History of Philosophy

Immanuel Kant’s Copernican Revolution. Kant and the Enlightenment

We cannot know the world as it is, but only the world as it appears. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) We cannot know the world as it is, but only the world as it appears. Rationalists and empiricists could not find the common ground for a new theory, which would have finished the controversy between them over the origins and methods of knowledge.

But a German philosopher from Königsberg in East Prussia (now Kaliningrad in the Russian Federation) Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who published Critique of Pure Reason (ed. A - 1781 ed. B – 1787), and two other critiques: Critique of Practical Reason (1785), Critique of Judgement (1790), tried to overcome the controversy stalemate. He pondered over mathematics and physics and came to a conclusion, that propositions (judgments) in these sciences are universal and necessary like a priori propositions and at the same time they expand (synthesise) our knowledge like a posteriori (empirical) ones.

Kingdom of Prussia in 1799

The Königsberg University

The City of Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg) and the Kaliningrad Region nowadays (a part of the Russian Federation)

Kant’s monument in Kaliningrad

Kant’s most famous quote “Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more often and steadily we reflect upon them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.” I .Kant, Critique of Practical Reason

How can a judgment (proposition) be necessary and synthetic at the same time? Kant developed a theory of a new type of knowledge: a synthetic like empirical and a priori like rational (deductive) one. Because space and time are our way of perceiving empirical objects (the forms of sensibility), we have the direct access to space and time, and therefore we are able to know a priori and in a synthetic way (expanding our knowledge) objects in our minds before having any sensory experience (geometry and arithmetic). Because this knowledge is a priori the future experience must comply with it.

If we know a priori characteristics of geometrical solids, we can be sure that objects of our experience like spheres, cubicles etc., will fit the propositions of geometry as a priori knowledge. Kant argued also that our empirical knowledge is a combination of sensory a posteriori and conceptual a priori elements (categories like cause, unity, etc.). In other words our knowledge is both empirical and rational. Because it is a mixture of the two, we don’t know things as they are (Dinge an sich - things in themselves as Kant called them), but only the objects of experience: concepts (forms) ‘filled’ with impressions (sensory contents).

Objects of empirical knowledge are not determined by things outside our minds or by minds themselves, but by both. Objects of cognition are shaped by our minds. Amorphous empirical data are unrecognisable and must be ordered and classified by our minds, by judgements (propositions) and categories/concepts.

We don’t know what we should do unless our reason finds universal moral laws. According to Kant man has moral duties, which can be defined as categorical imperatives (unconditional commands). Kant was convinced that human dignity is conducive to its autonomy, which is based on his ability to rule his will by reason. In this way man is able to act independently of any religious or any other authorities, and of ethical systems based on them (heteronomous ethics).

It is also important for will to be independent of empirical circumstances and of one’s passions and emotions as determinants of actions (‘pathological’ (pathos (Gr.), passion, affection) motives of actions). This reason-based ethics is autonomous one. To define one’s moral duty, one has to try to generalise a maxim (principle) of conduct, to find if it can be a universal law (of nature), i.e. that anybody in one’s situation would act according the same generalised maxim.

Moral duties for Kant are general (exceptionless) moral laws Moral duties for Kant are general (exceptionless) moral laws. At the same time moral good is what is prescribed by categorical imperative. Hypothetical imperatives, are not universal moral laws, they say what should be done (what sort of action should be performed) to achieve an end. The choice of an end should be decided independently. Categorical imperative, on the other hand, is the way to decide what moral law (rule) one should follow. The moral law is an end in itself, i.e., it is an intrinsic value.

As Kant put it: <<"The will is in every action a law to itself," only expresses the principle: "To act on no other maxim than that which can also have as an object itself as a universal law." Now this is precisely the formula of the categorical imperative and is the principle of morality, so that a free will and a will subject to moral laws are one and the same.”>> Human autonomy and dignity are intrinsic values. Another version of categorical imperative defines it quite clearly: “So act as to treat humanity, whether in thine own person or in that of any other, in every case as an end withal, never as means only.” In other words the fundamental principle of Kant’s deontological ethics defines moral duty as recognition of human autonomy as an end in itself.

I. Kant, What is Enlightenment I. Kant, What is Enlightenment? “Enlightenment is man's release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage is man's inability to make use of his understanding without direction from another. Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause lies not in lack of reason but in lack of resolution and courage to use it without direction from another. Sapere aude! "Have courage to use your own reason!" — that is the motto of enlightenment. […] For this enlightenment, however, nothing is required but freedom, and indeed the most harmless among all the things to which this term can properly be applied. It is the freedom to make public use of one's reason at every point. […]

If we are asked , "Do we now live in an enlightened age If we are asked , "Do we now live in an enlightened age?" the answer is, "No," but we do live in an age of enlightenment. As things now stand, much is lacking which prevents men from being, or easily becoming, capable of correctly using their own reason in religious matters with assurance and free from outside direction. But on the other hand, we have clear indications that the field has now been opened wherein men may freely deal with these things and that the obstacles to general enlightenment or the release from self-imposed tutelage are gradually being reduced. In this respect, this is the age of enlightenment, or the century of Frederick.”