What could we know of the world if it isn’t the
case that every event has a cause?
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Synthetic a priori
 However, there are limits to how much reason
does know apart from experience.
 When we overreach the limits of reason, we find
only illusions.
 Put another way, we have no knowledge of the
world of things in themselves (nouemenal world).
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Critique and autonomy
 What is the implication of critique (i.e. submit
everything to criticism)?
 One has to use one’s own reason, think for
oneself
 A person is no longer subjected to the
reasoning of another
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Autonomy
 What does ‘autonomy’ mean?
 The idea that governing oneself by one’s own
rules, i.e. self-government.
 Kant: “The touchstone of everything that can
be concluded as a law for a people lies in the
question whether the people could have
imposed such a law on itself” (What is
Enlightenment, 7)
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Autonomy
 Kant: No age can dictate rules to another.
Why?
 Each age decides for itself the rules under
which individuals, as rational beings, will
abide (provided that everyone consents to the
rules for themselves).
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Kant: Public vs. Private use of reason
 What is needed in order that a people could
impose a law on itself?
 Kant: individuals be free to make ‘public’ use of
one’s reason at every point.
 Kant’s distinction between ‘public’ and ‘private’ use
of reason.
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Kant: Public vs. Private use of reason
 There are limits in the use of reason however
for Kant. What are some of those limits?
 Suppose you are a Catholic priest but are in
favour of ordaining female priests. What are
you supposed to do?
 Question: Do Kant’s observations about the
private use of reason just leads to
compliance?
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Sapere Aude
 Kant: his age is not yet an enlightened age
because “much is lacking which prevents men
from being … capable of correctly using their
reason” (8).
 Maturity is needed.
 But if everyone uses reasoning correctly, this
would “affect the principles of government,
which finds it to its advantage to treat men, who
are now more than machines, in accordance
with their dignity” (10).
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Kant and enlightenment
 But in the meantime, Kant seeks to temper how
quickly an enlightened society can be achieved:
 First, a special ruler is needed to usher in an
enlightened society: The ruler must be
enlightened himself (What is Enlightenment,
10)
 Second, “The public can only slowly attain
enlightenment” (What is Enlightenment? 4). Too
much too fast could lead to disaster. Why?
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Kant and enlightenment
 “Here is a strange and unexpected trend in
human affairs in which almost everything, looked
at in the large, is paradoxical. A greater degree of
civil freedom appears advantageous to the
freedom of mind of the people, and yet it places
inescapable limitations upon it; a lower degree of
civil freedom, on the contrary, provides the mind
with room for each man to extend himself to his
full capacity” (What is Enlightenment? 10)
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Kant and enlightenment
 Does Kant’s conclusion about a just society
require any consideration of actual social and
economic relations?
 Marx seeks to answer these questions. He
introduced a new approach: instead of starting
from existing concepts, say ‘justice’, Marx
looks at the material conditions in which these
ideas were made possible.
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