Summary Text Course 2: Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (VU Amsterdam)
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Course
Text Course 2
Institution
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (VU)
Book
Kritik der reinen Vernunft
Includes summaries on the B version of Kants kritik der reinen vernuft, going from B1 to B113. Also includes diagrams connecting concepts to each other.
Please refrain from directly copying parts of this for assignments because teachers have their ways of noticing my bad takes in your essay
Introduction:
1: The difference between pure and empirical cognition (distinguishes concepts and gives criterion)
Cognition starts with experience since that is where we learn to compare sensible impressions.
However, cognition does not come from there since it could just as well be a mix of perception and
what our mind makes from it (a blue book might not be blue at all but just seem that way). Cognition
has a structure and experience is often part of it, but it is also often mixed with our reason. Is there
then any cognition separate from experience: a priori cognition? Here, a priori is meant as something
wholly independent from all experience (since sometimes a priori is used to refer to knowledge
logically following from reasoning off of other knowledge). This is opposed to a posteriori, which has
to do with cognition through experience. An a priori cognition is then pure when there is nothing
empirical mixed in (‘every alteration has its cause’ makes sense logically but is in the end derived
from experience and, hence, a priori yet not entirely pure).
2: We are in possession of certain a priori cognitions, and even the common understanding is never
without them. (applies it to cognition and shows how it is relevant)
Methods for distinguishing a priori from a posteriori cognition: A posteriori cognition can be thought
not to be the case and a priori judgment cannot. Also, a posteriori cognition derives universality from
assumptions (induction) while a priori cognition derives it from the fact that no exception is possible
(comparison of strict vs not strict universality). A priori cognition is thus necessary and strictly
universal (these two can be used interchangeably since they are each infallible).
For example: every cause invariably has an effect. Even when we get rid of all empirical stuff we find
that this rule still holds and is independent from experience and substance. Hence, it is in our faculty a
priori.
The criterion is that something is a priori if it is necessary or universal.
Does Kant think ‘every cause invariably has an effect’ is purely a priori? Something which is purely a
priori should not be connected to the laws of our empirical cognitions but when we strip away the
empirical cognition around us like Kant suggested, we have nothing to prove this example with,
making it impurely a priori. However, Kant gives this as a supposed example of the existence of a
pure a priori rule.
,3: Philosophy needs a science that determines the possibility, the principles and the domain of all
cognitions a priori.
Some cognitions go even further than experience and have no corresponding object. That is where the
better forms of knowledge lie which have to do with God, Freedom and immortality. However, one
has to be careful in making up things about these cognitions since one is working behind the scenes of
the empirical, which means that it cannot be refuted through empirical means. Hence, we should take
fields like mathematics as an example of pushing the boundaries of non-empirical research instead of
developing a concept and then making excuses to assure ourselves of their sturdiness. What
mathematics does is analyze concepts we have of objects, making it seem like we get something new
while it has already been there. This yields a priori cognition
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Kant develops a theory of validity, and in turn, develops a theory of what philosophy is since validity
is derived from that. Contrary to other sciences, Philosophy makes a problem from itself by answering
its questions with even more questions. Philosophy explains what other sciences are, and hence also
has to explain its own nature. It deals with the foundations of everything; even those of itself. Kant
argued for such a transcendent account of philosophy from the standpoint of someone who was
unsatisfied with either rationalism or empiricism.
Rationalists believed that the simplicity of thought is very fit for thinking about thought: we can
determine something's nature by reflecting on it (a square circle does not exist). However, this does
not ensure that things are actually there (thought on its own cannot determine whether circles actually
exist). Kant recognized this gap in rationalism: we need some cognition to fill in the gap. This is
similar to the empiricists' point that cognition is very important for us. Kant was woken up by Hume's
point that the validity of our judgments about reality needs to be based on sensations. Still, Kant
rejects this idea that this does not do justice to human cognition because this presupposes a bunch of
concepts which determine the way cognition works. These concepts first need to be justified and here
Kant differs from Hume. We do this by reconstructing their own meaning; showing they are part of
their own cognitive claim (similar to metaphysics explaining itself in his background). To do thus, he
places all these concepts after cognition since accepting their existence requires them accepting things
like causality.
, Essay 2
Question: What does ‘the principle of contradiction’ hold?
4: On the difference between analytic and synthetic judgments
Judgments between subject and predicate can happen either as B being wholly inside A,(analytic
judgments) or B being separate from A but connected in some way (synthetic judgments). In the
former case B is part of A, the relation is thought through identity; the predicate simply clarifies the
way the concept of the subject has always been (all bodies are extended). In the latter case, the
relation is thought without identity; a predicate is added to the concept but it could not have been
extracted from it (all bodies are heavy).
Judgments of experience are not analytic since analytic judgments require that all the conditions for
judging are in the concept already. Meanwhile, when we analyze with experience we compare it with
the quality of something else, resulting in weight. We then add this self-made concept of weight to the
object as a synthetic predicate. This synthesis requires that we look in experience for these concepts.
Hence, experiential judgments are always synthetic. However, synthetic a priori judgments cannot
rely on empirical data to reach this synthesis of adding concepts. Yet we need to be able to expand on
concepts, since propositions like “Everything that happens has its cause” has ‘cause’ as a concept
which differs from the concept of happening and is, hence, added. We have to know this since the
concept of a priori cognition needs to be developed and analytic judgments can only be used as a
foundation, not as something used to develop the theory
xxxxxx analytic synthetic
a priori (necessity and ‘All bachelors are unmarried’ ‘Everything that happens has
universality) its cause’
‘Every action has an equal and
opposite reaction’
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