The founder of classical German philosophy is Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), in whose activities there are two period: subcritical and critical. In the first period, he showed interest in natural-philosophical problems, in cosmological and cosmogonic problems. In the essay "General Natural History and Theory of the Sky" (1755), the philosopher created a global concept of the origin, development and destruction of worlds in the Universe. Kant considered the origin of the Earth and life on it to be a natural process. In the second period, starting from the 80s of the 18th century, Kant published three "critics" for which this period was called critical: "Critique of Pure Reason" (1781), "Critique of Practical Reason" (1788) and "Critique of Judgment "(1790). The concept of transcendental (from lat.transcendo - overstepping, going beyond the limits of empirical experience) means the philosopher's attitude to study not so much specific objects of cognition as the types of cognition and conditions for the implementation of cognitive activity. Kant's main problem consisted in the analysis of human cognitive capabilities, critical comprehension of their limits, detection of boundaries.
All knowledge, according to Kant, begins with experience, but is not limited to it. According to Kant, there are two a priori, pre-experienced forms of sensibility - space and time. Space systematizes external sensations, time - internal. Scientific knowledge, in his opinion, is a synthesis of feelings and reason. Reason performs the function of summarizing the diverse sensory world under the unity of the concept. Opposing pairs of judgments on one issue are called by Kant antinomies The consciousness of people is bound by the moral law formulated by Kant in the form of a categorical imperative, which includes three maxims:
1) act in accordance with the rules that can become a general law;
2) in their actions proceed from the fact that a person is the highest value, he should never be used as a means;
3) all actions should be focused on the common good.
Kant argued that everything in the world is only a means, and only man is an end in himself. Therefore, the highest purpose of philosophy is to promote the intellectual and moral self-determination of the individual.
The development of German classical philosophy reached heights in the work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). The main philosophical works of the philosopher include: "Phenomenology of Spirit" (1807), "Science of Logic" (1812-1816), "Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences" (1817), "Philosophy of Law" (1821), etc. In all areas of philosophical knowledge Hegel left a deep mark, consistently relying on dialectics.
His philosophical system, called absolute idealism, is distinguished by scientific and theoretical generalizations, unusual depth of research, consistency and harmony of presentation. The work of Hegel, like the work of Kant, directed interest in the possibilities of the human mind to cognize and master the world around him. Hegel explores the objective aspect of rational activity - the development of the spiritual culture of mankind, which is a product and condition for the existence of reason. For this, he introduces the concept “ absolute idea ", by which he understood the entire objective reality in its completeness and development, the world's mind, which is extremely compressed to a completely pure form, generating the infinite wealth of the reality surrounding a person. Hegel regards the absolute idea as a continuously developing process, ascending from one level to another, higher. This contributed to the allocation of three parts in Hegel's philosophical system: logic, philosophy of nature and philosophy of spirit.
1.Logic Hegel's logic acts as a doctrine of the essence of all things, therefore in the "science of logic" he considers such issues that formal logic has never dealt with. These are questions about the laws of reality itself; transformation of quantitative changes into qualitative ones; the ratio of philosophical categories; the nature of mechanical, physical, chemical processes, etc. Logic is divided into three parts: the doctrine of everyday life, the doctrine of the essence and the doctrine of perception . Being and essence are considered as the steps along which the concept climbs before it appears in its entirety. In the teaching of everyday life, Hegel explores the formation of the absolute idea through the transition of quantitative changes to qualitative ones and vice versa, the abruptness of the development process. In the doctrine of essence, Hegel examines the interpenetration of opposites, which do not exist without each other, but which develop in different ways, which leads to an exacerbation of relations between them. 2. Philosophy of nature. The second stage in the development of the absolute idea is nature, it is its product, otherness. Nature interests Hegel not in itself, but as a necessary stage in the development of the absolute idea. The philosophy of nature is represented by mechanics, physics and organics. 3. Philosophy of spirit- the third part of the philosophical system, devoted to the consideration of the absolute idea at the final stage of its development, when, leaving nature, it returns to itself as an absolute spirit, developing as the self-consciousness of mankind throughout world history. The philosophy of spirit consists of the doctrine of the subjective spirit (anthropology, phenomenology, psychology), the theory of the objective spirit (law, morality, state), and the doctrine of the absolute spirit as the highest level of self-awareness of the absolute idea (art, religion, philosophy). In Hegel's philosophy, it is necessary to distinguish between the research method and the system in accordance with which the material is presented and structured. Method Hegel has a dialectical character, being the most general expression of a contradictory world. System- it is the chosen order of presentation of the material, the connection of logical categories.
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The beginning of German classical philosophy is associated with the name of the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804). For more than two centuries, Kant's work has undergone a deep, often hot and passionate study, thousands of articles and books have been written about him, and special journals devoted to his ideas and their development are still being published. Today it is hardly possible to find in the thought or life of Kant any “nooks and crannies” that would remain unknown to researchers. But at the same time, in his mental life, Kant constantly touched upon such eternal questions to which a final answer will never be given, therefore the analysis of his ideas is a necessary moment in the study of philosophy.
In the history of philosophy, Immanuel Kant is often considered as the greatest philosopher after Plato and Aristotle.
Kant's life is not rich in external events. He was born in Königsberg to a family of artisans, at the age of seventeen he entered the University of Königsberg, where he studied theology, natural sciences and philosophy. For several years, Kant earned his living as a home teacher, then he got the position of assistant professor, and quite late - when he was 47 years old! - a professor at his home university. Despite the dry manner of presentation, his lectures attracted a significant number of listeners with their content and originality. In addition to logic and metaphysics, he gave lectures on mathematics, physics, mineralogy, natural law, ethics, physical geography, anthropology and theology.
Despite the relatively late entry into the university and scientific world, Kant became famous during his lifetime, he was called “German philosopher number one”.
Kant's philosophical activity, dating back to the second half of the 18th century, falls into two periods: subcritical and critical. In the pre-critical period, he dealt mainly with questions of natural science and philosophy of nature.
All successes in culture, which serve as a school for a person, are achieved through the practical use of acquired knowledge and skills in life. The most important subject in the world to which this knowledge can be applied, the German philosophers believed, is man, for he is the very last goal for himself. Kant wrote about this in his work "Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View". In his opinion, the knowledge of the generic characteristics of people as earthly beings endowed with reason deserves the name "world studies", although man is only a part; earthly creatures.
Kant attempted to present in a systematic form the doctrine of man, anthropology, which the philosopher divided into physiological and pragmatic. How did he see their difference? Physiological anthropology studies what nature makes of man, how he was created and how he develops. Pragmatic anthropology (human studies) studies a person as a freely acting creature, seeking to understand what he can become as a result of his own efforts.
Physiological humanity has its limits. For example, Descartes sought to understand what memory is based on. This problem can be viewed in another aspect. As soon as a researcher ponders, say, about what makes memory difficult or facilitates it, try to expand it or make it more flexible, such a researcher inevitably enters the realm of pragmatic anthropology.
In the first period of his activity, Kant focused on natural science and philosophy of nature. The result was the outstanding treatise, General Natural History and Theory of the Sky. In it, the philosopher outlined his famous cosmogonic hypothesis, according to which he presented the initial state of the Universe as a chaotic cloud of various material particles.
One of the most important tasks of philosophy, Kant considered the development of problems of morality, which determines human behavior. He wrote: "Two things always fill the soul with new and ever stronger surprise and awe, the more often and longer we think about them, this is the starry sky above me and the moral law in me."
The development of ethical problems occupies a special place in Kant's work. This is the subject of his works such as "Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morality", "Critique of Practical Reason", "On the Originally Evil in Human Nature", "Metaphysics of Morals". In substantiating his system of morality, Kant proceeded from the presence of "good pain" as the essence of morality. Will, in his opinion, is determined only by moral law. In addition to the concepts of goodwill and moral law, the main concept of morality, the philosopher believed, is the concept of duty.
The moral law, according to Kant, contains the fundamental rules of human behavior, or practical principles. Here is how one of them formulated the philosopher: "Act so that the maxim of your will can at the same time have the force of the principle of universal legislation." This formula is called Kant's categorical imperative. It shows how a person should act who seeks to become truly moral. "The categorical imperative would be one that would represent some act as objectively necessary in itself, without regard to any other goal."
Kant advises a person to treat the maxims of his behavior strictly and insistently, in the most attentive way. At the same time, you should correlate your subjective rules with universal human morality. It is necessary in every possible way to avoid such a situation when a person and humanity can become for someone only a means to achieve their own goals. Only such an action in which man and humanity act as absolute goals can be considered truly moral. According to Kant, without free moral decisions and actions, freedom and morality cannot be established in the world.
Kant's ethics is closed within the framework of the will and its defining foundations, i.e. internal determinants.
It can be argued that the pre-critical period in Kant's activity was a necessary prerequisite for the critical.
The entire pre-critical period of Kant's activity took place under the definite influence of mechanical natural science. This does not mean that in a critical period he abandoned this natural-scientific basis for his philosophical views.
In 1770, Kant's transition to the views of the "critical" period took place.
This event took place under the influence of the works of D. Hume. Kant wrote later that it was Hume who awakened him from his dogmatic slumber. It was Hume's ideas that made Kant think critically about the process of cognition. In 1781 his work Critique of Pure Reason appeared, followed by Critique of Practical Reason (1788) and Critique of Judgment (1790). Hence the name of the second period in his work - critical.
Hume, in principle, rejected the pre-experienced, i.e. a priori knowledge, which in his time was called pure, opposing it to the empirical experience. Hume negatively resolved the question of the possibility of metaphysics, i.e. the doctrine of extraexperienced being, information about which allegedly comes directly from the mind, by analyzing the concept.
Hume's radical judgments seemed too straightforward to Kant, and he decided to return once again to the problem of so-called pure knowledge.
In 1781, his main work "Critique of Pure Reason" was published, in which this theory acquired the features of completeness. Historical conditions, natural science and philosophical prerequisites constituted the necessity due to which the theory of scientific knowledge appeared. It can be argued that the pre-critical period of Kant's activity was a necessary prerequisite for the critical. If in the first period Kant, dealing with questions of natural science and the philosophy of nature, himself developed various kinds of natural science theories, then in the second period his attention was paid to the study of what scientific knowledge is, and in particular to such a specific form of it as theory. In the second period, Kant is aware of the practice of developing natural science theories, the creation of which he himself was engaged in in the first period.
The "critical" Kant regards space as external, and time as an internal form of contemplation. The "critical" Kant asserts that space and time are given to us independently of empirical experience.
Subjective interpretation of the fact of universality of space and time, which Kant calls "metaphysical", he complements with "transcendental interpretation." The essence of the latter is the substantiation of the thesis: only the recognition of the a priori space and time makes mathematics and mechanics possible.
Kant made a significant contribution to social philosophy. In his works, such as "The Idea of a Universal History in the World-Civil Plan", "Towards Eternal Peace", Kant proceeded from the idea of progress in the historical development of mankind put forward by the ideologists of the Enlightenment. At the same time, he believed that history develops according to a certain plan. The philosopher attached decisive importance to the activities of the people themselves.
According to Kant, the main problem of humanity is the achievement of a legal civil society. He considered the republican system to be the ideal of the state structure.
Having become one of the largest in the 18th century. theorists of the "rule of law", Kant insisted that generally binding laws should rule in a true republic, and that government officials should ensure strict observance of these laws. TO essential principles republican system Kant attributed the "separation of the executive (government) from the legislative", which was supposed to remain in the hands of the monarch, alienated, however, from the executive.
Kant was convinced that the transition from despotic absolutism to a "legal civil society" is possible and desirable if it is carried out through reforms carried out "from above" by enlightened monarchs. Justifying the right to criticize existing forms of government and all kinds of social institutions, Kant at the same time considered unacceptable any arbitrary actions of his subjects to implement even the most reasonable projects to improve the existing order of things.
Kant pointed out that "if the revolution succeeded and a new system was established, then the illegality of this undertaking and the commission of the revolution cannot free the subjects from the obligation to submit as good citizens to the new order of things, and they cannot evade honest obedience to the government, which now has power" ...
An important place in the socio-historical philosophy of Kant was occupied by the problems of war and peace. Already in "The Idea of a General History ..." Kant supported the appeal of the French thinker at the beginning of the 18th century. Charles Saint-Pierre to the conclusion of a "treaty of eternal peace" between European states. Kant pointed out that endless wars threaten to create for mankind "an absolute hell, full of suffering", and by their devastation to destroy the achieved high level of civilization. From Kant's point of view, eternal peace is the same cardinal task and goal of world-historical progress, as is the establishment of a "universal legal civil status": both are inextricably linked.
Kant believed that if the issue of war is decided not only by politicians, but also by all citizens (as is the case under republican rule), then the latter "think carefully before starting such a nasty game, because they will have to take on all the hardships of the war" and this understanding should prompt them to make a decision to keep the peace. Therefore, the provision that the civil system in each state should be republican figured in Kant as the first article of the draft "treaty on eternal peace between states" developed by him.
Kant promulgated this draft shortly after the conclusion in 1795 of a peace treaty between the coalitions of monarchical states and Republican France. Then it seemed to him that the eternal peace is "a task that is gradually" being solved and is getting closer and closer to implementation. "
In the essay "Towards Eternal Peace" six "preliminary articles" of the project proposed by Kant were first formulated: 1) "a peace treaty destroys all existing causes of a future war", even currently unknown to the contracting parties (by, for example, canceling possible grounds for mutual territorial claims , - grounds hidden in unexplored archives); 2) "no independent state should be acquired by another state either by inheritance, or in exchange, or in the form of a gift"; 3) "standing armies should eventually disappear completely"; 4) it is prohibited to use state loans to finance the preparation of war or its conduct; 5) "no state should interfere forcibly in the political structure and government of other states"; 6) "during a war with another, no state should resort to such hostile actions that would make the state of peace impossible in the future," for example, such actions as sending murderers from around the corner and poisoners, violation of the terms of surrender, incitement to treason in the state of the enemy, etc. I must say that until the end of the XX century. All subsequent projects to eliminate the threat of war included provisions on the elimination or significant reduction of standing armies, non-interference in the internal affairs of states, and respect for their sovereignty and territorial integrity.
According to Kant, states are by nature "in a non-legal state", which is a state of war, since they are guided in relations among themselves by the primitive animal "right of the stronger." They consider themselves entitled to wage wars in order to resolve the conflicts that arise between them by such force.
Kant stated that if it is theoretically impossible to prove the attainability of "eternal peace", then it is impossible to prove its impracticability. In such a situation, the most important, according to Kant, is the following prohibitive verdict on the part of practical legal reason: "there should be no war." From the point of view of such a duty, Kant believed, the question is no longer whether the eternal peace is real or unreal, but whether we should contribute to its implementation (and the establishment of a favorable "republican" system, which was conceived as fundamentally suppressing the inclinations of the rulers of wars in their own, mainly dynastic interests). Kant's answer to the question posed was unconditionally positive: "even if the full realization of this goal would remain a good wish, we are no doubt not deceived by accepting the maxim to work tirelessly in this direction, for this (pacifist) maxim is our duty." ...
Kant explained that "the establishment of a universal and permanent peace is not just a part, but the ultimate goal of the doctrine of law within the limits of reason alone." Kant pointed out that the pacifist rule of obligation "is a priori borrowed from the ideal of legal unification of people under public laws." He exclaimed with pathos: "what could be more sublime than this pacifist idea", adding that in the sense of its universal significance, that is, humanistic value, it has "absolute reality."
The teaching of Kant, replete with contradictions, had a tremendous influence on the subsequent development of scientific and philosophical thought. With his doctrine of the antinomies of reason, Kant played an outstanding role in the development of dialectics.
Anthropological philosophical and pedagogical views of I. Kant
Anthropologism is a specific, historically conditioned tradition of philosophizing, which is expressed in the desire to solve philosophical problems through the phenomenon of man. All attempts at external knowledge of the world ...
Kant's career is usually divided into two periods. Different researchers define the border between them in different ways. Kant's transition from one stage to another took place gradually, through long and often painful spiritual searches ...
Biography and philosophy of I. Kant
1762 was a turning point for the philosopher. It is generally accepted that an acquaintance with the work of Jean-Jacques-Rousseau played an important role in the new searches of Kant, which later led to the creation of his critical philosophy ...
The years passed. Kant's voice in print fell silent for a long time. After the dissertation "On Form and Principles ...", and besides two notes on "Philanthropin", the philosopher published only a review of Moscati's book on the difference in the structure of the body of people and animals ...
The life and work of Immanuel Kant
Different researchers define the beginning of the "critical" period in different ways. Some consider the middle of the 1860s to be such a border, others - around 1770. Both points of view seem to be valid ...
Immanuel Kant
In the "critical" period, I. Kant was occupied with the problems of cognition, ethics, aesthetics, logic, social philosophy. During this period, a number of fundamental philosophical works appeared, one of which was "Critique of Pure Reason" ...
So, I. Kant in his work "Critique of Practical Reason" outlined his completely new view of the theory of knowledge ...
Immanuel Kant, his place and role in the history of philosophy
In the previous chapter, we came to the conclusion that in his writings Kant also dealt with the problems of morality and human happiness, that is, he developed an ethical teaching. Let's analyze it in more detail ...
Kant's critical philosophy
The pre-critical period is characterized by Kant's interest in natural science and naturophilosophical topics. Kant wrote works on the history of the Earth, the theory of winds, the causes of earthquakes, etc.
Kant's critical philosophy
The subject of theoretical philosophy is the study of cognitive activity, the establishment of the laws of the human mind and its boundaries. In this sense, Kant calls his philosophy transcendental ...
Philosophy of Immanuel Kant
Western Europe after the Reformation is a region of violent religious wars. The attempt at a Christian evangelical revival is followed by a schism in the Church and a period of armed clashes between warring confessions ...
Philosophy of Kant
In the philosophy of E. Kant, two stages of development can be distinguished: subcritical and critical. In the pre-critical or dogmatic period, which began with his graduation from the University of Konigsberg and lasted until 1770, E. Kant was mainly interested in ...
Philosophy of Kant
The second period of E. Kant's philosophical creativity is called the "critical period", within which he revised many fundamental philosophical problems in a revolutionary way ...
Philosophy of Kant
The founder of German classical philosophy is Immanuel Kant, a philosopher who, in terms of his strength of spirit and influence on the further development of philosophical thought, is often compared to Plato ...
Philosophy of Kant
In addition to the theoretical, Kant recognized in a person a practical mind, the study of which is devoted to the "Critique of Practical Reason". The practical mind is a clever will aimed at mastering reality ...
ChapterIII
Early Kant. Pre-critical period
(1746 - early 1770s)
The early or so-called pre-critical period of Kant's work covers a good half of his scientific activity: from the first work of the thinker in 1746 "Thoughts on the true assessment of living forces" to the dissertation "On the form and principles of the sensuously perceived and intelligible world" that was published in 1770. However, it is difficult to establish the exact time of the final transition of Kant to the position of criticism, since the publication in 1781 of the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason was preceded by a decade of silence, when the thinker did not publish a single work, except for small articles and reviews not related to his main philosophical topics. ... His evolution during this period is evidenced by only a few letters, as well as scattered fragments and rough sketches on separate sheets or in the margins of textbooks from which he lectured; moreover, the question of the exact dating of these materials causes serious disagreement among researchers.
The decision of the question of time, and most importantly, of the essence of the thinker's transition to the position of criticism is further complicated by the fact that critical motives are often found in pre-critical works, and he included fragments or whole sections written at different times in the main body of Critique of Pure Reason. , and certainly not during those 4 or 5 months when, according to Kant's own admission, he “as if on the move” (“in flight”) processed the results of his twelve years of reflections, “with the greatest attention to the content, but much less taking care of the presentation. " Even less in
In his critical writings, the thinker took care of acquainting the reader with the issues of the genesis or formation of the basic principles and attitudes of criticism, with the reasons and prerequisites for its maturation and emergence, and even more so with the evolution of his own views, his subjective searches and disappointments that led to his implementation as follows. called "Copernican coup" or "revolutionary change in the way of thinking." With a few exceptions, the mature Kant practically does not turn to his pre-critical works and this lack of critical self-reflection, as already noted in the Introduction, makes it extremely difficult to adequately understand that specific historical and philosophical context, that real problematic and meaningful situation, the direct response to which or the way of comprehension , overcoming and solving which became "Critics of Pure Reason". The historical and theoretical significance of these issues goes far beyond the study creative biography thinker and even overcoming the popular idea of Kantian criticism as the “beginning” of German classical philosophy, which arose, like “God out of the machine”. We are talking about the need to rethink and reevaluate an entire period not only in the history of German philosophy in the 18th century, but also in the philosophy of the Enlightenment, and the modern era as a whole as one of the most critical and dramatic stages in the history of world philosophy in general. At the same time, without understanding the rootedness of Kantian philosophy in this particular stage in the history of philosophical thought, without knowing the direct threads connecting it with the whole complex of “hot” topics and problems at that time, it is often simply impossible to “decipher” its “strange” language and conceptual apparatus, a significant part of its specific attitudes and principles, inexplicable paradoxes and contradictions, etc.
1. Searches for a metaphysical substantiation of the scientific picture of the world (40s - early 60s)
The legacy of early Kant is very heterogeneous and multifaceted in its content, in it one can distinguish various stages and periods when the thinker changed his attitudes and orientations, however, all of them are characterized by some common features and features that allow us to talk about their problematic unity and a well-defined direction. ... First of all, it must be said that at all stages of his early, pre-critical, and late, critical creativity, the thinker retained a deep and ineradicable "love" with metaphysics, a firm conviction that only she alone is capable of "kindling the light of knowledge", and not only in the field of theoretical, scientific development of the world, but also in solving "meaning-life" issues of human existence, his place and destination in the world [see: 47, vol. 1, p. 318; vol. 2, p. 204-206, 213, 348, 363; Wed vol. 3, p. 73-105, 119].
On the other hand, or, more precisely, because of precisely this “falling in love” with metaphysics, Kant was unusually keen and deeply worried and aware of the clearly unfavorable, even crisis state in which this “queen of sciences” found herself by the middle of the 18th century. In this respect, he was in solidarity with many of the thinkers discussed above, primarily opponents and critics of the Wolf's school, and as for the frequency and harshness of critical statements about metaphysics, the thinker's early works are hardly inferior to his later, actually critical works (the latter even where calmer in tone and balanced in terms of assessments, but of course, deeper and more substantiated in essence).
Strictly speaking, both of these motives determined the main direction and the main content of all - both early and late - of Kant's work, namely: the search for a new method of metaphysical knowledge, "new illumination" of his first principles, their "only possible grounds", "the degree of clarity And, finally, the solution of the question of the possibility of metaphysics as a science.
Kant begins his first work with the proclamation of freedom in the study of truth, the search for which must follow the dictates of reason alone, and by no means the authorities of great people: Newton, Leibniz, Wolff and others, whose prejudices, he believes, "still retain strict dominance" over crowd. Thus, from his first steps, the thinker decisively declares his independence and even opposition to tradition, his intention to follow his own unbeaten path, and the unwillingness to abandon the “bold” thought that the truth “first opened up” to his mind. "On which the greatest masters of human knowledge have worked in vain."
However, in his first work, Kant fully shares the point of view of traditional Leibnizian metaphysics regarding the existence of certain simple, incorporeal substances that have initial internal activity or strength, i.e. in fact, he reproduces Leibniz's doctrine of monads or Wolf's doctrine of "simple things" or elements [i.e. 1, p. 63-64, 67]. Created by God as belonging to a multitude of possible worlds, they lie at the basis of "our" real, corporeal world and all its inherent space-time, physical characteristics and properties (extension, movement, etc.) [i.e. 1, p. 63-64, 68-72].
Quite in the spirit of traditional metaphysics, Kant also formulates the main task of his "True Appraisal ..."; it consists in the search for irrefutable evidence and evidence of the existence of spiritual substances and their
internal, living forces acting outside, as well as in an attempt to give a new, "true assessment" to these forces. Having correctly noted that the definition of force as a measure of motion, proportional to velocity (in Descartes) and the square of velocity (in Leibniz), serves as a description of various ways of existence and manifestation of energy (mechanical interaction and movement of bodies and their kinetic energy), Kant mistakenly took the latter as a way of expressing and definitions of living forces. In other words, he uses the properties of physical bodies and their by no means "living" forces, as well as the methods of their mechanical definition and mathematical measurement, to prove the existence of metaphysical substances and their active forces.
However, along with this kind of mixing of metaphysical ideas with physical, "living" forces with "inanimate", he already in this work notes the fundamental differences and even the opposition that exists between them. He points out that it is incorrect to define the essential power of substances by the way of its action or manifestation in natural and moving bodies, and therefore should be designated not as “driving force” (vis mottix), but as “active force” (vis activa), [i.e. 1, p. 63-64]. This seemingly insignificant terminological distinction, he further gives a detailed meaningful decoding.
So, referring to Aristotle and Leibniz, Kant emphasizes that, unlike mechanical movement and other observable actions of internal forces, the latter remain inaccessible not only to mathematical knowledge, but also to feelings [i.e. 1, p. 63, 79, 81]. This inner essential force exists apart from and "even before extension" and moreover, it turns out to be the property of not natural extended bodies, but of some, although existing, but incorporeal, non-extended and spatially "nowhere in the whole world" substances [i.e. 1, p. 63, 68]. In this case, however, the question of the relationship between the metaphysical and physical worlds and their "forces"
remains essentially unanswered. Kant confines himself to just a postulate or assurance that the former underlie the latter, and despite his attempts to give a "true assessment" to the former, the question of the principles of metaphysical knowledge leaves open.
However, even more indicative and important from the point of view of the subsequent evolution of the views of the thinker is the fact that he links the problem of the relationship between the metaphysical and physical worlds, spiritual substances and bodies, living and inanimate forces with the question of how the latter relate to the human soul. Kant asks the question: why matter and its physical movement are capable of causing not only movements, but also representations in the soul [i.e. 1, p. 66], and the latter turns out to be capable of setting in motion matter, causing changes in external things and bodies, without being itself a physical body. It is in this circumstance that he finds the most weighty confirmation of the existence of living forces. The very fact of such an interaction between the soul and the body indicates the limitations of the mechanical and mathematical understanding of nature, since from the point of view of the latter, one can at best imagine that matter, by its physical action, “will move the soul from its place,” but it is impossible to understand “that the force that causes only movement, could give rise to ideas and ideas. " “After all, these are such different kinds of things,” Kant points out, “that it is impossible to understand how one of them could become the source of the other” [v. 1, p. 66].
This question was vividly discussed in the discussion about the theory of pre-established harmony and its relationship (in which, as we have seen, Kant's teacher M. Knutzen actively participated). In his subsequent works, Kant will constantly return to it, gradually focusing on it the entire complex of metaphysical problems. As for the solution to this question in the "True Assessment ...", it is reduced to very abstract and
internally dualistic reasoning that matter changes the internal state of the soul, since being connected with the body, the soul itself "is in some place" and therefore is able to act outwardly, to set in motion external bodies. At the same time, in its internal states and the ability to represent the world, the soul remains a kind of incorporeal and unexpanded substance, which, existing, does not contain any space, “is not found anywhere in the world” and has no real connection and physical interaction with bodies [ T. 1, p. 66-68].
It is difficult to say to what extent Kant himself was aware of the inconsistency and inconsistency of these ideas. In any case, he, apparently, was aware of the complexity and unsolved problems, and it was not by chance that after the first work there was an almost ten-year period of silence, which can hardly be explained by only the external circumstances of his life (work as a home teacher). The inner workings of his thought during this period are evidenced by the subsequent explosive creation of a significant number of works in the mid-1950s.
Among them, a relatively independent cycle of works devoted to natural science problems stands out. Kant appears in them as a naturalist scientist analyzing specific questions of the physics of the earth, the theory of winds, sea tides, etc. From that time on and almost until the end of his life, Kant lectured on mathematics, mechanics, physics, physical geography, anthropology, optics, acoustics, and other specific scientific disciplines.
From the cycle of these works, the greatest fame was gained by the "General Natural History and Theory of the Sky" (1755), in which the thinker developed his famous cosmogonic hypothesis, which constituted an era in the development of the scientific picture of the world. Kant explains the emergence of the solar system and other stellar systems in the universe by the interaction of attraction and repulsion, in which
sees the manifestation of the inherent elements or particles of matter "force to set each other in motion" [i.e. 1, p. 157]. Proceeding from the recognition of certain "innate and initial properties of matter" and the ability of the mind to cognize them, the thinker considers it possible "to say without any arrogance: give me matter and I will build the world out of it" [v. 1, p. 117, 126-127].
Kant adheres to the firm conviction that in the universe there are no hidden properties or causes inaccessible to the human mind, let alone miraculous events that deviate from the natural and correct order of phenomena and their mechanical laws. He constantly emphasizes that between his system, based on the arguments of naturalists and the arguments of the defenders of religion, there is complete agreement, nevertheless, God was considered by him as the creator of the real world and its natural laws, correct and perfect order. In his hypothesis, he tries to explain the emergence of the solar system from the original nebula and, within the framework of solving this rather specific problem, relies exclusively on natural causes, mechanical laws given by contemporary science, etc. [T. 1, p. 117-119, 122, 201-207, 217, 228, 261].
It is significant that starting with The Theory ... in Kant's works (including the critical period) the image of the starry sky overhead constantly arises, a picture of an infinite, purposefully and perfectly arranged universe, connected by natural, simple, universal and necessary laws [t ... 1, p. 117-119, 122-126, 135, 201, 301, 453-454; vol. 2, p. 212-213, 306-313, 408-424; Wed vol. 4, h. 1, p. 449-500]. And it was precisely these laws, the “eternal and strict” order of the universe that became more and more an incentive for the thinker in his metaphysical research, prompting him to search for its root causes, foundations, conditions and sources of the diversity of properties and connections of the material world, the prerequisites for its cognition, etc. "Reasonable"
admiration for the perfect and correct structure of the universe, reverence for the scientific picture of the world became for Kant a source of an urgent need for their philosophical and epistemological understanding and justification, a constant critical rethinking of the traditional ways of solving that problem. This tendency can be seen in the cycle of works of the 50-s, devoted to metaphysical problems proper: "New illumination of the first principles of metaphysical knowledge" (1755), "Application of metaphysics related to geometry in the philosophy of nature" (1756) and "The only possible basis for proving existence God "(1762).
True, even in these works, Kant reproduces in many respects the corresponding reasoning of Leibniz-Wolffian metaphysics: simple substances or monads are taken as the basis of the bodily space-time world, its properties and laws; their existence is made dependent on God as the creator and cause of all things, and their absolute simplicity, impossible from the point of view of the infinite mathematical divisibility of space, is explained by their special, incorporeal or ideal, nature. Thanks to this nature, they can exist in such a way “not to be in any place”, “filling” the space, not “occupying” it, not having length, volume, and thus not representing any complex and divisible quantity. At the same time, thanks to the internal force inherent in these substances and its outwardly directed activity, they determine the spatial and all other properties of physical bodies: their multiplicity, divisibility, impenetrability, inertia, attraction, repulsion, etc. [T. 1, p. 309, 311, 318-336, etc.]. The latter are considered as external manifestations of the activity of simple substances, as their sensually observable spatial presence, which is the subject of mathematical and physical cognition, which does not, however, affect the internal definitions of substances, their
necessary and independent existence, closed in itself and isolated or "isolated" from "our" or the real world [i.e. 1, 311-312, 319-326].
Nevertheless, in all the above-mentioned works, Kant is far from submissively following the “opinions of famous people” (Leibniz, Wolf, Baumgarten, etc.), whom he reproaches for sterility, “idle and vague cunning”, etc. [T. 1, p. 265-266, 314]. Moreover, his criticism of the latter and attempts to find new approaches concern the most important and fundamental questions of metaphysics. The depth and seriousness of his intentions is evidenced by the fact that "New Lighting ..." he begins with a criticism of the laws of contradiction and sufficient reason precisely as "higher" or "first principles of metaphysical knowledge." Behind the first law, he denies the meaning of the "first and all-embracing principle for all truths", replacing it with the principle of identity, since only he allows one to prove true positions by revealing the identity between the concepts of the subject and the predicate, and not by concluding that the opposite is impossible [i.e. 1, p. 266-272].
This replacement was necessary for Kant to formulate the principle of determining reason, with which he tries to replace the Wolffian principle of sufficient reason. He proceeds from the premise that every true position is based on union, agreement, and even identity between subject and predicate; any connection or relationship between them is carried out on some basis; the basis that assumes this relationship with the exclusion of its opposite, i.e. as necessary, it is, according to Kant, the defining basis. And it is precisely such a foundation that serves not only as a criterion, but also as a source of truth, which makes it possible to designate what “is really enough to understand a thing in this way and not otherwise” [v. 1, p. 272-276].
In the last words, in fact, the essence and purpose of all this reasoning is revealed: speaking of
"Ambiguity", the expression "sufficient reason", Kant sees in it the absence of a logical necessity in understanding the truth: it allows one to assert that "something is rather than is not", without excluding, however, the possibility of the opposite "something", i.e. e. not necessary, but an accidental connection between the subject and the predicate. And the point is not that thus, along with the necessary truths and the principle of identity as their determining basis, accidental truths in general were admitted. The fact is that in this way factual truths crept imperceptibly into the composition of the first principles of metaphysical knowledge, i.e. concepts borrowed from experience, empirical observation of things, etc., which was the eclectic essence and methodological inconsistency of Wolffian rationalistic metaphysics. And in his criticism of the law of sufficient reason, Kant, in fact, points out this fundamental contradiction.
True, at first he overcomes this contradiction in a very peculiar way, namely, supplementing the concept of the determining foundation with the concept of the previous foundation and endowing the latter with the meaning of the foundation of being or becoming, answering the question "why" [i.e. 1, p. 273]. Thus, in addition to the meaning of the logical foundation, designed to establish or suppose the relation of identity between the subject and the predicate, it acquires the status of a real foundation that determines not only the necessary form, but also the content of truth, i.e. not only a logical possibility, but also the temporary emergence and spatial existence of a thing, which constitutes, according to Kant, "the complete definition of a thing" [i.e. 1, p. 275, 278, 280, 283-285].
In other words, the overcoming of Wolffian dualism or eclectic "concessions to empiricism" is achieved by strengthening the dogmatic-rationalistic aspects of traditional metaphysics, by more consistently implementing the principle of the identity of thought and being,
coincidence of the logically possible, necessary and really existing, accidental, or rather, even the subordination of the second to the first. This persistent appeal of Kant to the metaphysical foundations of the physical or mechanical picture of the world is explained by the following circumstances. First, for him it is quite obvious and not subject to discussion the fact that it is impossible to derive universal and necessary laws and categories of mechanics, a theoretical picture of the world from experience, from empirical observations of sensibly given, random and changeable things of the real world. This explains Kant's disagreement with the Wolffian law of sufficient reason, in which they are "content" with random signs of things and include them in the concept of reason [i.e. 1, p. 275].
Secondly, and this is especially important, he proceeds from the fact that neither experience nor the law of sufficient reason can solve the question of the cause of the appearance and existence of a thing, and the existence is not accidental, but necessary, without which it is impossible to "completely define a thing". excluding the opposite, i.e. its non-existence [i.e. 1, p. 282-285]. In this case, Kant addresses a problem that posed the greatest difficulties for representatives of both rationalistic metaphysics and empirical philosophy, namely, the question of the existence of the real world, the objective reality of things, the possibility of substantiating their existence.
And it is on this point and on this occasion that radical disagreements with the Wolffian tradition arise in Kant and a departure from dogmatic rationalism begins (despite the apparent strengthening of the latter, as mentioned above). He emphatically declares the need for "a careful distinction between the basis of truth and the basis of existence" or "the basis of truth and the basis of reality" and opposes that the principle of the determining basis in the realm of truths be extended to the realm of existence [i.e. 1, p. 281, 284].
Base truths he refers to defining grounds establishing an analytically necessary connection between the subject and the predicate, according to the principle of identity. The foundation is existence he calls antecedent the basis through which not a logical connection or the relation of identity between the subject and the predicate is considered, but the question of the very existence of things and the reason for their occurrence, i.e. on the basis of their being and becoming (Sein, Werden) [vol. 1, p. 273, 280-285].
It is precisely the antecedent-defining basis that Kant opposes to the Wolffian law of sufficient reason, considering its empirical genesis as a disadvantage of the latter, by virtue of which it relies only on accidental existence and allows only to assert that “a thing rather is than is not”, which is not enough for “its complete definitions ". The principle of the antecedent-determining basis is devoid of this drawback and allows us to understand the necessary emergence and existence of real and even accidental things. In this case, Kant is somewhat disingenuous, since according to this principle, there can be no question of any accidental existence or existence of the accidental: the previous foundation determines the subsequent one with the same necessity as the logical conclusion follows from the premise according to the law of identity or according to the "foundation of truth" ...
Nevertheless, behind the Kantian distinction between the foundations of truth and reality, there was a very deep formulation of the problem of existence, the ever-growing conviction of the thinker that the conclusion from the concept of a thing, from its logical possibility to existence, which is characteristic of traditional metaphysics, is illegal. Anticipating the famous thesis of his future "Criticism ..." - "a hundred real thalers do not contain one iota more than a hundred possible thalers" [v. 3, p. 552], Kant already in his work in 1762, “The only
a possible basis for proving the existence of God "indicates that existence cannot be a logical predicate of a concept and that in the logical combination of the concept of a thing with all mental predicates," there is never a difference from what is only possible "[ie. 1, p. 406].
He tries to build his own substantiation of existence, the proof of the existence of a thing or “something” based on the concept of “positing” (Setzung, Position), which was apparently borrowed from Crusius, and the interpretation of being as “simple posi- tion” (schlechthin Gesetzsein). Kant argues as follows: in the statement “the thing is” the word “is” (ist) serves not as an expression of the logical connection between the subject and the predicate of the judgment, but in the positing of the thing itself or the assertion of being “the thing considered posited in itself and for itself” (die Sache an und für sich selbst gesetzt betrachtet), [i.e. 1, 403; the Russian translation in this case is not entirely accurate, cf. 186, v. 2, p. 73]. This not very intelligible statement is based on an uncomplicated and very incorrect logical-grammatical procedure, namely the auxiliary verb "is" (ist) from an affirmative link turns into a "simple statement" of the concept of a subject ("thing" or "something"), to which first, the indefinite form of the verb “to be” (sein) is added “imperceptibly”, and the latter is just as “imperceptibly” transformed into a noun (Sein) and is endowed with the ontological meaning of “simple positivism” or “simple posited” “being of a thing”. This "being" is not derived from the concept of a thing and is not attached to it as a predicate, it is "simply posited" by the extra-logical, but subjective act of affirming the concept or even the word "thing" that "is." Feeling the undoubted weakness and obvious subjectivity of his proof of the concept of "the being of a thing", the uncertainty of the content and ontological status of the latter, Kant notes that "being" (Sein) in the given
case "will mean the same as existence" (Dasein), [ibid.]. In fact, by this next terminological substitution, he is trying to give his concept of “being” the appearance of real or present being, that is, endow with the signs of really existing, given in the experience of things. However, even this equivocation towards the empirical understanding of existence does not relieve him of some doubts about the reliability of his proof, and therefore he “readily admits” that the signs of a simple and indecomposable concept of a thing “are not much clearer and simpler than the thing itself” and that the explanation of the concept of existence is “only to a very small extent becomes more distinct through the indication (Erklärung) of existence ”(Existenz).
Turning to God and the proof of his absolute existence, in fact, turns out to be the only way out of this impasse. Firstly, only the subjective act of positing acquires the status of some absolute “divine” act, and secondly, the indefinite concept of existence acquires superempirical and superlogical features of a certain absolutely necessary being. Instead of the humble "thing is", it is proclaimed: "there is a god", that is. exists earlier, "primary" the concept of it, "precedes" its logical possibility.
The main argument of his proof of the existence of God, Kant considers the thesis "something is possible", and sees its convincingness in the fact that "it is based on the most primary given", namely on the very "possibility of things", which in turn is based on the existence of God as "True" or "maximum possible reality" (wahre grosst mögliche Realität). With the elimination of God as "the beginning of all possibility", the inner possibility of things will be destroyed, everything conceivable in general will be abolished, and therefore the non-existence of God "completely
inconceivable, "and his being is absolutely necessary, that is, "It cannot but be."
Thus, the question of the real world, of the relationship between the possible and the real, the logical and the real, is not only not solved, but also not touched upon; the proof of the existence of God is carried out, as Kant declares not without pride, "completely a priori" and on "the only possible basis" that "something is possible." All the same, the constructions of the thinker turn out to be a deductive system of logical thoughts about the world within the framework of whose “existence” and only in relation to which God “exists” with absolute necessity as its “first foundation”.
All these vices of his proof of the existence of God, Kant realized and showed in the "Critique of Pure Reason", where under the guise of refuting the ontological argument he criticized his early works (albeit without referring to them). He shows the impossibility of proving the existence of anything outside of experience and sensory data, and behind the assertion of such existence he recognizes the nature of a logically possible, but unprovable assumption (Voraussetzung) or hypothesis [i.e. 3, p. 523]. Attempts to transform such an assumption into a proven position, and hypotheses into a postulate have as their source only the desire of the mind to cognize the unconditional and are something other than an expression of the thinker's subjective need to substantiate and complete his metaphysical system, as a result of which the mind “plunges into darkness and falls into contradictions ", and metaphysics -" in dilapidated, worm-eaten dogmatism "[vol. 3, p. 73-74].
Strictly speaking, this is precisely what took place in the Kantian interpretation of existence as a "simple positivism" and in the proof of the absolutely necessary existence of God in the "Only Possible Foundation" and in the "New Illumination ...", where he not only does not overcome the dogmatism of traditional metaphysics, but even reinforces its inherent features of fatalism. This was especially evident in
his work "The Experience of Certain Discourses on Optimism" (1759), where he, clearly simplifying the ideas of Leibniz's "Theodicy", argues that "some invented freedom" is not needed, should be abolished and replaced by "good necessity." True, already in Novy Svetlana ... he tries to deflect accusations of the fatalism of his teaching and reproaches that his principles restore "the invariable necessity of all things and the fate of the Stoics" and thereby eliminate "all freedom and morality."
At the same time, in The Only Possible Ground, as in New Illumination ..., along with unsuccessful attempts to “new” proof of the existence of God, as well as to “correct” traditional metaphysics, the thinker's interest in the theoretical cognitive issues. In this regard, it is indicative that he adds a third link to his distinction between the foundations of truth and existence, namely the concept of a real basis of knowledge, different from the first two, but at the same time designed to play the role of a kind of mediator between them. Unlike the foundation of truth, which concerns only a logically consistent, correct form of thinking or something "how" something is conceived in a concept from the point of view of its form, the real basis of cognition touches this thinkable "something" itself and constitutes the material or content side of the concept.
Kant illustrates his idea with the following example. The concept of a quadrangular triangle is certainly impossible according to the law of contradiction, nevertheless, the concepts of a triangle and a quadrangle "by themselves" are possible, they are "something" (Etwas), "given" (Data) for thinking, constitute the real or material side of the original concept, its content, independent of its formal side (Formale), i.e. logical inconsistency and impossibility.
The formal side serves as the basis for the logical possibility of a concept, it is a necessary condition, without which knowledge is certainly impossible, however, it does not say anything about the actual possibility of a concept as knowledge, i.e. about the cognitive content and meaning of the concept. On the contrary, the material side of the concept is the content of that "what" in it it is thought, serves as a real basis, thanks to which the concept becomes knowledge in the proper sense of the word. Both of these aspects of the concept are relatively independent and independent of each other, but at the same time they are equally necessary conditions, constitutive prerequisites for any conceptual knowledge, although they differ in their functions and roles for the process of the emergence of this knowledge [i.e. 1, s, 408, 413-415].
Attention should be paid to the fact that Kant does not at all identify the real basis of knowledge with the basis of existence, but the material side of the concept with the existence of a thing "in itself and for itself", i.e. outside of knowing or thinking about it. This material side is considered by him precisely as a conceivable “something”, as “given” in thought and even “put” by it as its own content, internal property or component. In this case, the principle of "positing" acquires a new, more distinctly expressed epistemological content, is introduced into the context of clarifying the substantive-content side of thinking, the cognitive significance of a concept, and not positing the existence in general or the absolutely necessary existence of a "thing", "something" or God.
It is also significant that the real basis of cognition and the material side of thinking is not reduced by Kant to the "idea of some existing thing" given by means of feelings and experience. This idea has an empirical source, is accidental and cannot serve necessary real
the basis of knowledge or possess the meaning of "real necessity" for thinking, forcing it to be content with only random concepts. Kant, on the other hand, raises the question of the real basis of not accidental, sensory or empirical knowledge, but knowledge that is necessary, theoretical or scientific, necessary from both the formal and material sides, i.e. from the point of view of its logically correct, rigorous and evidential form, and from the point of view of the conceivable content in it, Kant in this case is not interested in any specific content of the material side of thinking, and even more so not in its empirical sources. It is important for him to show the necessary and constitutive significance of this aspect for all knowledge, for the transformation of only logically possible concepts into actual knowledge. The material side therefore plays the role of a real basis for cognition, since only thanks to it does thinking acquire cognitive content and meaning, i.e. becomes knowledge in the proper sense of the word.
In essence, the posing of the question about the real foundations of knowledge, about the material side of concepts was nothing more than one of the first, still very vague and even contradictory attempts to clarify the genesis, the emergence of necessary and objectively significant knowledge, as well as the analysis of its structure and essence. Kant is still far from any clear understanding of the essence of the problems he touched upon, however, he is already quite clearly aware that the possibility of such knowledge cannot be explained and substantiated either logically or empirically: it cannot be "deduced" from the perfect reason of God and the harmony preset by him or acquired from experience and sensory data. Unlike these traditional approaches, he seeks to solve the question of the necessary foundations, conditions and prerequisites for scientific knowledge through an immanent analysis of this knowledge itself, discovering and understanding it.
epistemological structure as a specific unity of various and even opposite sides or moments: formal and substantive, logical and real, etc. It was these questions that made up the main content of his works in the early - mid-60s: "False philosophizing in four figures of syllogism" (1762), "The experience of introducing the concept of negative quantities into philosophy" (1763), "Investigation of the degree of clarity of the principles of natural theology and Morality "(1764), as well as" Dreams of the Spirit-Seer, Explained by the Dreams of Metaphysics "(1766).
2. The problem of "real foundations" for the knowledge of the critic of "dreaming metaphysics" (first half - mid-60s)
It is significant that, in contrast to previous works, where the problem of objectivity of cognition and substantiation of the scientific picture of the world, Kant tried to solve with the help of the postulates of traditional metaphysics and ontotheology, in these works his interest is switched exclusively to the epistemological plane. And if "The only possible foundation ..." he began with the image of the boundless ocean and the "bottomless abyss of metaphysics" into which one must rush in order to find answers to its higher questions, and ended with doubts about the possibility and necessity of proving the existence of God, then "False philosophizing ... "he already begins with a criticism of the human mind, which" boldly pursues objects that are too great and then builds castles in the air. "
Leaving aside the problem of proving the existence of things of the real world, he now seeks to understand and substantiate the possibility of achieving clear and complete concepts about these things, and, first of all, to solve the problem of the transition from sensory representations to concepts. Ideas about things, their relationship to each other
According to Kant, they are not at all their knowledge in the proper sense of the word, a conscious thought about them. For the emergence of knowledge, i.e. for the transformation of a sensory representation into a concept, it is necessary that the content of the former be expressed in the form of a judgment, where a thing and its attribute acquire the status of a subject and a predicate, and their relations - with the help of the connecting affirmative word "is" or the separative negative "is not" ...
At the same time, representations induce or activate some kind of “basic force” or ability of the soul, namely the ability to judge or make judgments. Kant is not clear about the nature and essence of this ability; he calls it "the mysterious force that makes judgments possible" and sees it as the ability of either inner feeling, or reason and reason. In general, this ability to judge (more precisely, the "ability to judge" - Vermögen zu urteilen) "can only belong to rational beings" and on it is based "all the higher power of knowledge", which is deprived of unreasonable animals and what constitutes the "essential difference" between them and man.
Now Kant considers judgment not only as a logical form of thinking, but as a subjective ability, an active cognitive force, "action" (Handlung) of which consists in making "her own ideas the subject of her thoughts." Comparing with each other ideas about things and their signs, the ability of judgment or inner feeling establishes an affirmative or negative logical connection between them, i.e. the relation of belonging, consent, identity or the relation of difference, opposition, contradiction. Directly perceived or clearly imagined relations between things and their signs serve as the basis for this act of judgment, mental action, transforming the data of the senses or
the content of sensations into a form of judgment, into a thought. It is this subjective act that "realizes" or makes possible distinct concepts about things or simple, indivisible and unprovable judgments, in which the relationship between the subject and the predicate is based on sensory ideas about things and their signs and therefore expresses a cognitive attitude towards them,
According to Kant, such judgments are "full" of human knowledge and therefore those philosophers are mistaken, in whose opinion, "there are no unprovable truths, except for one." In this case, he, in essence, casts doubt on the possibility of substantiating knowledge with the help of the concept of God as the first and only foundation of everything thinkable and real. Now he is not satisfied with such a "one-off" solution to the question of cognition and the interpretation of the latter as an endless logical deduction of concepts from the preceding defining grounds.
Kant, in fact, passes here from theocentric and metaphysical attitudes to anthropocentric and epistemological attitudes, but at the same time naturalistic or empirical-psychological. The latter poses a threat to the necessary and universal character of scientific knowledge, since it makes cognition dependent on the random existence of things, their given to representations, on the subjective order and nature of their perception.
In "False philosophizing ..." Kant is still relatively little concerned about this threat, however, even here he connects inner feeling with reason and reason, and in sensations and representations of things he sees not a direct source of concepts and judgments, but only motivation to the action of cognitive power inside an intelligent being. At the same time, it was these difficulties that served as an impetus for him for a more in-depth consideration of the issue of the difference between logical and real
foundations of knowledge in the work "Experience of introducing the concept of negative quantities into philosophy".
However, he begins this work with an understanding of the fundamental differences between logical negations and contradictions, on the one hand, and the concepts of negative quantities and real opposites, on the other. In the first case, "something is simultaneously affirmed and denied in relation to the same thing," and at the same time and in the same sense, that is, violating the law of contradiction or the very logical form of combining predicates in the concept of a thing. The consequence of this combination of affirmation and denial is “nothing” (gar nichts), ie. inconceivable and unimaginable, for example, a body that is and is not in motion. In the second case, “two predicates of the same thing are opposite (entgegengesetz), but not according to the law of contradiction (Widerspruchs). Here, too, the one abolishes (aufhebt) what the other supposes (setzt); but the effect here is "something" (Etwas). " Thus, two equal forces acting on a body in the opposite direction cancel each other out, but without contradiction and therefore (as "true predicates") are possible in the same body at the same time: their consequence is rest, that is, something conceivable and imaginable, expressible by the concept of zero or no motion.
With this difference, Kant wants to show that concepts are possible that, being opposite and even denying or abolishing each other, nevertheless, do not contradict each other and can be attributed to the same subject, included in its composition, without logically destroying correct shape this concept. The "real" nature of these concepts and their relationships indicates the presence in them of some cognitive content, which does not depend on their logical form, ie. is determined not by the law of contradiction, but by some other - non- or extra-logical source.
To define this content and its sources, Kant uses the concept of real grounds already familiar to us, which he now interprets as some true, simple and further indecomposable concepts, the relation of which to their consequences cannot be expressed and made more “understandable” (more precisely, “ distinct ”- deutlich) through judgment. The specificity of real grounds lies in the fact that their relation to their consequences is of a synthetic nature, in which one "something" posits (setzt) or eliminates (aufhebt) something else, and therefore it cannot be established (put or abolished, removed) logically, perceived or understood on the basis of the law of identity or contradiction.
As examples of real grounds, Kant cites the relation of rain to clouds and wind, body movements to a push from another body, the real world to divine will, etc. The subjects of these statements (wind and clouds, a pushing body, divine will) believe as a consequence “something else” (rain, movement of another body, the real world), the possibility of which cannot be understood analytically, that is, by dismembering the concept of a subject and deriving consequences from it according to the law of identity ("rain is determined by the wind not according to the law of identity"). However, in the heat of polemics against the identification of logical and real grounds (unjustly accusing Crusius of this), Kant even argues that the latter's attitude to the consequences "cannot in any way be a subject of judgment" and is expressed through judgment. In this case, he is right in the sense that the connection between cause and action, which is mentioned in the examples given, cannot be reduced to an analytic connection or to a logical relationship between reason and conclusion, and even more so cannot be understood, obtained or cognized. through the law of identity or contradiction. Considering that this connection cannot at all
become the subject of judgment and be expressed in the form of a connection between the subject and the predicate of the judgment, he abandons his own point of view of "False philosophizing ..." turns into a thought. Such a radical change in point of view was caused by the thinker's undoubted reaction to the elements of empiricism and psychologism that took place in previous work. However, now Kant goes to the other extreme, namely, he asserts the absolute opposition between the sensible and the rational, the real and the logical, and most importantly, between the real and the conceivable, the object and the concept. But thus the real foundations of cognition hang in the air, and the question of the genesis of real concepts, i.e. about the emergence of real knowledge remains open. And Kant himself openly admits that the possibility of concepts of real grounds and their relation to their consequences surpasses his "weak understanding" and even asks to "clarify" this issue to him.
However, in this case, he is somewhat disingenuous. Indeed, the examples of concepts of real grounds he cites cannot be proved logically, obtained by analyzing concepts, but they are all taken by him from various fields of knowledge, where they were obtained by various methods or methods of cognition: empirical observation, mechanical consideration of nature and metaphysical speculation. In other words, each of them has its own epistemological genesis, theoretical and cognitive sources and preconditions, to which they owe their origin or their "possibility". However, having become true knowledge (which, however, only the first two examples can claim), i.e. real bases of knowledge, they not only take the form of a concept, but also become the subject of judgment and may well
must be expressed through it, i.e. in the form of a logical connection between the subject and the predicate, the basis and the conclusion.
As a matter of fact, in the concept of the real foundations of knowledge, Kant touches on the problem that he formulated in the Critique of Pure Reason in the form of the question "How are a priori synthetic judgments possible?" In "Experience ..." he is limited, however, to a very abstract opposition of logical and real grounds, leaving open the question of the emergence of the latter, referring, however, to the fact that he will "set out in detail" in another work, namely "Investigation of the degree of clarity (Deutlichkeit) of the principles of natural theology and morality" (1764).
However, in this work, too, he proceeds from the fact that in philosophy the concepts of things are "already given", albeit in an unclear and vague (verworren, dunkel) form, the infinitely diverse attributes or predicates of which are not distinguished and not delimited, not compared and not subordinated each other, etc. The task of metaphysics as a "philosophy of the first foundations of our knowledge" is to analyze these concepts, to divide them into some and similar and basic elements, to reveal in them simple and "initially perceived data" (Data), unprovable, but directly reliable, obvious propositions or judgments and on their basis to form a clear, developed (ausführlichen) and definite concept of the subject.
Kant calls this method of dismembering and clarifying vague and complex concepts the analytical method and sees in it the only and genuine way of discovering and achieving solid truths and reliable knowledge in metaphysics. Philosophical knowledge, he believes, therefore has the fate of rapidly disappearing opinions, and metaphysics, in essence, "has never been written before", which instead of "simple and prudent"
the analytical method mistakenly sought to imitate the synthetic method of mathematics, ignoring the fundamental differences in these methods of cognition. Mathematical cognition begins with a preliminary definition of concepts and their subsequent combination or synthesis according to certain rules. This is possible because mathematics deals with conventional signs, symbols, figures, etc., which are put "in the place of things themselves", replace them, leaving them "outside the sphere of thought." The concept here becomes possible due to the arbitrary definition (in essence - positing) of its signs and their expression with the help of single, sensibly presented signs, similar and even coinciding with their predetermined meaning.
Kant's thought in this case moves in the mainstream of the ideas of those opponents of Wolffianism, who pointed to the fundamental differences between mathematical and philosophical knowledge. Moreover, he outlines a number of points of that understanding of mathematical knowledge, which will later be developed by him in the "Critique of Pure Reason," where the idea of the synthetic and visual character of the latter will become the principle of constructing concepts in pure contemplation, in contrast to philosophical knowledge as cognition by reason through only concepts, but in relation to possible experience [see: vol. 3, p. 599-617]. In "Investigation ..." he also believes that in philosophical knowledge it is always necessary to "have before the eyes the very object" (die Sache selbst), to represent or remember the meaning of general concepts, since it is expressed through words or abstract signs (in abstracto). And precisely because of such an abstract, abstract nature of philosophical knowledge in metaphysics, they use the "perverted method" of arbitrary invention and synthetic construction of concepts using invented, nominal definitions and
grammatical explanations of words devoid of any meaning or real cognitive content (such as Leibniz's concept of the dormant monad).
In the context of this criticism of the pointless logicism of traditional metaphysics, its "synthetic" system creation on the basis of "intelligent", arbitrarily created concepts, the general idea of Kant's appeal to the analytical method in philosophy is manifested. It is not just about the logical dismemberment and explanation of complex, confused and vague concepts that are "already given" in metaphysics, it is about the epistemological analysis of the structure of any objective knowledge, about attempts to isolate and discover what constitutes the extra-logical content of conceptual thinking, forms it cognitive meaning. In fact, "Research ..." is an attempt, already begun in "The Only Possible Ground ...", to critically analyze the necessary "elements" or "principles" of scientific knowledge or experience, its composition and structure, matter and form, i.e. e. all that subsequently entered the content of the "Transcendental Doctrine of Principles" (Elementarlehre) in the "Critique of Pure Reason."
In "Investigation ..." Kant only gropes for approaches to such an analysis, and the result of applying the analytical method turned out to be very meager and even contradictory. Instead of simple and clear concepts, solid and reliable truths, he came to concepts that were extremely unclear and heterogeneous in content, epistemological status and functions. Indeed. He considers the real foundations of knowledge to be "the first foundations of our knowledge" or "material principles of the human mind", linking them with direct and initial perception, sensory contemplation of "the objects themselves" that must be "before our eyes." They have the character of reliable, obvious and solid truths, since they are based on experience, its
undoubted data (Data), but not on logical proofs and conclusions, and therefore, Kant unexpectedly concludes, they are “indivisible concepts of the true, that is, what is in the objects of knowledge, considered in themselves ”(für sich).
Such a conclusion sounds very ambiguous and may well be interpreted in the spirit of the rationalistic identity of thinking and being, a concept and a thing. Moreover, this inaccuracy turns out to be far from an isolated and accidental reservation, and if you take a closer look at many of Kant's definitions of “immediately reliable” and “given”, then they are not sensory perceptions and contemplations, but simple concepts, the first and obvious “basic judgments "Or" unprovable provisions "(Sätze), thoughts about the object. Things and their signs serve as "data" for such positions as real bases of cognition, however, the ability to perceive them directly is not sensuality, but "mind" (more precisely, reason - Verstand). In addition, Kant sometimes calls the “immediately perceived” “the concept of a thing”, but the “object” that “must be immediately before our eyes” is not the thing, but the “meaning” of general concepts, the representation of the “universal in abstracto”. The cognitive function of these first material principles, "undoubted data" or unprovable concepts, turns out to be just as unclear: they act either as "material for definitions", then as "grounds for correct conclusions."
What caused this obvious inconsistency and even inconsistency of the Kantian position? Arguing against subjective invention and arbitrary "synthetic" construction of concepts in metaphysics and raising the question of the real foundations of knowledge, Kant is forced to appeal to "things themselves", their immediate
given in sensory perception and contemplation. It is in them that he tries to find a non-logical source of objective significance, the objective content of those simple and unprovable concepts that are designed to play the role of real foundations of cognition. However, as we have seen, he cannot agree with the fact that these concepts arise from sensory perceptions, that the first foundations of knowledge, its firm truths and necessary laws can be "seen in bodies" or that things of the external world "generate" concepts. Therefore, following the previous works, he connects the possibility of cognition with the active activity of the soul, on which, "as on its basis," "all kinds of concepts must rest."
In this respect, the Kantian distinction between objective and subjective certainty is very indicative: the first depends on the "sufficiency" of the signs of the necessity of a given truth, the second on the visual, contemplative nature of the cognition of this necessity. He connects the “insufficiency” of the latter with the subjective limitation or imperfection of sensory cognition, which may not perceive or notice this or that sign of a thing and therefore makes the mind erroneously think of it as non-existent. Moreover, giving an example with attraction, i.e. the action of bodies at a distance without visual perception of their contact and reaction, he fixes the fundamental circumstance that in science there are concepts that cannot be reduced to sensory perceptions of things, but nevertheless have objective meaning, cognitive reliability, etc. ...
Strictly speaking, these are just such examples of “simple” concepts cited by Kant: coexistence and sequence, space and time, attraction and repulsion, cause and action, as well as representations, feelings, desires, etc. ...
Such concepts, possessing objective reliability, Kant very vaguely calls "representations of the universal in abstracto" or "indivisible concepts of the true", and limiting himself to individual examples of such "unprovable basic truths", he believes that their discovery "will never end" and that their list would be immense and therefore it is impossible to systematize them in a table. It is easy to notice, however, that his “list” of such “examples” is quite stable: starting from the very first works, his thought constantly returns to the concepts that constituted the theoretical framework of contemporary natural science, served as initial principles, basic idealizations of Newtonian mechanics. It is impossible not to pay attention to another, no less important, circumstance: not only the "set" of examples, but also the way of understanding, interpreting and substantiating them is very close to many of the attitudes and constructions of Crusius and Lambert. It is no coincidence that the latter, precisely in "Research ..." saw a similarity with his doctrine of simple and real concepts and the method of their substantiation, and Kant himself, who was very critical of Crusius in previous works, now begins to speak of him more loyally, or at least least carefully. Behind this subjective change in assessments was the objective commonality of the problematics, as well as the proximity of the critical attitude to traditional
epistemological concepts, primarily to traditional rationalistic metaphysics.
Above, we noted an undeniable similarity simple concepts"Research ..." with the content of the "Transcendental doctrine of the beginnings" in the "Critique of Pure Reason", where the "list" of basic unprovable truths was presented in the form of a table of a priori categories and synthetic foundations of reason. It is also indicative that already in his "Investigation ..." Kant expresses hope regarding the possibility of using the synthetic method in metaphysics, although he believes that this time is "still far away." However, from the point of view of understanding the evolution of Kant's views, for understanding the actual relationship between the subcritical and critical periods of his work, the following point is even more important. In "Research ..." he proceeds from a firm conviction in the need to follow Newton's method, even speaks of the identity of the "true method of metaphysics" with a fruitful and reliable way of research in natural science. Just as Newton stopped the "arbitrariness of physical hypotheses" with the help of the method "based on experience and geometry", so in metaphysics the elimination of "the eternal impermanence of opinions and school sects" will become possible only with the help of a new method of thinking. In it, Kant believes, "relying on reliable data of experience and, of course, using geometry, to find the laws by which certain natural phenomena proceed." In "Critique ..." he just repeated this idea of the need to follow the example of mathematics and natural science in metaphysics, to imitate their changed way of thinking. Moreover, even in understanding the essence of this method, its foundations associated with the data of experience and the principles of reason, empirical observations and constant laws, as well as their necessary ratio and
interdependence is easy to see the undoubted similarity with the ideas of "Research ..." [cf .: vol. 3, p. 85-87].
These ideas find even clearer and more conscious expression in the following works of the thinker: "Notice of the schedule of lectures for the winter half of 1765/66" and in the most striking work of the mid-60s. "Dreams of a visionary, explained by dreams of metaphysics" (1766). In the first, Kant considers his analytical method as a "kind of quarantine", a preliminary criticism of a sound mind, a necessary condition for teaching and learning philosophy, which should begin with a simple one, based on experience, on the comparison of sensations, on empirical data and specific knowledge about the soul and nature. , and most importantly - on an independent understanding of things, etc. He opposes not only the mechanical memorization of certain "not yet written" books on metaphysics, but also against the fact that its presentation begins with ontology, ie. sciences "about the general properties of all things", as well as from other traditional metaphysical disciplines: rational psychology, cosmology and theology, since the concepts of the soul, the world and God interpreted in them are not based on experience, are false and are not explained in any way, are not confirmed by specific examples etc. Due to their extreme abstractness, they are not only difficult to understand, but useless and even harmful, since they are accepted dogmatically, without thinking about their origin, about the nature of their subject and the method of acquiring knowledge about it. Therefore, all these concepts and metaphysical disciplines must be preceded by a special logic, which is "criticism and prescription of scholarship in the proper sense of the word", i.e. "The entire philosophy as a whole", which allows us to understand the origin of its "views and mistakes" and "draw up an exact plan according to which such a building of reason should be erected for a long time and according to all the rules."
It is in this work that Kant first introduced the concept of a special, “complete” (vollständige) logic as a method and “instrument” (Organon) of metaphysics, serving as a means of research and criticism of its vague concepts and preceding its synthetic construction and systematic presentation. Here the contours of the ideas and approaches of critical philosophy are already outlined, not to mention the individual concepts included in the arsenal of the latter, including the concept of "criticism of reason", which was first used precisely in the "Notice ...". More accurate is the point of view of those researchers who see here, on the one hand, the strengthening of the Kantian opposition in relation to traditional metaphysics, and on the other, a further step towards understanding the epistemological structure and genesis of experience, the scientific picture of the world [see: 218, 1, with. 49; 225, p. 129].
However, indeed, more often than in previous works, in "Dreams ..." one can find statements according to which all our concepts should be based on the signs discovered by the senses, on the given sensations as a source of simple concepts and the "fundamental principle" of any judgments about things and forces , reasons and actions, etc. ... Nevertheless, Kant here, too, is by no means inclined to consider experience exclusively through the prism of sensory cognition, and does not at all reduce it to a random aggregate of sensations given to an individual subject. As in previous works, in the composition of experience, he sees the presence of some general and simple concepts of real grounds: length and figure, coexistence and consistency, stability and density (Solidität), which
express the properties of matter itself "filling the world space" and "admit" the possibility of its mechanical cognition or physical and mathematical explanation.
True, even here he does not give any detailed explanation of the emergence and possibility of such concepts in which there is a correspondence with sensory data, and even with matter itself, with things "outside thoughts." However, this very correspondence, the unity of the sensible and the thinkable, the empirically given and the conceptual, he not only considers an indisputable fact, but also uses it to criticize the pointless logicism of metaphysics, its imaginary and illusory knowledge, fictitious or "acquired by cunning" concepts, through which it ascends into the empty space, builds "airy worlds of ideas."
To this method of metaphysics, Kant again opposes Newton's reliable method, which relies on experience and geometry, and also uses hypotheses and even "inventions" (Erdichtungen), only in contrast to the "contrived" concepts of metaphysics, their truth can be proved "at any time" and confirmed by the fact that they can be "applied" to the phenomena of experience or verified with the help of the latter. Moreover, now Kant definitely asserts that all knowledge (more precisely, cognition) (Erkenntnisse) has two ends: a priori and a posteriori and opposes "some of the newest naturalists" who recognize only the last type of cognition, that is, ascent from the data of experience to general and higher concepts. This path, in his opinion, is "insufficiently scientific and philosophical", because it comes across some "why", to which there is no answer. But even with a priori knowledge, emanating from the highest point of metaphysics, a difficulty arises, "namely: they begin to know where, and come to unknown where, and arguments develop, nowhere touching experience," nowhere meeting, like two parallel lines.
Considering both of these sources of knowledge as equally necessary, Kant, contrary to the opinion about the empiricist nature of "Dreams ...", it is in this work that he formulates the principle of universality as an integral feature of scientific knowledge, one of the conditions and criteria for its truth. Moreover, he equally opposes this principle both to "dreamers of the mind" or metaphysicians who "invent" their concepts, and to "dreamers of the senses" who invent images associated not only with disorders of the sense organs, painful imagination, etc., but also with the inevitable subjectivism inherent in the individualistic and psychological epistemology of sensationalism in general. Both in sensory and rational cognition, it is necessary to take “the point of view of someone else’s and outside of me human mind”, and the results of our knowledge to verify with the data of the “local” and “common for all” world, similar to the one in which “for a long time the mathematicians live. " Here Kant also introduces the concept of "common human reason" as a means for "communicating to all thinking a certain kind of unity of reason." These ideas, apparently, were used by Tetens in his interpretation of universality as intersubjectivity, and in Kant himself later they were transformed into the doctrine of the transcendental subject in the Critique of Pure Reason.
In "Dreams ..." Kant for the first time defines metaphysics as "the science of the boundaries of the human mind", the task of which is to cognize not only objects, but also their "relationship to the human mind." The task of metaphysics is not to know the "secret properties" of things, not in groundless and pretentious attempts to solve questions that go beyond the limits of any experience through speculation and sophistication, but in determining the boundaries of reliable and generally significant knowledge, in keeping the mind from expanding, soaring into the sphere fictions and chimeras, etc. Criticism of metaphysics must
proceed from itself, i.e. to be self-criticism, where it "is the judge of its own method" and where the boundaries of the mind are set by its own "knitting power of self-knowledge." Criticism of reason “cuts” the “wings of metaphysics” and ties knowledge to the “low soil of experience”, which provides an object for our understanding, but at the same time points to its boundaries, the point or line at which it “ends”. These boundaries put an end to only metaphysical, but by no means empirical knowledge; the first goes beyond the boundaries of all possible experience, everything accessible to the senses; the sphere of the latter is inexhaustible. “In nature,” writes Kant, “there is no object accessible to our senses ... about which it could be argued that observation or reason has already exhausted it: the diversity of everything is so infinite that nature, even in its most insignificant manifestations, offers to solve such a limited to the mind as human. " Moreover, he refers to these objects of nature the phenomena of life, as well as the actions or manifestations of the human soul, its thinking and will, however, only those that can be obtained from experience, become known from feelings and concepts of which can be confirmed by experience and proved in any time.
This kind of "natural" incomprehensibility or "inevitable ignorance" associated with the awareness of the limitations of experience and, at the same time, the recognition of the possibility of its expansion, Kant opposes all sorts of fictions, illusory and empty concepts of metaphysics, devoid of reliance on experience and filling the sphere of the unknown with "air locks of ideas ”, special non-material principles, etc. Such concepts serve only as a "refuge for lazy philosophy", which, instead of a thorny path of knowledge, prefers to "philosophize indiscriminately", to solve all issues with "imaginary
thoughtfulness ”, to ascend into the empty space of spiritual visions, illusions, etc. ...
Kant has a very negative attitude to this kind of "dreaming" metaphysics and its meaningful concepts, placing them on a par with "the ravings of the worst of all science fiction writers" - the visionary Swedenborg. Nevertheless, confessing his "love" for metaphysics, he by no means equates it with the dreams of ghost vision, nor with dreaming and "philosophizing indiscriminately" traditional metaphysics, nor even with its understanding solely as a companion of wisdom and science about the boundaries of the human mind ... Moreover, the assertion of the limitation of cognition to the sphere of experience is not at all identical with "the cognized impossibility of thinking something beyond the boundaries of experience and sensory data." The ban on inventions, the creation of empty and illusory knowledge through speculative soaring beyond the limits of experience does not mean that there is only “empty space” beyond these boundaries: the denial of the possibility of empirical knowledge of the sphere of the supersensible is not yet a basis for the dogmatic denial of its existence beyond the boundaries of experience. The possibility of the world of spirits cannot be proved, but it cannot be refuted by the arguments of reason and the data of experience.
Kant even admits that "he is very inclined to insist on the existence of non-material entities in the world and to attribute his soul to their category." At the same time, he repeatedly emphasizes that "absolutely nothing understands" how the spirit enters the world, is present in it and separates from it, how the soul is connected with the body and acts in it, where is its "abode" during a person's life and after death, etc. But precisely because these questions "far exceed" his "understanding" and he "absolutely nothing" knows about them, he does not dare to "completely deny any truthfulness of various stories about spirits", admits in them "a grain of truth", although doubting each of them individually.
It would be wrong to see in these statements only a relapse of the unrelenting love of metaphysics, especially since a similar and even more powerful "relapse" took place five years later in the Dissertation of 1770. And in the Critique of Pure Reason itself, Kant assesses metaphysics , her "natural inclination" to cognize the unconditional beyond the boundaries of experience, not from a negatively skeptical standpoint. However, attention should be paid to a significant shift in emphasis in understanding the subject of metaphysical knowledge: in "Dreams ..." it increasingly approaches the concept of the human soul, and metaphysics is defined as rational psychology. But what is especially important, Kant does not reduce the essence of the soul to the ability to represent and think, but sees its inner strength in will, linking the methods of its activity with moral will and behavior, subject to the laws of duty. The latter cannot "fully unfold" in the bodily world and physical life of a person, but presuppose the possibility of a special, supersensible world, namely, the world of moral unity.
No less significant is the fact that in "Dreams ..." he already distinguishes and evaluates in different ways the attempts of the mind to leave the "low soil" of experience and soar to immaterial principles. If they are based on the tendency of "lazy philosophy" to satisfy their cognitive needs, then they should be discarded. But if they are based on moral needs associated with "hope for the future", with belief in the immortality of the soul, then they are fully justified. In this case, Kant comes close to the idea of moral, practical sources of metaphysics, reducing its subject and tasks to substantiating the possibility of free and good will as the basis of moral consciousness, virtuous behavior, etc.
It is in "Dreams ..." that the contours of his future concept of theoretical and practical reason are outlined, which became the cornerstone of his entire critical
philosophy. However, it should be noted that this topic and, more broadly, the problem of man not only as a thinking and cognizing person, but also as a moral being, possessing a free will, but at the same time bound by the moral law, became an independent topic already in the created shortly before Dreams .. . "Work" Observations on the feeling of the beautiful and the sublime "(1763). At the same time, Kant himself speaks with gratitude about J.-J. Rousseau, whose ideas helped him overcome his own limitations, one-sided isolation on the problems of cognition, substantiation of the scientific picture of the world, etc. ...
It should be noted, however, that Rousseau's influence was mediated by Kant's own reflections on the problems of freedom and morality, in particular in "New Lighting ..." and in "The Experience of Certain Discourses on Optimism." Moreover, in these works, as we have seen, he was still far from distinguishing between physical and moral necessity or duty, and in his understanding of freedom opposed Crusius from the standpoint of the rationalistic determinism of Wolffian metaphysics [see: vol. 1, p. 285-396; vol. 2, p. 45-49]. And it was precisely the awareness of the danger of fatalism, as well as the failure of all attempts to speculatively prove the existence of God, that served as fertile ground for Kant for the perception of Rousseau's ideas.
Now he adheres to the firm conviction that theoretical or speculative knowledge of God is "unreliable and subject to dangerous delusions," and attempts to solve questions about the nature of the soul, its freedom, immortality, etc. lead only to "indiscriminate philosophizing", supposedly profound teachings and refutations, ie to illusory knowledge. Only in the sphere of morality, moral duty and faith, independent of the "subtleties of empty reasoning", all these questions and associated expectations and goals find their true and positive solution and implementation. A necessary prerequisite for this should be a clear
distinction, firstly, "the ability to represent the true" and "the ability to feel good", and secondly, the laws of nature and the laws of morality and, accordingly, the spheres of their applicability.
Kant directly connects this distinction with another equally important issue: he believes that the uselessness and even the danger of a theoretical substantiation of the immortality of the soul, "scientific awareness" in the existence of God and the existence of a future life, leads to a distortion of the essence of morality. Indeed, in this case, the motive for a virtuous life and deeds is not the moral feeling of an honest and noble soul, but the hope for the other world and by no means disinterested hopes for reward. To these hopes, he opposes voluntary adherence to the moral law, the dictates of duty and a sense of good, which are "good" in themselves, and not because they promise an afterlife reward. Attempts to speculatively soar into the "secrets of another world", this refuge for a dreaming and lazy philosophy, he opposes the difficult path of cognition of the "world here", based on data from experience and feelings, provable and reliable arguments of reason, etc. Our fate, Kant believes, depends on how we fulfilled our duties in this world and how we used our abilities to cognize it, and ends with the words of Voltaire's Candide: "Let's take care of our happiness, let's go cultivate our garden."
He expresses a similar idea in a letter to M. Mendelssohn, who expressed concern for the fate of metaphysics after its Kantian criticism in "Dreams ...". “I am convinced,” writes Kant, “that even the true and lasting welfare of the human race depends on it [metaphysics],” however, for this it is necessary to comprehend its nature and its present place among human and even harmful knowledge "skeptical consideration", remove
from her "dogmatic dress." Such criticism, he believes, allows "to get rid of stupidity", but at the same time serves as a precondition or preparation for understanding the positive benefits of metaphysics.
However, after writing "Dreams ..." followed by almost five years of silence, more precisely inner work the philosopher's thoughts on the problems and conclusions he came to in the mid-60s. The result of these reflections was the dissertation "On the form and principles of the sensuous, perceived and intelligible world" (1770).
3. The dissertation of 1770: a step towards criticism or the last chance to "save" metaphysics? Selection of 1772
The dissertation has established a solid reputation as a transitional work from subcritical to critical philosophy, and even almost his own critical one. On this basis, some researchers exclude this work from considering the legacy of early Kant [see: 36]. Indeed, the third section, central in its place and in its theoretical significance for the entire work and for the subsequent development of the thinker, contains the doctrine of time and space as pure forms of sensory contemplation, which subsequently entered with minor changes into the "transcendental aesthetics" of the "Critics of Pure Reason ". And nevertheless, it was no coincidence that it took Kant more than ten years for the ideas of criticism to mature completely. The fact is that it was in the Dissertation that he made the last desperate attempt to save his "beloved" metaphysics, which he himself criticized in "Dreams ...".
Thus, the evolution of his views proceeded not along the line of a direct transition from dogmatism to criticism, but along the line of a backward movement from the skepticism of "Dreams ..." to the dogmatic metaphysics of the Dissertation. Similar processes took place in many predecessors and
contemporaries of Kant. As we have seen, in Crusius, Lambert and even Tetens, not entirely successful and largely unfinished attempts to “improve” or reform metaphysics, one way or another turned into an appeal to the “old truths” of metaphysics, a return to some concepts and principles of traditional ontology, rational psychology and theology, etc. The paradoxical feature of the Kantian rollback to metaphysics was that for its "salvation" he tried to use his fundamentally new, inherently critical doctrine of space and time, although it was aimed at protection from the threat of skepticism primarily scientific knowledge, not metaphysics.
For the formation of this new doctrine, a small work "On the first basis for distinguishing sides in space" (1768), written two years before the dissertation, played an important role. Here Kant comes close to Newton's position to a large extent, asserting that "absolute and primordial space" has "its own reality, regardless of the existence of any matter." Moreover, proceeding from the fact of incongruence of figures in space, he believes that his properties are not consequences of properties, relationships and state of things (as Leibniz thought), but on the contrary, the latter are consequences of the former, which serve as the basis for determining things, their spatial relations and properties, shapes and figures, etc ...
It should be noted that in this work, Kant, although he represents space in the form of some kind of divine "receptacle" of things, nevertheless believes that its reality is not comprehended "through the concepts of reason" and even "is not an object of external perception"; it is contemplated by the inner feeling, and its relation to bodies and parts of matter is taken "in the meaning as the geometer thinks it" and in which it is introduced "into the system of natural sciences." In other words, space
acts here not only as an ontological reality, but also as a subjective way of representation associated with the geometric construction of figures. And, apparently, these very guesses that geometry is not only a method of subjective synthesis of concepts, but also a form of spatial representation of a sensually given world, became for Kant the source of that “great light”, which, according to one of his handwritten notes, "Brought" him 1769.
In any case, in the Dissertation of 1770, he categorically asserts that the idea of space as an "absolute and immeasurable container of all possible things", as well as the objective reality of time, is "empty" and "the most ridiculous invention" of the mind, referring to the world fairy tales. However, Kant is even more decisively opposed to considering the properties of space as relations of existing things themselves, and the properties of time as abstractions from successive changes in the internal states of the soul or the movement of external bodies [ibid.]. He connects this point of view with Leibniz and his supporters, however, the real subject of his criticism was not so much the metaphysical derivation of the space-time properties of the corporeal world from simple and incorporeal substances, as an empirical understanding of space and time as concepts abstracted from experience.
The fallacy of this understanding, Kant sees in the fact that by borrowing the definitions of space and time from sensory data and observations, it relegates mathematics to the category of empirical sciences, deprives it of its necessity and universality, accuracy and reliability, and thereby casts doubt on the possibility of a scientific picture of the world, its rigorous laws and regulations. However, such a threat did not come from the "supporters of Leibniz," but from representatives of the empirical
epistemology, which he speaks of as "English philosophers." But the most important thing is that in this case, in fact, there was either not fully conscious, or carefully hidden criticism of their own views of the mid-60s.
As we have seen, during this period (primarily in "Dreams ..."), trying to find the real foundations of knowledge and overcome the pointless logicism of metaphysics, Kant appealed to the data of sensuality and experience as the "fundamental principle" of general judgments and concepts [see: 2 , with. 296, 331, etc.]. And although these ideas cannot be considered consistently sensationalistic, nevertheless, the very opposition of firm truths "based on experience" to the illusory and fictitious concepts of metaphysics, inevitably turned into a question about the source of the necessary and universal concepts of scientific knowledge, which are confirmed in experience, but by no means from it is not "displayed". As a matter of fact, Newton's "fruitful method" itself remained a problem, which, with the help of experience and geometry, explains nature according to the necessary laws, but does not at all draw them from nature itself, does not see directly in its things and processes.
The Kantian doctrine of space and time as subjective, pure and original forms of sensory contemplation arose from the need to solve this particular problem, although, as we will see later, in solving it, he pursued a twofold goal: not only to substantiate the scientific picture of the world, but also to "save" metaphysics. To achieve the first goal, he really tried to "connect" geometry with experience, and for this he not only turned space and time into subjective ways of contemplation, but, on the one hand, connected them with the principles of mathematical-synthetic construction, constructive positing and determination of objective forms sensually perceived world, and on the other hand, conditioned this activity by the "presence of the object" and its
"Action" (afficiatur) on the subject's receptivity.
Special attention should be paid to the latter circumstance, since from the moment of the creation of his new doctrine of sensory knowledge, Kant not only considered it directed "against idealism", but strove to maintain those attitudes towards experience, with the help of which he hoped to overcome the pointless logicism of metaphysics. Moreover, now mathematics also reveals its cognitive and applied meaning: unlike the point of view of "Research ...", where mathematical concepts left the things they designated "completely outside the sphere of thought", in the Dissertation the forms of sensory contemplation are aimed at ordering and coordinating sensations, and their very cognitive application is determined by the action of the object, which delivers these sensations, serves as their source. True, the action of the object only "causes" the activity of sensory cognition, delivers the content or matter of contemplations, but does not determine their form or "type", that is, the spatio-temporal connections and relations themselves, the order of coexistence or the sequence of phenomena of the sensually perceived world. These universal and necessary forms, regular connections and order are established or "posited" by the subject himself, but not arbitrarily, but according to the strict rules of mathematics, the laws of the activity of the mind or soul, coordinating its sensations and thereby constituting the spatio-temporal form of the sensory world.
That is why sensory cognition turns out to be the source of not vague, confused and accidental, but distinct and "highly true knowledge", which provides "a model of the highest evidence for other sciences." As a matter of fact, it provides the mind with those very real grounds or "the first contemplative data", of which it "according to logical laws
draws conclusions with the greatest certainty. " True, for a number of reasons, which we will dwell on below, Kant does not call these grounds "real", however, it is they that constitute the condition and prerequisite for the logical application of reason, for comparison, comparison and subordination of sensory data to each other according to the law of contradiction and their summing up under the more general laws of phenomena or experience.
Since the logical application of reason is mediated both by the empirical content and by the necessary form of sensory cognition, then, according to Kant, rational cognition also possesses all the signs of objectively significant and necessary knowledge, and therefore serves as a prerequisite for physics and psychology as rational sciences about the phenomena of external and internal the senses . Thus, both sensory and rational knowledge are involved in the creation of scientific knowledge, and it is thanks to the latter that phenomena or sensory representations of things are combined into experience or into a scientific picture of the world. Thus, the concept of experience turns out to be mediated or conditioned by the necessary mathematical and logical forms of cognition, which, apparently, allowed Kant to consider that the tilt towards sensationalism with its obvious threat of skepticism, which, contrary to his wishes, still took place in “ Dreaming ... ".
And nevertheless, in the interpretation of rational cognition, its logical application in the Dissertation, there are many aspects of its empirical understanding. And the point is not that he calls rational concepts empirical and even sensible, but that their very emergence and application he associates with the process of abstraction of certain properties of sensory cognition, their inductive generalization and reduction to a greater degree of universality. Kant does not seem to notice that through such an understanding of reason
substantiation of scientific knowledge, its strict, universal and necessary laws turns out to be simply impossible. An appeal to pure and necessary forms of sensory cognition is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for substantiating the possibility of theoretical natural science and creating a scientific picture of the world: they only explain the way of its spatio-temporal given, its representation as a visual and concrete subject of mathematical cognition. However, they cannot serve as a source of such general concepts and abstract categories or principles (for example, substance, causality, interaction) that are not included in sensory representations, cannot be perceived in them and abstracted from them. It is no accident that Kant himself points out that their source "should be sought not in feelings, but in the very nature of pure reason." Moreover, these concepts are not innate, but abstract, but not from sensuality and its data, but from the actions of the mind itself, aimed at processing and coordinating sensory data.
It is no coincidence that two years later, in a letter to Hertz, he confesses that in the Dissertation he "passed over in silence" the question of the relation of pure concepts of reason to sensory data and to experience. And it was precisely this problem that made up the content of the "Transcendental Deduction of Categories" in the "Critique of Pure Reason" that became almost the main subject of almost ten years of research and cost him, by his own admission, "the greatest work." Moreover, this problem included the need for a radical revision of the very concept of reason and the ways of its application, which took place in the Dissertation.
We noted above that although Kant connects the logical application of reason with the processing of sensory data, and the concepts that arise in this way he calls empirical, however, he decisively emphasizes that
these concepts "do not become rational in the real sense." In contrast to the logical, the real application of reason is aimed at objects inaccessible to sensibility, and there is the ability to initially give (dantur) representations, concepts or ideas about things “as they really exist”. It is here that the “second plan” or two-pronged design is revealed, which underlies the Kantian doctrine of space and time as pure forms of the sensually perceived world of phenomena and its opposition to the intelligible world of noumena, existing outside and independently of the world given in the senses. This approach makes it possible to substantiate the possibility of reliable and "highly true" scientific knowledge about the world; but since this knowledge refers exclusively to the sensible world and this world and is limited, then beyond it, as well as beyond the boundaries of empirical or scientific knowledge about it, it becomes possible to assume the existence of a special world of noumena with "internal and absolute qualities" inaccessible to sensibility, and in nature soul or "mind" - a special ability - the real reason (rationalis), which goes beyond the limits of the sensually given world in its application. As a matter of fact, Kant also uses this method of distinguishing and even agnostic-dualistic opposition of the sensible and intelligible worlds in his "Critique ..." the world. In the Dissertation, the above technique is aimed at overcoming the skeptical criticism of metaphysics, its “fictional” concepts and air worlds, which took place in “Dreams ...” True, in this work, the existence of the “immaterial world” (mundus intelligibilis) Kant considered, although a little plausible and mysterious, but nevertheless possible and
admissible "presentiment of the sophisticated mind." In the Dissertation, the existence of this intelligible, intelligible world of noumena is accepted as a reliable and obvious fact, and in addition to sensory and logical knowledge, the ability of the mind to a special - real - application, through which this world is thought and understood, is recognized.
The most indicative here is the transformation or metamorphosis that the concept of "real" undergoes: it now not only does not apply to the foundations of sensory or empirical knowledge, but is also carried out beyond them, beyond the boundaries of scientific knowledge in general, becoming entirely the property of metaphysics, its basic disciplines : ontology, rational cosmology, psychology and theology as sciences about the "principles and forms of the intelligible world" and its noumenal objects - about the soul, the world in general, and God, "since they are realities." In other words, Kant's many years of efforts aimed at finding real foundations for cognition and overcoming non-objective logicism and “contrived” concepts of traditional metaphysics, turned into the dissertation recognition of the latter as “real” in the “strict sense of the word”.
Moreover, he now considers the distinction between the two worlds and the methods of their cognition to be the method "which corresponds to the special nature of metaphysics." The harmful and imprudent mixture of sensory and rational knowledge was, in his opinion, the source of all the failures of metaphysics, the reason for its transformation into an "empty mind game", which gave rise to ridiculous concepts and questions about the location of non-material substances, the abode of the soul, about the presence of God in space or about the time of the creation of the world. This is the application of the principles of sensory cognition, forms and definitions of space and time to objects of the intelligible world and
principles of rational knowledge Kant calls "metaphysical substitution error" or "false axioms." To eliminate this "harmful and erroneous" confusion, he proposes the corresponding "principles of correction", which prohibit attributing sensory predicates to intelligible objects or noumena, ie. apply them to the concepts of the soul, the world in general, and God.
It is easy to see that in this case we are talking about concepts that in "Critique ..." will become the content of the three ideas of dialectical reason, as a special ability that goes beyond any experience and empirical knowledge and serves as the basis of three metaphysical disciplines: rational psychology , cosmology and theology. And it is far from accidental that already in the Dissertation, Kant sometimes calls these “real” concepts “pure ideas” (ideas puras), and the ability through which these concepts are “given”, generated or posited is sometimes defined not as reason (intellectus), but as "pure reason" (rationis purae). Likewise, he is not unambiguous in defining the real application of reason: he calls it either "rationality" (intelligentia), now "rationality" (rationalitas).
Terminological inaccuracies in this case, where exactly reflect the problematic searches and contradictions of Kantian thought, which is even more clearly manifested in the meaningful inconsistencies and contradictions of his reasoning. Thus, declaring the need to correct the "substitution error" or eliminate the "harmful confusion" of sensory and rational cognition, Kant seems to "forgets" that the very possibility of the former he associated with the "presence" of the object and its effect on the ability of receptivity. Seeing in things or objects "as they really exist" the source of sensations or the matter of ideas, he comes into conflict with his agnostic-dualistic
opposing sensory phenomena to things, "as they really exist" or phenomena - noumena.
This contradiction, as you know, was preserved in Critique ..., however, its source should be sought precisely in the Dissertation, in the interpretation of the intelligible world developed in it, and in general in its long-standing and completely unconquered “love” with metaphysics. This is not the place to go into the question of why, having shown the illusory nature and abandoning the understanding of things in themselves as incorporeal substances, special noumenal essences and, above all, a "higher being" - God - Kant, nevertheless, retained in "Critique ..." the harsh, almost absolute opposition of things-in-themselves to the phenomena of the sensible world, which has earned numerous reproaches in agnosticism, subjective idealism, etc. Incidentally, such a reproach was first expressed to him by Lambert in a letter dated October 13, 1770, pointing out that the point of view of the Dissertation turns space and time, the entire sensually perceived world and its changing things into something invalid [see: 196, p. 361-366].
In addition to terminological inaccuracies in the designation of the real reason and its concepts, Kant is very inaccurate in determining the content of these concepts, as well as the way they relate to the intelligible world. Thus, he refers to the number of real concepts that are "given by the very nature of reason" the concepts of substance, existence, possibility, necessity, cause, etc. and contrary to the assertion that "real concepts" relate only to noumena, admits the possibility of their application to sensory phenomena and even believes that they are acquired due to "the action of his [mind] in experience."
Subsequently, as already noted, it is this question that will become the central and most difficult in the creation of "Critique ..." and, above all, a new theory of experience, where, in essence, the scientific picture of the world was given, over which he fought, starting from the very first
their works. No less important was the fact that in "Critique ..." he connects the real application of reason precisely with experience and limits it exclusively to empirical application, that is, cognition of sensually given phenomena or phenomena, and not noumena. In the chapter "On the basis of distinguishing all objects in general into phenomena and noumena" (which, by the way, like the chapter "On the deduction of pure rational concepts" required a substantial revision in the second edition of "Critique ..."), under the guise of criticism of the "newest writers" and "German writings" actually undertook a self-criticism of his 1770 Dissertation. Here he emphasized the fundamental difference between the concepts of "intellectual" or "rational" (intellectuel) and "intelligible" or "intelligible" (intelligibel). The former relate only to the categories and foundations of the mind, which allow it to bring sensibly given phenomena under rational and necessary laws and principles, due to which empirical knowledge acquires the character of theoretical and scientific knowledge proper (Kant considers the Copernican system of the world and Newton's theory of gravity to be a model of such knowledge). The latter refer to supersensible objects, intelligible entities or noumena; however, the mind can only create a negative and problematic concept about them, which is devoid of all data of sensory contemplation, and therefore remains indefinite and empty, without any cognitive content and objective meaning. Moreover, the concept of noumenon here acquires a meaning directly opposite to that which took place in the Dissertation, namely, it denotes not an object, a border real application of reason, which sets it "to itself, recognizing that it cannot know things in itself through categories", although it can think of them as "unknown something."
Kant here concerns a question that has become (and remains) the subject of heated debate in world and domestic Kantian studies, namely, the question of the relationship, connection and difference between the concepts of "thing in itself" or "in itself" and "noumenon". However, the origins of this problem, as well as some inaccuracies and contradictions of its formulation and solution in "Critique ..." should be sought precisely in the Dissertation, where the distinction between sensory and rational cognition and their relationship to their objects pursued the goal not of critical overcoming, but dogmatic positive justification of metaphysics.
In the Dissertation, Kant mediates the possibility of sensory cognition by the “presence of an object” and its effect on the subject's receptivity. The existence of this object is not directly proven, and the properties of this "influencing something" are not determined in any way, nevertheless, it acts as a source of matter or sensations of external and internal feelings, as well as a necessary prerequisite for the very ordering activity of pure forms of contemplation. All this serves as an indirect confirmation or evidence of its existence as an object; his own "inner and absolute qualities", although they remain inaccessible to the senses and are not expressed in the spatio-temporal images of things and their relationships, nevertheless, are considered in the context of sensory, empirical and theoretical knowledge (in physics, mechanics, psychology, etc. .) and even the "natural order" of everything that happens in the world, i.e. his scientific picture.
Reason in its real application seems to be able to cognize objects inaccessible to the senses, to give concepts of things and their relations “as they exist”. It would seem that we are talking here about the very things that affect sensuality, deliver matter to contemplation, etc., however, by the real application of reason, Kant does not mean cognitive
relation to objects, and its very ability by its “nature” to “give” (dantur) the concept of “things” does not at all have a cognitive character. The appeal to "objects" is in this case a kind of trick: he uses the "fact" of their existence (only indirectly confirmed by the data of feelings) as a "basis" so that the concepts "given" by the real reason are not "empty inventions of the mind", not by "meaningful" ideas, etc., but by "real concepts", i.e. supposedly having objective content and meaning.
The “fact” of the inaccessibility of these objects of sensibility, their unrepresentability in the forms of space and time, ie. Kant uses empirical unknowability in order to embed traditional metaphysical content into "real concepts", namely: to make them an object of the immaterial soul, the world as a whole, and God. "Correction" or elimination of the "harmful confusion" of sensuality and reason turns out in fact to be a new way of "substantiating" metaphysics, a means of "saving" it from the crushing criticism that he himself subjected it to in his earlier works and to which it was subjected by opponents of the Wolf's school generally.
This was precisely the initial concept and the final conclusion from his "critical" doctrine of the subjectivity of space and time, which from forms of sensory contemplation turned into the phenomenon of "omnipresent" God and his "eternity" as a "common cause", i.e. in the forms of its manifestation as an architect and creator of the world, "supporting" with its infinite power "the mind itself with everything else." In other words, the ability of sensory cognition turns out to be conditioned not by the presence of an object and its action, but by the "presence" of God; the coexistence of sensible things in space and their successive change in time turns into a kind of "co-presence" and "abiding" of everything in God.
Thus, all the "higher" concepts of metaphysics are not only "saved", but also put at the foundation of the sensuously perceived world, its phenomena, as well as the forms and principles of its sensory and empirical cognition. But in this case, the danger of “harmful confusion” and “substitution error” arises again, though not in the form of applying the forms of the sensible world and its cognition to the world of intelligible essences and the principles of real application of reason, but on the contrary, subordination and even dissolution of the former in the latter. Therefore, Kant is forced to maintain a certain distance between them, to recognize their relative independence from each other and even their dualistic and agnostic opposition. However, the consequence of this attempt to preserve the independence and purity of the intelligible world and the principles of the real application of reason turns out to be an obvious insufficiency of positive arguments in proving the existence of this world and the contradictoriness in the understanding of the latter.
Indeed, the ability of the real reason to "give" or create concepts of things or noumena remains a very indefinite act, or rather, a subjective "positing" of concepts, if not an arbitrary generation of fictions and chimeras, but by no means cognition of things "as they exist by themselves. ”, And even more so - a proof of the existence of the soul, God, etc. Therefore, by analogy with the structure of empirical and scientific knowledge based on the forms of sensory contemplation, Kant ascribes to real reason or "mind" the ability of "purely intellectual contemplation", free from sensory laws and concerning "the objects themselves." In contrast to sensory contemplation, passive and dependent on the action of objects, intellectual contemplation is active and capable of creating “prototypes” or “prototypes” (archetypus) of these supersensible objects.
Kant's appeal to this ability was undoubtedly a consequence or an echo of his many years of thinking about the foundations of truth and existence, the logical and real foundations of cognition, attempts to solve the problem of being through the concept of "unconditional positing" and overcoming its extremes as a logical solution (being as a predicate of a concept), so and empiricist (being as given by direct sensory perception). However, this appeal to intellectual contemplation or "intellect-prototype" was just the last and desperate attempt to "save" his "beloved" metaphysics, for which it is necessary "only" to find in "our mind" the ability that could penetrate the world of noumenal essences, inaccessible to "ordinary" cognitive abilities - sensuality and reason - unprovable using the well-known methods of cognition - logical thinking and sensory observation. But at the same time, which is very indicative, he proceeds from the firm conviction that this ability should combine the features of both: thinkability and visualization, logical necessity and evidence and immediate contemplative reliability, etc. possess those properties that are somehow inherent in all knowledge.
The trouble, however, was that, unlike "ordinary" abilities, a person simply does not possess the ability to intellectual contemplation, and therefore Kant sometimes calls this ability “divine contemplation”, leaving the question not entirely clear: is it a question of contemplation god or about contemplation through god. AND he does this not by accident, since in this case he again finds himself in a kind of logical trap. Indeed, if we recognize the ability to contemplate his “mental gaze "means either to resort to
trick or outright deception, or fall into subjective illusion, daydreaming or daydreaming. If this ability is given the status of "divine", then it means either resorting to a beautiful epithet and a purely nominal definition, or to base the proof on what still needs to be proved, namely, the existence of God.
It is no coincidence that in the above-mentioned letter to Hertz, Kant declares that the appeal to "the god from the machine" "in determining the source in the significance of our knowledge" is absurd and harmful, contains a vicious circle, encourages "an empty dream" and a "fantastic chimera" ... Therefore, the ability of reason to be the cause of an object "through the medium of its representations", he now resolutely rejects, and by the real application of reason does not mean at all intellectual contemplation or the creation of "prototypes" of things, "just as divine knowledge is imagined", but activity human cognition, independent from experience, but directed towards experience and limited by experience.
However, for the final clarification of this issue it took him more than ten years, when in "Criticism ..." he declared the ability of intellectual contemplation as not only "not peculiar to us", but also "the very possibility" of which we "cannot be perceived." His previous point of view (referring, however, to Plato, and not to his Dissertation), he defines as "intellectualistic", that is, prescribing a mystical reality to rational concepts, and to their objects - a certain intelligible essence, comprehended through intellectual contemplation. Instead of real reason, he introduces the concept of pure reason and its special - dialectical application, in which it goes beyond the limits of experience, seeks to know the supersensible and therefore generates only illusory and internally antinomic ideas.
Traditional metaphysics with its dogmatic "positing" of supersensible things and noumenal essences will henceforth become the subject of criticism of the groundless claims of pure reason, plunging it into "darkness and contradictions." The problem of substantiating the “natural and correct” structure of the Universe, the actual and sensible given world and the “real foundations” of its cognition will act exclusively as an epistemological problem, ie. teachings about sensuality and reason, about their pure forms and categories as a priori conditions for the possibility of experience or a scientific picture of the world. However, even in his critical works, the thinker's attitude to metaphysics was not unequivocally negative, but now its problems have acquired for him a predominantly practical-moral orientation, associated with the doctrine of freedom as the basis of a moral law, duty, responsibility, etc.
This motive, as we have seen, arose in Kant in the mid-60s, and along with the problem of substantiating the scientific picture of the world, constituted the main problematic axis of all his philosophical investigations up to the last works of the critical period. This motive is clearly visible in the most skeptical work of early Kant - in "Dreams ..." the difference from theoretical perfection deals not with the knowledge of the world and things, their essence, etc., but with what should be due to freedom (per libertatem).
It is significant that in a letter to Hertz, criticizing the ideas of his own Dissertation, Kant recognizes the possibility of real application of reason in the field of morality, i.e. his ability to set good goals and in this sense to be the "cause of the thing." Moreover, speaking of
Conceived by him the work "Boundaries of Sensuality and Reason", he includes in its composition both theoretical and practical parts, where, accordingly, the concepts concerning the sensory world and its cognition and the concepts that make up the nature of morality should be considered. Moreover, it is with regard to the "pure principles" of the latter that Kant claims that he "has already achieved quite noticeable results before." However, for the final implementation of this plan, i.e. it took him several years after the first Critique was written to develop a doctrine of practical reason. It is important, however, that during the entire long process of the emergence and maturation of the ideas of critical philosophy, the problems of knowledge and morality, peace and man, truth and goodness appeared for the thinker in a direct, complementary and mutually correcting connection.
I. Introduction.
II. "Pre-critical" period.
III. Critical period.
IV. "Critique of Pure Reason".
V. The concept of the a priori and its role in Kantian theoretical philosophy.
Vii. Ethics. Moral law.
VIII. Conclusion.
IX. Used Books.
I. Introduction.
Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Prussia into a saddlery family. Born into a working German family in the 18th century. also meant the acquisition of special moral principles. Speaking of Kant, the term “pietism” is often used, meaning worship, fear of God, and inner religiosity.
Kant studied at the Friderican College, a good educational institution for those times, where, first of all, they taught ancient languages. Kant studied Latin and mastered it perfectly. Paid tribute to the study of natural sciences. During his school years (1733/34 - 1740), Kant's inclination towards humanitarian and philological disciplines was finally determined.
Since 1740, when Kant was enrolled at the University of Königsberg. A life full of work and teaching began. Kant will subsequently publish some of the works that he conceived and began to write in his student years. During his years of study at the university, Kant was already thinking about how to form a new philosophy. He carefully studies the philosophical systems of previous philosophers. In particular, he is attracted by English philosophy - the teachings of Locke and Hume. He delves into Leibniz's system and, of course, studies the works of Wolf. Penetrating into the depths of the history of philosophy, Kant simultaneously masters such disciplines as medicine, geography, mathematics, and is so professional that he was later able to teach them.
After graduating from university in 1746, Kant had to embark on the path that later went to other classics of German thought, in particular Fichte and Hegel: he became a home teacher. The years of teaching did not pass without a trace: Kant worked hard and already in 1755, thanks to his original works, Kant occupied a special place in philosophy, in the renewal of German philosophical thought.
Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804), the founder of German classical philosophy, can rightfully be regarded as one of the greatest minds of all times and peoples, whose works are studied and interpreted to this day.
This is the period in the creative activity of Immanuel Kant, from his graduation from the University of Konigsberg until 1770. This name does not mean that during this period Kant does not turn to criticism of any ideas and views. On the contrary, he always strove for a critical assimilation of the most diverse mental material.
He is characterized by a serious attitude towards any authority in science and philosophy, as evidenced by one of his first published works - "Thoughts on the true assessment of living forces", written by him in his student years, in which he poses the question: is it possible to criticize great scientists , great philosophers? And he comes to the conclusion that it is possible if the researcher has arguments worthy of the arguments of the opponent.
Kant proposes to consider a new, previously unknown non-mechanical picture of the world. In 1755, in his work "General Natural History and Theory of the Sky," he tried to solve this problem. All bodies in the Universe are composed of material particles - atoms that have inherent forces of attraction and repulsion. This idea was used by Kant as the basis of his cosmogonic theory. In its original state, Kant believed, the Universe was a chaos of various material particles scattered in world space. Under the influence of their inherent attraction force, they move (without an external, divine push!) Towards each other, and “scattered elements with a high density, due to attraction, gather around them all matter with a lower specific gravity”. On the basis of attraction and repulsion, various forms of motion of matter, Kant builds his cosmogonic theory. He believed that his hypothesis of the origin of the Universe and the planets explains literally everything: their origin, and the position of the orbits, and the origin of movements. Recalling the words of Descartes "Give me matter and movement, and I will build the world!" give me matter, and I will show you how the world should arise from it ”
This cosmogonic hypothesis of Kant had a tremendous impact on both the development of philosophical thought and science. The materialistic ideas of his cosmogonic theory prompted Kant himself to be critical of the then dominant formal logic, which did not allow contradictions, while the real world in all its manifestations was full of them. At the same time, Kant already faced the problem in his “subcritical” period of activity possibilities of cognition and above all scientific knowledge.
Kant's drive to create a philosophy that would oppose the “destructive skepticism and disbelief” that flourished in France and timidly pushed its way to Germany during the Storm and Onslaught movement led Kant to his most characteristic “critical” period.
The specific Kantian philosophy, which laid the foundations of the entire German classical philosophy, was formed after he published three "Critics" - "Critics of Pure Reason" (1781), "Critics of Practical Reason" (1788), "Critics of Judgment" (1790). All these works are linked by a single concept and represent successive stages in the substantiation of the system of transcendental idealism (as Kant called his philosophical system). The second period of creativity “Kant is called“ critical ”not only because“ Critics were called the main works of this period, but because Kant set himself the task of conducting in them a critical analysis of the entire philosophy that preceded him; oppose a critical approach in assessing the capabilities and abilities of a person to the pre-dominant, as he believed, dogmatic approach. In the first of these books, Kant outlined the doctrine of knowledge, in the second - ethics, in the third - aesthetics and the doctrine of expediency in nature. The basis of all these works is the doctrine of "things in themselves" and "phenomena."
According to Kant, there is a world of things that is independent of human consciousness (from sensations, thinking); it affects the senses, causing sensations in them. This interpretation of the world indicates that Kant approaches it as a materialist philosopher. But as soon as he proceeds to study the question of the boundaries and possibilities of human cognition, its forms, he declares that the world of essences is the world of “things in themselves”, that is, unknowable by means of reason, but being an object of faith (God, soul, immortality). Thus, “Things in themselves”, according to Kant, are transcendental, that is, otherworldly, exist outside of time and space. Hence his idealism is called transcendental idealism.
German classical philosophy is represented by such philosophers as Kant, Fichte, Schilling, Hegl, Feerbach. Each of them created his own original philosophical teaching. Many provisions of their philosophy are relevant to us today.
I. Kant (1724-1804). His philosophical work is divided into two periods: "critical" and "critical". In the pre-critical period (until the early 80s of the 18th century), Kant directed his attention to the study of nature, human morality, religion, art, i.e. on the world around a person and the being of the person himself. In the works of the pre-critical period, Kant was strongly influenced by the rationalistic philosophy of Descartes, according to which knowledge develops through logical reasoning. Soon, however, Kant came to the conclusion that logical reasoning could not explain all phenomena, and could not answer many questions. Experiential knowledge cannot answer them either. This made him turn to "criticism of reason", that is, to a critical analysis of the possibility of human cognitive activity. This is the essence of his critical philosophy. The period of its creation (1780s) began to be called the "critical" period of Kant's work.
The critical period was expressed in the works: "Critique of Pure Reason", "Criticism of Practical Reason", "Criticism of the Ability of Judgment". In the first of them, Kant outlined his doctrine of knowledge, in the second - ethics as the science of regulating the practical behavior of people, in the third - aesthetics. Kant considered the theory of knowledge he created as the main part of his philosophy. He pointed to 3 stages of human cognition of the world: 1. Sensual contemplation is the representation of people and the phenomena of nature and society, formed on the basis of their sensations. Knowledge about these phenomena is formed on the basis of the daily life of people. They have ideas about many phenomena as external sides of an object, the essence of these objects, i.e. their inner sides are hidden from people. Kant called them "the thing-in-itself." 2. Reasonable thinking is inherent in both everyday, everyday consciousness and science. Kant explored the cognitive possibilities of mathematics and natural science. He came to the conclusion that sciences can deeply comprehend certain phenomena and the laws of their development, but they cannot express the essence of phenomena, it still remains a "thing in itself". 3. According to Kant, the essence of phenomena must be comprehended by reason, which is the highest cognitive ability of man inherent in philosophy. The mind is aimed at knowing the world as a whole. However, solving this problem, the mind comes across an insoluble contradiction - "antinomy". Kant formulates the following antinomies, to which it is impossible to give an unambiguous affirmative answer: 1) The world has no beginning in time and space, and at the same time has such a beginning (it is spoken of in religious teachings). 2) The world is infinitely divisible and indivisible. 3) In the world there is a need for the state, but the actions and actions of people are possible, performed freely, at their will. 4) God exists and does not exist. Nobody has proved that there is no God, and nobody has proved that he is. None of these statements can be proven with certainty. All these are “things in themselves”. They can only be taken on faith. Thus, according to Kant, the world as a whole is unknowable, and the essences of individual things are also unknowable. The essence of Kantian agnosticism (the doctrine of the unknowability of the world) is that a person deals with the external side of things.
German classical philosophy completes the classical philosophy of modern times. It is represented by such thinkers as I. Kant, I. Fichte, F. Schelling and G. Hegel, who lived and worked at the end of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. One of the main tasks of German classical philosophy is to overcome the contradictions of the philosophy of the 17th-18th centuries, which were expressed in the opposition of rationalism and empiricism, the exaggeration of the role of natural science and the excessive optimism of the Enlightenment. This trend is characterized by a revival of interest in history, art, mythology, as well as criticism of the natural-scientific orientation of the philosophy of modern times. All these features are due to a deep interest in a person's problem posed in a new way. In place of the individual ideal of the free personality of the Renaissance, German classical philosophy replaced the collective ideal of free humanity, expressed by the ideas of the Enlightenment and the slogans of the Great French Revolution. The religious basis of German classical philosophy is Protestantism.
Prerequisites for the emergence German classical philosophy:
- classical German literature (Lessing, Goethe, Schiller, Heine);
- philosophy of the Enlightenment;
- pantheistic rationalism of Spinoza;
- The Great French Revolution (1789-1794);
- German Protestantism.
In the works of I. Kant there are two periods: critical and subcritical... In the pre-critical period (1756-1770) I. Kant's interests were mainly associated with the development of natural science and logical problems. In his work "General History and Theory of Heaven", the philosopher puts forward a model of the natural emergence of the Universe from matter created by God. The new concept was based on the philosophy of G. Leibniz splashing, rethought on the basis of I. Newton's mechanics, material particles ("monads") possessing forces of attraction and repulsion are initially in a state of mixing chaos. Under the influence of the forces of attraction, they move towards each other, forming vortices, in the center of which stars, the sun and planets are formed from the densest parts.
In the 60s, I. Kant became more and more interested in the question of the relationship between religion and science, morality and knowledge. Under the influence of the works of the English philosopher D. Hume, I. Kant began to understand that science is not only a source of truths and goods, but also conceals a significant danger to mankind. The main vices of science are the narrowness of the horizon and the lack of connection with moral values. The striving of science for a natural explanation of the world leads to the rejection of faith in God, which I. Kant considered as a necessary basis of morality. Reflection on these problems led I. Kant to the idea of a critical rethinking of the principles of scientific knowledge, which would show the limitations of science and thereby suppress its attempts to absorb morality and religion.
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The onset of the critical period was associated with work on the form and principles of the sensible and intelligible world ”(1770), in which I. Kant contrasted two ways of representing the world: natural science and philosophical. For natural science, the world appears as a phenomenon (phenomenon), which is always in space and time. Such a world is determined by the structures of human consciousness, is subjective and obeys the laws of physics. This is a world of unfreedom, where the provisions of philosophy, morality and religion are meaningless. In the world, the phenomenon of man appears as a physical object, the movement of which is determined by the same laws as the movement of inanimate objects. For philosophy, the world appears as a supersensible (noumenon) outside space and time, not subject to the laws of physics. In such a world freedom is possible, God is the immortality of the soul, it is the place of a person's spiritual life.
The main provisions of the critical philosophy of I. Kant are set out in the works "Critique of Pure Reason", "Critique of Practical Reason" and "Critique of the ability to judge." In "Critique of Pure Reason" I. Kant explores in detail the cognitive structures of human consciousness. Such a study, directed at the very process of cognition, Kant calls "transcendental". He proceeds from the fact that in the process of scientific cognition, human consciousness appears not as a passive reflection of reality, but as an active principle that re-creates the world from sensations. Like a sculptor who creates a decorated statue from a shapeless block of marble, consciousness recreates a holistic picture of the world from the material of sensations. At the same time, as in the case of the sculptor, the picture of the world created by consciousness differs from how the world exists objectively, independently of consciousness. The picture of the world, recreated by consciousness, I. Kant designates the term "phenomenon", and the world itself calls the term "thing in itself" or "noumenon". Three cognitive abilities of a person, three levels of consciousness - sensuality, reason and reason. Each of them contributes to the processing of sensations and the formation of a holistic picture of the world. The doctrine of sensuality is called transcendental aesthetics, the doctrine of reason is called transcendental analytics, the doctrine of reason is called transcendental dialectics.
Cognition begins with sensuality, which is influenced by the objective world or "thing-in-itself." The received sensations are processed by two forms of sensuality - space and time, which appear in I. Kant as properties of consciousness. Then the image of the object formed by sensuality is transferred to the level of reason, the forms of which are philosophical categories. Thanks to the vigorous activity of the mind, a scientific idea of the world arises from the combination of a universal category and a single image. I. Kant argues that the scientific picture of the world does not correspond to what the world really is, and is the result of the active hundredth activity of sensuality and reason. Thus, the study of these two cognitive abilities provides an answer to the question of how natural science is possible. In connection with him, Kant declares that the reason dictates the laws of nature. This means that all the laws of nature discovered by the scientist are in fact created by his own consciousness, which constantly in a hidden, "unconscious" way creates the world from the material of sensations. This means that scientific knowledge is always imperfect and limited to the sphere of the sensory world. I. Kant emphasizes that three cognitive abilities - sensuality, reason and reason - are inherent in all people, therefore they can be considered as a structure of the collective consciousness of humanity. Thus, although the truths of science are not objective, they are "generally valid", since they are understandable to all representatives of the human race.
The smallest value in the field of scientific knowledge is the mind, the highest cognitive ability. He acts both as a systematizer of knowledge and as a source of the goals of scientific knowledge. The mind is not able to independently cognize the world, so it does not have access to sensory experience. Such a "theoretical" mind periodically falls into contradictions, trying to cognize the world, and without having the appropriate opportunities for this. The mind consists of three ideas - God, soul and the world as a whole. He tries to cognize each of these ideas, falling at the same time into insoluble "dialectical" contradictions. Denouncing the illusory nature of the cognitive activity of the mind, I. Kant, thereby, denies the possibility of scientific knowledge of religious truths associated with the problems of the existence of God, the immortality of the soul and the origin of the world. The soul and God are not objects of habitual sensory experience, and the world is always given to a person not entirely, but only represented by its insignificant part. Therefore, I. Kant subjects a detailed examination and criticism of philosophical theories proving the immortality of the soul, the existence of God, or reasoning on the creation of the world.
However, the weakness of "theoretical" reason turns into strength when it comes to "practical" reason. The sphere of practical reason is formed by a person's moral actions, his inner spiritual world and relationships with other people. For practical reason, a person appears not as a physical body, subject to the inexorable cause-and-effect relationships of I. Newton's mechanics, but as a free personality, which itself determines the reasons for its actions. The spiritual life of a person no longer takes place in the sensible world of the phenomenon, subject to the laws of reason, but in the superphysical world of the noumenon, subject to the laws of reason. This world is higher than the sensible world, and practical reason is higher than theoretical, natural-scientific reason. This is due to the fact that knowledge acquires meaning only when it helps a person to become a person. The theoretical mind and the natural science associated with it are unable to solve this problem. The object and main goal of practical reason is the good, which is achievable only in actions. Three ideas of reason, which caused illusions and contradictions in the theoretical sphere, are transformed in the practical sphere into three most important postulates, without which the life of man and mankind as a whole is impossible. These postulates are free will in the intelligible world, the immortality of the soul and the existence of God. Although they cannot be proven or disproved by means of science, they are nevertheless the object of faith, without which it is impossible to perform moral acts. Practical reason acts as a unity of reason and will, knowledge and action, which is expressed in the concept of a "categorical imperative", which is the central link in the teaching of I. Kant on practical reason. The categorical imperative is an eternal moral law that defines the form of moral actions and characterizes volitional action based on reason. According to I. Kant, the categorical imperative requires a person, when performing an act, to imagine a situation in which his act would become for everyone a universal model and law of behavior. For example, if a person is going to commit a theft, then he must imagine what will happen if everyone does this.
The main condition for a moral act is the possibility of making a decision free of charge, independent of external circumstances. It cannot be considered a moral act committed in the expectation of a reward, for selfish reasons or under the influence of instincts. A moral deed can only be performed on the basis of reason, which gains freedom in the intelligible world of the noumenon. Thus, the world as a "thing in itself", divorced from the theoretical reason of science, is open to the practical reason of morality and religion. In the Kantian philosophical system, the sensory world of the phenomenon, which is the subject of research of theoretical scientific reason, forms a sphere of non-freedom, necessity, predetermination. The intelligible World of the noumenon, in which the life of practical reason unfolds, is the sphere of freedom and the place of expression of the true essence of man. A person, in the spirit of ancient philosophy, appears in I. Kant as a dual being who is capable of rising to the state of freedom and humanity or the Mouth and turns into an animal, whose life is entirely determined by external forces and circumstances.
The sharp opposition of the phenomenal and the noumenal worlds, necessity and freedom, theory and practice in the philosophy of I. Kant was perceived by many of his contemporaries as a source of irreparable contradictions. I. Kant's attempt to complete his system with the help of the philosophy of art, which was supposed to combine theoretical and practical reason, knowledge and faith, science and religion, did not receive wide recognition. This made it possible to further spread the German classical philosophy.
Philosophy
Keywords:
Philosophy
A source:
N.V. Ryabokon. Philosophy of UMK - Minsk .: MIU Publishing House, 2009
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Immanuel Kant(1724 - 1804) - "Königsberg thinker", German scientist and philosopher, is considered the founder of German classical philosophy and the creator of the so-called "critical" (or "transcendental") idealism. In his work, it is customary to distinguish between two periods: "subcritical" and "critical".
V "Pre-critical" period(1746 - 1770) Kant focused on the philosophical problems of natural science. For example, he developed a cosmogonic hypothesis (General Natural History and Theory of the Sky, 1755) about the formation of the solar system from scattered material particles due to the forces of gravity (which formed a huge cloud of particles), attraction and repulsion (which generated vortices of particles, and then their spherical clumps, that is, planets).
Beginning "Critical" period usually considered 1770, when Kant defended his thesis "On the form and principles of the sensuously perceived and intelligible world." The main works of this period, which brought Kant world fame, are three works (the creation of which Kant himself defined as a "Copernican revolution in philosophy"):
- "Critique of Pure Reason" (1781), devoted to the problems of epistemology;
- "Critique of Practical Reason" (1788), devoted to questions of ethics;
- "Critique of the ability to judge" (1790), which analyzes aesthetic problems.
V "Critique of Pure Reason" Kant developed a doctrine in which he managed to combine the thesis of sensationalism (all the content of our knowledge stems from sensory experience) with the thesis of rationalism (mind is not a blank slate, but an active instrument of cognitive activity containing a priori ideas).
According to Kant, sensory experience gives us sensations that our mind brings to certain concepts. The most general concepts are categories (cause and effect, essence and phenomenon, regularity and chance, etc.), which represent the "conditions of thinkability" of any objects and phenomena. Categories - a priori, that is, given to us before sensory experience ( Latin a priori - from the previous experience). They form internal structure of our thinking, a "categorical framework" in which we "put" all the data of sensory experience. A priori forms of cognition, therefore, order and systematize sensations. In contrast to Descartes' “innate ideas”, Kant's “a priori forms of knowledge” are empty logical forms of thinking, not filled with any material, given to us from the very beginning.
Neither sensations nor categories are knowledge in themselves. Feelings are subjective and chaotic, and categories without sensations (without content) are empty forms. As Kant wrote, “thoughts without content are empty, contemplation without concepts is blind ... Reason cannot contemplate anything, and feelings cannot think of anything. Knowledge can arise only from their union. " Thus, Kant managed to combine the idea of the experimental origin of all knowledge with the idea of the existence of a priori "inner principles" of thinking.
Kant called the totality of a priori forms the "transcendental" layer of consciousness, that is, the content of consciousness that goes beyond the limits of sensory experience (lat. Transcendens - going beyond). He identified three types of human cognitive abilities - sensuality, reason and reason - each of which has its own a priori forms of cognition.
A priori forms of sensory cognition - space and time(that is, the subject, apart from his will, arranges all the material of sensations in a temporal and spatial order ) that make possible the existence of mathematics.
The term "reason" Kant called the ability of the cognizing subject to create general concepts and judgments, that is, in a certain way to "process", to generalize sensory knowledge. The rules for such systematization are set by themselves a priori forms of reason - categories(cause and effect, reality, chance, regularity, possibility, etc.), thanks to which the existence of theoretical natural science is possible in science ( that is, you can not just fix the phenomena, but, having generalized them, formulate the laws of nature and create theories in the field of physics, chemistry, biology, etc.).
The term "mind" Kant designated the subject's ability to think about the world as the unity of all phenomena, about God as the cause of all things, about the soul as the unity of all mental phenomena in a person. If the mind tries to analyze the concepts of "world", "God" and "soul" as the mind would do, with real natural phenomena, then it will inevitably come to contradictions - "antinomies" (Greek antinomia - contradiction). For example, the mind can draw conclusions that “the world is finite” and “the world is infinite”, that “God exists” and “God does not exist”, that “man is free” and “man is not free”. Such contradictory conclusions are due to the fact that "God", "soul" and "the world» – they are not elements of objective reality, but a priori ideas of reason itself. Due to the presence in our consciousness of a priori ideas of reason, the existence of philosophy is possible.
In the process of cognition, a priori forms, being unavoidable, seem to be “superimposed” on sensory experience and “distort” the effects of real objects. Therefore, Kant divides the world into "World of phenomena" - what is given to us in cognitive experience and for the world unknowable "things-in-themselves" - what is inaccessible to our knowledge. "Thing-in-itself" is reality as such, the source of our sensory experience, about which we only know that it exists.
The thesis about the unknowability of the "thing-in-itself" allows us to classify Kant as an agnostic. But the essence of his teaching is not in denying the knowability of the world, but in a clear separation of the sphere in which adequate cognition is possible ("the world of phenomena"), and the area about which nothing definite can be asserted ("thing-in-itself").
The ethical teaching of Kant is set forth in the treatise Critique of Practical Reason. Kant notes that a person belongs to two worlds at the same time:
Like any natural body – to the "world of phenomena"), where it is subordinated to external necessity, natural laws;
As a rational being - to the world of "things in themselves", which allows a person to act freely, often ignoring external necessity, and freedom of choice, freedom of expression is a necessary condition for the existence of morality.
As a moral subject, a person is guided by his practical reason, in which one should look for the motives of all his actions. Kant, in addition to "moral" and "immoral" actions, identified a third type of actions – "Legal" – actions with "zero" morality (for example, an athlete's jump into the water). To "legal" Kant proposed to include all actions related to the performance of professional duty, and actions caused by selfish motives. A truly moral act, according to Kant, is absolutely disinterested and may even be harmful to oneself (for example, risking one's own life for the sake of saving a stranger). Reflecting on the origins of morality, about what force can "block" human egoism and the instinct of self-preservation, Kant comes to the conclusion that it can only be God. (Later this Kantian idea will be called "the moral proof of the existence of God").
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