Throughout this last reading selection from the Prolegomena, Kant makes reference to what in the A preface to the first critique is referred to as the “peculiar fate” of human reason. Kant holds that human reason is by its inherent design, fated to ask questions to which it can never know the answer. It is because of the bounds of human reason that all prior attempts at a metaphysics as a science have failed, and it is for this same reason (pun very much intended) that metaphysics as a science must attempt and ultimately fail to reach that which is beyond experience. Further, it is also because of the nature of human reason that we can never know anything about “things in themselves” or come any sort of conclusive answer when engaging in the dialectical. One good example of this from the reading is in the fourth paragraph of section 57, where Kant says, “We cannot indeed, beyond all possible experience, form a definite notion of what things in themselves may be. Yet we are not at liberty to abstain entirely from inquiring into them; for experience never satisfies reason fully, but in answering questions, refers us further and further back, and leaves us dissatisfied with regard to their complete solution.”
Having come to the conclusion and solution sections of Kant’s Prolegomena, one might easily draw detailed comparisons between Kant’s organization of philosophical inquiry into metaphysics and that of some earlier philosophers, notably Aristotle (albeit a topic best left for another blog post), but in my opinion it is the notion of the peculiar fate of human reason that makes Kant stand out from all those before him. While Kant and Aristotle may break down the external universe and internal cognitive functions similarly, Aristotle (and other predecessors in the same philosophical line) presents it as the definitive answer to these fundamental questions of the universe. Kant, however, seems to be resigned to an unending struggle with these questions, a struggle with which any philosophy major can relate. When Kant says, “that the human mind will ever give up metaphysical researches is as little to be expected as that we should prefer to give up breathing altogether, to avoid inhaling impure air,” there is a certain poetic beauty to Kant’s language that echoes with the philosopher in all of us. As Kant explains, Metaphysics, unlike Mathematics and Natural Science, has bounds but not limits, and thus does not have the same degree of finality to its conclusions. However, one might argue that this inconclusiveness makes Metaphysics that much more beautiful and intriguing than those areas of inquiry that do not attempt to reach beyond themselves, nor beyond experience.
Although Kant has admitted, and ultimately demonstrated, that his account of metaphysics and the conditions for it is purely dialectical, he strongly asserts that he has rid it of its dogmatism and such. He has in many ways stabilized and reconstructed the foundation of metaphysics, therefore improving its pending progression. I am completely for arguing your notion that perhaps the inconclusiveness of metaphysics makes it all the more intriguing. It is established and shaped by the systematicity Kant aims to provide for reason. Reason has this systematicity, leading us to many conflictions within the ideas of pure reason (the antinomies). However, it is this same systematicity that allows for the possiblity, or arising, of antinomies. Kant claims that metaphysics can make it as a science and work towards its solidity (not necessarily completeness because we can inquire and analyze futher, but still have no absolute knowledge of i.e. the soul, God, world/ freedom). Basically he suggests an entire critique of reason itself which includes “the entire stock of a priori concepts, their division according to the different sources, the analysis of all of them…principles of their use, and finally also the boundaries of that use…”(p. 116). It seems that the method he has allocated is exactly equivalent to the method he used to construct sensibility and the understanding. Pure reason, which is discussed in the Prolegomena, provides the necessary condition for reason itself. As a science, metaphysics has a place, though its ambiguous nature will always somehow be apparent.
ReplyDeleteAs you have mentioned in your blog,"Kant holds that human reason is by its inherent design, fated to ask questions to which it can never know the answer. It is because of the bounds of human reason that all prior attempts at a metaphysics as a science have failed, and it is for this same reason (pun very much intended) that metaphysics as a science must attempt and ultimately fail to reach that which is beyond experience". And Professor have also mentioned in the class that natural vocation of human reason will always seek for reason within things in themselves.As a result, it will lead to dialectical and transcendental illusion.The nature of reason is that it will always wants to go beyond the boundary of experience and also want to know the things in themselves. This is the reason why we can never find a complete answer or solution for metaphysics.It will always be dialectical and dogmatic.
ReplyDeleteAnd your conclusion is really great when you mentioned about Metaphysics which has a bound but no limits.
Another delightful paradox- if metaphysics could be AT ALL reachable, knowable, understandable, tangible and conclusive, it wouldn't be metaphysics. It would be physics- at most. Well, maybe even physics is ultimately unknowable to Kant.
ReplyDeleteHas anyone seen a movie called What the Bleep Do We Know? One of the claims in that film, which Kant's metaphysics has reminded me of, is that people cannot see or experience things that are completely beyond their personal experience and that they have no background to even conceive of. One example that is given is the first encounter between Columbus and his crew and the Indians. The story (which isn't really supposed to be factual but metaphorical) goes that the Indians standing on the beach could not see the ships when they first appeared on the horizon because they were so untranslatable to anything they had ever seen before. A village elder, however, noticed that the sea had ripples and realized that something was there. By studying the ripples for a long enough time, he was able to visualize the ship. He then pointed it out to his friends on the beach and they slowly started putting the ship together because they were given the concept of a ship.
The difference between this story and Kant's metaphysics, I suppose, is that Kant doesn't even think you can see the ripples.
@Osacar, Kant's notion "of the peculiar fate of human reason" as you refer to it in your post is definitely what makes him stand out from philosophers before him, and probably why he is in our "revolutionary" category. As human beings we do not cease from inquiring on that which is beyond our experience. Why? Simply because the unknown is appealing since it has boundaries but no limits. Contrary, we can recognize Mathematics and Natural science as having limits, and not boundaries. Our human reason in understanding mathematics and science " indeed recognizes that something lies beyond it to which it can never reach, but not that it would itself at any point ever complete its inner progression" (p104). On the other hand, when we inquire on the unknown, we place questions that reason cannot answer because the answer is outside our experience (which is our boundary). Yet we target it because "experience never satisfies reason fully". Which is true, wouldn't you say that our existence would be quite boring if we completely experienced everything? There's always something out there that you haven't done yet or understood yet and you can't let it go until you find an answer to it. (This sometimes happens in mathematical problems or in science but ultimately we are able to find an answer). On the contrary, what's special about "Soul", "God" and "Freedom" is that we would never fully understand them because we "do not have the adequate grounds" in the speculative notion of reason (as stated by Prof. Vaught). Yet, they are needed in the practical notion to find sense or to excuse some of our actions, (this would probably have to do with the later understanding of reason as a moral vocation).
ReplyDelete@Agatha, thanks for sharing that example, I'm not quite sure if I'm looking too much into it (maybe because it's late) but I think that unless the ship was invisible, it was constructed in space so first of all even if the Natives had no prior knowledge of it they would of seen it. Moving on to the ripples, they occur within time.. So it would make sense that they can understand the "concept of a ship". In order to understand Kant's take we would have to evaluate the idea that the Native Americans understood the concept of something that was not constructed within space or time.
ReplyDeleteWhy wouldn’t the Native Americans understand the concept of something not constructed within space or time? Or, rather, why is such an understanding required before consulting Kant on the matter? The scene from the movie mentioned seems to illustrate how metaphysics and dialectical inferences are a natural disposition of reason. Reason uses ideas that are beyond the sensible world of experience as analogies of sensible objects. In the case of the villager’s encounter with Columbus’s ships, the atypical movement patterns of the sea prompted the villager to pursue his concept of the understanding as it relates to causality beyond the sensible world of experience. Pure reason, in an attempt to complete the concept and thereby make sense of the ripples, makes contradictory assertions relating to the idea of the world. The dialectic of causality and freedom ensues (I may have taken this movie analogy much too far): is something causing the water to ripple (necessity of thing as an appearance) or is the water free to ripple (freedom of thing–in–itself)? Yet, according to Kant, the villager will never know the object in question as the absolute thing-in-itself, only its appearance as it relates to experience. The idea only serves as the boundary of reason which reason seeks to push ever further through the dialectic, lest it resorts to dogma due to the illusions of the dialectic. Therefore, Kant has not entirely rid metaphysics of dogmatism but has provided the framework for policing dogma through the inconclusive critique of pure reason.
ReplyDelete@Janay
ReplyDeleteI agree wholeheartedly. The "solution" section almost made me feel like the entire point of the Prolegomena is to convince me that it is worth reading the Critique. Did anyone else get that sense?
@OtherPeoples
Not really sure if I understand that ship native americans example or how it relates to Kant. Although I love @Agatha 's comment about how if metaphysics was reachable then it would just be physics. Very true.
@Cristina
Indeed, it is the unexperienced which is the most intriguing (although now we're starting to use experience in the more colloquial sense I suspect). I think that was what our professor was trying to get at with the intellectual curiosity lesson. Our minds naturally crave new challenges. And your point about moral vocation is well taken. I almost wish we could spend more time on that in class.
@Silvia
ReplyDeleteI'm interested to hear your justification as to how / why you think that Kant hasn't completely rid metaphysics of its prior dogmatism. I don't necessarily disagree, but Kant certainly seems to think that he was successful in his attempt. I've been milling over the same thing and considered writing my blog post on an evaluation of that very notion, so I'd love to hear your thoughts.
"There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know."
ReplyDelete- Donald Rumsfeld
I thought I'd be alone in seeing a potential parallel in the absurdly meandering quote by our former Secretary of Defense and the Kantian account of human reason but a quick Google search reveals I am far from first.
Still, it seems both Kant and Rumsfeld are seeking to define not just the realm of knowledge and reason but the boundaries of that realm. Only through recognizing these walls separating the potentially known from unknowable can we begin to discuss the potential for the unknowable.
As I understand it, this would be exemplified in something like the term "infinite" -- we cannot know or experience infinity and yet we would, due to the "peculiar fate" of reason, want to know it.
So how can we? By recognizing those boundaries of our knowledge and, essentially, hypothesizing about what lays beyond those boundaries.
In my mind this is where Kant believes metaphysics lives.
@ Oscar
ReplyDeleteI wonder, too, about the remaining dogmatism that seems to be present in Kantian thought; he attacks Hume for accepting the fact that we cannot know the direct relationship between cause and effect and yet simply shuffles that which cannot be known to a different place (namely to the knowledge of what some would call substance).
Is he not just playing a shell game himself, at this point? Trading one unknown for another?
He attempts to argue in the text that his methodology, by looking at the possibility of metaphysics itself, solves this dilemma but I'm not so certain it does.
@Dan, thanks for your first post, if there were any doubts on whether I was understanding Kant's conclusion and solution right you made those cleared them up. I think the quote you found gets right at the point, thanks for sharing :)
ReplyDelete@Oscar, I agree with Janay and you, Kant did seem to imply that the critique of reason must be read...
@Dan
ReplyDeleteYES, exactly! That's what I was going to argue in my original blog entry, that Kant is just shifting the uncertainty elsewhere and never provides a satisfying solution to the problem. But I wonder, as Kant ends up arguing, if a "satisfying" solution is possible. And as I ended up writing, there is a certain beauty to this unresolved-ness.
@Oscar
ReplyDeletePerhaps Kant's inability to form a dividing line between dogmatism and skepticism is his, apparently, religious background. For Kant to maintain his strong religious affiliation and his progressive philosophical thought, he would, for introspective reasons, have to walk that line with poise. Perhaps, while pondering upon the subject, he reached a philosophical roadblock because of his own faith based limitations and convictions.
Kant has made it clear that the knowledge and understanding of what we perceive can never be fully understood, the question I propose if we could perceive the world as it really is, how would that change our interpretation of the reality we live in? Although he indicated that that is not within our ability to do so, yet he purports that they may be other ways to knowing that is not part of our experiences “Our principles, which limit the use of reason to possible experience alone, could accordingly themselves become transcendent and could pass off the limits on the possibility of things themselves” (§ 57). Would the knowledge and understanding of our world, be greatly altered if we could?
ReplyDelete@ Anthony
ReplyDeleteI think this is an important question. Although it is inconceivable what a total explanation of all existence would be like, I think it is safe to say that it could have no positive effects. Certainly science in general has a positive impact on the world, through not only its practical physical effects but through intellectual satisfaction as well. We are naturally inclined to inquire about ourselves and our world, as Kant noted, and for this reason we venture into the realm of metaphysics. Our very desire for this knowledge is clearly part of the whole of existence, and therefore a complete knowledge of existence, a completed metaphysics, would include that very same desire, but of course, it would not resemble the desire. To see exactly what our life is made up of, would be to see something which is very much not life. It would be like trying to explain a movie based on the patterns of light appearing on the screen, this is wrong. It is most likely that an objective account of existence would be one that completely undermines life itself. I am not saying that for this reason we should not attempt to do metaphysics, or philosophy in general for that matter, on the contrary it is one of the most rewarding things to do, but we must also recognize that there are certain limits. There are points we can not get beyond, and for good reason too! The meaning of life is unclear, of course, but it is clear that we were meant to live; it is not merely by chance that our 5 senses combine into one intelligible consciousness. Our bodies are meant to see the world as we do, this is how we survive. A “perfect” metaphysical account of existence would most likely neglect historical, sociological, psychological, and emotional facts. It would no longer be necessary to give a causal physical account for some event occurring, it could more “properly” be explained metaphysically. Perhaps all this does not matter though, because it is impossible to have a complete metaphysical knowledge, but I think its important to recognize that this is not necessarily something we want, or at least it would certainly not benefit any one.