Conclusion:
The
bound of pure reason lies in the connection
between known things and noumena,
not in attempting to cognize noumena as
they are in themselves.
“For
the question now is, What is the attitude of our reason in this connection of
what we know with what we do not, and never shall, know? This is an actual
connection of a known thing with one quite unknown (and which will always
remain so), and though what is unknown should not become the least more known –
which we cannot even hope – yet the notion of this connection must be definite,
and capable of being rendered distinct.” (57/354)
Premises:
1.
Since all of our concepts of understanding have no other use than to make
experience possible, we cannot know more of any object than belongs to the
possible experience of it (57/351).
2.
However, we also have an innate need to inquire into transcendental ideas, i.e.
the soul, the Supreme Being (57/352).
a. Since these
ideas lie outside the domain of experience, empirical knowledge cannot satisfy
our reason regarding these matters (57/352).
3.
The drive to avoid transcendent judgments of pure reason and the drive to proceed
to concepts that lie beyond the empirical use of reason can subsist together at
the boundary of all permitted use of reason (57/357).
4.
We stop at this boundary only if we limit our judgment to the relation which
the world may have to a being whose concept lies beyond empirical cognition
(57/357).
If no determinate concepts of knowledge can be found of a Supreme Being, how do we actually go about finding the relationship between the world, as a function of perception and experience, and transcendental ideas in general? I’m a bit confused as to how we can generalize relations (such as causality) to a Supreme Being (91/357) or if we would need to derive and/or apply principles outside of reason to do so. If there is a possibility for subjective grounds on this matter, deriving such relations in this case as a priori judgments seems problematic.
ReplyDeleteIt's strange, this particular passage seems somewhat at odds with the conclusion of the text as a whole. In the sense that we cannot know the Noumena things remain consistent however his ideas of "bounds" has bothered me from the beginning. It seems almost arbitrary to label the type of judgement between empricism and rationality a bound on the human mind as through the study of philosophy it is clearly surmountable. Even labelling this type of inquiry or judgement a bound implies a limitation on how much it can be explored and utilized to make synthetic a priori judgements, while at the same time Kant calls for us to utilize this particular faculty to gain any knowledge about the metaphysical. Just really my problem with some of his language.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me a little hard to perceive that the judgment based on experience is the reason or the cause for any outcome as if anything we happen to see is related to some other thing as we just link a chain together for it to form an outcome or an effect. This sort of generalization sounds a bit problematic
ReplyDeleteThis philosophical view that Kant presents is an answer to Hume in challenging real ground and logical ground.