Transcript CHAPTER 10: WHAT IS SOCIAL JUSTICE? Creating a Just State
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KANTIAN TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM: An Epistemological Copernican Revolution
“Hitherto it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects. But all attempts to extend our knowledge of objects by establishing something in regard to them by means of concepts have, on this assumption, ended in failure. We must, therefore, make trial whether we may have more success if we suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge.” –
Critique of Pure Reason
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Kant’s Dogmatic Slumber
Kant is disturbed from thinking that everything in science is fine by Hume’s argument Empiricism cannot deliver necessary truths ‘experience can teach us that something is the case but it cannot teach us that it must be the case’ Yet science claims to discover necessary truths about nature Even worse, Hume claimed to have shown that Human Beings are essentially irrational Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Transcendental Idealism
Kant agrees with Hume that we cannot learn that the causal relation is necessary and universal from experience But Hume has not shown that we can’t have a priori knowledge For Hume something was a priori if we could not deny it without contradiction For Kant something is a priori if is knowable completely independently of experience Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
An Analogy
Suppose that I told you that there were 25 people in a room on the second floor of some building What could you know about that room?
Quite a bit actually Its size, what it was made out of, etc.
Kant’s strategy is similar He wants to know what we can know given that our experience is the way that it is Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Structure of Experience
How could our experience be the way that it is?
How is it?
Objects are located in space and time Can you imagine an object which was not at any place?
No This is something that we can know a priori It is not dependent on experience Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Conditions of all Possible Experience
It is the pre-condition for any experience at all Just like space in the room is a precondition of having objects in the room So too space is a necessary condition of any possible experience Thus we can know with absolute certainty that whatever experiences we do have They will all take place at some time and at some particular place Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
The A Priori
So Kant concludes that there is pure A priori knowledge ‘pure’ because it does not depend on experience But is rather the pre-conditions for any possible experience It is necessary It is not possible to have experience without space And universal All experiences will be in space Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Analytic vs. Synthetic
An analytic truth is one that is true by virtue of the meaning of the words themselves All bachelors are unmarried males They do not add to our knowledge Synthetic truths are true in virtue of the kind of experience we have All bachelors are messy They do add to our knowledge Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Hume’s Mistake
Hume’s criterion for being a priori P is a priori if the denial of p is a contradiction Let him divide all of our knowledge into that which was necessary (RoI) and that which was contingent (MoF) Kant argues that we really have four categories Analytic & A priori– truths which are true by definition and also necessary and universal All analytic truths are a priori Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Hume’s Mistake II
Analytic & A posteriori– truths which are true by definition but also discovered by experience Kant denied that there were any such truths Synthetic A posteriori– Adds to our knowledge and learned from experience Synthetic A priori– Adds to our knowledge and also necessary and universal Hume denied that there were any such truths That was his mistake Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Kant’s 4 Distinctions
A posteriori Analytic A Priori
•All Bachelors are unmarried males •Humans have anatomies •All triangles have three sides All events in nature are causal
Synthetic
X
•Bachelor Joe is unmarried b/c he’s got communication issues •Joe’s got some anatomological anomalies •This triangle is an equilateral Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Synthetic A Priori Knowledge
So Kant’s answer to Hume is his theory of synthetic a priori knowledge Take ‘fire causes pain’ It is synthetic, it adds to our experience But it is also a priori, that is, necessary and universal It is a priori in the sense that we can tell by looking at the structure of our experience that it must be a certain way This Kant calls phenomena Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Phenomena vs. Noumena
The phenomenal world is the world as it appears to us.
It is the world that we see touch taste etc.
The noumenal world is the way that the world is in-itself The world as it is when no one is looking at it All we can know is the way our experience of the world will be We can’t know the noumenal world Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Kant’s Philosophy of Mind
The mind has two components Sensibility Understanding Sensibility and Understanding are the conditions that make possible Any experience whatsoever as well as all Any knowledge of experience Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
What is required for Experience AND Knowledge?
Categories of Sensibility + Categories of Understanding
Consciousness
Substance + Properties Relation Cause/Effect Relationality Quality Space & Time Quantity Reality Negation Limitation Modality Unity Plurality Totality Possibility & impossibility Existence & Non-existence Contingency Necessity
The Categories of Sensibility
Sensibility takes in ‘raw’ unorganized noumena and organizes it into phenomena (our experience) Each has their categories that they use in order to construct our experience The forms of Sensibility Space Time Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
The Categories of Understanding
The understanding has 4 basic categories with 3 sub-categories for a total of 12 categories Quantity: Unity, plurality, totality Quality: reality, negation, limitation, Relation: substance/property, cause & effect, community, Modality: possibility/impossibility, existence/non existence, and necessary/contingent With these categories, and the two from the sensibility, our mind constructs our experience We can know with absolute certainty that our experience will conform to the categories
Kant’s Philosophy of Mind IV
The only way that experience like ours is possible is that it certain conditions have to be met.
In terms of cause and effect: The same cause must bring about the same effect or else our experience would be like a dream Yet this comes at a heavy cost Science studies our experience of the world It does not, cannot, study the noumenal world Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Phenomena v. Noumena III
How can I ever talk to you?
Hi Wasup ?
Hi Wasup ?
Me You
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Kant’s Philosophy of Mind V
Kant called this a Copernican Revolution in philosophy Instead of the mind passively acting like a recorder of an outside reality Kant sees the human mind as actively constructing reality as we experience reality This active construction of reality is at the same time the condition for the possibility of knowledge of reality…as long as our knowledge claims stick to the apriori categories of sensibility & understanding This is his mix of Rationalism and Empiricism Empiricism– science is synthetic knowledge Rationalism– but based on a priori categories
KANT ON THE SYNTETIC A PRIORI AND THE PHENOMENAL AND NOUMENAL WORLDS
THE SYNTHETIC A PRIORI
THE PHENOMENAL AND NOUMENAL WORLDS
Necessary and universally true
phenomenal reality
is the world as we constitute it and experience it
a priori—
can be discovered independently of experience
Synthetic
in the sense that it provides us with genuine information regarding our experience in the world
noumenal reality
is the world beyond our perceptions, reality “in-itself” Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
What is required for Knowledge of Experience?
Categories of Sensibility + Categories of Understanding
Snythetic aposteriori cliams Consciousness Analytic apriori claims
Substance + Properties Relation Cause/Effect Relationality Quality Space & Time Quantity Reality Negation Limitation Modality Unity Plurality Totality Possibility & impossibility Existence & Non-existence Contingency Necessity
What is required for Knowledge of Experience?
Categories of Sensibility + Categories of Understanding
World of phenomena Snythetic aposteriori cliams Consciousness Analytic apriori claims
This tree (St) is a Norwegian Pine that is factually (P) •P1: 35 feet tall •P2: 26 years old •P3: Weighs approximately 4,000lbs •P4: Has a particular structure common to all such pines but has the following differences: •P5: Lacking lower branches due to foraging by cows and goats •P6: Is damaged by acid rain from human pollution, etc Claims are factually contingent and only ever probably true (not necessary and universal) —and require empirical verification All trees (S) will certainly, by definition, have (P) anatomological structures (trunk, roots, branches, leaves, etc) and physiological processes Claims are deductively true by definition prior to experience Universal Necessary But empty of specific content
APPLYING KANT’S THEORY: THE ASSASSINATION OF MALCOLM X
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ALLISON JAGGAR: EMOTIONS SHAPE OUR UNDERSTANDING
Jaggar believes that the “new science” of Newton and Galileo spawned a wide split between reason and emotion, so that “dispassionate” reason was considered the only source of knowledge She argues that “dispassionate investigation” is a myth, and that emotions should be incorporated into our epistemological framework, including the framework of scientific knowledge Copyright © 2011 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.