Kant: A Complete Introduction: Teach Yourself

Robert Wicks

• Publisher: Teach Yourself
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781444191264
• eBook ISBN: 9781444191288
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

Written by Robert Wicks, a recognised Kant specialist who teaches at the University of Auckland, Kant: A Complete Introduction is designed to give you everything you need to succeed, all in one place. It covers the key areas that students are expected to be confident in, outlining the basics in clear jargon-free English, and then providing added-value features like summaries of key books, and even lists of questions you might be asked in your seminar or exam.The book uses a structure that mirrors many university courses on Freud and psychoanalysis - explaining and contextualising Kant's theories, which have been among the most influential in Philosophy. The book starts by introducing Kant and his way of thinking and arguing, before looking at how Kant answered three key questions: What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope? In doing so, Professor Wicks introduces the reader to all of Kant's key work, including The Critique of Pure Reason.Teach Yourself titles employ the 'Breakthrough method', which is designed specifically to overcome problems that students face.
- Problem: "I find it difficult to remember what I've read."; Solution: this book includes end-of-chapter questions and summaries, and flashcards of key points available on-line and as apps
- Problem: "Most books mention important other sources, but I can never find them in time."; Solution: this book includes key texts and case studies are summarised, complete with fully referenced quotes ready to use in your essay or exam.
- Problem: "Lots of introductory books turn out to cover totally different topics than my course."; Solution: this book is written by a current university lecturer who understands what students are expected to know.

Section Two:

What can we know?

3

Kant’s theory of knowledge

We see the blue sky, the green light, the white clouds, the red flag, and make elementary judgements. Kant identifies the abstract form of these judgements, where we apprehend some thing and ascribe a particular quality to it, as S is P. He then reflects upon this basic logical form to develop a theory of knowledge.

In this chapter, we will consider Kant’s critique of the British empiricist understanding of the concept of causality. This critique is based on the interrelationship between two distinctions: (1) analytic judgements versus synthetic judgements, and (2) judgements known to be true a priori versus those known to be true a posteriori. Emerging from this interrelationship is Kant’s famous recognition of a special kind of judgement, namely, one that is synthetic, but known also to be true a priori. The chapter concludes by showing how Kant used the abstract form of elementary judgements, S is P, to develop an account of how our mental faculties interact when we make judgements.

1 British empiricism: questioning the foundations of science

‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’ This familiar remark recalls how first-hand personal experience is commonly accepted as a convincing way – if not the fundamental way – to determine what to believe in. Many centuries ago, for instance, it was unbelievable that there could be organisms so small as to be invisible to the naked eye. Opinions changed after microscopes allowed us to see these tiny creatures in the late 1600s.

This emphasis upon direct personal experience is philosophically expandable to the point of prescribing how words must derive their meaning. The prescription would be: if any given word is to be meaningful, then it must be traceable back to some sensory experience. Otherwise, the word should be regarded as only a meaningless sound. This experience-tied theory of meaning was advocated by the Scottish philosopher, David Hume (1711–1776).

This does not mean that our words must refer only to things that exist. There may be no unicorns living in the world’s forests, but the word ‘unicorn’ is meaningful as the combination of ‘horse’ and ‘horn’ – items of which we do have direct experience. The name ‘Hercules’ is similarly meaningful as the enlargement of the idea of a physically strong person. The elements of our words must refer to things in actual experience, although the words themselves might not.

Hume was an empiricist philosopher, where an ‘empiricist’ is someone who holds that what exists or what is true in a non-trivial sense, can be known only through some observation about how the world is. To know anything, there must first be some sensory experience. The eighteenth-century British empiricists accordingly supposed that the mind is empty when experience begins, like a blank writing slate or ‘tabula rasa’, as the English philosopher, John Locke (1632–1704) described it. Sensory experience ‘writes’ upon our initially blank tablet, so to speak.

Since the empiricist outlook requires us to observe and experience the world before making any claims about what is true or what exists, one might expect it to be friendly to the scientific outlook, which also relies upon observation and experimentation. There is a surprisingly tense relationship, however, between empiricist philosophy and scientific thinking, for as we shall now see, strict empiricists have a doubtful attitude towards the concept of ‘causality’, upon which scientific thought is based.

At the foundation of scientific reasoning is the relationship of causality, for without this concept, it would be impossible to formulate any natural laws. We would like to say, for example, that heating water to a temperature of 100ºC under standard conditions will cause water to boil, or that the exposure to light will cause a chemical reaction on photographic film. Without a meaningful conception of causality, we cannot defensibly make such assertions.

Let us then consider how the concept of causality derives its meaning in empiricist terms – and most importantly, what kind of meaning it has on this empiricist view – by applying the definition of linguistic meaning mentioned above. Now science requires a concept of causality which expresses the thought that two events are necessarily linked. We cannot assert that water boils at 100º C and allow that under the exact same environmental conditions, it could boil one day at 100º, another day at 110º, and yet another day at 90º. If we assert that water boils at 100º C, we intend that water necessarily boils at that temperature, given how the world physically and constantly is. The claim about water’s boiling point predicts the future, which is what science is all about.

The scientific way, and also the common-sense way, to understand causality is to recognize that one event a is linked with another event b through a relationship of necessary connection. This gives us three components to the meaning of the word ‘causality’: (1) event a, (2) event b, and (3) a relationship between a and b – call it R – that is the ‘necessary connection’. We can write this in shorthand as aRb.

To understand the meaning of the word ‘causality’ in empiricist terms, we will need to experience each of these three elements individually and specify what they are. An easy test case will help, in which we can look carefully for each of these three elements in our experience. Imagine that we are watching someone bouncing a ball in a gymnasium. We see the ball hitting the floor repeatedly and we hear a ‘bouncing’ sound each time it hits. We naturally say that the sound is caused by the ball hitting the floor. Applying the empiricist theory of meaning, let us look for the individual experiences that correspond to the three components mentioned above, namely, the a, the b and the R. What do we observe?

The a and b – the ball striking the floor and the sound that follows – are perceived straightforwardly. The problem is with the R. The empiricist surprise is that aside from the a and the b, there is nothing objectively ‘out there’ on the gymnasium floor further to observe with respect to causality. We do not see the ball hitting the floor, and then observe some ‘link’ between the ball hitting the floor and the sound, as if there were a wire or chain connecting them together. Our direct experience of what is out there on the gymnasium floor, is of two events in succession, and only those two events. The R is not there.

Now there is an experience that corresponds to the R which completes the meaning of the word ‘causality’, but this is not the experience of an objective link that can be identified as ‘necessary connection’. It is something different. To find the R, we need to look inward and consider our own feelings, rather than observe what is happening out there on the gymnasium floor.

The experience associated with the R is the feeling of expectation that occurs when we see the a. In our example, it would be the expectation that we will soon hear a sound as we watch the ball moving towards the ground. Having seen many bouncing balls in the past, the expectation is a matter of custom or habit. It is psychological and ‘subjective’. Although it would be strange indeed, it objectively remains possible that the ball could hit the gymnasium floor and no sound would follow. Nothing precludes this. The future might not be like the past.

The unexpected result is that the meaning of ‘causality’ on this empiricist theory of linguistic meaning is not ‘necessary connection’, but ‘conventional association through custom or habit’. In our past experience, events have appeared in conjunction with one another, or have been ‘constantly conjoined’, but they need not have been, and they need not be so conjoined in the future.

This result goes a long way towards undermining scientific inquiry. The empiricist asks that we observe the world carefully in order to ground our knowledge, and observation shows that the concept of causality upon which natural science is based, lacks the strength to make solid predictions. The only legitimate meaning for ‘causality’, so it appears, is psychological association’ rather than ‘objective and necessary connection’.

Kant found this empiricist account of causality to be unbelievable, convinced as he was that scientific inquiry has a stronger basis than mere habit. Rather than accepting that empiricist philosophy had established that scientific theory is objectively groundless, he assumed that the problem resides within empiricism itself. Located among the theoretical possibilities that it could not recognize, was the correct way to ground the notion of causality as necessary connection.

Key idea: Causality as ‘necessary connection’

To ensure predictability between events, a scientific theory requires a concept of causality as ‘necessary connection’. Kant’s theory of knowledge intends to re-establish this concept by refuting David Hume’s sceptical conception of causality as the expression of simply habit and custom.

How, then, does Kant question and criticize British empiricist philosophy? His criticism is implicit in our initial chapter on Kant’s way of thinking. Specifically, he challenges the empiricists by casting doubt on their idea that all knowledge arises from sensory experience.

Kant asserts to the contrary that our minds are not originally like blank slates, blank pieces of paper or empty mirrors when sensory information begins to impress itself on our minds. Although our minds may be empty of sensory content before experience begins, they nonetheless have a prior structure that gives shape to the sensory experience. We are essentially rational beings according to Kant, and so logic and rationality are in us before experience begins. These give shape ...

Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title
• Contents 
• Introduction
• How to use this book
• Section One: Background
• Section Two: What can we know?
• Section Three: What should we do?
• Section Four: What is the meaning of beauty?
• Section Five: For what may we hope?
• Further reading
• Copyright