FeynPhilosophy - Sapere aude!

As we have seen last time , Kant’s problem in the Critique of Pure Reason is that of the possibility of synthetic a priori judgements. We have discussed what synthetic a priori judgements are and why they are important. How does Kant continue from here on out? Kant’s plan is to examine knowledge. He recognises two sources that are fundamental to knowledge: sensibility and understanding. Knowledge requires us to experience objects and to think about the objects we experience. This experience is given by our senses; we see, hear, taste, smell and feel. By thinking we apply concepts to the things that we experience. We can judge that what we see is a pen, that this pen is blue, and so on. In the Critique , Kant examines these two sources of knowledge separately. The transcendental aesthetics examines sensibility; the transcendental logic examines understanding.  What is transcendental aesthetics? Where did Kant get his title from? What is transcendental aesthetics? Let’s start by goin...

Starting your philosophical journey can be a daunting task. Philosophy books rely on 2500 years of tradition, use words and concepts in weird ways and contain complex argumentations. Having studied philosophy for 3 years already, I can confirm that this is definitely true. Philosophy doesn’t have to be this complex. There are classical philosophical texts that are easy and provide a great entry point to philosophy. For those who are just starting on their philosophical journey, here are five classic works that are beginner-friendly, readable and still insightful. 5. The Art of Being Right – Arthur Schopenhauer Schopenhauer’s The Art of Being Right is a witty and satirical guide to winning arguments, regardless of truth. This short book examines everyday argumentation and shows the importance of spotting bad arguments. This book is meant to be more playful than serious as it outlines 38 tricks you can use and recognise in everyday debates and arguments.  This is one of the first p...

Is the world around us real? Do physical things truly exist? This question seems absurd, but it plays a fundamental role in Descartes Meditations on First Philosophy , specifically the Sixth Meditation. His goal? To find a foundation of knowledge that is absolutely certain. Why question physical reality? This question is born in the search for indubitable foundations of knowledge. The hyperbolic and methodological doubt of Descartes has put into question the existence of physical things. He imagined the possibility that everything he experiences could be a dream or a deception by an evil demon. However, if physical things do not exist, we need to acknowledge that physics, astronomy, and all other sciences with physical things as their objects are doubtful.  Descartes’ scepticism has led him to conclude one thing for certain: “ I am, I exist ” (often known by the slightly different formulation cogito, ergo sum ). That’s not enough! Descartes also wants to rebuild all knowledge on t...

Philosophers are seekers of truth. They are supposed to love wisdom and, by extension, love truth. It seems only logical that any philosopher should ask the question , What is truth? Surprisingly, Kant argues that this question might not even make sense in the first place. In The Critique of Pure Reason , Kant tackles the problem of truth in the third section of his Introduction to Transcendental Logic , titled “On the Division of General Logic into Analytic and Dialectic”. His conclusion: there is no universal and sufficient criterion of truth because such a criterion is inherently contradictory. The sceptics’ challenge Kant wants to critique the sceptics who used to challenge logicians by demanding, “What is truth?” The logicians of Kant's time studied Aristotle's Organon , in which Aristotle exposed his system of formal logic. This logic studies the correctness of thinking and uses true and false propositions. Because logicians constantly talk about true propositions, the s...

Good philosophers provide new solutions to problems. Great philosophers provide new problems that demand solutions. Kant indubitably falls into the second category. The leading question of the Critique of Pure Reason: how are synthetic a priori judgements possible? It is up to the introduction to pose this question and to properly explain the difference between synthetic and analytical judgements and the difference between a priori and a posteriori judgements. A good understanding of these two distinctions is essential to understanding the first critique.  Let us first understand what is meant by a judgement. All judgements have the same form: “subject is predicate”. The subject is what we talk about; the predicate is what is said about the subject. Take, for example, the judgement “this dog is black”. In this judgement “this dog” is the subject; we are talking about this dog. “Black” is the predicate of this judgement; we add the property of being black to the dog. Kant distinguis...

Is metaphysics a science? This question is answered by Kant in the preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason . The goal of the preface is to explore whether metaphysics, at the time Kant is writing, is a science, whether it can be a science and what would be needed for metaphysics to be a science. In order to understand what Kant has to say about metaphysics, let’s first understand what metaphysics is! Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy that asks big questions about things that go further than our experience alone. These questions cannot be answered by science. For example, in the time of Kant, metaphysicians were mainly working on 4 questions: Does God exist? What is a soul? Do we have freedom? What is being? This branch of philosophy dates back to Aristotle and his work  Metaphysics,  even though Aristotle did not name this work himself. In this work Aristotle seeks a science which he calls first philosophy. This science is occupied with first principle...