Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Kantâ - S Critique of Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Kantâ - S Critique of Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Kantâ - S Critique of Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
1. Preliminary Remarks: The Rejection of Ontology (general metaphysics) and the Transcendental
Analytic
2. The Rejection of Special Metaphysics and the Transcendental Dialectic
2.1 The Theory of Reason and Transcendental Illusion
2.2 Hypostatization and Subreption
3. The Soul and Rational Psychology
4. The World and Rational Cosmology
4.1 The Mathematical Antinomies
4.2 The Dynamical Antinomies
5. God and Rational Theology
5.1 The Ontological Argument
5.2 The Other Proofs
6. Reason and the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic
Bibliography
Relevant Works by Kant (includes German editions and translations):
Selected Secondary Readings on Topics in Kant’s Dialectic
Academic Tools
Other Internet Resources
Related Entries
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics/ 2/18
22/06/2021 Kantâs Critique of Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics/ 3/18
22/06/2021 Kantâs Critique of Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
The need for this critical reinterpretation stems from the fact that
reason’s demand for the unconditioned cannot
be met or satisfied. The
absolutely “unconditioned,” regardless of the fact that it
presents to reason as objective,
is not an object or state of affairs
that could be captured in any possible human experience. In
emphasizing this
last point, Kant identifies metaphysics with an
effort to acquire knowledge of “objects” conceived, but in
no
wise given (or giveable) to us in experience. In its efforts to
bring knowledge to completion, that is, reason posits
certain ideas,
the “soul,” the “world” and “God.”
Each of these ideas represents reason’s efforts to think the
unconditioned in relation to various sets of objects that are
experienced by us as conditioned.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics/ 4/18
22/06/2021 Kantâs Critique of Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics/ 6/18
22/06/2021 Kantâs Critique of Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics/ 7/18
22/06/2021 Kantâs Critique of Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
discounting the
metaphysical arguments in cosmology, but the resolution to some of
these conflicts provides, he
claims, an indirect argument for his own
transcendental idealism.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics/ 8/18
22/06/2021 Kantâs Critique of Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
How does Kant demonstrate this? Both the thesis and antithesis
arguments are apagogic, i.e., that they constitute
indirect proofs. An
indirect proof establishes its conclusion by showing the impossibility
of its opposite. Thus,
for example, we may want to know, as in the
first antinomy, whether the world is finite or infinite. We can seek
to show that it is finite by demonstrating the impossibility of its
infinitude. Alternatively, we may demonstrate
the infinitude of the
world by showing that it is impossible that it is finite. This is
exactly what the thesis and
antithesis arguments purport to do,
respectively. The same strategy is deployed in the second antinomy,
where
the proponent of the thesis position argues for the necessity of
some ultimately simple substance by showing the
impossibility of
infinite divisibility of substance, etc.
major
premise uses the term “the conditioned” in a very general way, one
that considers things in abstraction
from the sensible conditions of
our intuition. The minor premise, however, which specifically refers
to objects in
space and time (appearances), is committed to an
empirical use of the term. Indeed, such an empirical use would
have to
be deployed, if the conclusion is to be reached. The conclusion is
that the entire series of all conditions
of appearances is actually
given. Put in other terms, the conclusion is that there is a world,
understood as the sum
total of all appearances and their conditions
(A420/B448).
In both cases the thesis opts for a position that is abstracted from
the spatio-temporal framework, and thus adopts
the broadly Platonic
view. The postulation of freedom amounts to the postulation of a
non-temporal cause, a
causality outside the series of appearances in
space and time (A451/B479). Similarly, in its efforts to argue for a
“necessary being,” reason is forced (against its own
argument) into a non-sensible realm. If there is a necessary
being, it
will have to be “outside” the series of appearances:
“Either, therefore, reason through its demand for the
unconditioned must remain in conflict with itself, or this
unconditioned must be posited outside the series, in the
intelligible” (A564/B592). The rational necessity of postulating
such a necessary being or a causality of freedom
satisfies the
rational demand for intelligible explanation. Against this, the
antithesis rightly notes that the
conception of transcendental
freedom, or a necessary being, again represents an attempt to abstract
from
“nature’s own resources” (A451–2/B479–80). Insofar as
the antithesis denies the justification for doing this, of
course, it
is said to adopt a broadly Epicurean standpoint. The problem here,
however, is that in refusing to move
beyond “nature’s own
resources,” the antithesis surreptitiously smuggles in
spatio-temporal conditions as the
basis for a universal ontological
claim that nevertheless transcends all experience. If space and time
were things
in themselves, then of course the application of the
demand for this unconditioned would be warranted. Kant’s
view,
however, is that space and time are not conditions of things in
themselves.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics/ 10/18
22/06/2021 Kantâs Critique of Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Thus, although Kant is most well known for his attacks on the specific
arguments for God’s existence, his
criticisms of rational theology are
in fact more detailed, and involve a robust critique of the idea of
God itself.
This account of the rational origin and the importance of
the idea of God clears the way for Kant’s rejection of
the
metaphysical arguments about God’s existence. Kant identifies three
traditional arguments, the ontological,
the cosmological, and the
physico-theological (the argument from design). What all such
arguments do is
attempt to wed the idea of the ens
realissimum with the notion of necessary existence. Whereas the
Ontological
argument moves from the concept of the ens
realissimum to the claim that such a being exists
necessarily, the
Cosmological and physico-theological arguments move
from some necessary being to the conclusion that such a
being
must be the ens realissimum.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics/ 12/18
22/06/2021 Kantâs Critique of Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
be a strength, this
strategy is doomed to fail, according to Kant. No experience could
ever be adequate to the
idea of a necessary, original being:
“The transcendental idea of a necessary all-sufficient original
being is so
overwhelmingly great, so sublimely high above everything
empirical, which is at all times conditioned, that
partly one can
never even procure enough material in experience to fill such a
concept, and partly if one searches
for the unconditioned among
conditioned things, then one will seek forever and always in
vain” (A621/B649).
Kant’s claim is that even if we could grant that the order and
purposiveness of nature gives us good reason to
suppose some
intelligent designer, it does not warrant the inference to an ens
realissimum. At most, Kant tells us,
the proof could establish a
“highest architect of the world…., but not a creator of
the world.” (A627/B655). The
last inference, that to the ens
realissimum, is only drawn by moving far away from any
consideration of the
actual (empirical) world. In other words, here
too, Kant thinks that the rational theologist is relying on a
transcendental (a priori) argument. Indeed, according to
Kant, the physicotheological proof could never, given
its empirical
starting point, establish the existence of a highest being by itself
alone, and must rely on the
ontological argument at crucial stages
(cf. A625/B653). Since, according to Kant, the ontological argument
fails,
so does the physicotheological one.
It is connection with this that Kant argues, in the second part of the
Appendix (“On the Final Aim of the Natural
Dialectic of Human
Reason” (A669/B697)), that the three highest ideas of reason
have an important theoretical
function. More specifically, in
this section Kant turns from a general discussion of the important
(regulative) use
of the principle of systematicity, to a consideration
of the three transcendental ideas (the Soul, the World, and
God) at
issue in the Dialectic. As examples of the unifying and guiding role
of reason’s ideas, Kant had earlier
appealed to the ideas of
“pure earth” and “pure air” in Chemistry, or
the idea of a “fundamental power” in
psychological
investigations (cf. A650/B678). His suggestion earlier was that these
ideas are implicit in the
practices governing scientific
classification, and enjoin us to seek explanatory connections between
disparate
phenomena. As such, reason’s postulations serve to provide
an orienting point towards which our explanations
strive, and in
accordance with which our theories progressively achieve systematic
interconnection and unity.
Similarly, Kant now suggests that each of
the three transcendental ideas of reason at issue in the Dialectic
serves
as an imaginary point (focus imaginarius) towards
which our investigations hypothetically converge. More
specifically,
he suggests that the idea of the soul serves to guide our empirical
investigations in psychology, the
idea of the world grounds physics,
and the idea of God grounds the unification of these two branches of
natural
science into one unified Science (cf.
A684/B712-A686/B714). In each of these cases, Kant claims, the idea
allows us to represent (problematically) the systematic unity towards
which we aspire and which we presuppose
in empirical studies. In
accordance with the idea of God, for example, we “consider every
connection in the
world according to principles [Principien]
of a systematic unity, hence as if they had all
arisen from one single
all-encompassing being, as supreme and
all-sufficient cause” (A686/B714). Such a claim, controversial
as it is,
illuminates Kant’s view that empirical inquiries are one and
all undertaken in light of the rational goal of a single
unified body
of knowledge. It also points towards the Kantian view, later
emphasized in the Transcendental
Doctrine of Method, that reason’s
theoretical and practical interests ultimately form a higher
unity.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics/ 15/18
22/06/2021 Kantâs Critique of Metaphysics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Bibliography
Relevant Works by Kant (includes German editions and translations):
Academic Tools
How to cite this entry.
Preview the PDF version of this entry at the
Friends of the SEP Society.
Look up topics and thinkers related to this entry
at the Internet Philosophy Ontology Project
(InPhO).
Enhanced bibliography for this entry
at PhilPapers, with links to its database.
Related Entries
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb |
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich |
Hume, David
Copyright © 2018 by
Michelle Grier
<mgrier@sandiego.edu>
Please Read How You Can Help Keep the Encyclopedia Free
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy is copyright © 2016 by The Metaphysics Research Lab, Center for the
Study of Language and Information (CSLI), Stanford University
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-metaphysics/ 18/18