1

KEMAL PLG
FEL501
FALL 2013
ASSIGMENT VI

KANT AND PROLEGOMENA TO ANY FUTURE METAPHYSI CS
Kant, seen as the founding father of the philosophy of criticism, is one of the leading names of
German philosophy. He empowered epistemology and constantly believed that the crucial notion of
philosophy is scientific base; paying great attention to the defense of religion and morals as the
concepts for rational thinking.
Kants forecoming work, shortly named Prolegomena, discusses the possibilities of metaphysics and
the reasons why the steps to form scientific facts are not valid for metaphysical concerns. Since there
are no objective modes for either agreement or disagreement, Kant was well aware that metaphysics
need stronger foundations that it currently is in order to be paid serious attention, as he made it very
clear in the preface of his work.
In the first part of the work, Kant addresses the purity of math. While discussing it, he also refers to
the concept of pure intuition and how we should handle connections among different concepts. The
empirical intuitions and pure intuitions are connected while they differ at the same time, hence they
form a synthesis in terms of proposition, such as her room and the room has pink walls are the
synthetic propositions. Her room has pink walls is a synthesis for empirical intuitions, or we can call
it sense experience.
Kant argues that mathematics is a priori, he makes an analogy for time and space with math as well:
for Math, there is no room for sense experience while connecting different concepts that could be valid
for time and space as well. Therefore, geometry is an a priori study of pure intuition of space; numbers
come from the particulars of purely intuitive time. This leads us to the conclusion that space and time
are blank forms that enable us to perceive how they appear to us, as we examine the framework of our
minds, not the things in the world, but space and time can not be independent from our mind as Kant
uses the examples of left and right hands; theres no problem with the appearance, but we could be
mistaken about the interpretation of what we see, hear or feel.
In the second part of the work, Kant addresses to the question of the purity of natural science. For
Kant, a judgment to be regarded as natural science, the deductions should be universal and
consequently essential laws. When we see the rock under the shining sun is warm, it still holds
subjectivity and depends on the person and that particular time. However, this can be applied to a
causeeffect body as the sun causes rocks to be warm, this cannot be pure intuition. What can be
understood is that judgments of experience to pure concepts are applied into becoming objective and
universal laws. Kant also intricately elaborated these laws into categories in his book and divided ito
logical sections, such as the judgment of somethings singularity, affirmation and category.
Kants one of the important claims is experience can not be responsible for discovering the concept of
cause and effect as Kant re-proves that one can not educe pure concepts from experience, but it is
actually vice versa. Our pure concepts or intuitions only help us obtain the form but not the content
itself, and the degrees of appearances are only valid through them. Surprisingly, metaphysics only
work with the faculties of pure reason and its ideas, In the third part, he also adds that reason is
responsible for the completion of experience and is devoid of intuition and understanding. While
2

dealing with reason, he divides it into three parts: Psychological ideas are busy with naming substance
and the subject while applying the entire predicates. This subject can be even the ego (I) which is not a
thing or a subject that in itself we can have knowledge of. Similarly, he adds we have some sort of
soul, but we can not know anything about it precisely, but can regard ideas through the way it is
manifested, explained, through experience as a result. Thus, the question of whether soul is immortal
or not will be persistent.
When Kant comes to explain cosmological ideas he divides them into four parts and tries to explain
the contradictions within them. Seeing the world either a as an infinite being or not is totally
unexplainable because space and time can not take place without our experience and limits of the
world might be beyond our experience. The second question, whether things can be simple and
divisible or not is also a creepy question to deal with as these parts are only how they appear and can
not exist until one experiences them. The third contradiction is about free will and Kant makes it clear
that is excluded from the limits of causality. Finally, causal futility versus necessity: they are not in a
dispute and a certain concept of a certain thing can be divided into its appearance and selfness and
may convey some sort of connection with each other.
Lastly, Kant debates over the difference among experience, natural science and metaphysics. Kant
claims that the metaphysical questions that we ask can not be answered by experience. Furthermore,
Kant metaphysical questions have bounds, but mathematics and science have limits. While math fails
to answer metaphysical questions, science has the same obstacle while giving insights about things in
themselves. He turns this hopeless seeming situation into benefit as reason can not pass onto the realm
of metaphysics. To balance the perspective, Kant also affirms that rejection of the concept of soul
leads psychology to take over everything about human behavior, and nature would suffice by omitting
cosmology. Interestingly, rejection of God moves us onto being skeptic about the probability of free
will.