Kant and the critique of metaphysics Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Kant and the critique of metaphysics - Essay Example The Critique of Pure Reason appeared in 1781, and the two major works such as, the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals (1785) and the Critique of Practical Reason (1787) are the foundation of ethics.The speculative or pure reason sometimes ruled out the role and importance of reason in this guise. Kant's purpose in the Critique of Pure Reason is to establish the scope and power of reason (Kant, 1929). The reason is treated in terms of the 'conditions of possible experience' or the 'conditions of the possible cognition of objects.' The key issue for Kant in the first Critique is the nature and capacity of reason itself. Before we can consider God, however, Kant argues that we must discover the proper scope of reason, as only then can we discover our capacity to deal with the notion of God or anything else. The pure reason is therefore central not only to his view of knowledge, but also to his view of God (Gogan). Moreover, all judgments are either analytic or synthetic, and either a priori or a posteriori in the view of Kant. Analytic judgments are those in which the predicate inheres in the subject or is presupposed by it (Kant, 1929). The order of nature in reason was located by Kant. The reason does for the understanding what understanding does for the manifold of intuition - "the understanding is an object for reason, just as sensibility is for the understanding.†(Kant, KRV, A664/B692). Reason's regulative capacity renders the unconditioned totality of objects systematic. There are three ideas of reason: self, world and God. God is the Ideal of Reason, whose concept aims . . . at complete determination in accordance with a priori rules. Accordingly it thinks for itself an object which it regards as being completely determinable in accordance with principles (Kant, KRV, A571/B599), that is, in accordance with universal a priori cognition. This ideal of the ens realissimum, of the universal concept of a reality in general, is then thought of as contai ning the being of all beings. But as an idea of reason, the ens realissimum is never met with in appearances. The Ideal of Reason does not satisfy the transcendental conditions and so cannot be considered objectively real. As such, Kant holds that the existence of God cannot be proved by speculative reason. Kant argues that there are three, and only three, possible ways in which speculative reason can argue for the existence of God, characterized as the Ideal of Reason. But all fail to prove God's existence (Kant, KRV, A571/B599). Reason, according to Kant's analysis, can attempt to prove God's existence by either an empirical or a transcendental path, both of which involve going beyond the scope of reason to the transcendental concept (Kant, KRV, A590/B618). In the Critique, however, Kant has refined his notion of possibility. He distinguishes between the form of possibility and the matter of possibility. Kant distinguishes this from the 'Ideal of Reason', which supplies the notion of an 'archetype' or individual ground for systematization (Kant, KRV, A699IB727). This too must be seen as only regulative, as it has no content, that is, 'God' does not correspond to the concept of God. It is the regulative ideal of nature that makes possible the unity of nature itself. The Ideal of nature, as regulative, has a purely methodological status. The Critique of Pure Reason, then, moves God out of the realm of ontology and into that of epistemology. The concept of God is involved in cognition, but is merely an analogical image. From the standpoint of speculative reason, God has no objective reality. Yet Kant posits two types of reality, the cognitive and the moral. These two points of view are tied together by reason. The concept of sensation is not simply a negative boundary to stop us