Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason

Today we looked at the ‘Introduction’ and the ‘Transcendental Aesthetic’ from Kant’s Critique. Having recapped the distinction between appearances and the in-itself which is characteristic of transcendental idealism, we talked through his most important early distinctions, namely those between analytic / synthetic propositions, a priori / a posteriori justification and necessary / contingent truths. We noted how he stakes the possibility of metaphysics on the question: are synthetic a priori judgements possible? He does this because he thinks metaphysics must deal with substantive, necessary truths about the (mind-independent) world, and accepts, with Hume, that a posteriori justification can never lead to necessary truth. The critical method prescribes that we must approach metaphysics through epistemology, rather than heedlessly embarking upon the former as the ‘dogmatic’ philosophers have done.

We briefly examined Kant’s arguments for the synthetic a priori status of space and time. Dina also flagged how Schopenhauer will reject a large part of Kant’s deduction of the categories, on the grounds that the subject is unknowable. He will preserve only one of the Kantian categories: that of causality, as it is underwritten by the PSR, itself a formal constituent of the Understanding.