The Anabaptist Jacques
Crusader
This is a very ambitious of me to try and explain Kant in one post. But here goes:
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was born in Konigsberg and lived his entire life there.
Most of his early life he was a mathematical physicist.
He predicted the existence of the planet Uranus before it was discovered and he contributed greatly to the theory of nebula formation.
But by far his greatest contribution was three books that formulate a system of reason itself: the “Critique of Pure Reason” on the theory of knowledge; the “Critique of Practical Reason” on ethics; and the “Critique of Judgment” on aesthetics, theory of art, and on teleology (the notion of purpose in nature).
Together these form his system of what the intelligent faculties of the mind can do.
Kant is very difficult to understand simply because he uses common philosophical terms but with very specialized definitions.
For example, Kant uses the word Transcendental to mean the pre-structuring of experience by the mind. Kant has no spiritual or metaphysical meaning or connotation when he uses it.
Kant uses the word Reason to mean the drive in the human mind to want to know everything. He doesn’t use it to mean the capacity for logical, rational, analytic thought.
You may ask, “Well Taj, how do you know you have the correct use of his term?”
I’ve done a graduate level course of his first book “Critique of Pure Reason” and in addition have listened to about a dozen other recorded lectures from various noted professors.
Also there are some universities which publish Kant glossaries.
What I am going to attempt to explain here are the ideas in his book “Critique of Pure Reason.”
The first thing to understand is why Kant wrote this book.
At the time, the philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) put forth the idea (around 1736) that neither science nor philosophy nor anyone could know anything with certainty for the future because the only knowledge one could have was that of experience, which is something that already happened.
But Hume maintained that certain knowledge of what must be true or could happen in the future was impossible.
The philosophical term for Must Be True is Necessarily. (Example: if Bill is taller than Joe, and Joe is taller than Mike, then it is necessarily true that Bill is taller than Mike)
To Hume, the concept of cause and effect was only a concept in the mind.
For example, if you placed an ice cube on a rock in the sunlight and the ice cube melted, all you saw was a sequence. You did not see cause an effect.
Hume pointed out there are two categories of knowledge in the mind: 1) Relationship of ideas and 2) Matters of fact.
Relationship of ideas are a prior (known to be true independent of experience) and true by definition alone. (Example: all bachelors are unmarried)
Matters of fact are a posterior (known to be true by experience) but not true by definition (Example: some bachelors are sad).
So the idea of cause and effect is nothing more than we seeing the ice cube on a rock (matter of fact), the sunlight hitting the ice (matter of fact), and the ice melting (matter of fact).
We may believe that if we put another ice cube there it will also melt because the sunlight caused the ice to melt (that it was caused by the sunlight is a conclusion based on our relationship of ideas, not experience).
Hume says we use our relationship of ideas to create the idea of cause when what we really experience was a sequence.
Hume said that people, through habit or repetition assign the concept of cause when in truth all they experienced was a sequence.
This all may sound silly and simplistic to us today, but this is because we have incorporated Kant’s ideas into our thinking.
But at the time it put scientific research and theories in question.
He had a point and scientist knew it.
I’ll use Newton’s Third Law of Motion as an example. The Law states “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Hume would ask how Newton could possibly know that.
Newton had not observed every action that has ever taken place.
Newton may have experienced this himself; he may even have experienced it throughout his entire life.
But Newton has not observed every action that has taken place.
How can Newton say that this Law will be true in the future or even in places on the other side of the world?
Kant remarked that if Hume was right, then science was in trouble.
So the question Kant was trying to solve was this: How can we know necessary (must be true) truths about reality?
What Kant does in Critique of Pure Reason (remember that reason means our desire to know) is to show that there is a third category of knowledge in the mind.
He does this by what he calls his “Copernican Revolution.”
Just as Copernicus changed the way we look at the universe, Kant changed the way we look at knowledge and the mind.
Here is what he did:
Per Hume, the mind held 1) Experiences (matters of fact), which were a posteriori (dependent on experience) and not true by definition, and 2) Relationships of Ideas, which were a prior (not dependent on experience) and true by definition.
The word for true by definition is analytic, and the word for not true by definition was synthetic.
So in the mind there are Relationship of Ideas, which are a prior (true independent of experience) and analytic (true by definition) and Experiences which are a posteriori (based on experience) and synthetic (not true by definition).
Kant showed how all knowledge begins with experience but not all knowledge stems from experience.
Kant discovered a third category of knowledge in the mind—a priori and synthetic (true independent of experience but not true by definition).
And this changes everything.
But how he did this to change the way the mind was understood.
Prior to Kant the idea was that experiences left their imprints on the mind because the mind was like a clay tablet and experiences left their impressions on the mind which passively received them.
What Kant suggested was that the mind actively grasps and organizes experiences.
The mind pre-structures experiences so that we can see them and experience them in a certain way.
Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. (Sorry, it’s getting really late and I’m starting to channel Cole Porter).
Kant calls this the Transcendental Analytic, because the mind pre-structures and defines experiences so that it can take in the experiences.
Because of this we can know certain things about how we will experience the world tomorrow.
Mathematics (arithmetic and geometry) and some of the basic principles of physics are synthetic a priori knowledge.
How does this work?
It isn’t that our mind conforms to our experiences; our experiences conform to our mind.
Don’t confuse this with “what’s true for you is true for you.”!!!!
Kant calls all the things we sense phenomenon. The things we can’t sense he calls noumenon.
When we sense any object, our mind conforms these objects to the rules of understanding already in the mind.
Space and time are two examples. Our mind already pre-structures what we experience to meet our mind’s rule that objects exist in space and time.
There are other categories and more details about all this. But I want to skip all that because it is very involved.
But because the mind works this way we can know things a priori, that is, we can know things without experiencing them directly.
For example: We experienced that Bill is taller than Joe, and Joe is taller than Mike. We know that from experience.
But because we have in our mind the pre-structuring mechanism of space and time (and other categories) we can know without experiencing it that Bill must necessarily be taller than Mike.
We can now think a priori (without experience) and be right!
For example: A is taller than B; B is taller than C. Therefore A is taller than C.
Anywhere in the world this will be true.
We can have knowledge of how things will be in the future.
It is a priori synthetic knowledge. A priori (not dependent on experience) synthetic (not true by definition)
While it is based on our experience (we saw Bill, Joe and Mike once) to know that if A is taller than B, and B is taller than C, then we don’t depend on experience to know that A is taller than C.
We can know it without experience it and can know it will be true anytime in the future if we encounter it.
So Newton is safe.
But there is a catch. A very important catch.
If everything we experience is pre-structured by our mind, then all we know of all phenomenon is how our mind structured it.
We don’t know and can’t know about the things in themselves.
The universe we experience conforms to our minds. What the universe is really like before our mind structures it we can never know.
So we can’t know about things in themselves.
This is why Kant is called an Idealist; All we know are the experience and ideas in our minds, not things in themselves.
But Kant is called a Critical Idealist. He believes the universe exists outside our minds but what we can know about it is filtered by our minds.
Other German Idealists abandoned the idea of the universe existing outside the mind at all and only the mind is what is real.
To them “What is true for you is true for you.”
This led to ideas about the Will and the Will to Power and Ubermensch, Tone 40, and OTs.
To Kant, what is true for you is most certainly not true.
So how did this help me with free will?
Kant isn’t done yet.
Kant uses the word Reason to mean the human drive to know everything.
Because Reason wants to know everything, this is what drives science.
But science is limited to knowing what it can, and Reason isn’t satisfied.
Reason wants to know it all; Reason wants to know the First Cause.
So it believes in God.
Kant is not saying that there isn’t a God, but what he is saying is that we can never know God (if there is one) because what we can know can only be based on experience (like Bill is taller than Joe, and Joe taller than Mike).
We can know things without needing to experience them (A is taller than B, B is taller than C, therefore A is taller than B) but all knowledge must be based on some experience.
This is the philosophical basis for Deism.
Kant points out that when people develop metaphysical theories about God, since the theories are not grounded in experience, the theory will eventually become contradictory and illogical.
So he dismisses discussions about metaphysical things.
He does say that people should believe metaphysical things, especially God, the soul and eternal life, rewards in eternal life and free will because these are the best basis of moral behavior. Again I am simplifying here.
Kant says science can never prove or disprove any of these things either.
Because all science can do is know about the world as we perceive it which is pre-structured by our minds.
Science cannot ever know about things in themselves.
Science therefore can know all about the human body, but not about the soul or free will if they exist.
This is basic Kant.
It gave science the legitimacy it needed and also leaves to God the things that are God’s
I hope this is understandable.
Ambition’s debt is paid. (I hope)
The Anabaptist Jacques
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was born in Konigsberg and lived his entire life there.
Most of his early life he was a mathematical physicist.
He predicted the existence of the planet Uranus before it was discovered and he contributed greatly to the theory of nebula formation.
But by far his greatest contribution was three books that formulate a system of reason itself: the “Critique of Pure Reason” on the theory of knowledge; the “Critique of Practical Reason” on ethics; and the “Critique of Judgment” on aesthetics, theory of art, and on teleology (the notion of purpose in nature).
Together these form his system of what the intelligent faculties of the mind can do.
Kant is very difficult to understand simply because he uses common philosophical terms but with very specialized definitions.
For example, Kant uses the word Transcendental to mean the pre-structuring of experience by the mind. Kant has no spiritual or metaphysical meaning or connotation when he uses it.
Kant uses the word Reason to mean the drive in the human mind to want to know everything. He doesn’t use it to mean the capacity for logical, rational, analytic thought.
You may ask, “Well Taj, how do you know you have the correct use of his term?”
I’ve done a graduate level course of his first book “Critique of Pure Reason” and in addition have listened to about a dozen other recorded lectures from various noted professors.
Also there are some universities which publish Kant glossaries.
What I am going to attempt to explain here are the ideas in his book “Critique of Pure Reason.”
The first thing to understand is why Kant wrote this book.
At the time, the philosopher David Hume (1711-1776) put forth the idea (around 1736) that neither science nor philosophy nor anyone could know anything with certainty for the future because the only knowledge one could have was that of experience, which is something that already happened.
But Hume maintained that certain knowledge of what must be true or could happen in the future was impossible.
The philosophical term for Must Be True is Necessarily. (Example: if Bill is taller than Joe, and Joe is taller than Mike, then it is necessarily true that Bill is taller than Mike)
To Hume, the concept of cause and effect was only a concept in the mind.
For example, if you placed an ice cube on a rock in the sunlight and the ice cube melted, all you saw was a sequence. You did not see cause an effect.
Hume pointed out there are two categories of knowledge in the mind: 1) Relationship of ideas and 2) Matters of fact.
Relationship of ideas are a prior (known to be true independent of experience) and true by definition alone. (Example: all bachelors are unmarried)
Matters of fact are a posterior (known to be true by experience) but not true by definition (Example: some bachelors are sad).
So the idea of cause and effect is nothing more than we seeing the ice cube on a rock (matter of fact), the sunlight hitting the ice (matter of fact), and the ice melting (matter of fact).
We may believe that if we put another ice cube there it will also melt because the sunlight caused the ice to melt (that it was caused by the sunlight is a conclusion based on our relationship of ideas, not experience).
Hume says we use our relationship of ideas to create the idea of cause when what we really experience was a sequence.
Hume said that people, through habit or repetition assign the concept of cause when in truth all they experienced was a sequence.
This all may sound silly and simplistic to us today, but this is because we have incorporated Kant’s ideas into our thinking.
But at the time it put scientific research and theories in question.
He had a point and scientist knew it.
I’ll use Newton’s Third Law of Motion as an example. The Law states “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”
Hume would ask how Newton could possibly know that.
Newton had not observed every action that has ever taken place.
Newton may have experienced this himself; he may even have experienced it throughout his entire life.
But Newton has not observed every action that has taken place.
How can Newton say that this Law will be true in the future or even in places on the other side of the world?
Kant remarked that if Hume was right, then science was in trouble.
So the question Kant was trying to solve was this: How can we know necessary (must be true) truths about reality?
What Kant does in Critique of Pure Reason (remember that reason means our desire to know) is to show that there is a third category of knowledge in the mind.
He does this by what he calls his “Copernican Revolution.”
Just as Copernicus changed the way we look at the universe, Kant changed the way we look at knowledge and the mind.
Here is what he did:
Per Hume, the mind held 1) Experiences (matters of fact), which were a posteriori (dependent on experience) and not true by definition, and 2) Relationships of Ideas, which were a prior (not dependent on experience) and true by definition.
The word for true by definition is analytic, and the word for not true by definition was synthetic.
So in the mind there are Relationship of Ideas, which are a prior (true independent of experience) and analytic (true by definition) and Experiences which are a posteriori (based on experience) and synthetic (not true by definition).
Kant showed how all knowledge begins with experience but not all knowledge stems from experience.
Kant discovered a third category of knowledge in the mind—a priori and synthetic (true independent of experience but not true by definition).
And this changes everything.
But how he did this to change the way the mind was understood.
Prior to Kant the idea was that experiences left their imprints on the mind because the mind was like a clay tablet and experiences left their impressions on the mind which passively received them.
What Kant suggested was that the mind actively grasps and organizes experiences.
The mind pre-structures experiences so that we can see them and experience them in a certain way.
Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. (Sorry, it’s getting really late and I’m starting to channel Cole Porter).
Kant calls this the Transcendental Analytic, because the mind pre-structures and defines experiences so that it can take in the experiences.
Because of this we can know certain things about how we will experience the world tomorrow.
Mathematics (arithmetic and geometry) and some of the basic principles of physics are synthetic a priori knowledge.
How does this work?
It isn’t that our mind conforms to our experiences; our experiences conform to our mind.
Don’t confuse this with “what’s true for you is true for you.”!!!!
Kant calls all the things we sense phenomenon. The things we can’t sense he calls noumenon.
When we sense any object, our mind conforms these objects to the rules of understanding already in the mind.
Space and time are two examples. Our mind already pre-structures what we experience to meet our mind’s rule that objects exist in space and time.
There are other categories and more details about all this. But I want to skip all that because it is very involved.
But because the mind works this way we can know things a priori, that is, we can know things without experiencing them directly.
For example: We experienced that Bill is taller than Joe, and Joe is taller than Mike. We know that from experience.
But because we have in our mind the pre-structuring mechanism of space and time (and other categories) we can know without experiencing it that Bill must necessarily be taller than Mike.
We can now think a priori (without experience) and be right!
For example: A is taller than B; B is taller than C. Therefore A is taller than C.
Anywhere in the world this will be true.
We can have knowledge of how things will be in the future.
It is a priori synthetic knowledge. A priori (not dependent on experience) synthetic (not true by definition)
While it is based on our experience (we saw Bill, Joe and Mike once) to know that if A is taller than B, and B is taller than C, then we don’t depend on experience to know that A is taller than C.
We can know it without experience it and can know it will be true anytime in the future if we encounter it.
So Newton is safe.
But there is a catch. A very important catch.
If everything we experience is pre-structured by our mind, then all we know of all phenomenon is how our mind structured it.
We don’t know and can’t know about the things in themselves.
The universe we experience conforms to our minds. What the universe is really like before our mind structures it we can never know.
So we can’t know about things in themselves.
This is why Kant is called an Idealist; All we know are the experience and ideas in our minds, not things in themselves.
But Kant is called a Critical Idealist. He believes the universe exists outside our minds but what we can know about it is filtered by our minds.
Other German Idealists abandoned the idea of the universe existing outside the mind at all and only the mind is what is real.
To them “What is true for you is true for you.”
This led to ideas about the Will and the Will to Power and Ubermensch, Tone 40, and OTs.
To Kant, what is true for you is most certainly not true.
So how did this help me with free will?
Kant isn’t done yet.
Kant uses the word Reason to mean the human drive to know everything.
Because Reason wants to know everything, this is what drives science.
But science is limited to knowing what it can, and Reason isn’t satisfied.
Reason wants to know it all; Reason wants to know the First Cause.
So it believes in God.
Kant is not saying that there isn’t a God, but what he is saying is that we can never know God (if there is one) because what we can know can only be based on experience (like Bill is taller than Joe, and Joe taller than Mike).
We can know things without needing to experience them (A is taller than B, B is taller than C, therefore A is taller than B) but all knowledge must be based on some experience.
This is the philosophical basis for Deism.
Kant points out that when people develop metaphysical theories about God, since the theories are not grounded in experience, the theory will eventually become contradictory and illogical.
So he dismisses discussions about metaphysical things.
He does say that people should believe metaphysical things, especially God, the soul and eternal life, rewards in eternal life and free will because these are the best basis of moral behavior. Again I am simplifying here.
Kant says science can never prove or disprove any of these things either.
Because all science can do is know about the world as we perceive it which is pre-structured by our minds.
Science cannot ever know about things in themselves.
Science therefore can know all about the human body, but not about the soul or free will if they exist.
This is basic Kant.
It gave science the legitimacy it needed and also leaves to God the things that are God’s
I hope this is understandable.
Ambition’s debt is paid. (I hope)
The Anabaptist Jacques
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We don't even have the hearing of a dog, the visual of a bird, and little concept of the communications amongst the inhabitants of 75% of the earth's surface - in the ocean. We are so limited, even amongst other living things, yet we perceive and must understand any sort of knowledge through this limited filter of senses, whether direct or indirect. How can we understand DNA? We make up an imaginary picture of what it might look like because we can't see it, then actually teach this in schools! Science beyond the senses is an incredible task of taking experiences and bringing them to make sense within our limited experiential and physical understanding. 
But how exactly does that tie in to free will, TAJ?
