Kant- The Pure Intuitions of Space and Time

Kant believes that our experience is first and foremost experience of appearances (those which he calls 'phenomena') rather than things in themselves (or 'noumena'). Kant explains that all of our experience requires space and time. This seems fairly intuitive. Kant goes further. He says that space and time is not a property of things in themselves but rather the pure forms of intuition that make possible the world of appearances. This is another way of saying that space and time are not given to us by experience but rather that they are a priori categories of pure understanding which exist in the mind. Being a priori, they are prior to any sense experience. Now, a hardcore empiricist might here object with the slogan "nothing is in the intellect which is not first in the senses." But Kant might have the empiricists beat here. If we require space and time in order to experience anything at all, then space and time must be prior to the experience of any objects which exist in it. This is not to say that space and time exist temporally before any objects do (this would seem strange because there would have to be space and time without objects, which is arguably absurd), but rather that space and time are ontologically ('ontological' here means 'concerning existence or Being') prior to the appearance of objects in that space and time are necessary conditions for the having of experience.

Hume’s mistake according to Kant

Kant talks about Hume’s mistake in not understanding the nature of experience. Like many before Kant including Hume, believed that experience is simply a set of impressions. Thus ideas and impressions are constructed by compounding simple impressions. Kant would say that these are sensations, things we take in by our senses. Kant then argues that experience is more than these simple impressions and it all happens in space and time. Kant says that space and time are not impressions or sensations because they are pure intuitions. Thus everything that happens in time and spare are bound by the laws of cause and effect. Cause and effect in this case are also not impressions but rather concepts of understanding. So intuitions and concepts combine to make an orderly experience for us to understand.

Descartes Cogito argument

In the second meditation Descartes starts out by doubting everything the world around him, his memories and perceptions and so forth. He even starts to wonder about his own existence until he come up with probably the most important and influential statement in philosophical writing the Cogito argument. Descartes starts to think about his existence and everything else’s existence and comes to one important conclusion. That if he is able to doubt his existence then he must exist in at least some for. Even if a demon or divine deceiver was tricking you with what you say, heard, tasted, touched and so on was fake he himself is some form had to exist to be able to think these thoughts. So out of this pondering of existence comes the famous line “I think, there for I am”.

Cause and Effect

In the second part of Kant’s book he talks about how can not know the concept of cause and effect either through experience or reason. Kant does not agree with Hume that this is considered habit or custom that rather it is a priori knowledge that we apply to appearances. We are not able to know things as for what they are; we are only able to understand them by the appearances that are given off by them. Kant says that cause and effect is not to found in the appearances but rather in the form of the object and the understanding given by it. Hume like Kant both agree that we con not derive concepts from experience but instead we derive experience from those concepts. Concepts of understanding allow for us to legitimize experience, though it still can not tell us anything about the objects or things themselves. This helps us make connections between appearances but they can not go any farther than those appearances given off.

Judgments of Perception vs. Judgments of Experience

In the second part of the book Kant talks about the distinction between judgments of perception and judgments of experience. Judgments of perception combine together all our empirical thoughts and are only subjectively valid. So take the example of how I might notice that the sun is shining and then realize how the rock is warm. I might come to the conclusion that because the sun is shining the rock is warm, though this is valid only for me at this specific time.

Then Kant goes into talking about judgments of experience, these apply “concepts of the understanding” to judgments of perception. This is taking the previous example and taking it one step further, by adding cause to the argument it allows for us to be able to understand natural laws. Like before the sun is warm which in turn causes the rock to heat up and feel warm. Kant then goes on to say that we use judgments of experience to structure how we understand experience. Kant goes into talking about how judgments of experience are a priori concepts we combine together to understand our judgments and that these a priori laws allow for natural science to exist.

A priori vs. A posteriori

In the first section of Proglegomena, Kant discusses the distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge and how it shows the two possible sources of knowledge, the intellect and experience. He says that a priori means that we know something independently of observation and a posteriori means that we know something through observation. He claims that math is an excellent example of a priori knowledge since we can figure it out in our heads and nothing we experience can contradict this.

Understanding vs Reason

In the third part Kant talks about the difference between understanding and reason. He says that this is a big problem that arises in philosophical thinking. Hume says that any concept that can be associated with experience belongs under the category of understanding. While when we use reason we are striving not to use experience, experience only causes problems in reasoning. Kant comes up with three different ideas of reason, psychological ideas, cosmological ideas, and the theological ideas.

Looking at psychological ideas we are trying to find some sort of thing or subject that is underlying all the predicates we apply to the subject. For example when looking at a fish we may say the thing with scales that thing that lives in water and so on, but what is the thing. Kant says that this is worthless and just wasting time. These things help us understand things by allowing us to apply concepts to empirical intiotions and concepts take the style of predicates. The cosmological idea is simply an idea thats object can not be used in any experience. Basically that we use reason to prove four thesis and antithesis about the world and how it is. Lastly the third type is theological which unlike the other two do not start from experience. We start rather with the idea of pure completness of a thing (a perfect being) to determine the possibility and thus the actuality of all other things.