Kant's Theory: Understanding, Reason, and Metaphysics

Understanding and the Cognitive Faculty

For Immanuel Kant, understanding is the medium through which we know concepts; it enables us to comprehend empirical objects. However, what we value most is the ability to judge, which is demonstrated through scientific judgments. In summary, understanding is the cognitive faculty that enables the existence of natural science.

The final power of knowledge is reason, or rather the power of thought. Its purpose is to establish a synthesis; that is, judgments unite to form an argument. Through this, one reaches transcendental ideas concerning God and the world. Moreover, according to Kant, reason seeks the unconditional, which is not provided by experience.

Kant criticized metaphysics for failing to realize that reason does not operate with ideas in the same way that understanding makes concepts work. For metaphysics, the approach is different: metaphysical science must find a priori elements that do not originate from experience. This represents a shift in the way of understanding metaphysics—the Copernican Revolution—which places the subject, rather than the object, at the center of the act of knowing. Here, the roles of sensibility and understanding are active.

In summary, the thought of Kant claims that metaphysics will become a science if it is dedicated to studying the a priori elements and concepts that constitute our reason. This involves establishing a limit in terms of these a priori elements.

The Phenomenon and Noumenon Distinction

In Kantian philosophy, the phenomenon represents things as they are for me, rather than as they are in themselves. In counterposition to the phenomenon is the noumenon, which is the object itself as it is. The phenomenon is what is known from what is provided to knowledge as something conditional—something that has no existence outside of the subject—while the noumenon is unconditional, as it is in itself.

To summarize, our empirical knowledge is not subject to the noumena (the things that are in themselves, the unconditional); instead, the things we know are governed as phenomena by our understanding. Metaphysics is forbidden from speculating on anything that is not sensible, since it has no knowledge of these sensible things. However, if one cannot question anything that is not about empirical objects, what remains is practical reason via the moral path.

Metaphysics, according to Kant, even attempts to review the previous aspects of the case and his method. Kant wants to investigate the function of pure reason. For Kant, the main function of metaphysical analysis is to deal with the knowledge that reason creates. Kant makes a crucial distinction between knowing and thinking:

• Knowing: Equivalent to having experienced something; this is only possible regarding phenomena (things we perceive through the senses).
• Thinking: Noumena can be thought of, and ideas about God can be conceived since they are produced by reason.

In conclusion, knowing is not equivalent to thinking.