Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics by Immanuel Kant

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This edition of the Prolegomena includes Kant's letter of February, 1772 to Marcus Herz, a momentous document in which Kant relates the progress of his thinking and announces that he is now ready to present a critique of pure reason.

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Prompted by Hume's skepticism, Kant addresses the question of whether and how metaphysics is possible. Metaphysicians have yet to agree on one definite proposition, or even to establish a basis for agreement upon judgments.
Kant distinguishes between a priori and a posteriori cognitions and between analytic and synthetic judgments. Knowledge we gain from experience is a posteriori, and what we can know independent of experience is a priori. A synthetic judgment is one whose predicate contains information not contained in the subject, and an analytic judgment is one whose predicate is a mere analysis of the subject. Kant claims that mathematics, natural science, and metaphysics all lay claim to synthetic a priori propositions—propositions that are necessarily but not trivially true, and can be known prior to experience. Since mathematics and pure natural science are well-established fields, he proposes to examine how their synthetic truths are possible a priori in the hope that this examination will shed light on the possibility of metaphysics as a science.
Mathematics is possible, Kant suggests, thanks to the pure intuitions of our faculty of sensibility. Space and time are not things in themselves that we meet with in experience; rather, they are pure intuitions that help us structure our sensations. Geometry comes from our pure intuition of space, and mathematics comes from our pure intuition of time—our concept of numbers is built from the successive moments in our concept of time.
Pure natural science is possible thanks to the pure concepts of our faculty of understanding. Kant distinguishes between "judgments of perception," which are based on subjective sensations, and "judgments of experience," which try to draw objective, necessary truths from experience. Science, as an objective body of knowledge, is only possible if we can consider nature as according itself with objective, regular laws. These laws—like "every effect has a cause"—are concepts of our understanding just as space and time are intuitions of our sensibility. We cannot know anything about things in themselves, but the appearances that constitute our experience follow these laws. Kant constructs a complex table of categories to show how the pure concepts of the understanding structure experience.
Metaphysics relies on the faculty of reason, which has nothing to do with experience. In its drive for completeness, reason aspires to know about things in themselves, and mistakenly applies concepts of the understanding to matters outside experience. Kant classifies the "ideas of reason" into three types: psychological, which deals with our idea of substance and of a soul, cosmological, which gives rise to four sets of "antinomies" based on causal reasoning, and theological, which deals with our idea of God. In each case, Kant argues, reason oversteps its bounds and tries to make claims about things in themselves, often confusing these with appearances.
Metaphysics is unlike math or science in that its reach exceeds its grasp. It aspires to know what it cannot know. In finding itself bounded, however, reason also explores the full extent and possibility of human knowledge. While reason cannot tell us anything about things in themselves, it can be used to examine our own faculties. Kant redefines metaphysics as a "critique," an attempt to examine how knowledge is structured and justified.

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IF it becomes desirable to formulate any cognition as science, it will be necessary first to determine accurately those peculiar features which no other science has in common with it, constituting its characteristics; otherwise the boundaries of all sciences become confused, and none of them can be treated thoroughly according to its nature.

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Metaphysics: The field of philosophy that investigates the constitution, nature, and structure of reality. Metaphysics goes beyond physics to examine the reality behind the phenomenal world. It asks questions that cannot be verified in experience: "Does God exist?" "Is the soul immortal?" "What are the ultimate constituents of matter?" "How are mind and matter connected?" and so on. In the Prolegomena, Kant argues that this kind of "dogmatic" metaphysics can never arrive at satisfying answers because our faculty of reason cannot teach us anything about things in themselves. He tries to replace dogmatic metaphysics with his own critical metaphysics that sets about examining the constitution, nature, and structure of knowledge.
Analytic: A statement whose predicate concept is contained in its subject concept. An example is "all bachelors are unmarried." The concept of being unmarried is part of the concept of "bachelor," so the predicate does not say anything new. Instead, it offers an analysis of a part of the concept of the subject.
Synthetic: A statement whose predicate concept is different from its subject concept. Such a statement joins two different concepts together, and in doing so, produces new and interesting judgments. TheProlegomena makes much of synthetic judgments that can be known a priori, since they constitute mathematics, pure natural science, and metaphysics.
a priori: Knowledge that can be gained prior to any experience. Mathematics is a form of a priori knowledge, because we can sort out mathematical truths in our head. Kant also refers to a priori cognitions as necessary, since nothing in experience can possibly contradict them. Synthetic a priori judgments are thus important, since they are necessary and interesting truths that we can know prior to any experience.
a posteriori: In contrast with a priori cognitions, a posteriori cognitions consist of knowledge that we gain from experience. These generally have to do with facts about objects in the world, like "all swans are white."
Intuition: A translation of the German word Anschauung, this word means more exactly a perspective or a point of view. According to Kant, our faculty of sensibility is structured by intuitions. There are two kinds of intuition: pure and empirical intuitions. Our pure intuitions are our concepts of space and time that we apply to everything we perceive. Once we have applied our pure intuitions of space and time to sensations they become empirical intuitions, that is, sensations that exist in space and time. Kant argues that our pure intuitions of space and time can be exercised independent of experience, and serve as the basis for mathematics and geometry.
Sensations: Sensations are the raw material of sense data. These are the impression things in themselves make on our senses. They are subsequently structured by our faculties of sensibility and understanding, but they come to us in a chaotic, simple form.
Appearance: What we think of as "nature" is essentially a set of appearances. Appearances are sensations that have been structured by our faculties of sensibility and understanding in such a way that they appear to us in space and time and seem to follow certain laws and regularities. These appearances are caused by things in themselves, but are given form by our faculties.
Thing in itself: Things in themselves (ding an sich in German) are the ultimate constituents of reality. However, we can never perceive things in themselves directly. We only perceive their appearances with our senses and mental faculties. Nonetheless, we can infer these appearances have a cause, and we can infer that things in themselves are this cause even though we can know nothing about them.
Reason: The faculty that deals exclusively with the human intellect. Though our reason aspires to answer metaphysical questions about the nature of things in themselves, it is incapable of doing so. However, reason is capable of surveying all possible knowledge, and as such can be applied in a self-critique. Kant recommends a new kind of metaphysics that uses reason to investigate the grounds and justification for human knowledge.

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This book is in Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy. (publisher series)

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Immanuel Kant (Author)

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Original Language: English
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ISBN: 0023193301
Page Count: 136

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Dewey: 100

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Books › Nonfiction › Foreign Language Nonfiction › German
Books › Nonfiction › Philosophy › Metaphysics
Books › Nonfiction › Philosophy › Modern

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