Day 4: The Synthetic A Priori & Transcendental Philosophy

•      Review/Questions

•      Combining the Schemes

•      More Examples

•      Questions of Transcendental Philosophy

•      Transcendental Aesthetic – Intuition

•      Assign Essay 1

•      Read: CPR 74-82 (B46-B59)

Combining the Schemes

-- graphic available in class

More Examples

•      Gold is yellow (What’s up with this example?)

•      5+7=12  (and arithmetic more generally)

–   (CPR-B15-17, Pr 15-17)

•      c²=a²+b² (and geometry more generally)

•      What about natural science?  Kant says it makes many a posteriori claims, but it also makes claims such as…

More Examples

•      “… in all changes in the material world the quantity of matter remains unchanged.” (CPR-B17)

•      “…in all communication of motion, action and reaction must always remain equal.”  (CPR-B17)

•      How does Kant classify the above?

•      What kind of judgements will we find in metaphysics?

Questions of Transcendental Philosophy

•      How is synthetic a priori cognition possible?  (CPR-B19)  This breaks down into 4 questions:

•      (1) How is pure mathematics possible?

•      (2) How is pure science of nature possible?

•      (3) How is metaphysics, as a natural disposition, possible?

•      (4) How is metaphysics, as science, possible?

Questions of Transcendental Philosophy

•      Synthetic a priori judgments do not exhaust mathematics

•      Synthetic a priori judgments do not exhaust natural science

Questions of Transcendental Philosophy

•      Metaphysics as natural disposition vs. metaphysics as a science

•      “How” they are possible and “whether” they are possible

•      Transcendental vs. transcendent; former is a kind of philosophy/method, & later is a kind of object

Questions of Transcendental Philosophy

•      The Transcendental Doctrine of Elements

            – The Transcendental Aesthetic (Deals with question one)

            – The Transcendental Logic

                        – Transcendental Analytic (Deals with question two)

                        – Transcendental Dialectic (Deals with questions three and four)

•      The Transcendental Doctrine of Method (Deals with questions three and four)

Transcendental Aesthetic – Intuition

•      Intuition: is that through which a mode of knowledge is in immediate relation to its objects (CPR-B33).

•      How do you have intuitions?  The things we are aware of or have intuitions of come from our sensibility.

•      Sensibility: the capacity we have for receiving representations through the mode in which we are affected by objects (CPR-B 33).