Kant Critique of Pure Reason

Kant

CRITIQUE of PURE REASON

Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is the great thinker's most critically acclaimed work but the reason for that lies not with the metaphysical content of the book but the critique of metaphysics that it generated. That Kant was a supporter of metaphysics is an indisputable fact but that didn't stop him from criticizing metaphysics where criticism was due. He felt that metaphysics as it was understood in his days did not offer a secure path for science.

In other words, he argued that since metaphysics was too concerned with priori or knowledge that mind just knows, it fails to connect with analytic knowledge that science believes in. For example when we say that 2+2=4, we don't really need two books and two pencils or any four objects to conclude that 2 added to 2 would be four, our mind happens to know this. This is called a priori but science doesn't accept this priori without evidence. It believes in posteriori where we see something to establish its existence. For example when we say that sun is yellow and big, we cannot say that our mind just knew it. Our mind learned this after it had seen the sun outside. A person who for example has never seen the sun wouldn't believe us unless we take him outside and show him the sun. That is science and the fact that metaphysics has failed to establish a connection between the two is why Kant felt that metaphysics did not provide a secure path to science.

In almost the same manner, science fails to connect with metaphysics since it believes in tangible objects. Critiquing metaphysics, Kant wrote that though metaphysics is 'the Queen of all the sciences' (Aviii), the part of it where reason should dwell 'is perpetually being brought to a stand' (Bxiv). This means that reason has not been given a place in metaphysics that focuses too heavily on knowledge or priori. Kant further presents the most basic premise: 'Hitherto it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects', but since this view had failed to establish any link with metaphysical knowledge, we 'must therefore make trial whether we may not have more success in the tasks of metaphysics, if we suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge...We should then be proceeding precisely on the lines of Copernicus' primary hypothesis', this being the hypothesis of heliocentrism" (Bxvi).

Kant was of the view that reason is important for the establishment of truth. If metaphysics fails to open its knowledge to criticism, it cannot be established as a true science. The only way metaphysics and science can connect is through open examination. It is examination of the truths of any field or branch of study that renders it true or untrue as the case may be. It is this thorough examination that brings greater respect to a field as Kant puts it:

Our age is, in especial degree, the age of criticism, and to criticism everything must submit. Religion through its sanctity, and law-giving through its majesty, may seek to exempt themselves from it. But they then awaken just suspicion, and cannot claim the sincere respect which reason accords only to that which has been able to sustain the test of free and open examination.

Axi[n])

The debate of science and metaphysics arises when one wonders if metaphysics is even a science or do we really need it. Kant puts forward this question to explain why metaphysics is a science and why it is needed. He argues that metaphysics is needed, 'if not as science, yet still as natural disposition' because human reason is naturally pre-disposed 'by an inward need', and not just by 'idle desire', to raise metaphysical questions that science alone cannot answer. (B21-2). For example the questions about soul or the existence of God come to our minds naturally and this is where metaphysics steps in. It is the bridge that covers the gap between philosophy and science. It goes beyond philosophy as it brings scientific terms into explanation but it stops just short of where pure science begins. Kant argues that principles of metaphysics by its nature, 'seem so unobjectionable that even ordinary consciousness readily accepts them' (Aviii); but metaphysics don't want this blind faith. It wants to push questions forward to bring into their explanation some scientific terms such as space, motion and time. This gives more reasonable support to metaphysical arguments and makes them more acceptable under scientific scrutiny.