Kant's Critical Philosophy: Defining Metaphysics and A Priori Knowledge

Kant's Conception of Metaphysics and Pure Reason

Metaphysics, as understood at the time, was a knowledge whose principles should never be taken from experience. This knowledge is not physical, but metaphysical—that is, beyond experience. It is therefore a knowledge a priori or pure reason.

Metaphysics traditionally deals with non-empirical objects (such as God, the soul, and the world).

Positions on Metaphysics as a Science

There are two main positions regarding the consideration of metaphysics as a science:

Dogmatism

Kant defines Dogmatism as the attempt to move forward with pure conceptual knowledge without having examined the right way or reason that comes to them. The term dogmatism reveals the attitude of accepting something as true or valid without previous criticism. Dogmatic Metaphysics is thus the entire rationalist tradition.

But Hume not only invalidated Metaphysics as a science but also challenged Natural Science, arguing that its laws are not necessary and universal, but only probable. Kant thought that Hume had gone too far.

The Critical Method

Kant accepted neither dogmatism nor skepticism, nor did he attempt to combine elements of both. The path he took was new: the critical method.

Using legal terms, reason becomes the judge of itself, acting as a court to rule on the possibility or impossibility of metaphysics as a science, reviewing its sources, extent, and limits.

For this, Kant extended his field of criticism. First, he had to determine how all knowledge in general is constructed—in Kantian terms, its possibilities. Knowing this, he could then see if these conditions are met by metaphysics.

Conditions That Make Science Possible

1. The Composition of Knowledge

   For Kant, our knowledge results from the composition of two elements:

   • One element comes from outside us, which is the a posteriori or empirical data.
   • The other is provided by our faculty to know, which is the a priori component.

   However, experience alone is unable to substantiate necessary knowledge. The conclusion reached by empiricists, then, was that our knowledge is only probable.

   Kant agrees with empiricism that the starting point of knowledge are sensible impressions. He also agrees that impressions alone cannot justify anything of a necessary and universal character. But he does not agree with the empirical finding that scientific knowledge has only a probable value.

   Kant concludes that the necessity and universality of knowledge are given by the a priori component provided by the knowing subject.

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