Immanuel KANT: Critical Philosophy, Enlightenment and Politics

1. Immanuel KANT: Critical Philosophy, Enlightenment and Politics Assoc. Prof. Kurtul Gulenc kurtul.gulenc@deu.edu.tr

2. Immanuel KANT • Immanuel Kant(April 1724 – February 1804) was a German philosopher who is widely considered to be a central figure of modern philosophy.

3. He argued that fundamental concepts structure human experience, and reason is the source of morality. His thought continues to have a major influence on contemporary thought, especially the fields of metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics.

4. According to Kant, humankind has a natural tendency to metaphysics, which means human species want to design the existence of god, the immortality of the soul, and freedom as objects located beyond the world. Hence, man wants to reveal information about them.

5. However, sensibility and understanding forming human's cognition can be used only for the field of experience. • Kant thinks that human’s mind creates these ideas of metaphysical (basically) objects because of ethical reasons not for epistemic reasons. Because, human beings want to guarantee its finite existence with the ideas of god, the immortality of the soul, and freedom.

6. Metaphysics arises from the consciousness of man’s finite existence and it is born from the desire to ensure this existence. • Kant’s ideas about metaphysics can be clearly found in his book “Critique of Pure Reason” (1781). This book is far from an easy read: Kant himself described it as both dry and obscure. Very few people would claim to understand it all.

7. Like most philosophers, he spent his time trying to understand our relation to reality. That, in essence, is what metaphysicians is about, and Kant was one of the greatest metaphysicians to have lived. His particular interest was in the limits of thought, the limits of what we can know and understand. In his work, “Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics”, he also tried to find out the structure of reason. It has an easy read when it is compared with Critique of Pure Reason.

8. According to David Hume, metaphysics is the most controversial science. • David Hume took an extreme position, arguing that all genuine knowledge involves either mathematics (ideas of relations) or matters of fact and that metaphysics, which goes beyond these, is worthless. He concludes his Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding with the statement:

9. “If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.”

10. 33 years after Hume's Enquiry appeared, Immanuel Kant published his Critique of Pure Reason. Though he followed Hume in rejecting much of previous metaphysics, he argued that there was still room for some synthetic a priori knowledge, concerned with matters of fact yet obtainable independent of experience. These included fundamental structures of space, time, and causality..

11. Kant's major work, the Critique of Pure Reason aimed to explain the relationship between reason and human experience. With this project, he hoped to move beyond what he took to be failures of traditional philosophy and metaphysics. He attempted to put an end to what he considered an era of futile and speculative theories of human experience, while resisting the skepticismof thinkers such as David Hume.

12. Kant plans to return metaphysics from its wrong way and wants to build metaphysics as a “science”. • Kant thinks that this "dogmatism" should be replaced by a critical approach.

13. Like the systems builders, Kant had an overarching framework in which all questions were to be addressed. Like Hume, who famously woke him from his 'dogmatic slumbers', he was suspicious of metaphysical speculation, and also places much emphasis on the limitations of the human mind.

14. Kant saw rationalist philosophers as aiming for a kind of metaphysical knowledge he defined as the synthetic a priori—that is knowledge that does not come from the senses (it is a priori) but is nonetheless about reality (synthetic).

15. Inasmuch as it is about reality, it is unlike abstract mathematical propositions (which he terms analytical apriori), and being apriori it is distinct from empirical, scientific knowledge (which he terms synthetic aposteriori).

16. The only synthetic apriori knowledge we can have is of how our minds organize the data of the senses; that organizing framework is space and time, which for Kant have no mind-independent existence, but nonetheless operate uniformly in all humans.

17. A priori knowledge of space and time is all that remains of metaphysics as traditionally conceived. There is a reality beyond sensory data or phenomena, which he calls the realm of noumena; however, we cannot know it as it is in itself, but only as it appears to us.

18. He allows himself to speculate that the origins of God, morality, and free will might exist in the noumenal realm, but these possibilities have to be set against its basic unknowability for humans. Although he saw himself as having disposed of metaphysics, in a sense, he has generally been regarded in retrospect as having a metaphysics of his own.

19. Immanuel Kant’s main object is to convince all those who think metaphysics worth studying, that is absolutely necessary to pause a moment, and, neglecting all that has been done, to propose the preliminary question, “Whether such a thing as metaphysics be at all possible?”

20. If metaphysics be a science, how does it come to the position that it could not, like other sciences, obtain universal and permanent recognition? • If not, how can it maintain its pretensions, and keep the human mind in suspense with hopes, never ceasing, yet never fulfilled?

21. The answer to this problem is still hidden in man’s natural tendency to metaphysics. • In the case of metaphysics querries, Kant appeals “resources of the mind itself” in order to enlighten contradictions faced by mind and human’s inclination to metaphysics.

22. What Is Enlightenment?

23. Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage. • Nonage is the inability to use one's own understanding without another's guidance. This nonage is self-imposed if its cause lies not in lack of understanding but in indecision and lack of courage to use one's own mind without another's guidance.

24. Dare to know! (Sapere aude.) "Have the courage to use your own understanding," is therefore the motto of the enlightenment.

25. Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why such a large part of mankind gladly remain minors all their lives, long after nature has freed them from external guidance. They are the reasons why it is so easy for others to set themselves up as guardians. It is so comfortable to be a minor.

26. If I have a book that thinks for me, a pastor who acts as my conscience, a physician who prescribes my diet, and so on--then I have no need to exert myself. I have no need to think, if only I can pay; others will take care of that disagreeable business for me.

27. Thus it is very difficult for the individual to work himself/herself out of the nonage which has become almost second nature to him. S/He has even grown to like it, and is at first really incapable of using his/her own understanding because s/he has never been permitted to try it.

28. Dogmas and formulas, these mechanical tools designed for reasonable use--or rather abuse--of his/her natural gifts, are the fetters of an everlasting nonage. The man who casts them off would make an uncertain leap over the narrowest ditch, because he is not used to such free movement. That is why there are only a few men who walk firmly, and who have emerged from nonage by cultivating their own minds.

29. It is more nearly possible, however, for the public to enlighten itself; indeed, if it is only given freedom, enlightenment is almost inevitable.

30. A public can achieve enlightenment only slowly. A revolution may bring about the end of a personal despotism or of avaricious tyrannical oppression, but never a true reform of modes of thought. New prejudices will serve, in place of the old, as guide lines for the unthinking multitude.

31. This enlightenment requires nothing but freedom--and the most innocent of all that may be called "freedom": freedom to make public use of one's reason in all matters.

32. Now I hear the cry from all sides: "Do not argue!" The officer says: "Do not argue--drill!" The tax collector: "Do not argue--pay!" The pastor: "Do not argue--believe!" Only one ruler in the world says: "Argue as much as you please, but obey!" We find restrictions on freedom everywhere. But which restriction is harmful to enlightenment? Which restriction is innocent, and which advances enlightenment?

33. Kant replies: the public use of one's reason must be free at all times, and only this can bring enlightenment to mankind.

34. On the other hand, the private use of reason may frequently be narrowly restricted without especially hindering the progress of enlightenment.By "public use of one's reason" I mean that use which a man, as scholar, makes of it before the reading public. I call "private use" that use which a man makes of his reason in a civic post that has been entrusted to him.

35. Thus it would be very unfortunate if an officer on duty and under orders from his/her superiors should want to criticize the appropriateness or utility of his/her orders. S/He must obey. But as a scholar s/he could not rightfully be prevented from taking notice of the mistakes in the military service and from submitting his views to his/her public for its judgment.

36. The citizen cannot refuse to pay the taxes levied upon him; indeed, impertinent censure of such taxes could be punished as a scandal that might cause general disobedience. Nevertheless, this man does not violate the duties of a citizen if, as a scholar, he publicly expresses his objections to the impropriety or possible injustice of such levies.

37. A man may postpone his own enlightenment, but only for a limited period of time. And to give up enlightenment altogether, either for oneself or one's descendants, is to violate and to trample upon the sacred rights of man.

38. When we ask, Are we now living in an enlightened age? the answer is, No, but we live in an age of enlightenment. As matters now stand it is still far from true that men are already capable of using their own reason in religious matters confidently and correctly without external guidance.

39. Still, we have some obvious indications that the field of working toward the goal [of religious truth] is now opened. What is more, the hindrances against general enlightenment or the emergence from self-imposed nonage are gradually diminishing. In this respect this is the age of the enlightenment and the century of Frederick [the Great].

40. A prince ought not to deem it beneath his dignity to state that he considers it his duty not to dictate anything to his subjects in religious matters, but to leave them complete freedom. If he repudiates the arrogant word "tolerant", he is himself enlightened.

41. Under his reign, honorable pastors, acting as scholars and regardless of the duties of their office, can freely and openly publish their ideas to the world for inspection, although they deviate here and there from accepted doctrine.

42. This is even more true of every person not restrained by any oath of office. This spirit of freedom is spreading beyond the boundaries [of Prussia] even where it has to struggle against the external hindrances established by a government that fails to grasp its true interest.

43. Kant have emphasized the main point of the enlightenment--man's emergence from his self-imposed nonage--primarily in religious matters, because our rulers have no interest in playing the guardian to their subjects in the arts and sciences.

44. Only the man who is himself enlightened, who is not afraid of shadows, and who commands at the same time a well disciplined and numerous army as guarantor of public peace--only he can say what [the sovereign of] a free state cannot dare to say: "Argue as much as you like, and about what you like, but obey!"

45. Next Week • Karl MARX: “ is Anti-Capitalist Modernity possible?”