This entry’s title relates to
Kant’s purportedly most momentous work, but it is somewhat inadequate, in the
sense that I shall strictly limit its scope by addressing only the analytic-synthetic
and a priori-a posteriori distinctions and their combinations. His
treatment of space and time contained in the same work would be the subject of
the next entry, but I am still eager to keep the present title for a number of
considerations. It should be consequently accepted with the above caveat, while
I shall keep thinking whether this particular title is sufficiently justified
in my mind, to retain it permanently.
The difference between analytic
and synthetic propositions (judgments) is that in the analytic propositions
the predicate is implied (contained) in the subject, whereas in the synthetic
ones this is not the case. Of the first kind is the proposition that all bodies
have extension (the latter being among the former’s definitions), but saying
that all bodies are heavy is not an analytic statement, because heaviness is
not a part of a body’s definition. A priori judgments are not based on
our experience, whereas a posteriori, or empirical, ones are drawn
exclusively from our experience.
The cross-application of these
two pairs yields four possibilities, of which only two are natural. Analytic
a prioris are implied by definition: we are not obliged to measure a body
to know that it has an extension; by the same token, a body perceived as
heavy, and, say, weighed to ascertain that it is, offers us the empirical truth
of the synthetic proposition, which is judged as true a posteriori.
Kant firmly denies the legitimacy of any analytic a posteriori propositions,
because there is no logical need to examine them through evidence, when they
are rationally obtained in the first place. Now, it is the fourth type, synthetic
a priori judgments, which become the focus of his attention. Admittedly, it
was on their account, in his attempt to refute Hume, that he started thinking
in this direction in the first place. It took him twelve long years of virtual
silence, to come up with an answer, which he believed was the correct one. Here
is Bertrand Russell’s summary of it:
Hume had
proved that the law of causality is not analytic and had inferred that we could
not be certain of its truth. Kant accepted the view that it is synthetic, but,
nevertheless, maintained that it is known a priori. He maintained that
arithmetic and geometry are synthetic, but are, likewise, a priori. He
was thus led to the formulation of his problem in these terms: How are
synthetic judgments a priori possible?
His new theory, known as transcendental
idealism, heavily borrows proof from mathematics. For instance, he
argues that in the proposition 5+7=12, the predicate 12 is not contained in the
subject where only three terms are present: five, plus, and seven.
Since this proposition cannot be, therefore, called analytic, it has to be
synthetic, and since, in order to judge it as true, we do not need a particular
experience, in other words, since we know this from reason, and not from
experience, it must be a priori! Quod erat demonstrandum.
From thus established fact that synthetic
judgments a priori are possible, he goes on to conclude that there are all
sorts of a priori categories that we can operate with. There are altogether twelve categories, divided into four
sets of three: (1) of quantity: unity, plurality, totality; (2) of quality:
reality, negation, limitation; (3) of relation: substance-and-accident,
cause-and-effect, reciprocity; (4) of modality: possibility, existence and
necessity.
It is interesting how, under the
questionable cover of mathematics, Kant feels justified to smuggle through the
“a-priorism” of the otherwise indefensible categories of relation and
modality, believing that he is thus able to refute Hume, when in reality, he
has done nothing of the sort.
But what he has done, and
where his sublime philosophical excellence goes totally unchallenged, has been
the fact of setting up the parameters of a terribly interesting and
immeasurably useful debate that has been going on for centuries now, into this
twenty-first century, where the questions he had the genius to raise are still
being debated. In the process, his allegation about the mathematical
propositions being ‘synthetic’ has long been refuted. In the proposition 5+7=12
the number 12 is predicated by the mathematical convention contained in the
subject’s function of addition. In many other cases, too, judgments long
thought synthetic are in fact analytic, predicated by the linguistic factors
contained in the subject. Even Kant’s most natural contention that
analytic judgments do not need to be empirical has been questioned…
Now, finally, let me reiterate
the thought which I expressed on numerous previous occasions, but this time in
a slightly different form. It is true that most of the questions asked by Kant
may have been answered by him incorrectly. But those after him who have
answered them better, or according to the current wisdom of their time, cannot
be credited with posing the questions they strove to answer. The credit for it,
in our case, belongs to Kant, by the same token as the credit for raising some
of the questions addressed by Kant must belong to Hume, or to others, whose
prior enquiries inspired the minds of the posterity.
No comments:
Post a Comment