An Interpretation of Kant’s Metaphysical Deduction of the Categories

In the Critique of Pure Reason, philosopher Immanuel Kant aims to thoroughly explain his philosophy of the metaphysical world. Within the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant focuses on confirming that space and time are a priori intuitions. He provides reasoning and arguments as to why they are transcendentally ideal but empirically real, making space and time subjectively necessary for experiences. Simultaneously, Kant distinguishes space and time from secondary qualities, which belong to our senses through experience, by confirming that unlike space and time, secondary qualities are not empirically real. Kant does run into conflicts with his theory, he still successfully claims that space and time are transcendentally ideal but empirically real, as well as distinguish them from secondary qualities by supporting his theories with reasoning.

The author hopes, through this text, to make the reader realize that using intuition and going beyond one’s own senses can help to reach basic truths. This idea is also evident in the text, “the power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows until he tries” (550). Like Romanticism, Transcendentalism also values the ideas of individualism. Emerson writes that “nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind” (551), and while it expresses individualistic beliefs, it, also, is another example of instinct and

As stated in the introduction of the Encyclopedia of Transcendentalism, “Transcendentalism has suffered a problem of definition from its own time to ours” (Wayne VII). This describes the lack of a singular meaning of this concept, as Transcendentalism touches upon many

In this paper, I will argue Kant’s categorical imperative's through a condensed summation of his Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals with specific regard for the need for categorical imperative and how it's flaws can disband the efficacy of his claim.

perfect fulfillment on earth requires understanding, and a true understanding can be reached only through

* We leave the world of belief and accept conceptual perceptions in a move toward understanding the “intelligible realm”.

Transcendentalists were known for believing in a new way of comprehending knowledge and the truth. On the foundation of this belief, they built the movement. The movement first began in Germany when, Immanuel Kant, began combatting the Scientific Revolution’s storing of facts by writing about the abstracts of existence. His argument, which became the driving force of Transcendentalism, was that each individual has the right to reason for themselves and to fit their reasoning into their view of the world as a whole. This argument encouraged a spark of skepticism in doubt, which fueled the movement.

In his publication, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals, Immanuel Kant supplies his readers with a thesis that claims morality can be derived from the principle of the categorical imperative. The strongest argument to support his thesis is the difference between actions in accordance with duty and actions in accordance from duty. To setup his thesis, Kant first draws a distinction between empirical and “a priori” concepts. Empirical concepts are ideas we reach from our experiences in the world. On the other hand and in contrast, “a priori” concepts are ideas we reach as an end point of reasoning prior to or apart from any experience of how things occur in the world. Kant

The argument quite simply states

Kant’s intuitions are representations given by sensation that provide the beginning for all cognition. Essentially, it is the way in which we receive representations which relate immediately to the object. The distinctions between intuitions and pure intuitions lies in the method of affection. Intuitions spur from the input of sensation whereas with pure intuitions there is no mingling of sensation. Pure sensations are transcendentally ideal meaning they are necessary forms of cognition. In virtue of reason, a transcendental truth cannot be denied and it is not necessary to test since it must be real. Pure intuitions determine exactly how we receive sensory input; they are not empirical and can be viewed more as a process where intuitions are passive experiences that happen to a person.

In Kant’s book, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant talks about the three formulations of the categorical imperative. By these formulations, he describes his idea of organizing the moral principle for all rational beings. Kant also talks about the principles of humanity, rational ends, and the “realm of ends” which are constituted by the autonomous freedom of rational beings.

The Platonic separation of perception and knowledge proves to be problematic because it offers a powerfully complex record of recognition and its relationship to knowlege. As a consequence of its portrayal of judgment, the ideology gives unreasonable conclusions that every individual are faultlessly right at whatever point they see, accept, or think something. The undeniable misleading quality of this ideology demonstrates the hazardous philosophical errors that can result from the inaccurate thinking of sense awareness, while the supernatural assets that the hypothesis creates to portray recognition proves to offer a predominant representation of sense awareness.

Many are disconcerted by the idea that humans and Minds can be described as systems which operate based on interpretations of symbols, much like machines, computers, and robots: things that we have created yet do not think of as being “thinking,” themselves. We, as human beings, are comforted in the notion that we are born into this world with a fully capable Mind, a soul or spirit, and are, thereafter, free to choose our fate as we will. Although it seems plausible that we are born with Mind, I cannot subscribe to such a simplistic version of thinking about our true capacity for affecting outcome.

So we have established that our ideas, insofar as their basic components pertaining to concepts bigger than ourselves, must come from objects greater

In one of his papers, Apel points to the historical origins of the argument that he proposes as a method to establish a non-metaphysical ultimate foundation to knowledge and ethics. In this article, Apel begins his argumentation by partially accepting the Münchhausian's trilemma. As has been demonstrated by Hans Albert every ultimate foundation implies: either a) in a regression to the infinite; b) in a logical circle in which part of the argumentation includes exactly that we would suppose to be settled; or c) in a dogmatic interruption of the foundational regress. Apel accepts only partially this trilemma because he believes that this difficult in the structure of ultimate foundation is applied only to Metaphysical Philosophy and not to Post-Metaphysical Philosophy. In fact, Apel attempts to demonstrate the possibility of a non-metaphysical ultimate foundation.