Rustle in the Bush

For REAL this time. – Maimon

Kant notes: 

Revisiting Kant, the big dawg. To get a hold of the critical philosophy because its more important than anything else in modern philosophy. Through understanding of kant helps bridge the gap between anything written since. Kant is aristotle. May have to do this with Aristotle, blegh.

I’m going to watch this thing by Robert Brandom first though. He claims that the fate of Kant in the anglo sphere was pushed in two directions. 

1. The positivists who Saw a line from Lebniz, Hume, and Locke to mill and frege, in order to avoid german idealism (The Critical Philosophy)
2. Those which go through the neo kantians heavily including hegel that go towards american pragmatism

Kaant’s big idea according to Brandom, “what exercises judgment and intentional agency uniquely in people, is that they are ascribed to responsibility (Normativity) Judging and acting applies rules and concepts that determines what the subject is committed to and responsible for.”

I’ve really only looked at the transcendental analytic and deduction, so I’m going to start in the back (A852) and look at the ‘history of pure reason’ segment to see where Kant traces his historical paths.

‘History of Pure Reason’ (A852)

“From a transcendental point of view” 

Evolution of religious sentiments in ‘savage’ modes of thinking which became the evolution of theology (Mostly) and morality into metaphysics. 

Kant isn’t writing about the various revolutions of metaphysics (Like a paradigm shift) but rather the three issues/ideas/concepts which promulgated and expanded the changes of metaphysics

1. With respect to the object of all knowledge of our reason 
2. With respect to the origin of pure rational knowledge 
3. With respect to method 

(1) – <Sensualists – Epicurus> vs. <Intellectualists – Plato>

 S} Reality exists in the object of senses: all else is imagination

  I} Object of the senses is illusory; only what is known through understanding is true

(2) Whether pure rational knowledge is derived from experience, or has its origin independently of reason. Locke followed Aristotle as an empiricst, and Leibniz followed plato as a noolisgst (Derived from nous: Greek for mind). Kant says that Epicurus is more consistent than Aristotle and Locke, Locke less so because he makes claims of objects outside of experience using the empirical method (I.e. namely the existence of God and immortality of the soul)

(3) Method defined as: A procedure in accordance with principles…. Kinds of method:

Naturalistic- Miologists – Those who dispense with argumentation or reasoning. They see a natural kind of reasoning without science (Wissenkraft = Knowledge-crafting)

Scientific– Is of two kinds which both proceed systematically 

1. Dogmatically– Wolff -> Representative of
2. Skeptically– Hume -> Representative of

Going forward I Will use the bolded words and thinkers as reference when i find the concept or person. Now to return to the first preface. I’ll be focusing on the A edition

Preface to the first edition

He begins by introducing the phenomenal noumenal (But not acknowledging or introducing these teams yet) difference by saying that there is a certain class of knowledge, which due to its own constitution, poses questions which it cannot solve. What becomes Kantian antinomies!

He then makes a quasi historical tracing, referring to the dogmatists and skeptics, then referring to Locke (Who he says was wonderful though led metaphysics back to the root of senses; an assumption on Kant’s part of something wrong, probably the better parts of Hume address this better) then back to the dogmatists again (Presumably Lebniz and Wolff). He then said at present there was indifferentism. And what I gather is that these are mechanical objectivists, those who claim science constructs and describes processes and truths indifferent to the truths of metaphysics (Ah! Metaphysics, gobbledygook mired in antinomy – The Indifferentistt <Exactly! Here is what Kant means at the beginning of the preface>).

Then he details the nature of the critique. He says that reason requires a court of appeals (A court of appeals deals with objects of legality de jure, and not de facto. Kant then does something I like here. He says his readers will assume indignation at the apparently massive comprehension of Kant’s system. Right before the following he says there are not metaphysical issues not treated by his system: According to Kant (because of the nature of Copernican revolution to be addressed later) it is more ‘moderate’ than one searching for example, for ‘the nature of the soul or the beginning of the world’. I think it is no coincidence that Descartes subtitle for the Meditations is “IN WHICH THE EXISTENCE OF GOD AND THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL ARE DEMONSTRATED”

Existence of God – Proven through the Causal Principle in Meditation 3 (Beginning of world=God)

Nature of the soul- The Cogito, ‘discovered’ in Meditation 2.

So, Kant is indeed moving as a distinctly past. However, he is saying since the critique in question of synthetic a priori truths, it will remain entirely clear and certain. ​​

Certainty:

The most important aspect of this is the exposition of the rules and limits of the faculty of understanding, which is to take place in the Transcendental Analytic under Deduction of the Pure Concepts of the Understanding. He says the inquiry rests on two dies of a deep foundation 

1. The objects of the pure understanding, explaining the validity of its a priori concepts. (Phenom/noumenal)
2. The subjective aspect which is detailed by the power and possibility of knowledge itself (Conditions of possibility)

He says this because his self proclaimed guiding question is : “What, and how much, can understanding and reason know independently of all experience” AKA synthetic a priori judgements. But not “How is the faculty of understanding itself possible” This second question is a ‘search for tech asue of a given effect” and thud, a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a form of opinion and that is in its nature. Kant is doing something different with his question. 

Clarity: Reader has the right to demand both:

1. Discursive (Logical) clarity through concepts
2. Intuitive (Aesthetic) clarity through Intuitions

He even says there will be no examples. They are the actual abstractions. They’re like secondary qualities to the Arguments. Kant then wraps up with some stuff that’s redundant and makes further illusions to how the work proceeds.