Kant's Epistemology and Metaphysics: Knowledge, Ethics, and Politics

Kant: Theory of Knowledge and Metaphysical Music

Kantian epistemology combines the empiricist thesis (knowledge comes from experience) and the rationalist thesis (understanding uses concepts to comprehend experience). According to Kant, the study of knowledge is manifested through:

Trials of Science

• Subject-Predicate Reason

  • Analytical

    The subject is within the predicate.

  • Synthetic

    The subject is not contained within the predicate; expands knowledge.

• Experience

  • A Priori

    Before the experiment; universal and necessary.

  • A Posteriori

    After the experience; private.

Kant posits that a priori synthetic judgments are crucial for genuine knowledge, extending prior knowledge and being universal and necessary.

Knowledge requires conditions for analyzing trials in science:

Cognitive Faculties

• Sensibility (Transcendental Aesthetic)

  The power to be affected by sensations from objects, allowing us to obtain knowledge. Sensations are ordered by the mind through space and time (a priori forms of sensibility).

• Understanding (Transcendental Analytic)

  The faculty of mind that understands intuitions through concepts in trials. These concepts can be evidence (from experience) or a priori categories. These categories establish different kinds of judgments based on a logical structure (Kant's transcendental deduction of categories).

• Reason (Transcendental Dialectic)

  Reason combined with ideas. Kant verifies whether philosophy is a science. The transcendental dialectic reveals contradictions of reason regarding soul, world, and God.

Ethics and Politics

Kantian ethics focuses on practical reason. If knowledge doesn't bring happiness, it serves no purpose. Kant asks: What should I do?

Kant uses theoretical reason and practical reason as two interconnected forms of activity with different purposes:

• Theoretical reason explores the possibilities of philosophy.
• Practical reason analyzes the possibility of moral laws to build universal morality.

This moral reflection seeks a universal and timeless morality, leading to the concept of duty as a guiding principle. This duty arises from reason and is not conditional, though not everyone adheres to it. This obligation is present in every person through categorical imperatives, which require action by duty (unconditional rules).

Implications of Kant's Ethics:

• Formal (prescribes how to act, regardless of actions).
• Autonomous (categorical imperatives come from reason, which we legislate for ourselves).
• A Priori (inherent).