Transcendental Idealism: Knowledge Before Experience
Transcendental Idealism: Knowledge Before Experience
Kantian Epistemology
Epistemology
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy concerned with the study of knowledge, belief, and justification. It seeks to answer fundamental questions such as ‘What is knowledge?’ and ‘How do we know what we know?’. Another way to understand this is to say that epistemology is the field which studies the nature and scope of knowledge, including its origin, justification, and limits. It investigates the nature of truth, the relationship between belief and truth, and the criteria for evaluating beliefs as true or false.
Epistemology also considers the role of different sources of knowledge, such as perception, memory, reason, and testimony, and examines the ways in which knowledge from these sources is variously acquired and if they can all be justified. In this way, it seeks to understand the relationship between the knower and the known, and how the knower can be certain of the truth of their beliefs. Finally, epistemology studies the ways in which knowledge is structured and organised, including the various types of knowledge and the connections between them. For example, epistemologists might study the distinctions between propositional, procedural, and personal knowledge.
Within the philosophy broadly known as Kantianism, that is, the system of thought derived from Immanual Kant, epistemology is a key, is not the central issue amongst consideration. Indeed, perhaps the best known and most influential of Kant’s text, his magnum opus, the Critique of Pure Reason (2003), largely centres on the nature, possibility, and acquisition of different species of knowledge and the ways in which these species of knowledge interact or are intuited or organised by the mind.
According to Kant, human knowledge is not simply a passive reflection of the external world, but rather an active process that involves the interaction between the mind and the world. He believed that the mind is not a blank slate at birth, but has certain innate structures and capacities that shape how we perceive and interpret the world around us.
Kant argued that sensory experiences act as a source of phenomenal input compatible with comprehension (2003, Introduction: I.), but this source requires that the mind actively organise and interpret sense data in order to form meaningful representations of the world. The mind uses transcendental concepts and the categories of the understanding to organise sensory input and create a coherent picture of reality. These concepts and categories are not simply passive structures that reflect the external world, but rather active structures innate to us which shape how we perceive and understand it (2003: Transcendental Doctrine of the Elements: Second Part: I. ‘Of Logic in General’) (2003: Transcendental Doctrine of the Elements: Second Part: First Division: Book I: Chapter I: Section I: ‘Of the Logical Use of the Understanding in General’).
Analytic and Synthetic Judgements
The analytic-synthetic distinction is a concept in philosophy that was introduced by Immanuel Kant. It is a distinction between two types of propositions or statements: those in which the predicate is contained in the subject (analytic propositions), and those in which the predicate is not contained in the subject (synthetic propositions).
An analytic proposition is a statement that is true by definition, ie. it is tautological. For example, the proposition “all bachelors are unmarried” is analytic because the concept of “unmarried” is contained within the concept of “bachelor”. Analytic propositions are necessarily true, and are thus true a priori, meaning that they can be known independently of experience. In contrast, a synthetic proposition is a statement that is not true by definition and requires empirical evidence to be known. For example, the proposition “the cat is on the mat” is synthetic because it is not true by definition, but rather depends on observing the cat's position relative to the mat. Synthetic propositions can only be true a posteriori, meaning that they require empirical evidence to be known.
Kant also introduced the concept of synthetic a priori propositions, which are statements that are not true by definition but can be known independently of experience because they are based on the necessary structures of the mind itself. The analytic-synthetic distinction has been influential in philosophy, and has been used in various fields such as mathematics, logic, linguistics, and computer science. It has been debated by various philosophers in the centuries since Kant's work, and remains an important concept in contemporary philosophy.
A Posteriori Judgements
“A priori” and “a posteriori”are two terms used in philosophy to distinguish between different types of knowledge.
A priori knowledge is knowledge that can be known independently of experience, based on reason or intuition alone. A posteriori knowledge is knowledge that is based on empirical evidence or experience. The a priori - a posteriori distinction can be applied over the synthetic-analytic distinction to produce a fourfold distinction, as Kant does in his Critique of Pure Reason (2003). This Distinction is shown below:
Thus we have four distinct kinds of propositions:
A Priori - Analytic Judgements
A Priori - Synthetic Judgements
A Posteriori - Analytic Judgements
A Posteriori - Synthetic Judgements
Of the four, we can immediately disregard A Posteriori - Analytic Propositions as that concept is, in itself, contradictory. This is because all analytical propositions are understood through analysis of the concepts in the propositions themselves, and the conceptual (ie. not phenomenal) relation between the concepts of the subject and predicate in question. Because this analysis grants no reference to experience, ie. because it relies entirely on formal considerations, the analysis (and thus the category of it’s object, ie. analytical propositions) must be a priori in nature, or at least cannot be a posteriori in nature (thus, insofar as the two form a binary, it must belong to the former). In this regard, the statement A Posteriori - Analytic Propositions forms a contradiction as it can be expanded to reveal ‘A Posteriori - A Priori Propositions’. Insofar as A Priori propositions can be defined as ‘not A Posteriori propositions’, the statement may be further interpreted as ‘A Posteriori - Not A Posteriori Propositions’ which is a plain contradiction of the form P ∪ ¬P.
Discarding this concept, we are left with three remaining kinds of propositions; A Priori - Analytic Judgements, A Priori - Synthetic Judgements, and A Posteriori - Synthetic Judgements. The first and (now) third concepts are simple enough in themselves. That is to say, the classic examples of Analytical and Synthetic concepts will fit them respectively. For example, the statement ‘All Bachelors are Unmarried’ is a stereotypical example of an analytical judgement, it is also a perfect example of an a priori judgement. As to the third concept, Kant gives the statement “All bodies [objects] are heavy”, that is, they are influenced by gravity (2003: Introduction: I: ‘Of the difference between Pure and Empirical knowledge) (2003: Introduction: IV: ‘Of the Difference Between ANalytical and Synthetical Judgements’). This statement is a posteriori in nature because it could only be known following investigation (ie. it could not be deduced a priori). Similarly, the statement is synthetic because the subject ‘bodies’ does not contain the predicate ‘heavy’. In other words, it was not necessary that all bodies are heavy, it just happens that it is the case in this particular noumenal world.
The second concept, that of the A Priori - Synthetic Judgement, plays a key role in Kant’s philosophy of mind and merits its own section, which I will dedicate to it next.
A Priori Synthetic Judgements
In the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a priori synthetic propositions are a special kind of knowledge that are both necessary and informative, and that do not rely on sense experience for their justification. These are propositions which are based on the structure of the mind itself. This kind of proposition is not purely analytical (i.e. derived from the definitions of the terms involved). Rather, it requires some kind of additional information or concept beyond what is contained in the subject and predicate of the statement.
According to Kant, a priori propositions are those that can be known independently of sense experience, purely through the use of reason. This is in contrast to a posteriori propositions, which are those that can only be known through observation or experience. In addition, Kant argued that some judgments, like the connection between cause and effect, are synthetic, meaning that no analysis of the subject will produce the predicate. For example, with reference to his philosophy of mathematics, Kant believed that all pure mathematics was synthetic a priori. In other words, the number 7 is declaratively seven, the number 5 is declaratively five, and the number 12 is declaratively twelve, and these truths are universal and necessary. In other words, they are not simply true by definition, but they also tell us something about the world. He goes on to extend such propositions to the relationship between numbers. For example, Kant proposed that the statement ‘7 + 5 = 12’ is not analytic, because it cannot be derived solely from the concepts of ‘7’, ‘5’, and ‘12’. Instead, it requires an additional concept of addition, which is not contained in any of the individual numbers.
These propositions are informative, because they tell us something new about the world, but they are also necessary, because they are not contingent on any particular sense experience. The revelation of such led Kant to ask how it could be possible to have knowledge that is not derived from experience. He concluded that such knowledge is possible because of the structure of the human mind, which imposes certain concepts or categories on our experience of the world. These categories, such as causality and substance, allow us to make sense of our experience and form judgments about it. However, Kant also recognized that there are limits to our ability to know the world. He argued that we cannot know things as they are “in themselves”, independent of our experience of them. This is because our experience is always mediated by our cognitive faculties and the categories that structure it. We can only know things as they appear to us, not as they are in themselves. This led Kant to propose a new basis for a science of metaphysics, which he saw as a discussion of the limits of our knowledge rather than an attempt to know the world beyond those limits. He believed that the only way to reach beyond the limits of possible experience was through practical reason, the faculty of moral consciousness.
Overall, Kant's theory of synthetic judgments a priori and his critique of metaphysics were based on a recognition of the role of human cognition in structuring our experience of the world. By taking the knower into account, Kant sought to reveal the impact of our cognitive faculties on the structure of the known world, and to establish the limits of our knowledge.
Things in Themselves
Phenomena and Noumena
According to Kant’s metaphysics, all things are either an instance of phenomena (appearances) or noumena (realities). The discussion of this distinction centred Kant’s inaugural dissertation (2022) and continued to play a central role throughout his philosophy, most particularly in his Critique of Pure Reason (2003).
Phenomena
Kant's understanding of phenomena is central to his philosophy, and it is important to understand in order to grasp his overall philosophy. In Kant's view, phenomena are the appearances of things, or the way things appear to us in our experience. They are the objects of our sense perception, and they are the things that we can observe, measure, and study.
For Kant, there are two important aspects of phenomena. The first is that phenomena are dependent on the way that we experience them. They are representative of any particular object, but rather the way that those objects appear to us. This means that the properties of phenomena are not inherent in the objects themselves, but are instead a result of the way that we perceive them. The second important aspect of phenomena is that they are subject to the laws of nature. In other words, they are part of the natural world, and they are governed by the same laws that govern the rest of the natural world.
Kant argues that the experience of phenomena is shaped by the way that our minds work. He argued that our minds impose certain categories and concepts on our experience, which help to make sense of it. These categories and concepts are part of what he called the ‘transcendental aesthetic’ or the ways which our minds structure our experience of the world. According to Kant, the transcendental aesthetic is what makes it possible for us to have knowledge of the world.
Overall, Kant's understanding of phenomena is an important part of his philosophy. It emphasises the importance of our experience in shaping our understanding of the world, and it highlights the limitations of that understanding. At the same time, it provides a framework for making sense of our experience, and it shows how our understanding of the world is connected to the natural world around us.
Noumena
According to Kant, objects of which we are cognizant via the physical senses are merely representations of unknown somethings—what Kant refers to as the transcendental object—as interpreted through the a priori or categories of the understanding. These unknown somethings are manifested within the noumenon—although we can never know how or why as our perceptions of these unknown somethings via our physical senses are bound by the limitations of the categories of the understanding and we are therefore never able to fully know the ‘thing-in-itself’.
Kant uses the terms ‘noumenon’ and ‘thing-in-itself’ interchangeably in some accounts, although others make different distinctions between the two. Kant's own writings appear, at points, to separate the two terms. One such difference between the noumenon and the thing-in-itself is that in Kant, it appears that, to call something a noumenon is to claim a kind of knowledge. However, this cannot be consistent with the thing-in-itself, which Kant seems to assert is unknowable.
Kant also makes a distinction between positive and negative noumena, the former being characterised by the presence of some intuition through the structure of the mind (independent of experience), the latter by an inference drawn from the abstraction of positive experience. As he writes in The Critique of Pure Reason:
“If, by the term noumenon, we understand a thing so far as it is not an object of our sensuous intuition, thus making abstraction of our mode of intuiting it, this is a noumenon in the negative sense of the word. But if we understand by it an object of a non-sensuous intuition, we in this case assume a peculiar mode of intuition, an intellectual intuition, to wit, which does not, however, belong to us, of the very possibility of which we have no notion—and this is a noumenon in the positive sense.” (2003: Transcendental Doctrine of Elements: Second Part: First Division: Book II: Chapter III: ‘Of the Ground of the Division of all Objects into Phenomena and Noumena’)
Kant believed that the noumenal world is completely unknowable to us. While we can know the phenomenal world through our sensory experience, we can never know the noumenal world directly. This is because our sensory experience is always mediated by our cognitive faculties, and these faculties necessarily impose a certain structure on our perception of the world. In other words, our perception of the world is always filtered through the categories of our understanding.
Overall, the concept of noumenon in Kantian philosophy is a fundamental part of his attempt to reconcile the empiricist and rationalist traditions in philosophy. By distinguishing between the phenomenal and noumenal worlds, Kant was able to argue that there is a realm of reality that is independent of our perception of it, while at the same time acknowledging the importance of sensory experience in our understanding of the world.
The Thing In Itself
According to Kant, there is a fundamental distinction between two different kinds of reality: the phenomenal world and the noumenal world. The phenomenal world is the world of our sensory experience. It is the world that we perceive through our senses, and it is the world that is subject to the laws of nature. The noumenal world, on the other hand, is the world of things-in-themselves. It is the world that exists independently of our perception of it, and it is not subject to the laws of nature. In other words, the noumenal world is the world of things as they really are, apart from the way that we perceive them.
The “thing in itself” (German: Ding an sich) refers to the noumenal realm, or the world as it exists independently of our perceptions and cognitions. According to Kant, human knowledge is limited to the phenomenal realm, which is the world as we experience it through our senses and the organisation of our cognitive faculties. In other words, the phenomenal realm is shaped and structured by the categories of the understanding, and our knowledge of the world is mediated by the forms of intuition and the concepts of the understanding.
As regards the noumenal realm, Kant argues that we can never know the “thing in itself” directly because it is beyond the bounds of human experience and understanding. The “thing in itself” is not accessible to us through our senses or through our rational faculties, but is instead a transcendent reality independent of our mind. Nonetheless, Kant argues that human understanding is structured by ‘pure concepts’ or pure categories of understanding that are found prior to experience in the mind, and that make it possible for us to have outer experiences (2003: Transcendental Doctrine of Elements: Second Part: First Division: Book I: Chapter I: Section III: ‘Of the Pure Conceptions of the Understanding, or Categories. § 6’). These categories are the principles of the human mind which we necessarily use to attempt to understand the world in which we exist. Through these, we must infer the extent to which the human rational faculties can reach the object of ‘things-in-themselves’ by our observations of the manifestations of those things that can be perceived via the physical senses, that is, of phenomena, and by ordering these perceptions in the mind help infer the validity of our perceptions to the rational categories used to understand them in a rational system.
This distinction between the phenomenal and the noumenal realms in Kantian philosophy has been subject to a great deal of debate and interpretation. Some scholars argue that it represents a radical epistemological break with traditional metaphysics. Others claim that it is simply a refinement of traditional metaphysical ideas. Of particular relevance that I should discuss here is the break between the ‘dual aspect’ and ‘dual object’ interpretation of Kant’s two realm doctrine.
The Dual Aspect and Dual Object Interpretations
Kant's concept of the “thing in itself” is considered difficult to interpret, which naturally leads to several differing interpretations of the concept. Two of the most common and most influential interpretations are the dual-object interpretation and the dual-aspect interpretation.
The dual-object interpretation holds that the “thing in itself” refers to a separate object that exists independently of our consciousness and is distinct from the objects we perceive in the world around us. According to this interpretation, there are two types of objects in the world: objects as they appear to us (phenomena) and objects as they are in themselves (noumena). Phenomena are objects that we perceive through our senses, while noumena are objects that exist independently of our perception.
The dual-aspect interpretation, on the other hand, holds that the “thing in itself” refers to the same objects that we perceive as phenomena. According to this interpretation, the “thing in itself” is not a separate object, but rather the way in which objects appear to us when we perceive them. In other words, the “thing in itself” is the object as it is in its objective aspect, independent of any particular mode of perception or understanding. In this interpretation, the distinction between phenomena and noumena is not one of separate objects, but rather of different aspects of the same object. Phenomena are the objects as they appear to us in our sensory experience, while noumena are the objects as they exist independently of any particular mode of experience or understanding.
Kant himself did not explicitly endorse either interpretation, and scholars continue to debate which interpretation is most faithful to his ideas. Both interpretations have their strengths and weaknesses, and each provides a different perspective on Kant's philosophy. Regardless of one's interpretation, Kant's concept of the ‘thing in itself’ plays a crucial role in the development of one of his most influential doctrines, that of transcendental idealism
The Critique of Pure Reason
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (2003) is arguably his magnum opus and one of the most influential works of philosophy in the history of Western thought. Published in 1781, the Critique is a dense and complex work that seeks to investigate the limits and possibilities of human knowledge, and to establish a secure foundation for metaphysics.
At its core, the Critique is concerned with the nature and scope of human understanding. Kant begins by arguing that all knowledge must come from two sources: sensory experience and the innate structures of the mind. He calls these two sources ‘sensibility’ and ‘understanding’ respectively. According to Kant, the mind is equipped with certain innate ‘categories’ that it uses to organise and interpret the sensory data that it receives. These categories include concepts like causation, space, and time, and they provide the framework for all human knowledge.
Kant's central claim in the Critique is that the limits of human knowledge are set by the categories of the understanding. While we can know a great deal about the world of sensory experience, we cannot know anything that goes beyond the categories that we possess. This means that we cannot know anything about things in themselves, that is, things as they exist independent of our experience of them. For Kant, the very idea of a thing in itself is incoherent (meaning incomprehensible, not meaning impossible), since we can only know things insofar as they are structured by the categories of the understanding.
This leads Kant to make the prior mentioned crucial distinction between ‘analytic’ and ‘synthetic’ judgments. Analytic judgments are those in which the predicate is contained within the subject, such as ‘all bachelors are unmarried’. These judgments are true by definition, and do not tell us anything new about the world. Synthetic judgments, on the other hand, are those in which the predicate is not contained within the subject, such as ‘all events have a cause’. According to Kant, these judgments are not true by definition, but require some additional information to establish their truth.
Overall, the Critique of Pure Reason is a complex and challenging work that aims to reshape the way we think about the nature of reality and the limits of human knowledge. It has been influential in a wide range of fields, including philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science.
Mere Forms of Intuitions
The doctrine of transcendental idealism holds that the empirical world, which is the sum of all objects, is a complex of mere appearances. The existence and connection of these appearances occur only in our representations, or mental constructs. In other words, our experience of the world is a product of the way our minds organise and structure the raw sensory data we receive. Another way of understanding this is to say that; transcendental idealism is a philosophical framework which posits that the structure of the world as we know it is the product of the mind's capacity to organise and interpret sense data. In other words, it is an account of how the human mind brings order to the chaotic array of sensory information it receives, allowing us to construct a coherent and meaningful picture of the world around us.
Kant used a thought experiment to demonstrate that it is not possible to conceive of an object that exists outside of time, has no spatial components, and is not structured in accordance with the categories of understanding. Kant abandoned the quest to try to know the world as it is “in itself” independent of sense experience and focused instead on the operations of cognitive faculties, which placed substantial limits on knowledge not founded in the forms of sensibility. He believed that just as Copernicus revolutionised astronomy by taking the position of the observer into account, his critical philosophy takes into account the position of the knower of the world in general and reveals its impact on the structure of the known world.
Furthermore, Kant argued that the mind imposes certain structures and forms of intuition on sensory input, such as space and time, which allow us to make sense of the world in a systematic and coherent way. He believed that these structures are not derived from sensory experience, but are instead inherent in the structure of the mind itself. Thus, for Kant, human knowledge is not a passive reflection of the external world, but an active and creative process that involves the mind's innate structures and capacities. These lead Kant to his views as to causality and, more richly discussed in his works, as to space and time.
Kantian metaphysics hold that space and time are not things we can experience independently of objects. Rather, they are the very framework through which we perceive and understand objects. Space and time are thus “pure intuitions” (2003) or a priori forms of sensibility that structure our perception. This is the core of transcendental idealism.
Kant argues that space is not something that exists independently of our minds, not something that we can see or touch, but rather a subjective structure that our minds impose on the world. We cannot imagine an object existing outside of space, as it is the necessary framework through which we conceive of objects. Space is also infinite and unbounded, because we cannot conceive of an end to space, since such a conception would require us to think of space as a limited object within a larger space.
Similarly, Kant argues that time is not a property of objects, but rather a form of intuition through which we perceive events. Time is not something that we can see or touch, but rather a necessary condition for our experience of change. Kant argues that we cannot conceive of an event outside of time, as time is the necessary framework through which we conceive of change. Time is also infinite and unbounded, because we cannot conceive of an end to time, since such a conception would require us to think of time as a limited object within a larger time.
In this regard, neither of the phenomena are objects in themselves. That is, they are not noumena but are rather the purest forms of structure imposed by the mind through the faculties of intuition and understanding. They are, in and of themselves, nothing but the mere ‘appearance’ of order expressed as a projection of the order of our consciousness.
Reference List
Kant, I 2003, The Critique of Pure Reason, Project Gutenberg, viewed 21 February 2023, <https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4280/pg4280-images.html>
Kant, I 2022, Inaugural Dissertation of 1770, Wikisource, viewed 21 February 2023, <https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Kant%27s_Inaugural_Dissertation_of_1770&oldid=12456199>
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