In this video, which presents the second movement in the transformation of Philosophy, Elias Artista reconstructs the Kantian turn that changes the very meaning of philosophical enquiry. Rather than assuming that knowledge must conform to objects, Kant hypothesises that the objects of experience conform to the structures of the mind. Within his “transcendental” system, Sensibility supplies the manifold of intuition under the pure forms of Space and Time, while the Understanding organises it through the Categories. A decisive limit follows: what reality is “in itself”—that is, whatever exceeds the horizon of possible experience—remains beyond knowledge; and any Metaphysics that claims to overstep these boundaries abandons the ground of Science and falls back into the domain of faith. Yet subsequent criticisms of the Kantian system and of the Table of Categories intensify a further suspicion: if the Categories are derived from an analysis of linguistic judgements, then Language itself may impose invisible constraints upon Thought. This development prepares the twentieth-century “linguistic turn” and foreshadows the third movement, in which Philosophy shifts its attention from Concepts to Signs.
Archilogon – The key to Synthetic Logic. A project by Elias Artista.
Bibliography
Works Cited
- Immanuel Kant, Critica della Ragion Pura, Italian edn., Laterza, Bari, 1995, p. 38.
- Immanuel Kant, Critica della Ragion Pura, Prefazione alla seconda edizione, Italian edn., Bompiani, Milan, 2000, p. 17.
Further Reading
- Stephen J. Noren, Kant and the Language, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1962.
Video transcription
Before Kant, Philosophy looked upon the world as an object. The investigator, though being part of reality, implicitly placed himself “outside” reality, as an external observer. The relation was the classical one: object on one side, subject on the other. No one, that is, doubted that the human mind could know the world in its objectivity.
After all, the scientific model had produced Mathematics and Physics, which, through an ever-increasing refinement, seemed to guarantee solid certainties. Yet, while Science advanced by accumulating objective knowledge, Philosophy resigned itself to accumulating opinions.
Hence the need emerged to apply to Philosophy a method as close as possible to the scientific one: a method capable of producing axioms according to rigorous rules, thereby ending controversies founded on the philosopher’s rhetorical prowess. Descartes inaugurates Rationalism, maintaining that the mind can attain objective knowledge, provided it is sustained by an adequate method. But the problem is not only that of finding an “objective method”: the problem is whether the investigator’s mind is intrinsically capable of objectivity.
Immanuel Kant asks: “What if the structure of reality were, instead, the projection of the structure of our mind?” Would it not be more reasonable to investigate why human beings think in the way they, in fact, think?” This is the manifesto of the Kantian revolution: “Until now it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects. Yet, proceeding from this presupposition, all attempts to establish, by means of concepts, something a priori about objects, thereby extending our knowledge, have come to nothing. It is time, at last, to attempt, even in the field of Metaphysics, the reverse path, namely, to proceed from the hypothesis that objects must conform to our knowledge. This accords better with the hoped-for possibility of an a priori knowledge of objects, that is, a knowledge that affirms something about them, before they are given to us. This reversal is analogous to that first proposed by Copernicus: confronted with insurmountable difficulties in explaining the movements of the heavens, on the assumption that the ordered host of stars revolved around the spectator, Copernicus asked whether the system might not work better if the stars were left at rest and the spectator were made to revolve.”
Kant therefore sets out to investigate the investigator, refounding Philosophy as a “science of thought”. A return to logical evidence is invoked: if Philosophy is to be credible, it must renounce both Empiricism (in its radical form) and uncontrolled theological speculation.
Thus, in response to Leibniz’s contestable metaphysical construction and to Hume’s skepticism, Kant elaborates a complex system that describes the interaction of two human faculties: Sensibility, which supplies the given of perception, and the Understanding, which organises that material according to pure forms called Categories.
According to Kant’s Transcendental Idealism, within the domain of the senses, perceptual data are framed by the pure forms of Space and Time; on this basis, the mind orders what is perceived by applying certain logical forms, the Categories, which Kant reconstructs by analysing linguistic judgements. The mind, then, does not merely register the given: it shapes it according to its own logical architecture, and projects it outward. Thanks to these pure forms, intrinsic to the human mind, reality becomes thinkable and knowable.
Where in this framework does Platonic Realist Idealism belong? What becomes of the so-called Intelligible World? Unlike Plato, who held that empirical elements disturbed pure speculation, Kant maintains that knowledge not anchored to empirical data is not trustworthy. The Intelligible World, says Kant, even if it existed, could not be known by us. What reality is then in itself, that is, what lies beyond the horizon of sense and thought, remains beyond human reach.
Thus, with regard to an empty Platonism, in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant writes: “The light dove, cleaving the air in its free flight and feeling its resistance, might imagine that it would fly better in an airless void. Thus Plato abandoned the Sensible World, because it sets limits that are too narrow for the faculty of Understanding, and launched himself, on the wings of Ideas, beyond it, into the empty space of pure Understanding. He did not notice that, despite his efforts, he made no progress, since, so to speak, he had no support on which he could take his stand and to which he could apply his forces in order to move himself forward. In its speculations, human reason has unfortunately become accustomed to erecting a building in haste, only afterwards checking whether solid foundations have been laid. Then it adorns the building with external embellishments to reassure us of its stability, or, worse still, seeks to avoid altogether a late and dangerous test.”
All theories of reality derive from the form impressed upon them by the Categories. To push beyond these boundaries, says Kant, is to leave Science and enter the domain of faith. The objects of study of the metaphysical tradition, what Kant calls Noumena, are declared irreducible to knowledge, inaccessible to our gaze. Kant states it forcefully: every metaphysical construction that ignores its true foundations is destined to collapse.
Yet one should not forget that Kant still sees the Platonic Ideas through Aristotle’s eyes. Despite the sophistication of the transcendental system, and the profound transformation it imposes upon the direction of philosophical inquiry, Kant will become the target of numerous criticisms from his opponents.
Historical developments in Logic and Mathematics undermine some of his assumptions. Logicians, for example, identify forms of judgment not foreseen by Kant’s classification, thereby destabilising the supposed completeness of the famous Table of Categories. A further doubt begins to take shape: if the Categories arise from the analysis of judgment as expressed through Language, then Language itself may be the source of unnoticed constraints upon Thought. Natural languages might guide thinking along invisible tracks, leading Kant to conceive as “objective” and “universal” something that is, in fact, a mere cultural construction.
This suspicion leads Philosophy to an additional turning point. While the investigation of the structure of Thought is entrusted to Psychology, philosophical attention shifts towards Language. This is the so-called Linguistic Turn, which will mark XX century philosophical thought.
In the next video we shall explore the third movement: the passage from Concepts to Signs. To the Principle!
