The foundation and soil on which all our knowledge and sciences rest is the Unexplainable. Therefore, every explanation is reduced to it with the help of more or less indirect members, as at sea, with the help of a fishing line, sometimes on a shallower, and sometimes on a deeper depth, one must always touch the bottom. The Unexplainable belongs to metaphysics.
Immanuel Kant (1724 – 1804), a great German philosopher, was born in Königsberg (Kaliningrad) where he studied and later taught at the University until his death. He is a kind of icon of modern philosophy, just as Einstein is for physics, and his Critique of Pure Reason has become synonymous with difficult philosophical literature. The following quotes may serve to illustrate Kant’s greatness and his contribution to philosophy:
Jaspers: “After Plato, no step has been taken in the West that would have caused such groundbreaking consequences in the harsh atmosphere of thought.”
Schelling: “The image of Kant’s spirit in its uniqueness will shine throughout the entire
“In the future of the philosophical world.”
“Kant is often noted for his extreme regularity in the daily life that he maintained for over forty years. He would start his daily walks exactly at seven in the evening, so his fellow citizens could adjust their watches accordingly. The only time he deviated from his routine for a few days was not due to illness but because he became absorbed in reading Rousseau’s work Emile or On Education.”
“Although he never married, he was a social person with broad interests. He regularly had guests for lunch, and they were not fellow experts, but ordinary people, friends with whom he would discuss politics, economics, and everyday matters – but at least about philosophy.”
“Herder writes about him as a lecturer and as a person: ‘He was never indifferent to anything worth knowing. He always returned to the knowledge of nature and the moral value of man. He encouraged thinking, and despotism was foreign to his nature. This man, whom I mention with great gratitude and admiration…” “With respect, Immanuel Kant was incredible!”
“It is interesting that he never taught his philosophical system.”
“Metaphysics – the queen of all sciences?”
“The central theme of Kant’s philosophical exploration was metaphysics. He begins his Critique of Pure Reason with the following words: The human mind has a peculiar destiny in a certain type of its knowledge, where it is disturbed by questions that it cannot reject because they are given to it by the very nature of the mind, yet it cannot answer them because they surpass every power of the human mind.”
“It gives the impression that some kind of ‘curse’ has been placed upon the human mind – it is constantly confronted with such ‘impossible’ questions as God, freedom, and immortality – to which it cannot provide a proper answer. In this predicament, says Kant, the mind is not at fault. The mind begins with principles whose application is inevitable during experience and is also sufficiently confirmed by experience itself. The problem arises because the mind does not stop there, but surpasses the limits of experience and reaches principles that can no longer be understood through experience alone.” have been confirmed by experience, which “do not recognize the touchstone of experience”, and thus enters the field of endless disputes called metaphysics.
Ever since the time when a part of Aristotle’s writings were designated as metaphysica pa all the way to the modern age, metaphysics has been an inevitable part of every philosophy, but with an unusual fate: while all modern sciences have progressed steadily, having experiment and experience as solid foundations, metaphysics, which claims to be the queen of all sciences, has not progressed a single step. And skeptics, “a kind of nomads who shy away from any permanent cultivation of the land,” tirelessly undermine the very foundations of this science.
A decisive blow to metaphysics, but also an encouragement for Kant to take a new direction in research, was given by David Hume. Kant beautifully describes this in his work Prolegomena to any future metaphysics:
Since the beginning of metaphysics, as far as its history goes, nothing has happened that could be more decisive in terms of the fate of this science than the attacks that have been made against it. which David Hume has done to it. (…) He started from one single, but important metaphysical concept, namely, the concept of the connection between cause and effect. (…)
I openly admit: the memory of David Hume was precisely what first woke me up from dogmatic slumber many years ago and gave my explorations in the field of speculative philosophy a completely different direction.
Hume, namely, claimed that we cannot, neither rationally nor experientially, prove that there is a necessary connection between cause and effect. He does not deny the existence of this connection but claims that the necessity of this connection cannot be proved. A connection of concepts is necessary if it can be derived from the mind itself – completely independent of experience. On the other hand, metaphysics consists precisely of such a priori statements independent of experience, so denying the necessity of these connections means denying metaphysics as a science.
In contrast to metaphysics, philosophical empiricism starts from the position that all knowledge comes exclusively from experience. John Locke, another representative of English empiricism, from the He reasoned like this: “Nihil est in intellectu, quod non prius fuerit in sensu” (Nothing is in the intellect that was not previously in the senses).
The progress of modern science, which is completely empirical in its orientation, has led to a kind of victory of empiricism over metaphysics. Metaphysics has gained a bad reputation as idle speculation of a bored mind, without any scientific value, and engaging in metaphysics and dealing with big metaphysical questions about the meaning of life, death, the immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and similar, now seems somehow anachronistic and almost inappropriate.
However, in the Critique, Kant says: “It is in vain to pretend to be indifferent to such investigations, whose object cannot be indifferent to human nature.”
He vividly expressed his attitude towards Hume’s skepticism in the Prolegomena: “Hume brought his ship to shore (skepticism) to secure it, where it can stand and rot. On the contrary, I am determined to give it a helmsman who will guide it through the Kantian system.” Equipped with a complete nautical chart and compass, according to reliable principles of navigation skills derived from knowledge of the globe, one can confidently guide the ship wherever they believe is best.
In the Prolegomena, he further states that his intention is to convince all those who consider engaging in metaphysics valuable, to cease their work and first and foremost ask the question: is metaphysics even possible as a science?
Kant argues that empiricism would be justified if all elements of our knowledge were exclusively derived from sensory experience. He claims that every cognition arises from experience, that there is no cognition that predates experience, but he also asserts and demonstrates that not all elements of knowledge originate from experience.
However, Kant does not construct a new metaphysical system; instead, he writes Critiques, and for him, critique is not the critique of a system but rather the critique of mental faculties in general, with regard to knowledge independent of any experience. He explores the very instrument of cognition.
And then, in the Prolegomena, he directly addresses the question of whether we have a priori synthetic knowledge. He makes an important claim: I succeeded in solving Hume’s problem not only in a particular case, but in regard to the entire power of pure reason; therefore, I could take confident, albeit always small steps, to completely and according to general principles determine the entire scope of pure reason, both in terms of its limits and its content. This is what metaphysics needed, to construct its system according to a secure plan.
In other words, Kant proves that metaphysics as a science is possible.
Coping a “Copernican Turn”
According to his words, he did in metaphysics what Copernicus did in astronomy – a Copernican turn. Here are his words from the Critique: In metaphysics, a similar approach can be attempted, regarding the perception of objects. If the dawn (as a quality of the object) had to be directed according to the quality of the object, then I do not see how anything a priori could be known about the dawn. However, if the object (as an object of sensation) is directed according to the quality of our power of sight, then I can conceive of this possibility. It is quite well presented. And then it continues with one lengthy sentence: However, since I cannot stop at these dawns if they are to become knowledge, but rather I have to relate them as representations to something like an object and determine it through them, I can accept that either concepts, by means of which I express this determination, also direct themselves towards the object, and then I am again in the same predicament… or that objects or – which is the same – experience, in which they are exclusively known (as given objects), direct themselves towards those concepts, and then I immediately see an easier way out, because even experience itself is a mode of knowledge requiring reason. And, finally: I must assume its rules [of reason] within myself even before objects are given to me, thus a priori…
And that’s it. There is something that is given a priori, something independent of experience, and thus Kant proves that metaphysics is possible as a science. Later, Kant will prove that a priori judgments are possible using the example of mathematical judgments. However, It is important that “we a priori only know what we ourselves put into things.”
In other words, in regards to objects themselves, the fundamental principle is that our sensory representation is in no way a representation of things in themselves, but only as they appear to us. Sensory knowledge does not present things as they are, but only the way they stimulate our senses, and thus, they only give reason for reflection on appearances and not on the things themselves.
The Importance of Metaphysics
Kant in the Prolegomena says: Metaphysics is, in its basic features, perhaps more inherent in us than any other science, and therefore cannot be considered a product of choice or a randomly expanded experience.
Kant’s eternal credit is that he not only ensured our right to contemplate freedom, immortality, and God as conscious beings who have the freedom to think about the meaning of our own existence but also obliged us to do so – because metaphysics And it is “implanted in us by nature itself”.