5.1.2.4 Kant (again!)

Hume and Kant were the philosophical giants the mid 1700's. Of Immanuel Kant, who figured prominently in moving Idealist philosophy forward, one could never say that he was in "revolt against Idealism". He was a "Transcendental Idealist", believing that one's experience of things is much more concerned with how they appear to that person than how those things are in and of themselves.

Even so, unlike Berkeley, he steadfastly affirmed the existence of real objects behind the phenomena of perception; that is, he never accepted Subjective Idealism. Although he emphasized mental processes and ideas over that which was being perceived, his philosophy cannot be characterized as a form of Subjective Idealism.

He never denied the existence of things-in-themselves, but instead exerted much effort in demonstrating that a world independent of perception really existed. However, he believed that a perceptual and cognitive barrier prevented man from seeing these things-in-themselves, allowing him only to experience a “sensuous manifold” organized internally by the categories of sensibility. We cannot experience the "noumena" of the external world, but only the "phenomena" which our minds synthesize from the input we receive from that world. In other words, what we call “reality” is determined by transcendental (a priori) categories of reason and forms of understanding, such as causality, unity, space, and time.

Kant used what he termed "transcendental arguments" to prove the existence of an external world separate from the individual. This type of reasoning follows this pattern:

• Begin with universally accepted premises about how our experiences are structured


• Show that certain external entities must exist for these experiences to occur


• Conclude that these other entities do, in fact, exist.

An example of such an argument follows: Kant believed that for one to be aware of himself, it is necessary that there exist entities which are not "himself". It would be impossible to be aware of one's own existence without presupposing the existence of things separate from one's own self. Only if that were the case could one distinguish himself from anything else. He concludes that if one is self-aware, then that implies things that are "non-self" to serve as contrast.

Kant popularized this type of reasoning, and it is still in use today. But in my opinion this is a little complex and possibly too clever - it almost seems facile. It is typical of the kind of argument, though, that was being produced in the 1700's.

Further, if supporters of Kant argue that experience and reason cannot grasp reality, they have reached this conclusion by means of experience and reason. And that is a self refuting statement. Its content contradicts the very method it purports to be relying on. One cannot rely on reason to demonstrate that reason is invalid because doing so presumes that reason is valid.