6.2. I. Kant and His Critical Philosophy

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was one of the greatest minds mankind ever knew and the founder of classical German idealism. It was with Kant that the dawn of the philosophy of the Modern Times broke.

Born in Königsberg in what was then Prussia and he lived there all his life. From 1770 he occupied the Chair of Logic and metaphysics at the University of Königsberg. In 1794 he was forbidden to publish more on religion, as his book on the subject had caused turbulence; no controversy ensued, since he complied with the royal order. His metronomic and quiet life was punctuated by a series of major publications – the “Critique of Pure Reason” (1781), the “Critique of Practical Reason” (1790), the “Critic of Judgment” (1790), the “Religion Within the Bounds of Reason Alone” (1793) and the “Metaphysics of Morals” (1797), together with other important works.

He was shrewd and profound thinker not only in philosophy. His theory of the origin of the solar system out of a giant gas nebula still remains one of the fundamental scientific ideas in astronomy. Kant’s natural scientific works broke down the wall of the metaphysical explanation of nature, as he made his attempt to apply the principles of contemporary natural science not only to the structure of the universe but also to the history of its origin and development. Apart from this, he put forward the idea of lining up animals in the order of their possible origin, and the idea of natural origin of the human races.

Kant believed that the solution of the problems of being, of morality and religion must be preceded by a study in the possibilities of human knowledge and the boundaries of human knowledge. According to Kant, the necessary conditions of knowledge are inherent in reason itself, forming the basis of knowledge. It is these conditions that lend knowledge the properties of necessity and universality. They are also the absolute boundaries of reliable knowledge Kant distinguished between the appearances of things as they were perceived by man and the things as they existed by themselves. We do not study the world as it is in reality but only as it appears to us. Only phenomena constituting the content of our experience are accessible to our knowledge. The impact of “things-in-themselves” on our sense organs results in a chaos of sensations, which is brought to unity and order by the power of reason. What we regard as the laws of nature are in actual fact the connection brought into the world of phenomena by reason; in other words, reason prescribes laws to nature. But corresponding to the word of phenomena is the essence of things independent of human consciousness, or “things-in-themselves”. Absolute knowledge of these is impossible. To us, they are only noumena, that is to say, intelligible essences not given in experience. Kant did not share the boundless belief in the power of human reason, referring to this belief as dogmatism. He believed there was a certain moral sense in the fundamental limitations of human knowledge: if man were endowed with absolute knowledge, he would face neither risk nor struggle in the performance of his moral duty.

Kant was convinced that the ideas of time and space are known to man before perception. Space and time are ideal, not real. Sense impressions are interconnected by means of judgments based on categories or general concepts which, according to Kant, are purely logical forms, characterizing pure thought and not its subject. The categories are given to man before all experience, that is to say, a priori. Dialectics figured prominently in Kant’s epistemology: contradiction was regarded as a necessary element of cognition. But dialectics was for Kant merely an epistemological principle it was subjective as it did not reflect the contradictions of the things themselves, merely the contradictions of intellectual activity.

Kant’s philosophy was not free from compromise with idealism. Endeavoring to recognize science and religion, Kant said he had to limit the domain of knowledge to give room to faith.

Kant had an original approach to questions of moral sense and the like. It was to consider whether the motive of an action or the principle on which I am acting on could be generalized without contradiction. If I think it is all right for me to lie under such-and-such circumstances, then we have to consider what would happen if everyone lied. Language would break down. So, there is a contradiction in the universalization of the maxim of my action. This yields the notion of what Kant referred to as categorical imperative, which he formulated in different ways, such as “Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a Universal Law of Nature”. There are two points of notice. First, this imperative is categorical. The moral law has no hypothetical character, like “If you want to make money, go into the law”, which would be merely prudential advice. Morality is absolute, but prudence depends on prior inclinations. Second, morality is conceived by Kant as something categorically laid by the individual on himself. He is his own legislator. In other words morality is autonomous and not heteronomous or laid on us by others. From all this, a certain psychology of morals emerges: the individual, finding his inclinations liable to be overruled by the categorical imperative, develops for it a special reverence.

His third Critique dealt with esthetic judgment (including an analysis of the notions of both beauty and the sublime). He also there dealt with teleology. He was anxious to avoid the idea that esthetic judgments have any kind of objectivity in case speculative theology based on the teleological argument was to re-arise. But esthetic judgments do claim to be universal. How can this be? The universal side arises not from the application of some concept but in the delight arising from the free play of the understanding and sensibility, which we ascribe as occurring in all humans.

Altogether the edifice of Kant’s system is tremendous. His wide-ranging synthesis was greeted on the whole with admiration. At any rate he established himself as the leading German philosopher of his day, perhaps of all time. He towered above his predecessors, and he set in train many fruitful moves in the nineteenth century. He could appeal to philosophers of differing traditions, and could connect with English-speaking debates in particular.