Kant's demonstration of freedom is usually thought to be carried out by discussing the basic problem of ethics in Critique of Practical Reason-morality. However, in fact, Kant's argument of freedom has two approaches: epistemological approach and ethical approach. If the latter method is completed in Critique of Practical Reason, then the former method is completed in Critique of Pure Reason. Through the argumentation of these two approaches, Kant established the absoluteness and reality of individual freedom in academic theory, without relying on any empirical facts, or through the transcendental argumentation of these two approaches, Kant can truly establish the absoluteness of human freedom in academic theory without any cultural background or historical tradition. This further deduces the absoluteness of human rights, dignity and responsibility. This paper will focus on Kant's "epistemological approach" to demonstrating freedom.
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Among modern philosophers, there are two types of philosophers. One is represented by Descartes and Leibniz, who mainly pay attention to the basic problems of knowledge. The other is represented by Hobbes and Rousseau, who care about and discuss social and political philosophy, and the core is to discuss human freedom and rights. Of course, there are other philosophers, such as Locke and Hume, who discuss both the basic problems of knowledge and political philosophy. But the problems in these two fields seem to be separated from each other, and there is no coherent theoretical path.
Kant's great mission in philosophy is also related to these two fields, that is, not only to lay the foundation for all knowledge, but also to demonstrate freedom, thus laying the foundation for the absolute rights, absolute dignity and absolute responsibility of all human individuals. His three famous "Criticism" and other major works all revolve around this mission. But Kant's breakthrough is that he combined the two tasks of laying the foundation for knowledge and demonstrating for freedom into one, making it a work that runs through, rather than two separate tasks. This is reflected in his work of laying the foundation for knowledge, and also in his free argument. This breakthrough work was mainly completed in Critique of Pure Reason.
We humans have all kinds of knowledge such as mathematics and physics. But is this knowledge reliable? In other words, is this knowledge universal? If not, then they are unreliable and therefore cannot be called knowledge. Because one of the most basic qualities of knowledge is to have a universal and inevitable effect on the related objects, otherwise it is not knowledge. But where does this universal inevitability come from? The solution to this problem is to lay the foundation for all possible knowledge.
One of Kant's core tasks in Critique of Pure Reason is to solve the basic problem of the universal inevitability of knowledge.
Before Kant, many philosophers looked for the reliable basis of knowledge from the object of knowledge. Kant believes that this road is impassable, because the universal inevitability of knowledge should be effective for all objects, but the objects we contact can never be "all", but only part. The reason for the transition from the local to the whole is that inductive logic itself cannot solve it.
If an object is not the basis of knowledge, what is it? After analyzing the "basic elements" in Critique of Pure Reason, Kant believes that the two "basic elements" from the subject constitute the foundation of all knowledge, thus making all knowledge universal. The first element is perceptual and intuitive form, including space and time. That is to say, in Kant's view, time and space are regarded as a perceptual form existing in people's minds, which is an attribute or ability of our minds. Time and space are not outside our existence, nor are they independent of our objective attributes. Because if space-time is not a transcendental perceptual form in our mind, we can't understand the spatial relationship between juxtaposition and before and after, and we can't understand the simultaneity and continuity in time.
Since time and space, as a perceptual and intuitive form, is the foundation given to us by all phenomena in this way rather than in another way, time and space is also the primary or initial foundation of all knowledge, because all our knowledge is about phenomena.
However, time and space alone are not enough to form real knowledge. Time and space are only the necessary foundation of all knowledge, not the whole foundation. In Kant's view, in order to form knowledge with universal inevitability, besides the perceptual form of time and space, we must also rely on the second kind of "transcendental elements", that is, four pure concepts endowed by intellectuality, such as quality, quantity, relationship and way, that is, those "categories" used to unify phenomena and things. Among them, the core category is the category of causality, because it is precisely because we have the category of causality beforehand or a priori that we will explore a series of laws (rules) in the phenomenon world.
Here, what is relevant to Kant's work of demonstrating freedom is the origin of these categories. It is by clarifying the origin of categories that Kant, on the one hand, established the transcendental and non-empirical nature of categories, thus completing the work of laying a transcendental foundation for all knowledge, on the other hand, determined the objective boundaries of categories, thus limiting the objective boundaries of all knowledge based on these categories. The definition of knowledge boundary fundamentally means liberating "man" from the identity of knowledge subject and maintaining another more important identity of man, namely "free man".
Therefore, here, we will focus on the origin of categories.
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Generally speaking, category, as a transcendental concept or a purely intellectual concept, is derived from and endowed by intellectuality. They are isomorphic with the perceptual intuitive form * *, forming two transcendental basic elements that make knowledge possible. This has a clear and reliable basis in Kant's text:
"The decomposition of intellectual ability itself is the possibility of studying the concept of' transcendental death' in this way: we only look for the concept of' transcendental' in intellectuality, regard intellectuality as the birthplace of transcendental concept, and analyze the pure universal use of intellectuality. ..... Therefore, we will pursue the original seeds and connotations of pure concepts in people's intellectuality (these concepts have been prepared in them) until these concepts are unfolded in the opportunity of experience, and they are separated from the experience conditions attached to them by the same intellectuality and displayed by their purity. " 1 Here, Kant explicitly regards intellectuality as the birthplace of transcendental concepts. Therefore, it is no problem to say that transcendental concepts or pure concepts come from and are produced by intellectuality. Without knowledge, there can be no concept. However, the question now is, how does intellectuality give a pure concept? Intellectual decomposition and analysis can only give the types of pure concepts, such as quantity, quality, relationship and way, but it is impossible to give the concept itself. A concept type can be empty and have no content, but the concept itself can't have no content, because even if it can have no empirical content, it can't have transcendental content, otherwise, it can't be associated with the object a priori or beforehand. Being able to relate to objects a priori is the premise that all pure concepts can be applied to objects and can specify objects. This means that the pure intellectual concept that can really be applied to objects is a concept with content, not an empty concept. However, "as far as content is concerned, no concept can be generated by analysis." In other words, intellectuality cannot give a pure concept in an analytical way. This means that pure concepts can only be given through synthesis. However, not through empirical synthesis, but through transcendental pure synthesis. So what is pure synthesis? First of all, what is synthesis?
"In the most general sense, I understand synthesis as the action of putting different representations together and putting these heterogeneous representations in one knowledge. And if the heteropoly (representation) is not given empirically, but given a priori (Wenn das mannigfeltigenich Empire, Sondern a priory gegebenist) (just like heteropoly is given in space and time), then such synthesis is pure synthesis. " Here, synthesis is divided into empirical synthesis and pure (transcendental) synthesis. The fundamental difference between them lies in whether the synthesized heteropoly is empirical or transcendental.
Is there a priori heteropoly given? In the usual understanding, heteropoly always seems to be empirical, but it can't be transcendental or transcendental, that is, it can't be given to us before the object. But Kant clearly distinguishes between empirically given heteropoly and innately given heteropoly. In fact, Kant mentioned "transcendental heteropoly" or "transcendental heteropoly given" in at least two places.
One of them is a part of A77=B 102: Raum und Zeit Enthalten Nunen, a Manning Factions der Reinen Anschauung prior, but when gleichwohl zu redefined our goal, the following is what everyone is discussing.
The other place is a section of A79=B 104: Daserste, wasuns zumbehuf der erkennisaller gegenstane a priori geben seinmuss, istdas manningfaltage der anschauung.
However, because people usually think that heteropoly is always empirical, these two paragraphs, which are crucial to understanding Kant's category theory, are ambiguous in translation and understanding. The early version of Lan translated the first sentence of the first paragraph as "space and time contain pure innate intuition …", while Mou Zongsan translated it as "space and time contain a pure transcendental intuition …", and the recent translation by He Li basically maintained this explanation. They all interpreted it a priori as modifying the Dead Soul. But pure intuition itself is transcendental (innate), and it seems that there is no need to emphasize it with transcendentalism. In fact, if Kant himself confirms the existence of "transcendental (congenital) heteropoly", then it is natural to regard transcendental as a modification of ein Mannigfaltiges, at least it is a possible understanding. Therefore, this sentence seems to be translated into "space and time contain purely intuitive transcendental heteropoly ...".
For the second paragraph, almost all versions try to erase the relationship between heteropoly and transcendental. As far as the innate knowledge of all objects is concerned, the first thing that must be given is pure intuition. For the transcendental knowledge of all objects, what must be given first is purely intuitive. Li's translation and Deng's translation also insist on this explanation. They all come down to Dieerkentnisaller Gegenstaende a priori. However, if the prior here must explain the previous nouns, then why not directly explain the previous Gegenstaende like the prior in the first paragraph, which is generally understood? Or, conversely, ask: Why can transcendental go beyond the noun "object" in the second paragraph to modify "knowledge", while transcendental in the first paragraph can only modify "pure intuition" in front, but not beyond "pure intuition" to modify "miscellaneous"?
In fact, the transcendental here should explain gegeben just like the previous sentence of Vendas Manny, Felti Gennichit Empire and Sonden Transcendental Gegebenist. Therefore, this sentence should be translated as: "In order to acquire knowledge about all objects, we must be given purely intuitive heteropoly a priori." Here, the so-called "object" is a phenomenal thing that can be given to us in time and space, and the knowledge about all objects as this phenomenal thing is obviously not available by giving all objects, because we can't give all objects. That is to say, the knowledge about all objects can not be obtained through the synthesis of empirical heteropoly given by intuitive experience, but only through the synthesis of transcendental heteropoly given by pure intuition. Just because "knowledge about all objects" is made possible by the transcendental heterogeneity given by perceptual purity and intuition, it can precede all perceptual objects, but it is transcendental and about all perceptual objects. Otherwise, there will never be "knowledge about all objects".