Pure natural science is possible only insofar as the
“categories” thought by the understanding provide the objective conditions for
all possible objects of experience.
“We cannot … study the nature of things a priori
otherwise than by investigating the conditions and the universal … laws, under
which alone such a cognition as experience (as to mere form) is possible, and
we determine accordingly the possibility of things as objects of experience.”
(37/297)
Premises:
1.
Pure natural science does not concern the existence
of objects in themselves (35/294).
a. The existence of actual objects can only be
determined through experience.
b. Experience is excluded from pure natural science, insofar as the latter is a priori
and lawful.
c. Experience is the domain of contingent, actually
existing objects, although the conditions of the possibility of experience are
universal and necessary (36/296).
2.
Nature is the object of judgments of perception and of experience.
a. Judgments of perception are only subjectively
valid, for there is no necessity attaching to these.
b. Judgments of experience are objectively valid, because
they are based on the pure concepts of the understanding (38/298).
3.
The conditions for pure natural science are what make judgments of experience
possible.
4.
Judgments of experience are based on the pure concept of the understanding,
which are known as the “categories.”
If the conditions of natural science are what make judgments of experience possible, is not Kant rejecting the theory of a Supreme Being? This is where I think Kant contradicts himself. If we are never concerned with the hyperphysical, metaphysics will never succeed in its purpose. The reason why we cannot cognized the laws of nature a priori is exactly because we do not understand the hyperphysical. Nature can never be considered either a priori or a posteri.
ReplyDeleteI guess I don't see the contradiction, yet. Perhaps you think this follows because the a supreme being cannot be given in experience, and yet pure natural science is limited to possible objects of experience? But a supreme being is not an object of pure natural science. The idea of a supreme being belongs to metaphysics, not pure natural science.
ReplyDeleteAs for the second issue, Kant is concerned with the hyperphysical, although he might quibble with that term.
Third issue: if the hyperphysical, as you seem to imply, constituted separate from experience or cognition, then yes, we cannot cognize the laws of nature apriori without understanding it ... assuming natural science is somehow based on it (which is not necessarily the case). But for Kant, cognition determines the conditions for pure natural science. Otherwise there can be no such thing.
I do not understand the last sentence. Everyone agrees it can be considered aposteriori, and Kant thinks it can and must be thought apriori.
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ReplyDeleteUnderstood. The last sentence was a mistake, I forgot to erase it. What I was going to say in the last sentence was that the laws of nature cannot be cognize apriori.
ReplyDelete