PHIL 460 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: A Priori And A Posteriori, Practical Reason, Critique Of Pure Reason
12 Jun 2018
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Missing last class (Jan. 25)
Last class: looked at Hume, who begins with similar questions as Kant and concludes
that we can know basically nothing a priori (but that this doesn’t really matter).
First Critique: Same question; how can we know anything about the world a priori?
Doesn’t want to accept H’s answer that we can’t.
Hume and the problem of metaphysics
• Is metaphysics possible as a science?
• Hume: no necessary connection between two events is discoverable by reason
alone
o Sensation, rather, is the only way we acquire knowledge about the world.
o Note: the metaphysicians of the time are claiming to do precisely this
(discover necessary connections by reason alone)
• If H is right, and the only a priori knowledge possible is of our own ideas, how
can we know matters of fact a priori?
• According to Kant, on H’s account, metaphysics is impossible
o K does not want to accept this conclusion
Prolegomena, 1783
• Kant sets out to prove that some concepts can be deduced by reason alone
• In Prolegomena, attempts to show a priori concepts through transcendental
deduction
• His project, then, is similar to Hume’s
• H limits himself to the experimental method; his results, accordingly, are limited.
• Prolegomena, and its attempt to show that we can know things a priori, will
become basis for Critique of Pure Reason
Letter to Herz
• How can relations among ideas tell us anything about the world?
• In other words, what is the relationship between that in us that we call
‘representation’, and the object itself?
• 3 options, according to Kant:
1. Objects cause representation (thus, the representation and the object are in
conformity).
2. Representation causes objects (e.g. ‘divine consciousness’)
a) Representation is in conformity with object
b) Determination of the mind has an object
3. Pure concepts are neither caused by the object, nor do they create the object.
• If Kant’s goal is to be able to say we have a priori knowledge about objects,
which of these options makes most sense?
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