Kant as a Philosopher
How does one label Kant as a philosopher? Is he a rationalist or an empiricist? Kant makes a distinction between appearances and things in themselves. He also says that things in themselves exist, and that we have no knowledge of things in themselves. This could be labeled "CLOSE TO NONSENSE", but we know Kant better than that. No matter how many laps on the track of metaphysics Kant takes us through, he is still widely held as one of the greatest modern philosophers of our time. Let us explore the schools of rationalism and empiricism and compare his views with that of other rationalists and empiricists (mainly Hume), and see where he ends up on the finish line towards the nature of human knowledge.
The term rationalism is used to designate any mode of thought in which human reason holds the place of supreme truth. Knowledge in this school of thought must be founded upon necessary truths (those that must be true and cannot be false); our ideas are derived from our experience; everything we experience is finite, but we do have the idea of infinity or else we couldn’t conceive of things as finite. Descartes and Leibniz are well-known rationalists (handout on Rationalism versus Empiricism).
Empiricism, on the other hand, is the concept that knowledge is grounded in experience, not reason, and our minds begin as a tabula rasa (term used by the great empiricist, John Locke meaning blank slate). Reason, for empiricists, can only process the ideas experience gives us. Knowledge is also founded on contingent truths (those that can be false and true); necessary truths are only good for organizing our ideas, as in mathematics, but that is all. There are also no innate ideas in empiricism; all of ou...
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...ive today, maybe he wouldn’t choose either side. So, as for the race for who is more accurate at explaining the nature of human knowledge, it turns out that Kant is not a participant in the race after all. Nevertheless, he stands at the sidelines and fires the gun, and awaits the other modern philosophers to complete their race towards the finish line.
References
Ariew, R. and Watkins, E. Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources
Hackett: Indianapolis/Cambridge, 1998.
Ross, K.L. http://www.friesian.com/kant.htm, 2000.
Note: I found this website and judged its credibility to be pretty accurate. I usually don’t quote so much from websites, but he (or she) mainly quoted from the texts that I read for class anyway. Reading the text that the website provided helped me to better understand Kant. I hope that this was okay.
Philosophy is one’s oxygen. Its ubiquitous presence is continuously breathed in and vital to survival, yet its existence often goes unnoticed or is completely forgotten. Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant was one of the many trees depositing this indispensable system of beliefs into the air. Philosophy is present in all aspects of society, no matter how prominent it may be. As Kant was a product of the Scientific Revolution in Europe, the use of reason was an underlying component in the entirety of his ideas. One of his main principles was that most human knowledge is derived from experience, but one also may rely on instinct to know about something before experiencing it. He also stated that an action is considered moral based on the motive behind it, not the action itself. Kant strongly believed that reason should dictate goodness and badness (McKay, 537). His philosophies are just as present in works of fiction as they are in reality. This is exemplified by Lord of the Flies, a fiction novel written by William Golding. The novel strongly focuses on the origins of evil, as well as ethics, specifically man’s treatment of animals and those around him. Kant’s philosophy is embedded in the thoughts and actions of Piggy, Ralph, Jack, and Simon throughout the novel. Kant’s beliefs also slither into “Snake,” a poem by D.H. Lawrence, focusing on the tainting of the pure human mind by societal pressures and injustices. Overall, both the poet in “Snake” and Piggy, Ralph, Jack, and Simon in Lord of the Flies showcase Immanuel Kant’s theories on ethics, reasoning, and nature.
Johnson, R 2014, ‘Kant's Moral Philosophy,’ The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Spring Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), .
Immanuel Kant is one of the renowned representatives of German modern philosophy which was predominantly built on the philosophical concepts of human right, mind, morals and the importance of ownership. His central concept is reason and philosophical epistemology is based not only on theoretical, but also combined with the empirical aspects, which refers to the practical philosophy that covers from human behavior to human action. Generally speaking, the practical philosophy deals with the ground concept that relates to the human deliberative action. In the “Critique of Pure Reason” says that there is only congenital right, the independence which is the right to be detached from the other’s interest. Kant’s
The debate between rationalist and empiricist philosophers looks at the nature of knowledge, and specifically, how we gain this knowledge. Rationalists and empiricists take opposite, and sometimes mutually exclusive, views on how knowledge is obtained.
Kant conveys his beliefs by introducing the idea of a moral law. He believes there is a moral law that is to be upheld by everyone. The moral law is an unconditional principle that defines the standards of right action. Good will is a form of moral law because it’s a genuine attitude behind an action. Anything that is naturally good is morally good which sums up to be good will. Actions of good will do the right thing for the reason of simply being the right thing to do. There is no qualification, benefactor or incentive its good will and no personal gain, inclination, or happine...
Believing that reason is the main source of knowledge is another clear distinction of rationalism. Rationalists believe that the 5 senses only give you opinions, not reasons. For example, in Descartes’ wax argument, he explains how a candle has one shape to begin with- but once the candle is lit, it begins to melt, lose its fragrance, and take on a completely different shape than it had started with. This argument proves that our senses can be deceiving and that they should not be trusted.
Kant’s moral philosophy is built around the formal principles of ethics rather than substantive human goods. He begins by outlining the principles of reasoning that can be equally expected of all rational persons regardless of their individual desires or partial interests. It creates an ideal universal community of rational individuals who can collectively agree on the moral principles for guiding equality and autonomy. This is what forms the basis for contemporary human rig...
Descartes is a prime example of a rationalist. Descartes begins his Meditations on First Philosophy by doubting his senses in the first meditation. “From time to time I [Descartes] have found that the senses deceive, and it is prudent never to trust completely those who have deceived us even once”(Descartes: 12). In the second meditation, Descartes begins to rebuild the world he broke down in the first meditation by establishing cogito ergo sum with the aid of natural light. It is with this intuition that the cogito is established, from the cogito, intellect, from the intellect, knowledge; thus knowledge has been defined in this world that Descartes is constructing from scratch. Descartes uses the fact that he is a thinking thing to establish the existence of other things in the world with the cosmological and ontological arguments, as well as a meditation on truth and falsity. “So now I seem to be able to lay it down as a general rule that whatever I perceive very clearly and distinctly is true” (Descartes: 24). Descartes only utilizes his perceptions to establish ideas of the things t...
His theory is based on one’s judgment rather than what the society considers right or wrong. Kant bases his theory on the rightness or wrongness of a deed rather than the consequences that follow the act. He explains that people need not follow the rules blindly just for the results, but carefully consider the morality of the actions themselves.
Rationalism and empiricism have always been on opposite sides of the philosophic spectrum, Rene Descartes and David Hume are the best representative of each school of thought. Descartes’ rationalism posits that deduction, reason and thus innate ideas are the only way to get to true knowledge. Empiricism on the other hand, posits that by induction, and sense perception, we may find that there are in fact no innate ideas, but that truths must be carefully observed to be true.
Finally, Kant saw the world as he wanted to see it, not the reality of it. In reality human beings are social animals that can be deceived, and can become irrational, this distinction is what makes us human, and it is that which makes us make mistakes. Kant states good arguments in his essay however his belief that people are enslaved and shackled by the “guardians” when he writes “shackles of a permanent immaturity” (Kant, 1) is sometimes absurd when the same guardians are the people that encourage our minds of thinking.
In Kant’s book, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant talks about the three formulations of the categorical imperative. By these formulations, he describes his idea of organizing the moral principle for all rational beings. Kant also talks about the principles of humanity, rational ends, and the “realm of ends” which are constituted by the autonomous freedom of rational beings.
Kant believed that morality has to be something free and freely controlled by the person taking the moral action excluding consequences because consequences are not controllable. Morality is freely chosen and legislated universal law that any rational being could construct and all rational beings who want to be moral do
During the enlightenment era, rebellious scholars called philosophers brought new ideas on how to understand and envision the world from different views. Although, each philosopher had their own minds and ideas, they all wanted to improve society in their own unique ways. Two famous influential philosophers are Francis Bacon and John Locke. Locke who is an empiricism, he emphasizes on natural observations. Descartes being a rationalist focus more on innate reasons. However, when analyze the distinguished difference between both Locke and Descartes, it can be views towards the innate idea concepts, the logic proof god’s existence, and the inductive/deductive methods. This can be best demonstrate using the essays, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding”
Empiricism (en- peiran; to try something for yourself): The doctrine that all knowledge must come through the senses; there are no innate ideas born within us that only require to be remembered (ie, Plato). All knowledge is reducible to sensation, that is, our concepts are only sense images. In short, there is no knowledge other than that obtained by sense observation.