Thursday, May 15, 2008

Kant: metaphysics

Kant says that metaphysics relies on the faculty of reason, and therefore is independent of experience. Reason, he says, aspires to know about things in themselves and may sometimes mistakenly apply concepts of understanding to matters outside of experience. Kant says that there are three ideas of reasoning: psychological, cosmological, and theological. Psychological deals with our ideas and concepts of substance and the soul. Cosmological gives rise to four sets of antinomies, and theological obviously deals with our ideas of God. Kant argues that reason oversteps its bounds in each of these cases and often makes claims that can be confusing with appearances. Metaphysics, unlike mathematics and natural science, can go farther than it is reasonably capable of going, and in that way it can explore the full extent and capabilities of human knowledge. I'm a bit confused by the way that Kant talks about metaphysics, but from what I do get, it seems like he accepts metaphysics as something complicated and something he doesn't fully understand. I like that he doesnt try to make too many assumptions about it, and the arguments that he does present seem to make sense to me... but like I said, I don't entirely get it.

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