One of the ways in which Immanuel Kant achieved his reputation for being a deep thinker was by asking deeper questions than other philosophers. The Critique of Pure Reason, his major work on epistemology (the theory of knowledge) goes far beyond conventional epistemological questions such as “What can we know?” and “How can we know it.” Instead, Kant appeals to the universal human experience of knowing and asks, “Given the fact that we know things, how is such knowledge possible?” Through a series of complex arguments, he concludes that there are certain structures which are given prior to experience which make knowledge possible. These structures include such fundamental notions as space and time and the basic laws of mathematics and logic. He concludes that time and space do not exist in themselves without reference to actual objects of experience, but they are necessary conditions for our experience of reality. The curious result is that time and space exist for every possible experience we might have, but they have no absolute existence in themselves. Time and space thus exist within our minds rather than in the outside world, but our experience of the world is inconceivable without the constructs of time and space. From this he concludes that we never experience things as they are, but only as they appear to us. Our experience has consistency, but it does not and cannot correspond to objective reality.
Kant is even more explicit in the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, asking how various forms of knowledge are possible. He asks in turn how mathematics, natural science, metaphysics, and metaphysics as a science are possible. His solution to the problem of how mathematics is possible is to argue that we can only come to mathematical intuition on the basis of our experience, but that such experience is never of the things as they are in themselves, but rather of the things as represented by our intuition. The fundamental basis of mathematics exists in our minds as a necessary precondition for mathematics. However, we can only infer that fundamental basis. It cannot be touched directly.
Following a similar line of argument, Kant shows that we can have no direct knowledge of things in the world, but only know them as they appear to us. What he is critiquing here is our notions of logic and causality. The problem comes from Hume, who applied a thorough going skepticism and arrived at the conclusion that we could only arrive at a probable notion of cause. Just because we observe that every time A occurs B follows does not mean that the next time A occurs B will follow. Kant responds that we judge matters based on experience, but the judgment itself contains more than the mere experience itself. Judgment presupposes previously existing (a priori) mental structures. Hume demonstrated that by proceeding from logic alone, we could never demonstrate causality, yet everyone intuitively recognizes causality. Causality obviously comes from a place beyond empirical experience. Hume himself tacitly recognized this when he mentioned that thorough going skepticism was tedious and rendered the skeptic unfit for daily life in society.
There is much more to say about Kant’s method of looking for the question behind the question, and I hope to address this in future blogs. However, the question I would like to leave with all of you is this: “What question can you think of that would be even deeper than Kant’s question?” Kant asked, “How is our experience possible?” What can you ask that would uncover the unexplored assumptions Kant is making?
Hume, D. (1740/1977). An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
Kant, I. (1781/1996). Critique of Pure Reason. Werner S. Pluhar (trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
Kant, I. (1770/1977). Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. James W. Ellington (trans.). Indianapolis, IN: Hackett.
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