cumulative exam Flashcards
(32 cards)
how did he get started
Entered the world of philosophy after reading Descartes and through his philosophy having shown that metaphysics is impossible to study.
what is Critical Idealism?
-Objects need to be understood as conforming to our mode of cognition
-Objects conform to us
-We constitute objects when observing/thinking about it, all objects humans can perceive exist in space and time
-We are active in knowing objects
what is Transcendental Idealism to Kant?
Kant is against Transcendent idealism/claims because he believes this is purely dogmatic and we can’t begin to understand and speak about what exists beyond space and time.
If one of these conditions exists in all forms of knowledge, then that means objectivity exists.
? what is transcendental to others?
Transcendental: Look at the conditions to the side of the subject to understand what makes any knowledge possible, a genetic claim (how it came to be), It’s a mix of both reality and consciousness
what is the A New Conception of the Self?
its a combination of -The hermeneutical turn
& -Transcendental Idealism.
what does Kant discover when he starts to critique reason?
Two fundamental powers of the mind or powers of cognition: sensibility and understanding (Intelligence)
how does he differin’ the critique of reason from Leibniz or Hume?
Remember that Leibniz argued understanding or intellect was the only fundamental power of the mind, and sensibility is a confused species of cognition
Hume said that reasoning derives from sensibility
Other philosophers reduce knowledge to either the senses or reason, but to Kant, that view is too reductionist.
what are the 3 faculty of the mind?
-Sensibility (passive)
-Understanding (active)
-Reason
how many concepts of understanding are there?
There are 12 concepts of understanding, such as quantity and quality; two of which are substance and causality, they’re the necessary conditions of thought required for understanding
what is Causality/Causation?
Causality/Causation: Humans are only capable of thinking of the world through the concept of cause and effect, it’s impossible to perceive the world outside of the realm of cause and effect.
I do not have a succession of sensations and then put them together in terms of cause and effect
I apply the category of causality to my thinking of objects, therefore denying Hume and his denial of understanding of causality
what is Substance?
Substance: They are the qualities of objects that exist in space and time. The substance is required for humans to perceive the world and the qualities of the world because we can’t fathom something outside of space and time.
is mathematics purely analytic or is it synthetic?
Kant argues that math is synthetic:
-When we look at how mathematical claims are made, and what makes them possible (Transcendental Idealism) we see that they are constructed against the a priori “background” of space and time
-Math is possible because mathematical objects are not independent of the mind, they are dependent upon the background of space and time
-But space and time a priori
is Pure science purely analytic or synthetic?
-One thing we already know, whatever science does, it will have to structure all the possible objects of space and time
-When we make a claim about nature, the world, we structure it according to a priori concepts or categories of the understanding
-A concept is an active power, an ability to operate on our sensible intuitions
-Therefore, science is also synthetic and applicable to the world
what is judgment?
-Judgement is the claim about a substance and the properties of that substance, we have no choice but to think of objects in this way.
Therefore, we are simply applying a universal power of the mind, therefore science isn’t always right, however, the existence of science is true and objective.
what is the Phenomenal Realm?
The world that it appears to us, is the world we can perceive and use science and math to explain, it’s ordered causally
what is the Noumenal Realm?
The world as it is outside of perceptions, and where sense data is created, Kant doesn’t have an answer of what this realm is because it’s inaccessible to us and our perceptions.
explain the Faculty of Reasoning
The part of our minds that asks “why” for the unknowns in the world. It’s the means of which we strive to think the unconditioned (world as it is in and of itself, God, an absolute subject, the soul, etc.) These ideas are PURE ONLY
what is Antinomies of Reason?
Contradictions in the world that we can’t solve (paradoxes), the existence of antinomies proves that reason must be reined in back to sensibility and understanding and critiqued.
where does metaphysics
Metaphysics lies in reason; it is inevitable that metaphysics will exist and be thought about. However, metaphysics lies outside math and the sciences, such as good. Thinking of metaphysics isn’t irrational, however, it isn’t knowledge.
what is the Problem with Kant’s Philosophy
Sense data exists parallel to the consciousness; however, Kant doesn’t provide how sense data exists and where it comes from to then be integrated with human consciousness
??? The only answers to these questions don’t work ???
That’s just the way consciousness is constructed (Idealism, not what Kant wants)
There’s a causal relationship between consciousness and the obscure outside world, such as a divine being (out of bounds of causality, which exists purely within our realm)
The material world
is transcendent metaphysics possible
no you dumb ass
Is the Noumenal Realm Ordered Causally?
Kant can’t answer that question because he doesn’t know if the noumenal realm even exists. The good news, however, is that when Kant discovers that we’re subject to an illusion about the categories of the understanding, and thus about what we can know with certainty, he gets an answer to his inquiries about the status of practical reason and morality
Good News: Because we don’t know that the world if the world is causally determined, we can hope that we have free will because perhaps the will isn’t causally determined.
are we free?
We, as humans, have to assume we’re free to make our own choices in order to act in reality. Our reason shows us that it’s rational to believe we’re free and thus we act accordingly despite the scientific proof that we aren’t free (in the phenomenal realm)
We don’t have to choose between the view that our actions are exceptions to scientific laws of nature or that we are just not free at all.
