The Double Citizenship of Human Existence-Kant Essay

The project of the whole transcendental dialectic is well-known. Kant’s primary aim here is that of warning us against the danger involved in the misunderstanding and subsequent hypostatization of the concepts of reason.4 However, this section of the Critique of Pure Reason does not play a purely negative role; instead, it furthers a positive enquiry of what Reason is and what his contents are. Furthermore, it also provides an explanation of the epistemic role played by these elements, the ideas of pure reason or transcendental ideas5, defined as being those concepts which contain the ‘unconditioned’.6 In other words, these concepts are related to the transcendental premises of any possible experience, that is, to infinite and unconditioned ‘transcendent objects’ unattainable through

Before uncovering Immanuel Kant's work in Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals , let it be known that he claims to be a rationalist who purely seeks the truth and only the truth. Kant's beliefs are consistent of the idea of true knowledge which exists separate from ones sensation. True knowledge exists a priori within a separate body of sensation. Kant exclaims how sensation can tamper with true knowledge due to the fact

Immanuel Kant was a famous philosopher whose philosophical influences impacted almost every new philosophical idea, theory, concept etc. In a sense, he was considered the central face of contemporary philosophy. Kant spent his whole life in Russia. Starting out as a tutor, to then a professor, he lectured about everything; from geography to obviously philosophy. In his early life, he was raised to emphasize faith and religious feelings over reason and theological principles. As he got older though, that position changed. It then became that knowledge is necessarily confided and within the bounds of reason. Now with this in mind, Kant claims many different things that derive from this. There are many different parts and aspects to it which is why it relates to almost every philosophical idea out there. Kant referred his epistemology as “critical philosophy” since all he wanted to do was critique reason and sort our legitimate claims of reasons from illegitimate ones. His epistemology says that we can have an objective, universal, and necessary knowledge of the world, and that science cannot tell us about reality. He claims science cannot tell us anything because it only tells us about the world as it is perceived, whether it’s based on measures, manipulations, experiments and so on. Kant says that we all have knowledge; that the mind and experience work together and that we construct and gain this knowledge by both reason and experience.

Kant’s categorical imperative is a natural conclusion of reason when searching for a moral guideline that does not depend on previous expense but reason alone. The categorical imperative can be explained in many different ways. Kant offers five formulations in his work groundwork of the metaphysics of morals. The formulations of Kant’s categorical imperative can be considered a test. If your maxim passes the test then your actions under that maxim will be good. The formulations that Kant offers, they are not different rules in themselves, but different ways of stating the same thing. It is important to note that these formulations apply only to your maxim, or what you intend to do. The categorical imperative is based off of the assumption

If a woman walks out of a fast food restaurant and sees a homeless man and gives the man her food is this considered acting in accordance with duty? What about if a woman and a child walks out of a fast food restaurant and sees a homeless man and the woman tells the child to give the man your burger? Does this considered acting from duty or in? What is acting from duty, and in acting in accordance with duty anyway? Well, Immanuel Kant (studied philosophy) had a theory “the class of actions in accordance with duty must be distinguished from the class of actions performed from duty.” In English terms when acting from duty your intention is acting morally but, when acting in accordance with duty you will do the right thing for the wrong reason.

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.

Again, the reading from Kant proves difficult to read. However, the part discussing examples of duties I found to be quite interesting. In relation to the last example when it mentions that all human beings should help others in need, I came to question if people actually carry out this duty throughout all aspects of their life? I also questioned when people do assist others in need, if they actively think and register their actions as a duty since as human beings we have a moral responsibility to help others.

Deontology is the ethical view that some actions are morally forbidden or permitted regardless of consequences. One of the most influential deontological philosophers in history is Immanuel Kant who developed the idea of the Categorical Imperative. Kant believed that the only thing of intrinsic moral worth is a good will. Kant says in his work Morality and Rationality “The good will is not good because of what it affects or accomplishes or because of it’s adequacy to achieve some proposed end; it is good only because of it’s willing, i.e., it is good of itself”. A maxim is the generalized rule that characterizes the motives for a person’s actions. For Kant, a will that is good is one that is acting by

Only with the concept of the chair does the chair become known. Concepts are essential if we are to perceive the world: "in no other way can an object be given to us" [2; B33]. Thus, for Kant, intuition and thought complement one another: "thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind" [2; B75].

Kant – contrast with Aristotle (and Descartes) through Judge statement – don’t come to nature as observer. Copernican turn. Interesting to note how the divergence between a thing as it is perceived by a human and a thing in and of itself somewhat mirrors Aristotle’s potentiality and actuality, with the former being the counterpart to what is perceived and the latter to what is. In this analogy, then, what is perceived has a potential of in some way being what a thing actually is while it is rather obvious how actuality and how a thing is in and of itself would be connected. However, the analogy

The view that sense experience is the source of all knowledge is an Empiricist one. Rationalism and Empiricism are the two ways in which one can approach questions regarding the obtaining of knowledge. Empiricism would argue that knowledge from reason is trivial, as it doesn’t tell us anything substantial about the world, and the only way we can do that is through experiencing it.

For Immanuel Kant, truth is accessible to the mind only because it derives from rational categories already in the mind. Although knowledge begins in the senses, Kant claims, “besides what is given to the sensuous intuition, special concepts must yet be superadded—concepts which have their origin wholly a priori in the pure understanding, and under which every perception must be first of all subsumed and then by their means changed into experience.”6 The sources of such synthetic a priori concepts are categories inherent in reason, and Kant supplies a table of such categories, including in it: Unity (measure), Plurality (magnitude), Totality (whole), Reality, Negation, Limitation, Substance, Cause, Community, Possibility, Existence, and Necessity.7 Thus, the understanding of any perceived thing as a whole entity, or as having an independent material existence, or as being caused by anything, or as itself the cause of anything has its origin in rational categories in the mind and is not traceable to any essential quality or state of being that can be attributed to the thing in itself, according to Kant.

Kant believed that there are different concepts and intuitions in which intuitions are put under concepts. Kant refers these intuitions into what he calls the three-fold synthesis. Kant describes the three fold synthesis as “the capacities in the understanding to compare, connect, and unify the fragmentary manifold items in intuition” (A97). To put it in different terms, the three fold synthesis describes the necessary components for intuition of what is happening in the outside world. It allows us to Kant believed that the three fold synthesis is divided into three different types of synthesis. According to Kant, it is required that all of the synthesis work in unison in order for experience to happen. Experience is what makes possible the synthesis of apprehension, in return makes the possibility of the synthesis of reproduction, which creates the possibility of the synthesis of recondition. Therefore, Kant argues, the synthesis of recondition is contingent on experience. Kant also stated that for each of the three fold synthesis, there are both empirical and pure levels. In other words, each of the three fold synthesis have two ways of being interpreted in the mind, one based on our intellects because it is gathered through experience, and another based upon the fact that the manifold works in unison with the others and are dependent on each other for experience to happen.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is much concerned about the operations of the mind. Though he believed in the existence of the mind, he held a different view from the empiricists when it comes to the nature and function of the mind. He set out to prove that Hume was wrong by claiming that some truths were certain and were not based on subjective experience alone. Kant argued that the very ingredients which are necessary for even thinking in terms of a causal relationship could not be derived from experience and therefore must exist a priori, or independent of experience. Though he did not deny the importance of sensory data, he thought that the mind must add something to that data before knowledge could be attained; that something was provided by a priori (innate) categories of thought (unity, totality, time, space, cause and effect, reality, quantity, quality, negation, possibility-impossibility, and existence-nonexistence). Kant claimed that the subjective experiences of human has been modified by the pure concepts of the mind and is therefore more meaningful than it would otherwise have been.

Kant explains our knowledge of the world is based on our awareness of the world. Same goes our consciousness which gives us representations of the world: ideas of things. There are several main ideas in Kant work that I would like explore in this paper. He talks about experience, ideas, logic, and the five main human senses. He explains that in order to have an idea of something, humans first have to experience something that is similar so that they can create something new in their mind. If this does not happen, then they cannot have the idea of the thing since the idea would have no experience to gain from. For example,