PHIL 101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Theism, Dialectic, Cosmological Argument
28 Jul 2020
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The limitation of scientific knowledge to the phenomenal reality, conditioned by the a priori forms of sensibility and understanding, raises even more sharply the possibility of metaphysics as science. According to kant, every piece of knowledge must fulfil two conditions: 1. It must contain an element of "concept," that is, of intellectual reasoning. God, the soul and the world as a whole lack the first condition, because they are not "phenomena" but "objects" of pure intellectual intuition, without the presence of an experimental element. Kant draws the serious conclusion that metaphysics as a science is impossible. However, there is a natural human impulse to transcend the limits defined by the critical analysis of human knowledge; this metaphysical impulse is inextricable from the human spirit, because it is a natural disposition. In the "transcendental dialectic" kant investigates the reasons and scope of this disposition that has its basis in reason (vernunft), a different power of understanding.
