Greg Detre
@12 on Thursday, 18 October, 2001
Schroeder, LMH
unlike Berkeley, Kant does not hold that the world exists only in our minds � there is a world out there, whether anyone perceives it or not � Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
however, he distinguishes the world as it is in itself (numena), and as we perceive it (phenomena)
we can never know about things in themselves
metaphysical thoughts can never be rationally justified (vs the rationalists) � futile speculations + illusions
huge repercussions
1811 � poet Heinrich von Kleist � commited suicide, partly because Kant had convinced him that the Truth was forever unattainable
Heine, �Religion and philosophy in Germany�, amusing account of the effect of Kant�s work � a �revolutionary, bringing about something much greater than the French Revolution�, �killed a God�
�Copernican revolution in philosophy�: the way the world appears to us in space + time is determined by our cognitive faculties � world as it seems to us is determined not by the objects, but by us and our constitution
most persuasive argument: we can work out countless truths of arithmetic and geometry a priori independently of experience and place complete faith in them(???) � these are not just trivial analytic truths (like �bachelors are not married�, where �not married� is already implicit in the subject term �bachelor�), but proofs like angles in a triangle are synthetic � that is, they are informative and tell us something substantive about the world that wasn�t already implied in our terms � all possible objects of sense experience will conform to their rules. mathematics can give us new knowledge about the world
how is it possible that we�re able to achieve a priori synthetic truths that hold for all sensory experience - independent of any experience, yet all possible experience must conform to these truths??? those truths are drawn from and reflect the forms of our intellect (above all, space (geometry) and time (arithmetic)), they predetermine in advance the nature of our experience, because that�s the way we are built � so we can�t be at all sure that the world as it is in itself is shaped by space + time
Schopenhauer very much liked this Kantian idea of the mind, as producing the general forms of our experience of the world
Schopenhauer�s forrmulation of transcendental idealism keeps only 3 of the 12 categories of our intellect: space, time and the category of causality (those comprise the transcendental parts of our intellectual equipment). he tries to argue for trascendental idealism independently of Kant � see handout
Arguments for TI
TI-1.) sensations have to be processed by the brain in order to become perceptions
TI-2.) argument from similarity between dreams and reality
TI-3.) argument from immediate familiarity with the world
TI-4.) our cognitive capacities evolved due to their survival value, not in order for us to perceive the truth
Criticisms of TI
TI-1.) the world is not in space and time because our minds can only think in space and time, but perhaps the world is in space and time and our minds adapted themselves to the world
perhaps the thing in itself actually = the unrealisable ideal of perspectiveless knowledge (Scruton)
Critique of Pure Reason � B 311, 344
we can look at the world with our sophisticated instruments � but there may be that there are (corresponding) objects that exist without space + time � perhaps we can only see part of it
TI-2.) �the world is akin to a dream�
TI-3.) Schopenhauer thinks that this can be explained because the intellect creates this world � he�s wrong in thinking that we understand this world from the very beginning - babies take a long time to adjust themselves to it
TI-4.) he has a very modern view of the human intellect as merely a tool given to humans by nature to survive
but our intellect is not intended to present the true, absolutely real inner nature of things in the consciousness of the perceiver
Schopenhauer�s position isn�t well-supported � it may not even be consistent � although he can be partly forgiven, since this Kantian picture of the world was so firmly established in German philosophy at the time
inconsistency of his account of perception
on the one hand the existence of the whole world depends on the first perceiving being, and on the other hand, this first perceiving animal is just as necessarily wholly dependent on a long chain of causes + effects which has preceded it
the solution, he cheerfully presents, is that time, space + causality do not apply to the world in itself � this is further evidence of the antinomy of reason � though why that should be a solution remains quite obsure to Schroeder (surely they only apply to the world as it is in itself � perhaps they occasionally translate into gliches in the world as it appears to us�???)
to what extent are Berkleian idealism and trascendental idealism compatible? he doesn�t consider how well they marry
it�s all oddly unconvincing for Schroeder � his philosophy is better approached from a different perspective
sideroxylon � an oxymoron (literally an �iron-wood�)