Immanuel Kant's Philosophy: Metaphysics and Knowledge

Immanuel Kant's Approach to Metaphysics

Human reason is harassed by questions that it cannot answer, as they surpass its faculties. These are the questions posed by metaphysics. Kant believes that understanding is capable of developing a universally valid science. He was a rationalist but, thanks to his awakening from dogmatic slumber, he also recognized the importance of experience. Kant distinguishes between two types of knowledge conditions: empirical knowledge, the origin of form, and formal knowledge, which adds data to experience.

Kant asks: Is metaphysics a science? We know that knowledge is scientific when it progresses, building on what other scientists have accomplished, and when there is a consensus among scientists. If metaphysics were a science, it should be constructed like logic or mathematics. How is it that science is stuck? When we reflect on its method, we see that mathematics and other sciences have been converted into a sudden revolution thanks to it. Kant proposes a revolution in the method of knowledge, a Copernican turn, which he formulates in this way: "We only know a priori of things what we ourselves put into them." In conclusion, we do not know what things are in themselves.

Theory of Judgments

Science is composed of judgments, which can be analytic or synthetic. Analytic judgments are necessary, as the predicate is contained in the subject. Synthetic judgments are those whose predicate is not contained in the subject. There are two types of synthetic judgments: a priori, whose truth can be known independently of experience, and a posteriori, whose truth is known through experience. Kant states that only synthetic a priori judgments can be scientific.

This is where Kant applies his doctrine of the faculties of knowledge: sensibility, understanding, and reason.

Transcendental Aesthetic

Transcendental Aesthetic studies the first faculty of our knowledge: sensibility. There are two pure forms of sensible intuition as a priori principles: space and time. Kant presents two perspectives on these: metaphysical and transcendental.

• Metaphysical: Space is an a priori representation based on external intuitions. Time is the basis of all experience.
• Transcendental: Space and time are a priori forms of sensibility. All sense perceptions are formalized by the a priori forms of space and time.

Transcendental Analytic

Transcendental Analytic studies the second faculty of our knowledge: understanding. The known world is the phenomenal world, not the transcendental world. An object can be determined by a predicate in a judgment. Therefore, objectivity is necessary for a judgment to be possible. Kant divides judgments into quantity, quality, relation, and modality. As the act of judging something is realized by the subject through understanding, the categories of understanding will be a priori. These are also called pure concepts, and all content must fall under them.