The possibility of metaphysics as a science
BUENOS AIRES PROVINCE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION CULTURE AND HIGHER EDUCATION ADDRESS
TOP TEACHER TRAINING INSTITUTE No. 129
Career: Lecturer, Curriculum Area
PHILOSOPHY: HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHY
Course: 3rd Year
school year: 2009
TEACHER: Mr. Ponce, Liliana.
STUDENT: Dalto, Marina.
Job Title: "The possibility of metaphysics as science"
Summary of work:
The following work will address to clarify the problem of metaphysics as a science in Kant, to be the one who raised the possibility with an analysis depth of reason, authority which according to this philosopher becomes, by nature, prone to man to try to find objects that transcend the field of experience. So which also displays the position of Spinoza, as one of the modern representatives bringing this discipline to the top of the ontology itself, putting on the same level the question of being and knowing, for their identity, the author Critics called it a dogmatic reason, just to trust the power of this previously unquestioned in its scope.
also provide a brief comparison of the new meanings of the terms: Idea, reason and understanding, to understand the place that gives them Kant in his philosophy to reallocate its object metaphysics.
anticipation of the end of the matter, Kant manages to knock qualification to the discipline of science but placing it anyway, as the main engine of knowledge itself, as a natural disposition that urges us to turn to the unconditioned.
Introduction:
In modern philosophers as Descartes, Leibniz, Locke, Hume, Spinoza ... we have seen raised the aspirations of an era: achieving true knowledge of things, the correspondence between representation, characteristic of a knower and that which is external, which is presented to the perception or intellectual intuition, in a clear and distinct, which varies, of course, as the current (nativism, empiricism, transcendental philosophy, idealism, etc..) adopted by each thinker. But the problem at all, it is theoretically possible through the building, but the basis on which this theory was based, a shifting base to the collapse ... always threatened many times by relying on the power of the power of man, they considered source of knowledge: some on the right to reject the contribution of the senses, and others, relying on the senses, discounted the power of speculative reason. Thus, metaphysics was rather the stage where the disputed their scholastic philosophers, rather than a sincere attempt to dispel the delusion that the misunderstanding occurred. What
that we can excel in the modern philosophers, is the methodological rigor to that submitted their thoughts, seeking the path that led him to the truth without error, they found only when representations of the subject, were adequate to the object that was available to know , the certainty in the pose was what guided the search criteria and knowledge processing.
But, as stated above, the multiple "access to reality" found, were most resonant question of truth as well, the farther the answer, given the plurality of philosophical systems known. Thus Kant
seek, first, show of what metaphysics has dealt so far and if possible knowledge of the object, calling into question the means of access, is critical of the powers of knowledge and thus eliminates all metaphysical debate before or after him not necessarily part of this clarification. Development
problem:
Man by nature has always tended and always will, to look, thinking, responding to questions that exceed their cognitive abilities. Not made aware of his mistake, but given the very process of knowledge is confident of being right, going back tirelessly for the darker paths, to find a touchstone, an obstacle that while it does not stop, lets not say that I got for himself, his reason, can be known.
And here is where lies the main criticism of Kantian metaphysics, the science that has developed because of our natural attitude has not been systematized, to find principles that are entrenched in their origin and that build a body unsure of itself and therefore what might be called science?, philosopher in the prologue of the first edition, known as "the arena of endless discussions," referring to precisely this lack of firmness in the ground in the arguments hold everything else, and therefore, without foundation, there will never be anything done, what is built will fall again and again.
In the Foreword to the second edition, after comparing it with other disciplines that may have over time become a science, such as logic, mathematics and physics, using pure reason speculative capacity, but without taking the object to its empirical content, that is only to determine the object and its concept (which comes synthesized understanding), argues for it, again, that's Metaphysics, "is an isolated speculative knowledge of reason that nothing takes the lessons experience and uses only simple concepts (without intuitions), where reason must be his own disciple, which was fortunate not to get insurance even in the way of science "1. Finally, we will characterize this second prologue, as a battlefield, where all claims are made, rather, to exercise in assaults forces opponents, but where none has been able to gain solid ground to build anything. Closes with the last sentence that "the march of Metaphysics has hitherto been uncertain, a score, and made, what is worse, by means of simple concepts" 2.
To understand this pose, we need to understand what are the powers involved in the process of knowledge for the philosopher, and how each one does. Briefly expose, to guide the reader.
Kant is to analyze the power of knowledge of the subject to avoid wasting efforts on catching objects apparent. Thus, a distinction between them to intuition, understanding and reason.
The latter would be responsible for pushing the boundaries of possible knowledge, it being understood that the only object of knowledge is that as a phenomenon, and we understand here as what appears to me to intuition, and how empirically things affect us (Kant's first definition that appears in Part of the Transcendental Aesthetic), it is clear that after may be established a body of knowledge that comes directly from the experience but that indirectly referred to it in the series of deductions, that is what the author expresses when he says "that all our knowledge begins with experience but not all come from her "3. What
given in intuition, the phenomenon, there is always multiple and diverse way, to a first synthesizer that are pure intuitions * space and time. Formed the raw material, understanding turns to its task, which is to give an intelligible form to what has been presented significantly. Operates well with * pure concepts, categories, giving unity to experience, because it synthesizes the manifold of intuition on the concept, giving consistency to our knowledge to objects. But it should be abundantly clear that the understanding deals exclusively with the empirical use of its a priori principles (trials) and concepts, ie applicable only to phenomena.
Thus, the philosopher will tell you that Pure Reason, which has two functions, one speculative and practice must be limited to speculative activity, the objects of experience, our knowledge otherwise would have no significance since not refer to any empirical no intuition of forms, but are the result of mere analysis of the concept (while back on itself, not to get any knowledge.)
understood this, we could say that the attitude of man's metaphysical and science so that it has sought to establish, is the product of reason, but misuse or diversion of it. "What drives us to go beyond the limits of experience and phenomena is the unconditioned, which reason necessarily requires the thing itself" 4 ... the problem here is that for Kant, the thing itself has no ontological reality, or at least epistemological, because if something is, is the phenomenon. Dual Nothing really exists, there is nothing that is hidden, nothing is achieved, what I know, is all I can know, because my powers permit. The reverse path made by the author, allows the cancellation of the possibility of knowing the thing itself, because knowledge is not the thing as being such, it is a subject to something that appears to him, has a cognitive structure that allows access to it one way, who is the subject structure of reality, whether or not it is that way, it is impossible to define, is only the way the subject is known.
But well, it's not as sharp with respect to the thing itself, only the exiles from the scope of knowledge, can not access it, because I have no intuition of it, but I can think it, so that you reserve a place in morality, and treat it in his Critique of Practical Reason, but that subject and exceeds us.
back to metaphysics and its problems, to understand what we mean when we say that your soil is sandy and initiated a trial is necessary to clarify that we address the subject so far has lost, confused and even blinded. The inevitable issues of pure reason are God, freedom and immortality, but the only way to treat them, as we stated above, is by reason itself, and here is where dogmatically confident in it. Without the solvency of experience, these approaches will not find any contradiction, but converted only fictions of reason, in wishful thinking, because the illusion is not in the object but at the trial that is launched as planned. Kant therefore, tells us that knowledge entirely match with the laws of understanding can not contain error as it respects the transcendental logic, ie the synthesis of intuitions and pure concepts can not transcend the limits of experience and therefore it can not have that illusion. These ideas of reason are a source of hope, provided that exceeds the empirical use categories and we deceive ourselves with the illusion of an extension of the pure understanding. The illusion logic is solved by the simple application of general logic, but in the presence of the transcendental illusion is not so simple solution, since reason is governed by its own rules that serve as early targets and therefore the need to perform subjective links certain concepts that determine the "things themselves" (of which we spoke paragraphs before) is something that can not be avoided since it is a natural illusion, which is based on subjective principles that are surreptitiously as targets, and have here the danger of being drawn into the reason without any criticism, because from the outset seems to be guided correctly, as well understand now that it is not happening.
Finally, it is necessary that redefinition of concepts that Kant used for transcendental philosophy. First, the modern understanding and identifying the reason as a curriculum, and therefore with the same subject, in Kant, the understanding has the power of the unity of phenomena by means of the rules, and the reason the power unit of the rules of understanding under principles. This means that the mind is responsible for putting the understanding in accordance with itself, Kant characterizes it as a subjective law administration of the provisions of our understanding to reduce the possible number of concepts used by comparison. But if pure reason it relates to items not directly related to them, only with the understanding and judgments. Whatever the reason unifies the whole experience, is conditioned to the unconditioned knowledge of the understanding that the unit is completed. But the propositions that results in this supreme principle of pure reason, will be critical because it can never be an empirical use which is appropriate. Therefore, these concepts Kant called transcendental ideas. This is how ideas become to regain a sense Platonic being as models or prototypes for the experience, as regulators and managers to dress according to experience them. While the concepts will be for him the same realities of experience, but the ideas express something that goes beyond all experience, but it serves the north for our understanding of reality.
Then we can say as the object of metaphysics as a discipline has always been to embrace the totality of knowledge, determining the ultimate causes and first principles of all things that exist beyond all time and space, beyond all physical phenomena. Been searching for the ground of being and knowing, never achieved.
will see, for example in the work of Spinoza, the "Treaty of Understanding Reform", it crosses the limit of Pure Reason, Kant raised to the point of complete identification between being and thinking, those ideas that forge understanding, are the product of the completeness of the real object.
The philosopher seems to have settled onto-epistemological dualism that had dragged on since Plato, and which established the difference between the "actual" and "become apparent" "intelligible world" and "sensible world", the first and true Actually, the other as appearance, a copy of the real, and what changes and therefore can not be grasped by thought.
already imbued with the spirit of mathematical rationality of modernity, can not help but apply his method, that due to the subordination of knowledge as to the ability of understanding, everything will happen, will be achieved in. Because the nature of understanding and the nature of things are identical in Spinoza, is to detect the first real idea of \u200b\u200bthe object or objective essence of nature we know, and therefore "the method is nothing other than knowledge reflective or the idea of \u200b\u200bthe idea "5.
Thus, the second step of the method, once distinguished the true ideas of other ways of knowing, and "as the relationship between two ideas is the same as that between formal essences of these ideas, it follows that the reflective knowledge of the idea of \u200b\u200ban absolutely perfect knowledge is more than reflective of all other ideas, "therefore," the perfect method will indicate how to contact the spirit according to the standard idea given the most perfect "6, here is the supreme cause of all things that exist and therefore all the ideas we have and is the guarantee its truth. "Indeed we must exist as a tool innate, a true idea that once understood, makes us understand, at the same time, the difference between way of knowing this and all other "7.
The order of speaking Spinoza, who have the ideas in the understanding and therefore things that exist in nature, responding to a necessary connection, which arises from pure procedure of the mind, according to its own laws. Here we find the "more geometric" in the knowledge of things from within the same understanding of the Procedure deductive and a priori, regardless of the empirical and the temporality and the author will tell us "the soul acts according to certain laws and how a spiritual automaton "8, based on the premise that" order and connection of ideas is the same as the order and connection of things, "understanding why the governing causal order of events is the same as is the understanding when operating with ideas, because the understanding is in order because of truth itself.
But we resumed, "that our spirit expresses exactly all of nature, must derive all their ideas expressed by the origin and source of all nature, so that it is also the source of other ideas" 9 and this is just the most perfect idea that Spinoza holder dare God, more than any suggestion that the term mystic, will be considered as the only efficient cause of all, a single substance you just called God or Nature. Rightly therefore, will be characterized his theory as a theologizing of nature or a natural part of God, pantheism is also another of their designations, as "Everything is God and God." Since the substance has to be an innate idea clear and distinct, and that its essence necessarily involves existence and as there can be caused by another but must be the cause of itself (causa sui), and also causes all things that exist, there is no room as possible, everything is absolutely knowable once in possession of the true idea and method that addresses the concatenation of the understanding that reproduces, in turn, la concatenación de la Naturaleza. Porque tanto el pensamiento como la extensión son los dos atributos de esta sustancia, con lo cual, los hombres por poseer pensamiento y extensión y las demás cosas de la naturaleza, extensión; son los modos en que éstos atributos se manifiestan (modos en tanto que son “en otra cosa”, y que sólo pueden concebirse en y por otro). Por ello, “el pensamiento verdadero consiste en conocer “las cosas” conforme a su propio modo de ser: por sí mismas o por sus causas próximas”10.
Visto desde este punto, la metafísica de Spinoza, resuelve todo el problema de la ciencia, puesto que “el conocimiento del efecto depende del knowledge of the cause, "11 it is limited only to investigate the necessary order of all things and the causal chain will eventually lead us to the idea of \u200b\u200ba Being who is the" cause "of the need, in this way is evident not only absolute knowledge, but also the Being in its fullness. Nothing is reserved for man's knowledge, nothing is inaccessible once again discovered the standard of truth.
After this brief exposition of Spinoza's theory, we can see it first explained how the metaphysical goal is achieved, the search and the scope of the unifying principle of reality, by the way of reason alone, through deduction of the ideas presented as clear and distinct to the understanding, and by its logic and coherence development in the philosophical system, are difficult to question. Because such exposure can not be substantiated by any experience, and we should be content to believe, if we have failed in this case, to recognize in understanding the true idea of \u200b\u200bourselves, that everything raised is true, or, for the same reason, one would think that it is not.
If we stop in the village of Kant, we find many elements for land taken for the explanation of Spinoza, for example, especially in this case we can say that these are only conclusions reason, which Kant called antinomies, and lack of support point to explain the whole experience, because all knowledge for him necessarily require the synthesis of concepts, the result of a previous synthesis of intuitions, which makes it impossible to try to explain the entire universe, the Being, Nature or God, these are only ideas of reason.
Conclusion:
Thus we can observe how the modern concern has focused primarily on identifying the source that guarantees the truth of the ideas or knowledge of the subject, without making a prior critique of this source, which has been to skip the step important method to verify whether the source is genuine, that the process of knowledge is, too.
Kant's conclusion, as anticipated in the summary of work, is that metaphysics is the negative character, while the ratio is deluding itself by believing some knowledge to achieve true even crossed the field of experience, and positive character that allows one hand, warn of the inability to avoid wasted effort, and secondly because it means using speculative reason framed by the empirical intuitions, the increase of scientific knowledge, because it invites, to anticipate, predict how nature works if apply certain synthetic a priori principles about it.
is necessary to recognize the boundary conditions and not humanly we become skeptical, but critics in both able to analyze carefully the resources we turn, as Kant rightly says in his Preface to the first edition of the CRP, "duty is of philosophy to dissipate the delusions caused by poor intelligence, although this is necessary to destroy the most beloved and enchanting illusions. "
Thus metaphysics can not be science, but it is a natural disposition of the spirit that never ceases to guide us in the search for the unconditioned, only conscious de lo anterior podemos evitar el desvió permanente, sólo la inexistencia del hombre evitaría el desvío momentáneo.
Notas:
1. Kant, Inmanuel., Crítica de la Razón Pura (CRP), Prefacio de la segunda edición, Losada, 2006.
2. Ídem anterior.
3. Kant, I. CRP, Introducción, Losada, 2006).
*Puros se entenderá aquí por lo a priori, lo absolutamente independientes de la experiencia, como la condición de posibilidad de todo objeto de experiencia.
4. Kant, I., Crítica de la Razón Pura (CRP), Prefacio de la segunda edición, Losada, 2006.
5. Spinoza, Baruch. Tratado de la Reforma del Entendimiento (Parágr. 38), Edit. Ship, Buenos Aires, 1944.
6. Ditto above.
7. Spinoza, Baruch. TRE (Parágr. 39), Edit. Ship, Buenos Aires, 1944.
8. Spinoza, Baruch. TRE (Parágr. 85), Edit. Ship, Buenos Aires, 1944.
9. Spinoza, Baruch. TRE (Parágr. 42), Edit. Ship, Buenos Aires, 1944.
10. Ponce, Liliana, Notes on Spinoza and the need for reform of the understanding, Gnoseology Chair, UNR: http://conversacionesphilosophicas.blogspot.com.
11. Spinoza, B. Ethics in the order shown geometrically, Book II, Axiom IV.
Bibliography:
- Kant, Immanuel, Critique of Pure Reason, Editorial Losada, 2006.
- Preface the first edition.
- Preface to the second edition.
- Introduction.
-Second Division of Transcendental Logic, Transcendental Dialectic, Introduction.
- García Morente, Manuel, The Philosophy of Kant, Edit. Espasa Calpe, Madrid, 1975.
- Spinoza, Baruch, the Treaty on Understanding Reform, Edit. Ship, Buenos Aires, 1944.
- Ponce, Liliana, Notes on Spinoza and the need for reform of the understanding, Gnoseology Chair, UNR: http://conversacionesphilosophicas.blogspot.com
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