Transcendental Dialectic Analysis

In the Critique of Pure Reason, philosopher Immanuel Kant aims to thoroughly explain his philosophy of the metaphysical world. Within the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant focuses on confirming that space and time are a priori intuitions. He provides reasoning and arguments as to why they are transcendentally ideal but empirically real, making space and time subjectively necessary for experiences. Simultaneously, Kant distinguishes space and time from secondary qualities, which belong to our senses through experience, by confirming that unlike space and time, secondary qualities are not empirically real. Kant does run into conflicts with his theory, he still successfully claims that space and time are transcendentally ideal but empirically real, as well as distinguish them from secondary qualities by supporting his theories with reasoning.

The project of the whole transcendental dialectic is well-known. Kant’s primary aim here is that of warning us against the danger involved in the misunderstanding and subsequent hypostatization of the concepts of reason.4 However, this section of the Critique of Pure Reason does not play a purely negative role; instead, it furthers a positive enquiry of what Reason is and what his contents are. Furthermore, it also provides an explanation of the epistemic role played by these elements, the ideas of pure reason or transcendental ideas5, defined as being those concepts which contain the ‘unconditioned’.6 In other words, these concepts are related to the transcendental premises of any possible experience, that is, to infinite and unconditioned ‘transcendent objects’ unattainable through

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason [2] is notoriously difficult to read and often unclear. Possibly,

When comparing the works and philosophy of Immanuel Kant with that of Friedrich Nietzsche, it is apparent that they had very different views on the ideals of God, moral absolutism and any form of a priori knowledge. Over the course of this essay, a comparison of the similarities and disparities between Kant and Nietzsche’s critical works will help us to find the commonalities in their views of metaphysics as well as some interesting differences. It will also be shown how Nietzsche took the Kant’s ideas on dogmatic metaphysics and applied them to the practical world. Nietzsche is a polarizing figure, as much in modern day society as he was in his own time. His radical argument for the way the world should be viewed is of the upmost importance in the philosophical arguments of philosophers and theologians alike.

Kant argues that rationalism is partly correct as the mind starts with certain innate structures, which impose themselves on the perceptions that come to the mind. However, according to Kant, reason should not be unquestionably assumed to yield knowledge regarding all types of subject matter as metaphysical concepts are built only on intellectual speculation and thus cannot extend our knowledge about metaphysical questions like the existence of God, the question of freedom or immorality. Kant’s main complaint with regards to metaphysics is that it seeks to deduce a priori synthetic knowledge in that there is an effort to acquire such knowledge through concepts alone, which Kant does not think is possible since “concepts without intuitions are empty.” In other words, rational human faculties lead us to the boundaries of what can be known, by clarifying the conditions under which experience of the world as we know it is possible, however beyond those boundaries our faculties are useless.

1. The identity of subject and object. Since the noumenal is revealed as another manifestation of phenomena, what is unthinkable is also thinkable. Since what is thinkable depends on the necessary conceptual activity of rational beings, the consequence is that the noumenal world beyond thought is also dependent upon thought. The Kantian subject is identical with its own

Kant presents his side of the argument between the rationalists in Gottfried Leibniz’s corner and the empiricists in David Hume’s corner in order to quell the dispute between the two parties. An argument about how humans perceive the world or reality in which they exist, the rationalists subscribe to a view of human insight separate from experience, while empiricists completely contrast that view with gaining insight into the world only through experience. Kant claims that a new system of concepts should be adopted, which he names, transcendental philosophy, stating the possibility of a priori pure reason in the introduction of the B edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. He thinks that reason provides the insight and tools needed for cognition.

ABSTRACT: I intend to present Kant's refutation of the ontological argument as confronted by Hegel's critique of Kant's refutation. The ontological argument can be exposed in a syllogistic way: everything I conceive as belonging clearly and distinctly to the nature or essence of something can be asserted as true of something. I perceive clearly and distinctly that existence belongs to the nature or essence of a perfect being; therefore, existence can be stated as true of a supremely perfect being, that is, perfect being exists. I intend to argue that Kant criticizes both the major and minor premises. To the major premise, he objects that there is an unqualified passage from the logical to the

If one and the same faculty of reason is employed in empirical and metaphysical judgement, and the empirical employment of reason is legitimate, then so should be its metaphysical employment; and if metaphysics results in contradictions, then reason as a whole contradicts itself . . . Because the problem of metaphysics is ultimately a matter of reason’s relation to itself, the route to its solution, Kant argues, must also be reflexive. That is, reason must examine itself. [Gardner 21-2].

The Transcendental Deductions of the pure concept of the understanding in Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, in its most general sense, explains how concepts relate a priori to objects in virtue of the fact that the power of knowing an object through representations is known as understanding. According to Kant, the foundation of all knowledge is the self, our own consciousness because without the self, experience is not possible. The purpose of this essay is to lay out Kant’s deduction of the pure concept of understanding and show how our concepts are not just empirical, but concepts a priori. We will walk through Kant’s argument and reasoning as he uncovers each layer of understanding, eventually leading up to the conclusion

For Immanuel Kant, truth is accessible to the mind only because it derives from rational categories already in the mind. Although knowledge begins in the senses, Kant claims, “besides what is given to the sensuous intuition, special concepts must yet be superadded—concepts which have their origin wholly a priori in the pure understanding, and under which every perception must be first of all subsumed and then by their means changed into experience.”6 The sources of such synthetic a priori concepts are categories inherent in reason, and Kant supplies a table of such categories, including in it: Unity (measure), Plurality (magnitude), Totality (whole), Reality, Negation, Limitation, Substance, Cause, Community, Possibility, Existence, and Necessity.7 Thus, the understanding of any perceived thing as a whole entity, or as having an independent material existence, or as being caused by anything, or as itself the cause of anything has its origin in rational categories in the mind and is not traceable to any essential quality or state of being that can be attributed to the thing in itself, according to Kant.

Kant believes that, reason thinks of all cognition as belonging to a unified and organized system. Reason is our faculty of making inferences and of identifying the grounds behind every truth. It allows us to move from the particular and contingent to the global and universal. Each cause, and each cause's cause, and each additional ascending cause must itself have a cause. Reason generates this hierarchy that combines to provide the mind with a conception of a whole system of nature. Kant believes that it is part of the function of reason to strive for a complete, determinate understanding of the natural world. But our analysis of theoretical reason has made it clear that we can never have knowledge of the

According to Kant, there must be a certain distinction between knowable and unknowable. All previous metaphysics concerns only transcendent objects as knowable. However, according to Kant transcendent does mean simply ‘beyond all possibility of experience’. To wit, Kant rejects that we have a direct access to transcendent objects. Furthermore, Kant’s first question, namely ‘what can I know?’ is response to dogmatic metaphysics. At this point we may say that there is a contradiction because the Copernican Turn requires a distinction between objects of our knowledge and objects in themselves. We know objects as they appear to us but if given objects are only appearances, logically there must be something that appears. Nevertheless, the transcendental distinction between objects as appearances and things-in-themselves is not 'given' or perceivable in our experience but is an account of what must be the case for us to have necessary and universal knowledge of objects. It is not an investigation about what are they in themselves but how can we know their phenomenal status through the interaction our faculties. It is a formulation of the relation between the objects and concepts and thinking objects as

The Scarlett Letter, a historic fictional story written after a time of the Salem Witch Trails, shows many comparison and contrasts of our world society between there’s. Holding a great deal of transcendentalism, having great and truthful meaning of living the way you want, or in other words, being free. One of the characters who show some transcendental traits are Pearl. The daughter of both Hester, the Scarlett, and Dimmesdale, the Preacher. Their world is far behind time as her society deals with false accusations of those who which to be free or deal within evil. However, learns throughout many events of the story of those who sins away; leaving her an opening to either improve on herself due to the sins of the town folks and family.

Kant is also considered the founder of the 18th century doctrine of transcendental idealism and many of his published works including The Metaphysics illustrate his efforts to reconcile rational and empirical schools of thought. These efforts are displayed in The Metaphysics in his new moral theory that aligns rationalist "self-evident truths" with empirical certainly in