In Kant’s "The Transcendental Aesthetic (B)" he essentially breaks down and attempts to explain the human capacity to comprehend and interpret all sensibilities. According to Kant, our representations of all sensations are merely the appearances of things. He further breaks down the notion of appearances by explaining it in regards to matter and form.
Matter would be the a posteriori, or actual, sensations that constitute our appearances. Whereas form, which is a priori, is the capacity “which allows the manifold of appearance to be ordered...” (CPR, 172-173). I originally had a tough time trying to grasp Kant’s notion of form (and all a priori intuitions for that matter!) but I eventually came about my own way of understanding it. I imagined form to be a sort of innate constitution or pre-manufactured adjusted sensing machine. This sensing machine of ours we can simply just say is the biological construct of our brains; it is developed in such a way, which produces the appearances of things that we encounter.
But this is me just attempting to makes some sense of Kant and I also must say that I know very little of our biological construct to make any real grounded claims.
In the chapter, Kant states his explanations/arguments for the identity of space and time. They pretty much remain the same from his listed arguments from the (A) edition so there is no need in repeating them. But it must be remembered that Kant goes through his listed arguments of both space and time to justify his philosophy of transcendental ideality.
However, I never really interpreted transcendental ideality as much of a philosophy but rather as an argument of how we interpret appearances. While trying to grasp it I came to think of it as a looking glass in which we interpret all of our experience through. Kant, while explaining outer intuition states how it “has its seat merely in the subject, as its formal constitution…” (CPR, 176). The a priori intuitions, namely space and time, are lenses by which we perceive appearance, constituting our subjective reality.
I can see most of Kant’s views of transcendental ideality as being valid. However, I am not sure of his justification as to how all people necessarily share similar intuitions and therefore similar appearances. He states, “For we cannot judge at all whether the intuitions of other thinking beings are bound to the same conditions that limit our intuition and that are universally valid for us” (CPR, 177). At first I thought he was claiming that no one could know how others perceive their reality, but at the end of the sentence his clause “universally valid for us” seems to imply a sort of collective human intuition. This seems to be somewhat of a metaphysical leap. I am not sure how Kant can justify why “other thinking beings” (other implying not human) may not interpret reality differently than every other single human. Making such a claim, that all humans share the same conditions for reality seems to be making a claim as a thing in itself.
What I mean by this is that it appears that others share similar experiences, and this could be assumed through conversations or other modes of communication, but there is no certain way to know whether anyone outside yourself perceives things the same way that you do.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Whenever I hear ‘matter and form,’ I automatically think of Aristotle’s hylomorphism. For both, form orders matter, the primary difference being that Aristotle believed human beings could know objects, whereas Kant believes that we can only know the apparent representations of things. Only by form ordering matter are we able to make sense of experience. I also see the potential for some type of mind-body dualism view of human nature. The body would be necessary for sense perception, while the mind (the “sensing machine” that Mauro mentioned) applies a priori intuition in order to make sense of the appearance.
I'm inclined to agree with you Brendan, there does seem to be some superficial similarities between hylomorphism and Kant (perhaps just because of the similar terminology), but I think Kant would dismiss Aristotle as a transcendental realist (and we all know how bad that is).
I also thought Mauro's comment in the second to last paragraph was very revealing about Kant and a good criticism. For Kant we all share the same faculties of reason. But this seem to go back to the problem of other minds (I think that's what it is called). How do we know what sort of intuitions or cognitions others have? By talking to them, presumably, or reading something they've written. But these things are themselves appearances, which I think might raise the question of how sure are we that other human beings experience things just as we do.
I, like you Michael, have a lot of trouble accepting Kant's argument for the universality of a priori concepts. As an initial reaction (read as “non-philosophical” thinking) I just can't see how he could ever make such assumption. It is necessary for Kant to make this assumption, otherwise, I think we'd be sliding into relativism, making every human experience dependent on individual and subjective mind constructs. I feel like this necessity leads Kant to make an unjustified leap. Maybe this thinking on my part is greatly due to a lack of understanding as to why he makes this claim, but I don't think he supports in a convincing manner. After all, how can he claim that such intangible concepts can exist in other "minds" outside of his?
Collectively, I feel that we all share a similar sentiment towards Kant's emphasis on the mind. In fact, I still do not exactly see how Kant pulls himself out of Descartes' epistemological abyss, if you will. I understand how he settles for limited access to objects through appearances, which can only be brought about through our intuitions of space and time; but, like you guys, I kind of feel like saying, "speak for yourself, Kant!" Although, of course, I would never be that brash to a man of Kant's stature.
As Michael pointed out, Kant's writings constitute an appearance. And, spiraling further down this rabbit hole, is this "looking glass," as Mauro so aptly names our sensibility, universal or relative to each person? Well, Kant asserts that this "looking glass" holds true for all human beings (CPR, 185). And so, it seems like he is assuming that, as humans, we all share the same basic nature. Even though we receive his writing through imperfect mediums (i.e. paper and ink) we should be able to synthesize his message in a way that his "organon" will become "certain and indubitable as can ever be demanded of a theory" (187)--pretty high standards, I know. Thus, I look forward to seeing what Kant's next move is?
Here, he sets the groundwork for sensibility; but will he go beyond his multiple allusions to pure mathematics and tell us how exactly we synthesize something, like math, that can regarded as truthful, albeit derived from petty appearances?
Post a Comment