The dSO states that the subject can trust his senses because he has a clear
and distinct idea of the external.Elmo Recio
polywog@navpoint.com
Assignment 4 (phil101)
Kant - Synthetic A Priori
What does "synthetic a priori" judgement mean? Give an example and explain the importance of these judgements to Kant's philosophy.
Synthetic a priori judgements, to put it simply, as in textbook definition, are those actions (or reactions, decisions that we make) whose reasons lie root in its pure understanding and reason. These judgements are such that they give us something 'new in the predicate, which has not already been stated in the subject.' Whereas a priori implies that these new 'findings' are not coming from past experiences, they are before causality.
For example, consider the weather that we have been having as of late. Prediction of the weather conditions would be (if they follow through with some degree of accuracy) an a priori form of knowledge. However, compilation of data based on past weather, then formulating an analysis of the data to discover a special pattern, would be considered a posteriori judgements.
The importance of these judgements in Kant's philosophy extend from the ability to show that there is this one independent and immutable source of knowledge from which all other knowledge extends. This knowledge is allowed to exist distinct from human experience because it is "pure philosophical knowledge." So establishing the ability to arrive at this form of knowledge is at the very crux of his synthetic a priori construct. Kant states that this "pure philosophical knowledge" is arrived at by the way of synthetic a priori judgements.
The Subject-Object Distinction
How do Descartes' and Kant's picture of the SUBJECT-OBJECT relation differ? What is the thing-in-itself? Compare and discuss. Note: you may wish to use diagrams in your answer.
Descartes' and Kant's view on the SUBJECT-OBJECT (SO) relations differ in how the outside world is viewed by the 'subject.' The textbook difference is the fact that in the Descartian SO (dSO,) the subject (human) sees an object clearly and distinctly through his senses. Whereas the Kantian SO (kSO,) the subject sees only appearances of the external object, and makes a judgement on that appearance's existence based on his schema (this is extended quite a bit by memetic, or mnemonic structures based on Richard Dawkins' book: The Selfish Gene 1973.)
The dSO states that the subject can trust his senses because he has a clear
and distinct idea of the external.
In the diagram we see the dSO where S is the
subject, I are the senses, O is the object that we are
sensing. The reson why we are sensing the objects
for how they 'really' are is because we can trust our
clear and distinct ideas of objects. So the next
question would be, why can we trust our clear and distinct ideas of the objects? We
can trust these clear and distinct ideas there is a god out there that would not deceive
us.
The kSO states something somewhat fundamentally different. Kant believes that our view of the world (of these objects) comes to us by our judgements. He states that you cannot say anything about the necessary existence of the objects except what is interpreted through this "cookie-cutter" view.
Marker 289: "I say that things as objects of our
senses existing outside of us are given, but we know
nothing of what they may be in themselves, knowing
only their appearances...the representations which
they cause in
us by affecting our senses."
In the second diagram, we see that the subject can only see the ideas (appearances) of the external world, through their judgements. They don't come in contact, or close to knowing the objects as they really are.
A more concrete analogy taken from the real world may be the action of looking out of the window. A dSO view of say, looking out of the window, would be to see an object outside of the window (a speeding car) and to say that for certain we know all about this car's existence. A kSO view of a similar analogy would be to say that we know nothing of this speeding car (and its existence in the outside world) save what is represented on the glass. Hence if the glass contains an aberration, then all that we can know about the speeding car is what is seen on the glass, with the aberration... a distorted speeding car.
The Big Picture
We have now read Socrates, Descartes and Kant. All used different methodologies and created different philosophical landscapes. They add did agree on several points, however. What were these points? Discuss.
Point blank, they all agreed that rationality was the key to all knowledge. They all agreed that at the base of all knowledge was reason. How they went about 'proving' this differed from philosopher to philosopher.
Socrates (and Plato) believed that rationality was the tool that we could use to gain pure knowledge. Plato's world of ideas (Platonic Forms) was an alternate locale; the only way to retrieve ideas (this pure knowledge of the perfect circle, for example) was via the use of reason, and rational thought. He believed that to be truly happy meant to be go towards knowledge and reason.
Descartes believed that pure knowledge is attainable via the clear and distinct idea. Descartes brought into light the fact that he could trust his `clear and distinct' ideas because of divine intervention. Descartes believed that since there was an all good and rational God, that He (this God) would not allow any human to be deceived by their clear and distinct ideas. Descartes went further with this theory to include his objective reality, formal reality and eminent reality. With this, he formulated a (rather weak and circular) argument on the ability to trust his clear and distinct ideas, but the existence of a God, which was instantiated by his clear and distinct ideas.
Kant, on the other hand, believed that pure knowledge (aka rationality) could be acquired through what he termed 'synthetic a priori' knowledge. Where Descartes had his clear and distinct idea, Kant had his pure understanding and pure reason as distinct 'powers of the human mind'. As a side note, much like the other philosophers at this point, Kant still remained faithful to the existence of rationality to clearly distinguish humans from other beings. He continued with his theory on the subject of a priori knowledge as a pure and distinct understanding. A form of knowledge that has not, yet been tampered by human experience (ie: something that cannot be judged or interpreted by the ``human cookie cutter'' of perception.) This, he believed was the highest form of knowledge, that was utterly universal.