The general framework of Kant’s critique appears in his first introduction, by explaining the basic limits of reason and what a critique of its pure form aims to accomplish. It attempts to show where such a priori concepts can be formulated outside of experience. Kant starts by addressing experience itself, and extolling that it can stimulate reason, but not satisfy it, since there are a priori concepts, and no concrete proof of universality. By this denial, Kant asserts pure reason through original concepts that surpass the limits of our experience.
Since he’s mentioned this before he moves onto something a little more important. A question is presented as to which types of judgments can be made through pure reason, so Kant puts forward two types. Analytic judgments, in which the predicate is contained in the subject, are a good deal like Plato’s ideas of the forms, from which all things come, and synthetic, in which the predicate lies outside of the subject, which is seemingly empiricism. In analytic judgments, cognition merely reproduces what we already know, while synthetic judgments aim to understand something outside of the subject, which has a method of explaining experience.
Next Kant talks about this examination of pure reason in terms of a transcendental philosophy useful for the purification of our reason, with a Doctrine of Elements and a Doctrine of Methods. He again mentions sensation and understanding, which, through the former, objects are given to us, and, through the latter, they are thought of.
In the second introduction Kant offers more qualifiers for a priori concepts and their separation from experience. He focuses more strongly on their complete independence from experience, and even goes as far to say that we may know these concepts before experience and allow them to shape experience. These a priori judgments are qualified by two aspects, necessity and universality. If a concept has both of these, then it is an a priori concept originated purely without experience. The issue here presented is the problem with dogmatic assumptions in metaphysics, which qualify things like God without any background or reason, and, when one assumes so much, they cannot be accurately contradicted.
He again mentions analytic and synthetic judgments, calling them “judgments of clarification” and judgments of amplification.” He also emphasizes synthetic judgments, clarifying that all judgments of experience are synthetic, and that the sciences of math and physics that he believes metaphysics should follow are grounded in the same type. This leads to troubles with metaphysics, since it tries to solve problems of pure reason created by itself. Due to these unique troubles, a critique of pure reason is needed for this special science, since pure reason, “contains the principles for cognizing something absolutely a priori.” With his mission statement now out there, a reason defined for his practice, and a few qualifiers regarding how one should picture pure reason, Kant is ready to begin his framework for the basis of human reasoning.
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Oops, so I guess I didn't read the blogging schedule correctly. I was just supposed to do the second introduction, but I kinda did the whole thing. Well I guess seeing as most of the second one has the same text as the first and just expands on it, it shouldn't be too big of a deal hopefully.
I was just reading the blog post, which I thought did a great job summing up the introduction, but I have been having some further thoughts on the possibility of synthetic a priori concepts.
I am still having difficulty trying to comprehend how synthetic a priori concepts can be possible without some distinct amount of experience. I even have a tough time imagining how the essential intuitions of space and time can be possible without a distinct amount of experience.
If I were to imagine a man who was born unable to see or feel any sensation of touch, would he be able to have an intuition of space comparable to an individual with fully functioning senses? I would imagine what Kant would claim as necessary universal a priori experiences to rather be products of an individual subjects experience.
However, the closest thing I can imagine to synthetic a priori concepts would be certain mental capacities. These capacities would be innate and prior to any actual experience and would hold the potential for what Kant considers synthetic a priori concepts, such as the equation 7+5=12. For instance, someone in class today mentioned the development of language and that made me think how the human mind has an innate capacity to develop speech, just as I am sure it has a similar capacity to develop mathematical concepts. However, I still would contend that one would need to be introduced to a certain amount of experience or stimuli before being able to create abstract concepts, which Kant claims to be purely a priori.
I hope my comment is not inappropriate and though I may have digressed a bit (which I apologize for) I am just stuck on Kant’s particular notion of a priori concepts.
Mauro, I agree that it's difficult to consider a priori concepts completely divorced from experience. This might help make the distinction.
This goes back to the discussion we had in class about cognitions beginning with experience but not all related to experience. Kant acknowledges that temporally we're not going to think about things without experience, but that doesn't mean there isn't a distinction between concepts and intuitions. You mentioned space and time. If someone was born without the ability to sense anything, it might be hard to communicate with them, but I imagine they'd still have concepts of space and time. Paraphrasing the Dissertation, space and time are forms of the intuition that structure all of our experiences. Unless space is already presupposed, we cannot orient all of our outer perceptions in space. Similarly, to conceive something as simultaneous or successive, we must already have some concept of time. Extending this to other concepts, we cannot describe the empirical status of a body without already having such structuring concepts as extension or substance (paraphrasing the Routledge guidebook, pg. 53).
An analogy that fits in with your mention of language would be grammar. Before we can arrange words into a coherent, consistent sentence we need structuring rules of grammar.
Hopefully this is a consistent and correct account of how Kant sees concepts being applied to empirical knowledge, as opposed to necessarily being derived from sense experience.
Good questions. I agree with Mauro that Stephen did a great summary, but I just want to point out that I do not want the blog posts to be summaries. I state this explicitly in the "Blogging Procedures" tab on the blackboard site.
That aside, I want to respond to Mauro's question and hypothetical example. One thing I was wondering was, why are the apriori forms of space and time separate from the ability to sense? It seems like you are already making a certain cognitivist assumption that such apriori forms would be purely cognitive functions, yet I don't see why that need be the case. Instead, the apriori forms could be like the nerves extending from the body to the brain--or in the part of the brain that receives those neurological events--which is to say the conditions for sensing. Except that these conditions are transcendental and not bodily, insofar as they are pure and not dependent on the physical senses to function. Along this line, Kant's claim about their apriori nature would still be good. So ultimately I think your example is misleading.
To really pose an objection, we must come up with a phenomenon that is given in space and time that is prior to the pure forms of space and time.
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