EURO ST 10 Lecture Notes - Lecture 68: Firm Foundation, Categorical Imperative, Practical Reason
Document Summary
Role of the understanding ( theoretical reason) in our (scientific) knowledge of nature. Whatever can show up or appear to us as a possible object of experience (=nature) falls under our forms of intuition (space and time) and the categories of the understanding (e. g. , number, causality) That is, our minds contribute basic forms and concepts to the empirical sense data in order to produce knowledge. To go back to our example: the sun causes the stone to get warm . The concept ( category ) of causality is a necessary condition that we bring to our experience of the world. This is called a priori in philosophy. It is not derived from experience (of the sun and stone) but is prior to that experience. As well as number (quantity), necessity, possibility (there are 12 categories) It is a precondition of all experience (of nature) that objects are in space and time, and are connected by causality, have a number, etc.
