PLS309G/102/1/2009

DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

ADVANCED WESTERN PHILOSOPHY PLS309G

TUTORIAL LETTER 102 (2009)

Comments on Assignment 01

First Semester

February 2009 Dear Student Welcome to the course on some of the central figures in philosophy. Firstly, a word about criteria concerning selection of the figures: why these and not others? Well, in order to obtain sufficient understanding of major trends in philosophy, certain themes raised by earlier thinkers need to be explored. So, for instance, being somewhat familiar with the main thrust of certain ideas of Descartes, Locke, Hume, you may be better placed to recognize the epistemological problem facing Kant. Likewise, having studied Hegel, certain preoccupations of the radically different Nietzsche will, hopefully, become clearer. It is with an eye to helping put the bigger picture together, as well as facilitating an assessment of the original contributions of these seminal thinkers, that we arrived at our selection. In this tutorial letter, I discuss the assignment on Kant. Your assignment topic reads: In order to have a recognizable and discussible experience, that which is given in experience is subject to the forms of intuition. Discuss. 1 CRITIQUING THE QUESTION

As students of philosophy faced with an obscure assignment question, one of your preliminary tasks is to probe the question set: What is expected from me? Now, from your careful and repeated readings of the first chapter in the Study Guide, you will have become familiar with Kant's project which is basically to explain how it is that we arrive at what we will all readily agree are examples of knowledge. You will need to explore the Kantian project. How ought one to go about doing this? Firstly, do not spend any time on biographical details. Get to the point as soon as possible. Since the question requires discussing Kant's position on temporal and

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geometrical features as among the a priori conditions of knowledge, consideration of Kants interpretation of the role(s) of time and space will be the central focus of your answer. In order to locate Kant's view of this, you might begin by considering his position on the contributions of both reason and experience to the constitution of knowledge. 2 TOWARDS A POSSIBLE ANSWER

Cartesian epistemology regarded all knowledge as consisting in the analysis of a priori concepts, relegating observation of the senses to a minor (pragmatic?) function. It was held that reason by itself could establish a set of indisputable propositions about time, space, causality, and so on. Rationalists could not agree among themselves about the supposed nature of these, and Empiricists provided an alternative account of knowledge, one premised on according a primary role to experience. The empiricists claim that all knowledge is derived from experience seemed to be supported by the findings of modern science. However, Hume had shown that even scientifically important principles, like the Principle of Causality, could not be arrived at merely by the analysis of what we perceive in experience. No one had ever experienced the necessary connection between a cause and its effect; no one had actually observed the power of one event to bring about another. Since it could not be observed in experience, Hume claimed that for an empiricist, causality was nothing more than the mind associating constantly conjoined ideas. This seemed an astonishing claim to Kant. It seemed to fly in the face of how we actually make sense of the world. We do not seem to get our ideas of space and time by mere abstraction from experience, for all empirical statements rest upon presuppositions concerning space, time, causality, etc., which, because their truth is presupposed at the start of any empirical enquiry, cannot themselves be the outcome of that enquiry. So Kant concluded that neither rationalism nor empiricism could provide an adequate theory of knowledge.

Analytic and Synthetic statements This distinction, with which you ought to be familiar (one version is implied by Humes Fork), classifies statements as falling into either one of two categories: analytic statements, are universally and necessarily true solely because of the definitions of the terms involved - to affirm the subject and to deny the predicate is to commit a contradiction; synthetic statements are about the world and are informative. For the most part, establishing their truth is a matter of empirical investigation. Another way of drawing the distinction is to recognise that if a statement is analytic, the predicate (i.e., what is stated about something) is contained in the subject in the sense that what is stated in the predicate is already implied in what is stated in the subject - the predicate does not add to our knowledge, for example, All bodies are extended; whereas, if a statement is synthetic, the predicate is not contained in the subject and might add to your knowledge by informing you about something that you might otherwise not have known, for instance, All bodies, on a microscopic level, are colliding with one another. In terms of this distinction, one would locate scientific truths as contingent matters of fact rather than as necessary truths. Kants attempt to resolve the problem of knowledge was to question the exhaustiveness of this classification. He tried to establish a third category of synthetic statements which he believed to be both necessarily true and to be known a priori. His starting point was his conviction that scientific statements rest upon certain universal principles which, because their truth is presupposed at the start of any empirical enquiry, cannot themselves be the outcome of that enquiry. For instance, we all make judgments to the effect that this or that particular event caused something else to happen. In other words, if we are to make sense of the world in which we have experiences, we accept the necessary truth of every event is caused. The knowledge we have of this principle is a priori. But, it is not analytic. It is not true merely by virtue of the meaning of the words used to formulate it. The statement every event has a cause (the causal principle) says something substantial about the empirical world. It is necessarily true. It is not abstracted from any perceived necessary connection that we experience, either, since, as Hume has shown, all that we perceive is

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a succession of constantly conjoined occurrences. Yet we do apply this principle to all of our perceptual experiences. How is this possible? How is it possible that the causal principle, and some of the other synthetic statements that we make about the world, are known to be true a priori? Or, as Kant puts the question: How are synthetic a priori judgments possible? There are two assumptions which are fundamental to Kants solution. He was convinced that the mathematics of his day (especially Euclidean geometry), the physics of Newton, and the logic of Aristotle, were all completely correct. That analysis of these three fields, he thought, would yield all of the fundamental synthetic a priori truths, from which many other metaphysical truths could then be deduced. He was also convinced that the mind can be divided into two distinct faculties: the senses and the understanding. Our experience of things through the senses of sight, sound, smell, touch, taste, is due to the faculty of sense. On the other hand, concepts like table, mountain, ocean, etc., as well as the principles and rules for applying these concepts in judgments, belong to the understanding. These Kantian assumptions can and should be subjected to critical scrutiny. They do, however, account for the form which his enquiry takes. 3 KANTS SYNTHESIS

Kant was not content with a mere combination of rationalist and empiricist principles. Recognising that the former emphasises understanding at the expense of experience, he claimed that Form without content is empty. But by ignoring the pre-eminence of the concepts with which we describe experience, empiricists grope around in the dark: intuition [content] without concepts [form] is blind. Kant's formulation (1929:41) is justifiably praised: That all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt. For, how is it possible that the faculty of cognition should be awakened into exercise otherwise than by many of the objects which affect our senses... In respect of time, therefore, no knowledge of ours is

antecedent to experience. For, to the contrary, it is quite possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impression, and that which the faculty of cognition supplies itself, (sensuous impression serving merely as the occasion)... So knowledge, Kant claimed, is achieved by a synthesis of form or understanding and content or experience. He called his synthesis transcendental, meaning that it could never be observed, but must always be presupposed if we are going to make sense of the world of experience. The knowledge which he seeks to identify are those a priori items that we must presuppose if we are to make sense of the a posteriori experience that we do have. Kants important thesis here is that what we know of the external world is, in part, the product of our own mental faculty. In our experience, our sensations are always related to one another. They are experienced as a unified whole. In our consciousness, our sensations appear as arranged according to certain patterns, of things in space and time, caused by other things, and so on. The content of our knowledge of the external world is supplied by our sense faculties (presumably by something in the external world). But our minds organise this content into the forms in which we know it. These forms are not derived from the materials of sensation; they are contributed by the mind itself. They are the modes in which the mind works upon the materials of sensation. In other words, the mind provides a framework or mould which it imposes on the sensations we experience. The comparison of the mind as something like a frame or mould, implies that it determines the kinds of answers that can be given, but not the specific content of these answers. The actual content of our day to day judgments arises from something independently of us. The mind then organises this data. Thus our contacts with the experiential world supply the a posteriori content of our knowledge because the specific content is determined by whatever it is that affects our sense organs. However, the form of this knowledge is a priori. The form in which we know external things arises in the mind and not in the outside world. The basic question that requires answering is: What is the nature of the framework which the mind imposes on the content of experience?

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ARGUMENTS FOR GEOMETRICAL AND TEMPORAL FEATURES AS A PRIORI CONDITIONS FOR KNOWLEDGE

Kant's first level of explanation is that the actual sensations that we have, our sense experiences, have an a priori element in their character which arises in the mind and not in the outside world. In order to have a recognizable sensation it must be spatially (that is, possess geometrical features) and temporally located. We cannot have, nor could we conceive of having, any experience of things in the world except in spatial and temporal terms. As Kant (1929:77) writes: Time is the formal condition a priori of all phenomena. Space ...is limited as a condition a priori to external phenomena alone. Space and time, together, are forms of all possible sense experience. But here is the rub. It is Kant's thesis that our minds impose space and time upon "the manifold of experience"; namely, everything that our senses come into contact with in experience. That is why we can be certain, in advance of any experience, that these two characteristics will be present in any awareness of the objects that we have. Phenomena - the objects of experience - will have spatial (or geometrical) and temporal features. The chair that you are sitting on will be three dimensional, so that you will now (and always) see it and feel it as occupying space; you will be sitting on it now and will always experience it during a given time. Space and time will apply similarly to everything that we experience. For this, and other reasons, Kant claimed that space and time are "forms of intuition", rather than its content. To establish this position, Kant appeals to a variety of considerations. These constitute the grounds for his claim that If knowledge is to be possible a priori, the objects known must be phenomena. Firstly, he insists on the fundamental nature of space and time. They are present in all of our intuitions, as opposed to features like smell and sound which occur in only some of them. Spatial predicates, for instance, apply to whatever we know through the five senses; for example, everything that we see, hear, smell, taste, or touch, is

located in space. Temporal predicates also apply to each of these and to the immediately experienced 'flow' of our inner lives. Secondly, to experience anything at all, we always presuppose space and time. Empiricist philosophers have maintained that we come to the idea of space by noticing such things as that one object is near to another, or opposite another. Your neighbour's chair is next to your; your neighbour's book is on top of his chair, and so on. So little by little you learn from experience the spatial concepts 'is next to', 'on top of'. We come by our idea of time by observing the way in which events succeed, or are simultaneous with, or precede one another. But, as Kant points out, the very description of such situations presupposes familiarity with space and time as such. For to know what is meant by saying that one thing is next to , on top of another etc. , we need to appreciate how the things in question are situated in a wider spatial framework. Kant (1929: 68) writes Space is not a conception that has been derived from outward experience. For in order that certain sensations may relate to something without me (that is, something which occupies a different part of space from that in which I am), in like manner in order that I may represent them not merely as without of and near to each other, but also in separate places, the representation of space must already exist as a foundation. The same argument applies to time. We cannot come by concepts like one event being before another or after another, without appreciating how things are situated in the wider framework of time. Kant (1929:74) writes Time is not empirical. For neither co-existence nor succession would be perceived for us, if the representation of time did not exist as a foundation a priori. Without this presupposition we could not represent to ourselves that things exist together at one and the same time, or at different times... We could not say things like 'time has only one dimension' or different times are not co-existent but successive' by abstracting from experience. He (1929:75) adds

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We would only be able to say 'so common experience teaches us', but not it must be so. And the important point is that we do know a priori that our intuitions of phenomena will be located in space and time. Among further considerations offered by Kant are that space can only be thought of as one. The oneness of space is an a priori intuition. However, we only experience particular parts of space. This shows that particular spaces, like where you are now sitting, are not instances of space, but limitations of it - in other words, that they are restrictions of the totality of space. Similarly, different times are only parts of the same time. Another point which Kant makes concerns dimensionality - space always has three dimensions, while time has only one. Different times are never simultaneous, but always successive. These properties of space and time are not merely generalisations about our experiences. We could never experience anything in space that was not three dimensional; we could never experience anything in time that did not succeed and were not succeeded by other events. We know this to be universally true. This goes well beyond what anyone experiences. Once again, Kant infers from this that space and time are a priori intuitions. They are conditions that the mind supplies - on the occasion of each experience - to the content of experience. Now if space and time are a priori conditions, supplied by the mind, Kant can support his claims about geometry and arithmetic. The propositions of geometry, for example, 'the shortest distance between two points is a straight line' are known to be true a priori. Yet they describe the structure of space. This must be because such a priori knowledge of space is supplied by the mind. Likewise, the propositions of arithmetic describe the structure of time and space in the sense that the construction of a number like '2' is analogous to the successive putting of one physical thing to another. In this way, Kant claims to show that the mind supplies, on the occasion of a sense experience, temporal and geometrical features to the content of experience. Kant calls these conditions the "forms of intuition". So in order to have a recognizable and discussible

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experience, that which is given in experience is subject to the forms of intuition - space and time. Another quite popular metaphor often employed in the explication of Kants point is that of wearing a set of mental spectacles. The knowledge that we have, of tables, mountains, oceans, and all other things, is the result, as it were, of our always wearing a set of mental spectacles. All that we see we see as coloured in various ways because we see it through these glasses. And we cannot rid ourselves of these glasses, for we could not then see the world. The necessary and universal character of certain synthetic judgments (judgments which add to our knowledge, not merely analytical truths) is due - to an important extent - to the nature of the mind itself. The mind is not merely a passive recipient of sensations. It is active in forming each sensation into a conscious experience. Without the activity of the mind in giving form to experience, experience of the world would not be possible. More specifically, by means of synthetic a priori principles we relate the otherwise disconnected objects of experience into judgments. Every judgment is a synthesising of two or more concepts into a connected proposition (or statement). This requires that the mind employ a formal apparatus in putting together what it is aware of into judgments. In other words, the principles are synthetic a priori conditions by which we relate the objects of experience into judgments. So when I judge x causes y I bring together two objects of experience into a judgment. That is to say, I synthesise two objects of experience into a judgment. This synthesis takes place in accordance with certain principles of organisation that are already present in, and supplied by, my mind. Thus we can know a priori that judgments about experiences of our world must obey certain principles. For the principles we use in making judgments about things - which are implicit in the categories we employ - are not supplied by the external world, but rather by the mind as it organises and relates objects of experience. 5 ARGUMENTS FOR THE CATEGORIES AS A PRIORI CONDITIONS FOR KNOWLEDGE OF PHENOMENA

The a priori contributions of the mind are not confined to the forms of intuition. Besides the forms of intuition Kant believed that there must also be understanding. We organise the general content of any

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experience in order that it may be a coherent item of knowledge, in accordance with certain concepts - what Kant termed categories. What kind of world must it be which could be the common personal experience of many individuals, and, at the same time, the object of personal experience of one individual. Well, in addition to the fact that our immediate perception must be in space and time, we know a priori that to be intelligible (discussible) the experience must conform to certain features in our understanding. Our minds must structure and interpret the observations of our senses (what Kant calls the perceptual manifold), by using certain a priori concepts or categories. Otherwise we would merely have the awareness of an experience without any means of discussing it or describing it. Kants argument is that since we are able to organise for ourselves and discuss intelligently with others, the information about the world as it is experienced, we must have within ourselves the concepts and principles, or categories of the understanding with which we organise and relate and thereby make the information intelligible. To understand the experiences that we are having, our minds structure and interpret the observations of the perceptual manifold, in accordance with certain categories. So it is not sufficient to confine our discussion to the role and implications of space and time as a priori conditions for the possibility of knowing phenomena. It is evident that not to acknowledge the role of the categories of the understanding would render our explanation unintelligible! So, according to Kant, the categories of the understanding are further conditions that are imposed upon the temporal and geometrical features of objects as uncovered to our sensations (i.e., the perceptual manifold). These further categories are conditions that are needed for us to make any judgments about our experiences at all. Our experiences must conform to the categories of the understanding. These categories are the basic forms of thought under which all merely empirical objects are subsumed. Only, if the perceptual manifold is thus subject to the a priori categories of the understanding can the objects of knowledge exist as phenomena.

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OBJECTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

How ought one to respond to Kant's arguments? One possible line of criticism might be directed at his notion of synthetic a priori as a separate category. One might begin by arguing that the notion of one idea (such as that grammatically described as a predicate) being contained in another is somewhat obscure. Sometimes it might be a matter of semantic definition, yet at other times it might be a psychological notion. The logical criterion for an analytical judgment is its conformity to the law of non-contradiction. The psychological criterion is an inspection of what is found introspectively to be really thought in the concept. In the latter case whether a specific judgment is analytic or synthetic is arbitrary. For to determine what is found introspectively in the concept depends upon how much the judger knows about the subject of the judgment. Another objection can be directed towards Kants assumption that there could be no new a priori concepts. Kant thought that with the categories he provided, the bounds of what can be experienced have been finally and irrevocably drawn. However, there are such new a priori concepts. One such which is not mentioned in Kants work is Whiteheads idea of four dimensional events with space/time serving as the fourth dimension. This category is essential to relativity physics. Also in the field of mathematics, developments by theorists such as Riemann, who developed non-Euclidean geometries (concepts such as 'curved space), have undermined the adequacy of other Kantian assumptions. So, all in all, the notion of synthetic a priori judgments has been seriously undermined by developments in the fields of modern physics and mathematics, such as those mentioned above. If the truths of non-Euclidean geometry are independent of sense perception, another of the lynch-pins of Kants system is undermined.

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Bibliography Kant, I. 1929. Critique of pure reason (2nd edition: 1787), translated by Norman Kemp-Smith. London: MacMillan. Best wishes for your studies. Dr M Ally (Module Leader PLS309G)

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