THEME 1 - Comments - Theory of knowledge and theory of science

Links to the comments I've made 

1. On cognition shaping objects : Pre-Seminar
2. On perception, and the table of categories : Post-Seminar
3. On synthetic/analytic judgement and the table of categories : Post-Seminar
4. On the similarity/difference between Kant and Plato's stands, and conceptualization : Post-Seminar
5. On the "world in itself" and synthetic/analytic judgement : Post-Seminar
6. On learning, and self-reflexion : Post-Seminar
7. On deductive and inductive reasoning : Post-Seminar
8. On metaphysics and Kant's critique : Post-Seminar
9. On the particularities of seminars, and why it helps : Post-Seminar
10. On experience and perception : Post-Seminar

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THEME 1 - Post-Posting - Theory of knowledge and theory of science

"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. 

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THEME 1 - Pre-Posting - Theory of knowledge and theory of science

Critique of Pure Reason (I. Kant) 

In the preface to the second edition of "Critique of Pure Reason" (page B xvi) Kant says: "Thus far it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to objects. On that presupposition, however, all our attempts to establish something about them a priori, by means of concepts through which our cognition would be expanded, have come to nothing. Let us, therefore, try to find out by experiment whether we shall not make better progress in the problems of metaphysics if we assume that objects must conform to our cognition." How are we to understand this?

Is metaphysics a science? 

To answer this question, a deeper understanding of what defines science is needed. In the preface to the second edition of his "Critique of Pure Reason", Kant delves into the fields of logics, mathematics, physics, and metaphysics to show us what makes mathematics and physics worthy of being called a science, as opposed to logics, science's "outer courtyard" where reason has only to do with itself, devoid of any object at all; or metaphysics, where reason is presented with objects, but with no intuition or experience as mathematics or physics would be. Indeed, based on the presupposition that the understanding subject acquires knowledge only by passively submitting itself to experience, with no added value whatsoever from its own reason, metaphysics seems like an pointless and endless "battlefield": in its very definition, metaphysics relies on the belief that there is knowledge without experience. Here comes the big question: can there actually be knowledge without experience?

Indeed, Kant is establishing the ground for a new theory of knowledge: in this preface, he distinguishes between a priori knowledge and a posteriori knowledge. The former is exactly what metaphysics is based on: pure knowledge, preceding any experience, that lives in the understanding subject's reason. To try to solve the issue with metaphysics, Kant suggests we shift our viewpoint in regards to both forms of knowledge : before, we believed a posteriori knowledge came wholly from the world surrounding us, without even considering, or needing, an a priori knowledge. Now, similarly to what happened with the isosceles triangle, or Copernicus' revolution… What happens if we open our eyes to the possibility of an a priori knowledge that influences greatly the a posteriori knowledge, in that it shapes the considered object itself ? 

Theaetetus (Plato)  

At the end of the discussion of the definition "Knowledge is perception", Socrates argues that we do not see and hear "with" the eyes and the ears, but "through" the eyes and the ears. How are we to understand this? And in what way is it correct to say that Socrates argument is directed towards what we in modern terms call "empiricism"?

In Plato's Theaetetus, Socrates and Theaetetus discuss the meaning of knowledge : through three definitions offered by Theaetetus, we come closer to where Socrates wants to lead us. 

The "Knowledge is perception" definition misses the idea of human cognition, implying there's nothing more to knowledge than what our organs sense: Thankfully Socrates reminds Theaetetus that organs are but a means for the sensory world and our cognition to meet. Based on our senses, our reason can build knowledge. In that sense, Socrates calls out to the notion of empiricism, where knowledge is built on experience. 

What about Kant's a priori knowledge then? Perhaps this could counter Socrate's looming conclusion that truth can't be found in a world where knowledge is built through experimenting the objects of the world, objects that are changing indefinitely… 

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