"Let us assume that our faculties of knowledge do not conform to the objects, but the objects do conform to our faculties of knowledge."
What does Kant mean by faculties of knowledge? And how do objects conform to them?
To wholly grasp the Kantian argument, we have to go back to what happened on Monday's lecture. Still a little confused, even after writing my pre-posting and reflecting for a whole week on Kant's writing, I attended the lecture with a clouded mind.
After being reintroduced to the concepts of analytic and synthetic judgements; with examples that made it easier for us to understand ("All bodies have extension"), and a clarification on what Kant calls his Table of Categories or his forms of intuition, I think I was able to further my understanding on his stand towards metaphysics, while reformulating a question I raised quite awkwardly in my previous blog post : Rather than saying "Can there be knowledge without experience?", the big question seems to go a little more like this…
How is it possible to generate synthetic knowledge about the world, a priori?
Following this question, Kant opens a whole new chapter of philosophy for mankind to reflect on: gone is the seemingly self-evident conception of knowledge that we had before where we thought we acquired understanding just by opening up to the "world in itself", which, by the way, doesn't make sense according to Kant. Indeed, it refers to "God's point of view", as if there were a way of analyzing the universe from an entirely unbiased observer, without the analysis being tainted by any presupposition, and thus enabling the acquisition of pure knowledge. The problem is that humans are bodily localized, with a perspective, a bias making it impossible to elevate ourselves and our thoughts, forming boundaries that can't be transcended. In this sense, talking about the "world in itself" grounds us in an incoherent conception of knowledge and of the world, that Kant is trying to get rid of.
Post-Kantian knowledge theory is based on presupposition, where a posteriori knowledge is structured by a priori knowledge, with Kant's Table of Categories.
One logical question that follows this argument is wether or not our knowledge of these twelve categories was based on a posteriori knowledge. During the seminars, we discussed this issue in a four-person group, after which we talked about it with the rest of the class: while this question sure wasn't Kant's point (he was more after how knowledge was structured rather than how to come up with the structure), the fact that the categories he exposed were somehow very basic categories in the sense that it didn't encompass concepts very difficult to grasp (high-level categories such as race, social group…) was pointed out. We don't have to learn these concepts as a cultural fact, or linked to any linguistic approach: the notion of space and time comes inherently to each person, wether or not it is instilled by the current means of transportation or technological environment. It comes naturally, and transcend cultural fact. These categories are a priori, in relation to what they make possible.
The lecture combined with the seminar made Kant's argument appear that much clearer to me, and after a week of wondering or pondering, I was finally able to read Kant's preface again without having doubts on whether or not my understanding of the text was correct.
at first, even after the seminar, i still have a (lot of) confusion over all these philosophy terms such as priori and a posteriori ..is it the same as analytic judgement and synthetic judgement. However, reading your post make a little more sense to me with that one sentence 'Post-Kantian knowledge theory is based on presupposition, where a posteriori knowledge is structured by a priori'
ReplyDeleteHowever, on the 12 categories Kant proposed still give me alot of confusions. From what i understand is that, it just categories that kant try to make the priori-base knowledge into concept ? In our seminar we also raised similar question on how his 12 catagories are formed and is it limited only these 12 ? but yes i have to agree with you that kant is rather just trying to focus on how knowledge was structured.
Thank you for your comment :-)
DeleteI'm glad my post made the concepts of a priori and a posteriori a little clearer for you. I agree with you, and I believe analytic judgement, where you don't actually have to verify this judgement, is linked to a priori knowledge, whereas synthetic judgement, which requires investigation for said judgement, is related to a posteriori knowledge.
As for the Table of Categories : the way I understood it, the twelve categories are a priori knowledge which we use in order to process the knowledge we get from our perception - that is to say, to build our a posteriori knowledge. In a sense, the categories are concepts that are inherent to our pure understanding (thus, our a priori knowledge), and they structure our a posteriori knowledge because we have to resort to them to process our perceptions into understanding.
This was a great summation of the week, and your explanations of what was brought up was on point. Everything is very clear after reading you post.
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteYou summarized the questions for the lecture and give your own ideas. Interesting reflection! Although the teacher explained a lot and gave an example that wether the world still exist if all people die, "World in itself" is difficult for me to understand. Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts. Nice job!
Hello Jing,
DeleteThank you for your comment ! I believe "world in itself" refers to a conceptual idea of the world. In a sense, it would be a vision of the world from "God's point of view": without any bias, any preconceived idea or perspective. A "pure" vision of the world, I guess. But such a vision doesn't really make sense, as we can't elevate ourselves to such a point of view. Because of that, there's no real point in even manipulating the concept of a "world in itself", much less the idea of knowledge based on us "mirroring the world in itself" by just taking it the world that surrounded us. I think that's an idea introduced by Kant and that afterwards stayed core to all post-Kantian theories of knowledge.
Hello,
ReplyDeleteI too, like you, had a clouded mind regarding the message Kant wanted to mediate with his Critique for Pure Reason prior to the seminar. But your reasoning shows that a week spent wondering and pondering at the lecture and seminar gave you a better understanding of the texts. That space and time comes inherently to each person does seem obvious and in line with Kant's reasoning. But an interesting thought to debate this with is: imagine an infant child being held in solitude from any outer stimuli, culture or upbringing, would this child still gain the same perception of space and time? Would the child learn to walk (a question we discussed during our seminar) or what skills would s/he develop? Would s/he inherit the same skills as any other child or would it differ due to the complete separation?
Hello Gunnar,
DeleteThank you very much for your comment !
I think it's a very interesting question you're bringing up, and I'd like to hear more about it ! To me, I don't think said child would gain the same perception of space and time, but at least he'd have one ! I believe things would be much different for him - skills such as physical skills would differ of course, but psychological skills as well. Take for example children who have been known for having been brought up by animals, they themselves have a different set of skills as compared to any other child from "our" society...
But to come back to the sense of space and time, I believe it's highly dependent on the environment you've grown up in. For example, even just 100 years before today, mankind's perception of space and time was very different from the one we have now, because of our technological progress !! Nonetheless, we still all have one perception of space and time, and I believe that's why they come inherently to each of us, no matter have different it is :-)
Well done on your reflections! You make a good explanation on the ‘word in itself’ and ‘God’s point of view’. I have no doubt with your opinion, but I am curious to know with this perspective how will you think the objectivity issue in research, which might be a practical question for our future research.
ReplyDeleteIn addition, I share same thinking with you on the 12 categories from Kant. I agree with you that they are quite basic, and your conclusion is a good entry point to think them from today’s perspective that ‘These categories are a priori, in relation to what they make possible.’