Definition of Kantian Philosophy

Kant's intellectual journey

When beginning his studies at the university, Kant approaches the Newtonian doctrine and the metaphysics Leibzian-Wolffian. Both sources were, in their beginnings, strong influences on the themes of the early writings of the philosopher. However, they were sources that collided with each other: the new science forced a separation from metaphysics. The

inheritance of a rationalist nature, through Leibniz and Wolff, contradicted the Newtonian scientific heritage.

Kant's obsession was, then, to find a scientific basis for metaphysics, which would allow rigorously restructuring it to achieve results and maturity such as he had achieved. physical. Thus, he explored various ways of reconciling both areas, until reaching a formulation of the problem in methodological terms about the foundations of knowledge. Metaphysics had to follow the same method that Newton introduced in the field of physics, that is, investigate the rules according to which phenomena occur, but he had to do it through experience and with the tools of science. geometry. The result of such formulations will be an extensive research which will eventually give rise to Critique of Pure Reason.

Already, since then, Kant establishes a separation between the type of knowledge proper to science, the metaphysics and ethics, pointing out that the human faculties that correspond to one and the other are different. We can know thanks to our theoretical faculty, while we grasp the good through a feeling moral. Thus, the distinction that will mark the sphere of each of the three Critiques was outlined: Pure Reason (1781), Practical Reason (1788) and Judgment (1790).

Waking up from dogmatic sleep

Kant receives later the influence of the empiricist theory of David Hume (1711-1776), regarding whom he affirms in the Prolegomena to all future metaphysics (1783) that "he woke him up from his dogmatic sleep”, referring to the metaphysics in which he had been trained as “dogmatic”. Humean analysis of the Principle of causality referred the causal relationship to a contingent and subjective fact, a determination that the mind projects onto the world. As a result, not only a skeptical position regarding metaphysics was raised, but also a serious problem for science. empirical, since, if causal connections are nothing more than a mechanism for associating ideas, objectivity was at stake scientific.

Kant sees the problem that Hume marks and seeks to solve it by safeguarding the objectivity of Newtonian science, which means rethinking the problem of the possibility of the metaphysics that supports it. And, in turn, how to account for the pure concepts that originate a priori in the understanding that allow us knowing what is real, without referring to a guarantor God (as Descartes had done) or to a pre-established harmony (as Leibniz).

The Corpernican turn

The Critique of Pure Reason, then, will aim to investigate the problem of the possibility of metaphysics, through an investigation of reason in its pure use, independent of experience. Reason must investigate itself to establish its own limits, then it is an a priori investigation of the possibility of a priori knowledge. When Kant describes the program of his work as a "Copernican turn", he refers to the fact that, until then, it had been assumed that our Knowledge depends on objects, which had led to the failure of metaphysics, because in this way nothing can be known a priori about from them.

On the other hand, if we suppose that the objects are constituted by our concepts, then we can know something about them before they are given to us in experience. With the Copernican turn, knowledge goes from being determined by the object to being determined by the structures of transcendental subjectivity.

Review of the works of the Kantian corpus

Besides the Critique of Pure Reason —which, as we saw, focuses on the possibilities of human knowledge—, highlight the Critique of Practical Reason —whose main issue is the inquiry about reason in its practical use, that which is linked to the ability to determine the will and moral actions—; the Judgment Critique —which explores the dimension of reason as a mediator between the realm of legality necessary characteristic of the nature and scope of freedom—and the Anthropology pragmatically —focused on the cultural dimension of the human being— all of them relevant by themselves.

Each of these works answers the four fundamental questions posed by the philosophy Kantian, corresponding to the various areas of thought: what can I know? (Metaphysics), what should I do? (Moral), What can we expect? (Philosophy of Religion), and What is man? (Anthropology).

Topics in Kantian Philosophy