MODPHIL – March 3, 2016

Mar. 8 and 10 – German Idealism

“J. Fichte” and F. W. Schelling by F. Copleston –
Get the readings for next meeting

March 15 – Third Test: Hume and Kant

March 17, 22, 29, and 31 – “G.W. F. Hegel” by F.

Coplestone

 if we finish the hegel by 31, we’ll study

Feurbach

“Kant’s Conpernican Revolution”

Theory of the Mind:
o Subject – Object Relationship
(consciousness) – this leads us to
constant conjunctions
o “LAW GIVER” – the mind has certain
laws in the form of A priori
structures/forms that are imposed on
the objects of experience (seeing life
through the lens of your sunglasses –
things you see will be colored)
o nature doesn’t give us laws, it’s the
mind that assigns laws to nature
The structure of Rational Thought (major
faculties of the mind)
I. The Sensibility – objects are received
through the sense, brings objects to the
mind – EMPIRICISM
II. The understanding – ability of the ind to
make
judgments/thoughts/analysis/reason
(faculty of knowing), we know things
through the understanding –
RATIONALISM

The “a priori” structures of the Mind

I. A priori structures of the sensibility:
- “forms of intuition” – space and
time
- thoughts without contents are
empty, intuition without
concepts are blind
- in order for scientific
knowledge to be possible, there
must be a unity between
sensibility and understanding

“The forms of intuition” – there are certain

structures that happen when in our mind
through intuition
 - all physical things/objects of science will
be spatial and temporal existence
- you cannot conceive any object without
space and time, space time and are
essentially A PRIORI elements of human
consciousness
- <12 categories of thought/the
understanding, refer to March 1 lecture>
o Regarded as a built in knowledge
o Whenever human reason makes
judgments, our judgments will
operate according to the
mechanisms of the twelve
categories
o Are universal and inherent laws in
the human mind, our mind can’t
help but think in accordance to the
12 categories and cannot be
otherwise (science, math)
o Should not be seen as isolated, but
together/unified
- how can we gain a unified or orderly
perspective of the world? (what makes us
think that our experiences are intelligible
instead of irrational?) -> kant’s concept of
the self

Kant’s Concept of the Self

“The transcendental unity of apperception”
(T.U.A)
o what is this thing that puts order in our
experiences?
o Characteristics of the Self: (According to
TUA)
 The self according to Kant exists,
but is not derived empirically—it is
essentially: “A PRIORI”, we don’t
experience the self, but we know
that it exists
 We have a knowledge of the unified
world of nature—in the act of
unifying the world, we are
conscious of our unity – according
to Kant, the TUA/self is a necessary
condition of our experiences:
“Unifying element in our
consciousness” – without the TUA,
our experiences about life will not
be possible – we perceive certain
things, so there must be something
that helps us perceive it—thus the
“Self” truly exists (it is not possible
without the Self, we can perceive
the world)
 The self is not a bundle of
perceptions but is an entity/activity
 which unites or strings together all
activities into a singular subject
 We have a lot of perceptions (chalk,
table, projector)—according to
Hume, we don’t have “Self” but only
“perceptions”—but Kant says
otherwise. He says that all these
perceptions are not foreign
perceptions, but belongs to a
certain subject that owns these
perceptions—these perceptions
that we have are not independent,
but are “Mine”, and the element of
“mine-ness”—which is the “I”, or
the “TUA” – which is a unifying
element
 It puts together all our perceptions
in life into a single entity (which
results to the self)
 Ex. Your perception of the chalk is
not an independent perception—
but “your” perception—which is
the TUA
 The difference between Descartes
and kant is that Descartes’ “I” is a
thinking substance, Katn’s “I” is an
activity that forms all things into a
single subject. (The mind to Kant is
not a fixed entity but is a process)
 Our self consciousness/self is
affected by the same faculties that
affect our perception of external
objects.
 “Application of the categories”
(faculty of knowledge) – the
application of the categories must
be regulated by something – that is
the TUA – the self is the faculty of
knowing (without the self,
knowledge cannot be possible)
 Hume didn’t entertain the idea that
the self is derived empirically—
Kant answers that we have a self
because the self is A priori
- Kant has technical but a
substantial view
 Subject and mind is separated
through self-consciousness – if you
perceive the chalk, you are not
aware that you are perceiving the
chalk, but when you reflect on the
subject, you realize that you are
reflecting on the object – you reveal
your existence through self-
reflection
 Its traces itself as synthetic a priori
judgments – it translates what is
self-evident and contingent
The limitations of Human Knowledge
I. The phenomenal Reality
(“Phenomenon”)
II. The noumenal reality/ “the things in
itself” (Noumenon)

- when we tried to find out about life,

human knowledge is simply limited
- Phenomenon – the world as we
experience it (object as it appears to be),
our knowledge and experience of a
certain object (Ex. Chalk – its yellow,
powdery and one) – Phenomenon is
KNOWABLE, it’s something that we are
certain about (since it is known as the
12 categories of understanding), it can be
defined and encapsulated
- Noumenon – an object in its pure form,
the existence of the object which is
objective and purely independent from
the human mind—represents the object
as it really is (purely an intelligible
reality), (Ex. The chalk – the chalk as it
really is), the Noumenon is something
that is UNKNOWABLE because it is
beyond the 12 categories of
understanding and the forms of
intuition. What we can know with
 certainty is the appearance of the chalk,
but the chalk in itself, we cannot know.
- 12 categories of the understanding are
subjective conceptions—they’re found in
the human mind which is imposed on the
objects that we see—now if these
categories of thought are entities which
are imposed, then what is the object
really like—when it is not imposed—that,
to Kant is what is unknowable
(noumenon)
- it does not follow that the 12 categories
can give us full access of the real
existence of the object (ex. Chalk)
- what we can know, according to kant, is
the chalk as it appears to be
- how do we know that there’s a
noumenon? Because the chalk will just
simply be a thought of the mind—the
physical appearance implies that there is
something making up the chalk
- if the noumenon is an entity which is
independent from the human mind and
beyond 12 categories, then it shows that
human knowledge is limited/it has
certain boundaries. Kant says what we
can know with certainty is scientific
knowledge of thing, but an object as it
really truly is—we cannot know
 - the noumenal reality is beyond the a
priori knowledge

Kant’s Rational Thought: Reason (“Vernunft”)

 Metaphysics: idea of soul, freedom, World
and God.
 “Regulative concepts”
 Vernunft – is the application of the 12
categories beyond the field of experience,
the mind can’t help but go beyond that
which is known scientifically
o These are not scientific knowledge, but
the ideas of METAPHYSICS
 We can know scientific reason, but he wants
to go beyond that, that’s why he wonders if
knowledge of metaphysics can be certain
like the certainty of scientific inquiries
 Can metaphysics be known with certainty as
the same as Scientific knowledge?
 “Transcendental Dialectic”
 explains how human reason was able to give
rise/birth to certain ideas—how is human
reason able to formulate the idea of the
soul/freedom/world/god?
 Kant goes back to faculty of knowing and
finds out that it is certain that we have a
“self”/TUA, and he tries to find out that
there is a so-called “Subject” which appears
 to be divorced/abstracted from our world
relations
 We have an “I” which remains constant in
our experiences, but this TUA is not derived
empirically, it is something abstract. This
abstracted version of the TUA is
represented as the Soul
 Soul comes from the purification of the TUA,
what is the TUA seen in its abstracted
form/worldly perceptions? – the origin of
the idea of soul, which leads to the attribute
of free will
 Kant was able to generate the idea of the
World through this as well – through the
summation/totality of conditions, you think
of a totality of events (people, objects,
events, motion, causality) – this totality
which is pushed to a level of infinity in an
abstract way is represented to the idea of
the World
 He also formulates an unconditional
principle/underlying cause
 This summation/unconditional principle is
the idea of God
 Soul and Free Will (abstraction of all
things), World (Totality), God (These cannot
happen by chance, but by an encompassing
metaphysical entity, the synthesis of the
 idea of the world and the idea of the soul) –
these are considered Regulative concepts
 Regulative concepts – because they are
ideas in themselves and have no connection
with the world of experience, true in
themselves in perspective, has no
connection with the conditions of the world
(aka tangible relations)
 According to Kant, knowledge of
Metaphysics cannot be possible, cannot be
certain like scientific knowledge—because
it leads to certain forms of contradictions

Kant’s Rational Thought: Reason (“Vernunft”)

- Fourth antinomy of Pure Reason: “On the
absolute necessary Being”.
- I. Thesis vs. II. Anti-thesis (contradictory
statements in an antinomy)

- Thesis is a statement, Anti-thesis is a

contradiction to that thesis
- Will only center on the fourth antinomy of
pure reason (which delves on the existence
of God)
- Through pure reason, god’s existence can be
justified and negated with conviction

THESIS
- argument which AFFIRMS god’s existence
- “there exists either in, or in connection with
the world—either as a part of it, or as the
cause of it – an absolutely necessary being.”
o Claims that god exists because god is
the first cause of everything
o How does the argument go about? – the
world is in space and time and things
are changing – moreover in causality
(things change because things are in
causal relations), we find out that a
certain entity is an effect of another
entity which is a cause, which is also the
effect of something—and etc.
o The existence of changes/causal events
cannot come from an infinite series of
causes—but must come from a first
uncaused cause (GOD)
o IN relation to medieval philosophers
and Descartes’ second proof
o The absolute necessary entity of god is
not something that exists beyond space
and time but exists IN space and time—
it is impossible to think of a God that
exists beyond space and time (in
reference to Spinoza, god is nature and
nature is god)
o There are problems in proving the
existence of god accordingly – go into
the idea of “polar opposites
ANTITHESIS
- “an absolutely necessary being does not
exist, either in the world or our of it—as
its cause”
- in this case it must also being to act, and
its causality would therefore belong to
time, and consequently to the sum-total
of phenomena, that is, to the world.
- It follows the cause cannot be out of the
world; which is contradictory to the
hypothesis
- The antithesis is true because according
to his view, god is not an uncaused
cause entity because god is within the
world and in space and time and is
therefore subject to causality. If god is
subject to causality—then god becomes
the “effect” of another cause—which
ruins the “perfect” nature of god
- The idea that god is the uncaused cause
of everything is nothing but
metaphysical/spiritual/Christian
bullshit
- The existence of God as the uncaused
cause is simply the extension of
causality
- There is no existing uncaused cause in
the world
- What if there is a god that exists outside
space and time? – Kant says that’s
fallacious because the moment god acts
(divine intervention) then implies that
God has motion, which then already
shows that god is WITHIN the world—
there cannot be an absolute necessary
being that exists in space and time
- This then destroys the existence of god
- The mere fact that Christianity says god
is the cause of everything violates
causality—it already shows that god
causes cause and effect, which is within
the world—therefore is invalid
- Reason can both prove and disprove
god, thus metaphysics is IMPOSSIBLE
(knowledge of god and existence of god
will always be uncertain)
- Kant is scared, was a backdoor
philosopher (he destroyed god through
reason, but because of Kant’s inclination
to religion, he brings back God in the
backdoor, he makes a way to preserve
his belief in god)—so he says that “one
must leave/give room to ‘belief’”
- In conclusion, we can be certain of
scientific knowledge, but never certain
of metaphysics