William Wallace and Kant Would Not Get Along

In the Antithetic of Pure Reason Kant sets up the four transcendental ideas of cosmology and the conflict that results from them. Before he even begins to set up the four conflicts he seems to indicate his opinion that "their dispute is nugatory" (CPR 468). Kant really seems to like the word nugatory.

A brief note of interest before Kant explores the transcendental ideas is his distinction between a skeptical method and skepticism. The latter is defined as "a principle of artful and scientific ignorance that undermines the foundations of all cognition" (CPR 468), whereas the skeptical method ultimately seeks to determine what the certain limits of cognition are. This is one of those myriad examples of Kant's influence from Descartes. While Descartes aimed at a skeptical method, Kant believes its only result was actual skepticism.

The first two ideas that Kant considers are the conflicts over the spatial and temporal boundaries of the world, as well as the extent to which substances in the world can be divided. The third idea, which would seem to have far more wide-ranging practical implications, is the conflict between the laws of nature and causal necessity versus freedom. The thesis argues that freedom is necessary to explain the initiation of causal progression, whereas the antithesis claims that freedom would negate the lawful progression of natural causes.

Each thesis or antithesis of the conflicts attempts to be proven using reductio ad absurdam arguments, which would seem to move the argument nowhere other than claiming that the opposite position is absurd. This is perhaps part of the reason why the conflict seems so insoluble.

At their heart, Kant seems to reject the solutions offered to the antimonies of pure reason because they seek to apply the category of causality beyond the boundaries of appearances. This implies that causality has some sort of transcendental status, which Kant would not be willing to grant. However, the debate seems to be a necessary one nontheless, because freedom is a necessary element in moral decisions.

Kant seems willing to grant the necessary status of freedom for practical philosophy, but is certainly not willing to grant its place in speculation. If one assumes that freedom exists, Kant claims one must grant "a first mover for the explanation of motions of the world" (CPR 488), which seems to be an interesting inversion of the cosmological argument. However, if one rejects freedom, Kant concludes that "it is...not necessary for you to seek for something dynamically first as far as causality is concerned" (CPR 487). So either one assumes there is moral freedom, and a first cause follows, or there is no freedom, and the universe has no temporal beginning. No wonder Kant wanted to dodge the whole question.