13.

Kant 2 - Transcendental Idealism

Phenomena vs. Noumena
- The phenomenal world (as the term is used by Kant) is the world as it appears to us.
It is the world we see, touch, taste etc. Kant is at the time when people accepted that
what we experienced was lie a representation o! the real world.
- The noumenal world is the way that the world is in-itsel!. i.e. the world as it is when
no one is looin" at it.
This distinction Kant maes really isn#t anythin" new, it "oes all the way bac to
$escartes. The di!!erence between thinin" and representations. %o Kant is really &ust
renamin" the distinction that already has been taled about by the previous
philosophers. This is why he is "oin" to end up call his view a version o!
transcendental idealism, because he accepts that the phenomenal world is the world o!
experience, that#s the world we have access to and can now about. 'nd yet, he#s not
an idealist, lie (ereley, because he thins there are thin"s which transcend our
experience.
It is part o! Kant#s view that all we can now is the way our experience o! the world
will be and not anythin" o! the noumenal world in and o! itsel!. )e cant now the
noumenal world. 'ccordin" to Kant, while we cant now anythin" about the
noumena, we can at least now that the noumena exist.
Kant thins that space and time are mental phenomena. They are produced by the
mind. Kant denies that space exists apart !rom our experience. In the noumena world
we cant say that there is space, because to be located in space is a property o! an
experience o! somethin" and not a property o! the thin" we experience. Notice also
the sel! is located outside o! experience and this is "oin" to be Kant#s way o! solvin"
*ume#s problem o! where *ume said when I loo inside my experience I can never
!ind this thin" called the sel!. There are representations o! oursel! and other people
and so !orth and we do have phenomenal experience o! ourselves, but that#s not what
is meant by the sel!. The sel! is supposed to be somethin" permanent, that doesn#t
chan"e throu"h time and o! course our experience is chan"in". %o *ume is ri"ht that
we never !ind anythin" within our experience, or in *ume#s terminolo"y we never
have an impression which we can identi!y as the sel!, and Kant is "oin" to solve that
by sayin" the sel! i! the uni!yin" principle o! experience. Its the transcendental
noumena which is puttin" all this stu!! to"ether and we now that its "ot to be there,
because our experience has to be ordered by somethin", we can tell that its ordered,
there#s "ot to be somethin" which is puttin" all that stu!! to"ether. %o the noumenal
sel! is reached as a pre-condition o! havin" experience at all. %o this is Kant#s standard
move here, we !ind the thin" that we are interested in, that someone has criticised, and
we show how we can transcendentally deduce that it must exist. Transcendentally
deduced means we as this +uestion, how could this be possible at all, )hat would
the world have to be lie "iven that this is in !act true, %o Kant ar"ues that we now
there must be a sel! because all our experiences are put to"ether, they#re made !or us
basically, they#re "enerated by somethin" and ordered in a certain way as bein"
located in certain places and bein" earlier and later and so !orth, so there has "ot to be
somethin" which is puttin" all that stu!! to"ether and that is the sel!.
Kant's Philosophy of Mind
- The mind has two components
- sensibility and understandin"
- %ensibility taes in #raw# unor"anised noumena and or"ani-es it into phenomena (our
experience)
- .ach has their cate"ories that they use in order to construct our experience
- The sensibility has space and time. These are !undamental cate"ories that the mind
comes e+uipped with.
- The understandin" has /0 cate"ories.
- 1nity, plurality, totality, reality, ne"ation, limitation, substance2property, cause 3
e!!ect, community, possibility2impossibility, existence2non-existence, and
necessary2contin"ent. These are concepts which are used in or"anisin" the noumena
and constructin" the inds o! experiences that we have.
)ith these cate"ories and the two !rom sensibility, our mind constructs our
experience. - )e can now with absolute certainty that our experience will con!orm
to the cate"ories. Kant is sayin" that all these cate"ories and properties are
phenomenal and don#t apply at all to noumenal ob&ects.
- That is the only way that experience lie ours is possible. - The same cause must
brin" about the same e!!ect or else our experience would be lie a dream.
- 4et this comes at a heavy cost because Kant is sayin" that all science studies is our
experience o! the world and doesn#t capture anythin" 5independent5 o! our experience.
%cience does not, cannot, study the noumenal world.
There is another interestin" problem !or Kant#s view which some people have pointed
out is that it can seem that Kant is a solipsist. %olipsist is someone who thins they are
the only person that exists. %o in Kant#s view, we each have a noumenal sel! and each
o! us is loced in our phenomenal world, so how do we communicate with each
other, *ow do we now that the other people who are in our phenomenal experience
are representative o! other noumenal selves, other transcendental entities, (*e doesnt
really answer this +uestion in the video (at about 06-78 minutes)
To sum up everythin" we have been sayin" about Kant
- Kant calls this a 9opernican :evolution in philosophy. 9opernicus reversed the
position o! the sun and the earth. Instead o! earth centric it became sun centric. %o
Kant sees himsel! as doin" somethin" lie this, it used to be that the world was out
there.
- Instead o! the mind passively actin" as a recorder o! an outside reality, Kant sees it
the other way around. The human mind is actively constructin" reality. :eality is
somethin" that is mental. :eality is constructed by the mind, behind the scenes,
worin" to certain universal laws.
- This is his mix o! :ationalism and .mpiricism.
- .mpiricism is the sense that he thins that science is a synthetic activity, that
science "enerates new nowled"e and without doin" the science we cant tell what is
"oin" to come !rom what.
- (ut at the same time he endorses a priori rationalism based on a priori cate"ories.