Eric Bleys
Philosophy Independent Study
1/11/2017
Garry Hagberg Bard College
The Kantian Contribution to Epistemology in the Prolegomena
In the “Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics,” Immanuel Kant presents a critique of the metaphysical systems which were available to him. Kant begins his inquiry with several core questions about the possibility of differing forms of rational truth. The possibility of knowing objects within themselves is dismissed. However, in contrast to a purely empiricist epistemology, Immanuel Kant does propose the idea that we can know a priori truths. These a priori truths, however, in contrast to the pure metaphysics of traditional rationalism, which would attempt to prove the existence of God or the immortal soul with abstract concepts alone, only analytical and synthetic a priori truths are possible. The following paper will describe the ideas presented in Kant’s Prolegomena; it will also analyze the implications of these ideas for the discipline of epistemology and the differences between these idea and other epistemological positions.
Analytical truths merely break down terms into their constituent definitions. An example of this would be the a priori truth that “all bachelors are male.” An example of a synthetic a priori truth would be that 7 + 5 = 12. Neither of these a priori methods for determining rational truths can tell us about metaphysical objects which Kant refers to as “things in themselves,” but instead, we can only know possible truths of experience as synthetic a priori truths in addition to the analytical a priori truths. For example, if we encounter a bag of seven apples and five apples fall into the bag then there will be twelve apples in the bag. Experience, for Kant, is only a series of appearances which do not tell us about things in themselves. This is true because these empirical experiences only occur through the structure of our minds. The function of a priori reason is therefore only to determine the definitions of concepts as well as to determine the nature of possible empirical experiences. The synthetic a priori truths are rational apprehensions of possible experience. And these possible experiences involve combinations of appearances which themselves resemble the synthetic a priori truths.
What can these ideas proposed by Immanuel Kant contribute to the discipline of epistemology? First we ought to analyze the subject of epistemology down into its constituent elements. Epistemology is the discipline which is the study of the problems of knowledge. Some of the tasks of epistemology include the following problems. How are we to formulate an adequate definition of knowledge? How are we to determine the method(s) by which knowledge can be obtained? And how are we to determine the respective roles, of sense perception and reason, in the formulation of knowledge? The core question of Kant’s “Prolegomena to any Future Metaphysics” is what can be known a priori? This is a question about a form of knowledge and by asking for an understanding of the limitations of this form of knowledge, it is, in fact, looking for a definition of this form of knowledge by providing an understanding of what it can and cannot be. Therefore, Kant is presenting ideas about a solution to an important aspect of epistemology. How then can Kant utilize this understanding to develop a broader epistemic worldview? Because this question deals with the distinction between empirical and non empirically derived understanding, it is therefore true that the question has implications for one of the core functions of epistemology as I listed them above. The function of determining the proper roles of experience and reason deals not just with these two things as separate units but also as interrelating tools which are both used to formulate knowledge claims. The Prolegomena is a summary of the critique of pure reason. And the critique of pure reason, clearly, by its very title, is a book about what can be known with reason alone. But if reason and experience are the only tools of knowledge. And some form of knowledge, x, cannot be obtained by reason without experience or reason combined with experience, and yet is knowable, then it can be known exclusively by experience. This argument is designed to show that definitions of the possible scope of one particular means of gaining knowledge have implications for the other tools of obtaining knowledge, in terms of their scope, and in terms of their validity for uncovering certain truths.
Even though the primary goal of the text is to analyze the scope of a priori truth, the book does discuss the epistemic significance of empirical experience. And the essential concept which is presented about the empirical world is that it is a string of experiences which are mere appearances which do not tell us about things within themselves. These things within themselves are presented as metaphysical objects. However, Kant also acknowledges that human reason naturally leads to problems which deal with the metaphysical world which is above and beyond the empirical world. And this is because of a natural curiosity of the human intellect to search beyond the empirical to questions of ultimate importance. And thus, as was argued above, the core questions of Kant in the Prolegomena, although not directly addressing the entirety of epistemology, ends up having implications for the discipline as a whole. Seeing that epistemology deals with how it is that we find knowledge, regardless of whether or not this knowledge is of the empirical world or of the metaphysical world.
However, it should be pointed out that the Prolegomena, does not, like Cartesian thought, attempt to create a cohesive attempt to solve epistemology as a whole by finding an undoubtable starting point for further inquiry. The difference between these two methods is that one searches for a single perfect starting point for building up the entire field of epistemology whereas Kant in the Prolegomena attempts to address the problems of epistemology by formulating a series of highly relevant questions to the problems of epistemology, with no clear singular starting point (question or premise) which serves as a holistic beginning of the whole discipline of epistemology. The strength of the Kantian approach, is that it does not overemphasize one core epistemological question but proceeds through the multifaceted nature of the diverse and subtly interrelated questions which are involved in epistemology. The ability to approach a complex discipline through multiple questions and lines of inquiry following from these questions then allows for more particular definitions of particular forms of knowledge. Let us say that we were to define knowledge with multiple definitions, which involve all the things which the term knowledge can refer to. Then we could distinguish categories of knowledge and if we have a series of definitions of knowledge, then these definitions can serve as potential answers to the problem; the common qualities of these definitions can be used as a cohesive definition of knowledge.
This process in some respects resembles the Kantian method presented in the Prolegomena; by asking a series of nuanced questions about the possibility and epistemic scope of various forms of knowledge, a series of definitions are indirectly presented and of these definitions a cohesive vision of what knowledge is can be constructed. On the other hand, the method of finding a singular, undoubtable starting point for epistemology, has the advantage of eliminating the use of false assumptions which may be held as true and then used as premises for further investigation. Another strength of this method, is that investigations into one aspect of epistemology will not be tainted by false assumptions about other aspects of epistemology; because if epistemology only proceeds from true assumptions about the discipline as a whole; then there will not be false assumptions originating from presuppositions about epistemic truth as a whole; because the project of epistemology, as a whole, has not yet been investigated. One method can be described as an attempt to define the whole of epistemology to investigate the smaller branches of the study, whereas the Kantian approach within the Prolegomena is to use very refined and subtle investigations of some of the particular branches of epistemology as a foundation for approaching epistemology as a whole.
How can Kantian ideas presented in the Prolegomena be used to approach the problems of epistemology? How can such questions be addressed such as, should we believe the empirical world to be real? Can pure reason tell us about something like Platonic forms? What is the role of reason in formulating knowledge? How are we to decide which empirical experiences we are to value above others? The last of these questions is very relevant for developing a scientific investigation of any kind.
I will discuss the following question from a Kantian perspective to try to address the questions presented above in the beginning of the paragraph. If we observe a stick in the water which appears muddled in the water and then we observe the stick outside the water, which of the two appearances should we regard as being the accurate, or at least the more accurate, depiction of the actual stick? One way to solve this epistemic problem is to create a hierarchy of epistemic perceptions in which some perceptions are deemed to be more accurate representations of reality than others. However, if we approach the problem from a Kantian perspective, then how would we try to answer this question? Under the Kantian paradigm, all empirical experiences are mere appearances. And this is true because all experiences exist only through our own ability to process the world which is itself defined by the structure of the mind. Just as another non human species is able to perceive colors that we do not perceive, in the same way what we are capable of experiencing is a series of experiences which themselves are structured from the very nature of the way our minds process the world. This answers the question about how we are to regard the empirical world. So therefore how are we supposed to determine which experiences have more validity? By what principle do we deem judgments to be true or false?
If an a priori truth can tell us something about the structure of our own minds then it can tell us about the structure of the world which is dependent upon that mind for its very nature and existence. A priori truths tell us what our minds can conceive as accurate definitions of a concept and they can also tell us about the structure of possible experiences. As all experiences are processed through the mind, if there are principles about how this mind must operate then these principles will determine the way in which this same mind processes the world. If we understand that the human mind possesses certain universal features then we can determine universal truths about the world of human experience. However, we cannot determine truths about the world within itself.
The truths of pure reason, because they are understood to be true by all human minds, are themselves universal truths. All that is needed, therefore, is that these truths of reason can be used to understand the world of experience, or can predicate something about our experiences and therefore create universal laws about the nature of human experience. “The possibilities of experience in general is therefore at the same time the universal law of nature, and the principles of experience are the very laws of nature. For we know nature as nothing but the totality of appearances, i.e., of representations in us, and hence we can only derive the law of their connection from the principles of their connection in us, that is, from the conditions of their necessary unification in a consciousness, which constitutes the possibility of experience” (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, p. 56-57). We can determine that under all circumstances which blend certain particular appearances a certain other experience will follow because the principles of these experiences are the same as certain rational truths about the possibility of these experiences. If four people walk into a room in which there were already three people there beforehand, then it is necessarily true that there will then be seven people in the room. This truth is discovered by the very structure of the human mind. And it is by these very same principles of the human mind that we would understand that there are seven people in the room if we were to actually experience this event for ourselves with our own empirical sensations. If we now move back to the question about the stick in the water, as opposed to the stick outside of the water, we can think about the problem from a new angle which opens up more possibilities about how to solve the problem. This is an example of a Kantian way of solving the problem of the role of reason in formulating knowledge.
Our original question was predicated on the belief that one of the two perceptions somehow must better represent the stick as an abstract metaphysically existent thing. But if both experiences of the stick are merely appearances then we need not judge which gives us greater access to the Platonic form of the stick. Instead we can approach the problem as a matter of what the stick will be if it is presented to us under certain conditions. And we can then determine the truths of the possible experiences which we would have if we were to observe the stick under certain conditions. And if we think about the nature of fire, and the nature of the stick, then we can come to a scientific understanding of what would happen if the stick were burnt in the fire. So therefore singular empirical experiences are not linked to singular metaphysical abstractions but universal truth is found in the structure of the way the mind processes combinations of actual experiences as well as hypothetical truths of possible experience. This is an answer to the question about whether or not pure reason can tell us about platonic forms.
The Kantian approach to epistemology involves a systematic attempt to define the scope of various forms of knowledge. In particular, Kant seeks to understand the capacities and limitations of pure, a priori, reason. This paper has highlighted the way in which this particular question about the nature and scope of a priori reason has implications for epistemology as a whole. The core questions of epistemology are deeply intertwined with this one question. Any theory allows for further inquiry in regards to the field of epistemology as a whole. The Kantian paradigm opens up the possibility of understanding a relatively original way of construing the balance and interaction between reason and experience in the development of knowledge.
Kant, Immanuel, and James W. Ellington. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2001. Print.