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Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason ( QUESTION 9)

Introduction

Kant was a German philosopher who lived in Konigsberg, Prussia from 22 April 1724 to 12 February 1804, or in what is now Kaliningrad, Russia. Immanuel Kant is generally considered one of the western world’s most influential thinkers (Kemerling Garth 109-143). He was famous for his contributions to epistemology and moral philosophy, but his contributions to political science and thinking are less familiar. His contributions to epistemology, ethics and esthetics had a major influence on the future philosophy. Kant studied at Konigsberg University in 1740, but soon became interested in mathematics and physics. In 1755 he returned to the University of Konigsberg to finish his studies. In the same year, he obtained his doctorate in philosophy. He was elevated to full professor at the University of Konigsberg in 1770. He was a metaphysicist in philosophy and metaphysics, specializing in logic and metaphysics. Immanuel Kant wrote his Pure Reason Critique of 1781, a significant work and one of Western thought’s most influential writings. The research will focus on some of Kant’s main discourse theories, such as a priori synthesis, events and thing-in-itself, time, categories, and transcendental deduction.

Critique of pure reason

David Hume is an empiricist philosopher who differentiates between two forms of experience. They appreciate the relationship between ideas and factual experience. The association between terms determines the true essence (Kemerling Garth 40-49). On the other hand, Immanuel Kant discovered after reading Hume’s work the third type of knowledge, which he called the synthetic a priori. According to Hume, there are only two options: intelligence can be analytical or empirical; otherwise there is no relation to human knowledge. Although Kant argued that synthetic knowledge exists a priori that is known to be true independently of experience. Thus, Kant recognized three distinct information forms: a priori analytic, a posteriori synthetic and a priori synthetic.

Kant distinguishes between the universe we perceive which is phenomena and the true truth which is called noumena, and we cannot assume anything about it because we have no experience and have no access to it. Phenomena are appearances that constitute our perceptions, and Noumena are (presumed) objects that constitute truth. According to Kant, thoughts without content are hollow without learned concepts. Research-based, “Kant concluded the sum of all things, the objective universe, is a complex of manifestations whose presence and relation only occurs in our representations.” He presents the ting-in-itself by saying, “And indeed, we rightly see objects of meaning as mere manifestations, thus confessing that they are dependent on something in itself, though we know not this thing as it is in itself, but only its appearances.

We’re limited to knowing phenomena, according to Immanuel Kant; noumena must remain unknown to us forever. As discussed in the British Philosophy pages, all our a priori synthetic judgments refer only to the phenomenal world, not the noumenal (Wilson and Denis 90-97). By applying the pure forms of sensitive intuition and the pure principles of awareness, we obtain a formal vision of the phenomenal world, but do not learn the noumenal realm. (British Philosophy, Kant: Experience and Reality-Phenomena, Noumena).

Kant’s philosophies were important contributions to other philosophers’ arguments. Among all his philosophies which I mentioned above, I only disagree with one of his philosophies. Immanuel Kant’s first philosophy, he discussed about the synthetic a priori. He said a priori reasoning does not depend upon experience to inform it. For example, Mother is a knowledge of matter of fact, why? Because we have experience for the concept Mother. And by relation, why is mother a fact? Because I have experience of my relation with mother. Therefore, mother is a fact in the thing-in-itself, and in appearance to me as observed or experienced reality. Well, I disagree with this. My point is that how about analyzing the same argument but with the concept Father. What about children raised by mother only? Can the concept of father be both fact (thing-in-itself) and fact (in relation)? As for his other philosophies I mentioned above, to me, I think they’re credible and that I do not have experience it differently nor my culture.

Conclusion

In a nutshell, Kant is one of the most influential philosophers in history. One of his major works is the book of the Critique of Pure Reason. He discussed from synthetic a priori involving space and time, appearances, and the categories and specifically to the transcendental deduction. This philosopher seeks to determine the limits and scope of metaphysics. The major role of this philosopher is to explore, and to study the limits of reason that will lead to examining the activities that takes place in the mind. Immanuel Kant was recognized for most of his comprehensive contributions to philosophy. I believe and I strongly suggest for further research on this philosopher in particular.

Work cited

Kemerling Garth, Experience and Reality, Britannica Philosophy Page-Experience and Reality, Accessed on 12 April 2019 http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/5g.htm PP 40-49

Kemerling Garth, Experience and Reality, Britannica Philosophy Page- The Moral Philosophy, Accessed on 12 April 2019 http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/5g.htm PP 109-143

The Transcendental Deduction, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Accessed on 12 April 2019 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-transcendental/ PP 56-70

Wilson and Denis, Kant and Hume on Morality, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Accessed on 12 April 2019 90-97