Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, Robert Paul Wolff Lecture 9

and so we come to the last in this series of lectures on Immanuel Kant's great work the critique of Pure Reason let me just remind you of where we started so that you will understand the connection between that and where we are going to end when Khan started his philosophical work he confronted three conflicts the first was the conflict in metaphysics and in science between Leibniz and Newton a conflict which concerned the nature of space the nature of time the nature of material substance the nature of the causal interactions or non-causal interactions between substances as well as many other things besides the second conflict was a conflict between the rationalist and the empiricists an epistemological conflict or conflict in the theory of knowledge that concerned the sources and nature and reliability of our knowledge claims the rationalist claiming that true knowledge came through the use of reason alone and that sense perception was an unreliable variable and deceiving source of information the empiricists claiming contrariwise that all of our knowledge of the world came from sense perception initially and that reason was useful only in organizing and arranging and drawing inferences from what sense perception gave us since Cahn thought that the rationalists had failed to provide an adequate justification for their claims he came to refer to them as dogmatists and because especially in the philosophy of david hume the empiricists moved more and more in the direction of a skepticism about the possibility of knowledge itself he referred to them as skeptics so the second conflict was a conflict either between rationalist and empiricist or as kant came to think of it between dogmatists and sky Dick's the third conflict a conflict that agitated considerably although it did not come up in his earliest writings was the conflict between free will and determinism between the view on the one hand that the moral agency of human beings their moral responsibility rested on their absolute freedom to act on the basis of moral principles freely and independently of causal influences on them as opposed to the determinist view that human action like all other events in the spatio-temporal world were causally determined by events that have happened before them these were the three conflicts he confronted and and his goal was to resolve these conflicts in the pursuit of which he invoked an ancient tradition the distinction between appearance and reality the distinction as I remarked earlier that goes all the way back to the writings of Plato and had played an important part in the philosophy of the thousand years between Plato the 2,000 years between Plato and Kant in the inaugural dissertation of 1770 Kant thought that he had successfully resolved these conflicts through the invocation of the distinction between appearance and reality and it was a resolution which gave full marks to each side of the dispute according to Kant the realm of independent reality was the realm of Leibniz of the rationalists and of freedom the realm of appearance was the realm of Newton and Pyrrhus ISM and determinism and when Kant presented his inaugural dissertation he was confident that he had resolved these three conflicts almost immediately can't realize that there was a fundamental problem namely that there was no coherent justification for the claim that we could have necessary universal knowledge knowledge a priori of independen reality and so in 1771 Kant gave up that claim for all time and never went back he tilted his philosophy decisively in the direction of the empiricists in the direction of Newton rather than Leibniz by force wearing any claim that we could have a foreigner a knowledge of independent reality and he was confident enough to send to say in a letter to his friend Marcus Hertz in 1771 that very shortly he would be publishing a critique of reason that would embody this new philosophical position the position he had staked out was complex in the following way instead of saying that reason gives us knowledge of independent reality and sensation or perception gives us knowledge of appearance he now had moved to the position that reason and sensibility together were required to give us knowledge of appearance and that neither of them was capable of giving us knowledge of independent reality but almost immediately again Kant was forced to change his plans because in 1772 he read the German translation of this little book an essay on the nature and immutability of truth by James Beattie where he encountered lengthy quotations from the treatise of human nature in which were contained Humes devastating critique of causal inference and can't immediately recognized that the resolution of these conflicts that he had worked out in a rather formulaic way would not do and that it would have to entertain much deeper and more complex investigation in order ultimately to defend the Newtonian science that he and the Euclidian geometry that he was quite convinced were true of the world of appearance this led to the nine years between his reading of the essay on truth and his eventual publication of the critique of pure reason for the last eight weeks and more I have been explaining to you as best I was able the solution that can't arrived at and I have been scattering through these lectures a series of promissory notes I have been said over and over again that eventually I would present to you a straightforward argument from premise to conclusion starting with the premise that Kant arrived at that he took from Descartes I think or rather as confident the I think can be attached to all of my representations and leading as the conclusion leading to the conclusion that we have a prior knowledge of a realm of objects and that the causal maxim is valid of that realm today I'm going to cash in those IOUs what I'm going to do in this rather brief lecture is to pull together all the things that I've been saying for some weeks now and to present them to you in the form of this formal argument and you'll see behind me behind my head a stand with a number of boards on them that I had staples make up and what I'm now going to do is to take you step-by-step through the argument reconstructing all of the parts of the argument that we have found in those early pages the first half of the critique of pure reason there is no place in the critique where Kant lays the argument out in this fashion this is my reconstruction of it and it follows therefore that there will be many other commentators who think that's very nice professor Wolff but that's wrong or it's inadequate or it comes at it from the wrong angle or that isn't what caught was really about and as I've said that's not something that troubles me that is true of every great work of philosophy it is why we still read Plato even though the greatest commentator on Plato was of course his pupil Aristotle and that was 2,500 years ago 2,400 years ago or whatever but we still struggle with play-doh as we struggle with Aristotle with Descartes with lightness with locked with Berkeley with Hume with Canton with all the other great philosophers now what I'm going to do is to scoot out of the way so that you can see those of you who are watching this on youtube you will have a clearer picture of these boards as I go through them one at a time let me just say that when this is put up on YouTube attached to it will be a PDF file which contains these boards as a series of pages so if you want to download them and keep them or save save them you will be able to view them without going through the video over and over again alright let's get started we start as all formal proofs do with a statement of what is to be proved to prove there is an objective order of events and everything in it which happens that is begin to be presupposes something upon which it follows according to a rule the second part of that is the statement of the causal maxim and the first part of it is the statement that the causal maxim is not really true if there is an objective order of events there actually is an objective order of events once again we are going to prove or Kant is going to prove there is an objective order of events and everything in it which happens that is begins to be presupposes something upon which it follows according to a rule now let's get started step one in the proof is the premise of the argument step one premise all the contents of my consciousness are bound up in a unity you'll recall that I this is I talked about this early on in this series of lectures the I think can be attached to all of my representations I gave you the little exam which I got from William James who got it from France Brentano this is the premise that caught this is conservation of Descartes cogito I think and the crucial thing about it is that it is a claim which says nothing about the existence of objects in space and time it's only says something about the unity of my own subjective consciousness what is more Kant thinks or I am interpreting him as thinking that this was a premise that not even Hume in the depths of his skepticism could coherently and consistently doubt because if you were even to attempt to doubt that he would have to assert something and in the process of asserting that he would implicitly be saying that the I think attaches to what I am saying he would be granting the unity of his subjective consciousness that's the premise now we come to the now now we come to the first actual step in the proof and what we have here is of course a series of statements which are summaries of the extended discussions that Kant gives us in various parts of the critique the only way to introduce synthetic unity into a manifold of contents of consciousness is by reproducing it in imagination according to a rule you'll remember that I made a big deal out of this passage from a 104 where Kant says that a concept is always as regards its form something Universal that serves as a rule synthetic unity is to say the unity of a men eNOS the unity of a variety of contents of consciousness and the only way to introduce such synthetic unity into a manifold of contents Kant claims is by reproducing it in imagination according to a rule that is in many ways the key step in the entire proof he starts with a mystery how can there be a oneness of a menace how can the contents of my consciousness which are varied and and you enumerable all be bound up in a single unity of consciousness and his key is that they must have been reproduced in imagination according to a rule that's step two step one being the premise sorry yes step three is in effect a definition that defining mark of objectivity is necessity of connection that Kant says is what we mean by objectivity necessity of connection and you will call that he talks about that repeatedly in the text and now he says synthesis ie reproduction an imagination according to a rule confers necessity of connection on a manifold which brings us to step five if all the contents of my consciousness are bound up in a unity then they have kua representations an objective order this is an inference from steps two three and four with some substitution and conversion which I'll explain in just a moment what contests done is to present these three steps and then to combine them through the use of logic in this intermediate conclusion which has the form of a conditional if all the contents of my consciousness are bound up in the unity then they have kua representations in an objective order and then he combines this step with the premise and he says the contents of my consciousness have quar representations an objective order which is to say there is an objective order of events this comes from steps 1 and 5 plus modus ponens now that's all gone by fairly fast so what I'm going to do is to put these boards back and go up go through it again and then on the I will present the bear logical form of the argument so that you can see that without the distractions of all of these mysterious and difficult terms so if I can do this without collapsing the easel let me go through it one more time there we go to prove there is an objective order of events that is to say you understand to claim that there is an objective order of events is to deny is to deny subjectivism it is to do it is to deny skepticism about the material world there is an objective order of events and everything in it which happens that is begins to be presupposes something upon which it follows according to a rule that's what he's eventually going to prove at the very end on the last board he starts with a premise his first premise the I think can be attached to all of my representations all the contents of my consciousness are bound up in a unity the first step in the argument the only way to introduce synthetic unity into a manifold of contents of consciousness is by reproducing it in imagination according to a rule that is again the crucial step in the argument it is the notion of rule governed reproduction which allows comp to take the metaphor of synthesis and cash it in for an actual description of what the mind does and you will recall that cod was nervous about this step because he knew that it was essential but he also recognized that it was a psychological description of what the mind does and that he felt gave it something the air of an empirical claim that might be rebutted so in the you were called in the first edition preface he refers to this which appears in the subjective deduction and then says it's actually a psychological description so it's not really essential and then he says in a parenthesis although as we shall see it really is he knew that was essential but he was nervous about it and he left it out of the second edition deduction which is one of the reasons why puzzling as this may be to some of you who are cons why I spent so much time talking about the first addition deduction and relatively little time talking about the second addition deduction that's the crucial step now Kant says gives us a definition or an analysis the defining mark of objectivity is necessity of connection and then step four synthesis that is to say reproduction in imagination according to a rule confers necessity of connection on a manifold here the crucial element is the analysis of rule governed activities and you'll recall that I spent some time talking about the way in which rule governed activities imply something about that which they govern it the fact that an activity is rule governed has as a consequence that a certain subset of activities or elements are singled out as being defined by that rule and the succession in which they are performed is determined or necessitated by the rule so that we can say of something that is done in accordance with the rule then it's correctly done or incorrectly done we can say that we have succeeded or failed in following the rule something that you cannot do about an idle fantasy fancy of imagination I mean if I'm daydreaming suppose if I'm daydreaming that I I desire to have a daydream about meeting a beautiful woman having an affair I would never think such a thing since I'm married but suppose I were to do that well I started out by imagining that I see a beautiful woman at a party and I go up to her and I speak to her and then I think to myself well that's not a very good fantasy because given the fact that I'm not terribly good-looking around 82 years old it's implausible she would just decide to respond to me so I changed the fantasy and decide that this time she comes up and talks to me there's nothing right or wrong about the fantasy I can make it anyway I wish but if I'm trying to remember what I had for breakfast saying that I had for breakfast Eggs Benedict would be a mistake even though it's a nice fantasy because what I actually had was a piece of toast in half an orange and an egg beater omelette which is not exactly Eggs Benedict there is something correct or incorrect about memory that is not correct or incorrect about imagined about fantasy that's the point synthesis ie reproduction and imagination according to a rule confers necessity of connection on a manifold now Kant combines all of this in a conclusion a hypothetical conclusion if all the contents of my consciousness are bound up in a unity then they have kua representations an objective order and then combining five with the premise which is that mic the contents of my consciousness are bound up in a unity he draws the conclusion that the contents of my consciousness have kua representations an objective order which is to say there is an objective order of events now here is the structure of the argument thus far suppose that we abbreviate these lengthy sentences and let P stand for the sentence about the unity of consciousness P stands for a sentence it doesn't stand for a phrase or for a word but you know in order to shorten us and make it easy to grasp P is this is the assertion that the contents of my consciousness are bound up in an in a unity Q is the statement that such unity is achieved by reproduction according to a rule R is the statement that my my experience has objectivity that I encounter object and s is is the statement that the various contents of my consciousness are connected necessarily the structure of the argument is then this step one is the premise P step two in step two con says the only way to get you of consciousness is by reproduction according to a rule that is to say P only if Q and an alternative way of expressing P only if Q is to say if not Q then not P because P only if Q means if you don't have Q you don't have P well if not you then not P is equivalent to if P then Q that's what I meant by conversion I don't know whether that's the correct technical term step three is simply this definition R equals s objectivity is necessity of connection for event gives us if P and if P then Q for is if Q then s that is to say if reproduction according to a rule than necessity of connection substituting R 4 s gives us if Q then R now if P then Q and if Q then R gives us if P then R that's step 5 and step 6 is simply modus ponens P and if P then R yields are that's the structure of the argument thus far in a bare-bones way and it's a very elementary truth functional argument not even quantification for those of you who are logic buffs now can't move Zahn by introducing a second premise the form of inner sense is time and therefore all the representations of my consciousness considered simply qualm mental contents must be arranged in a temporal order you will recall that cot doesn't use this premise in the deduction of the pure concepts of understanding he introduces it in an odd way in the passage called schematism and then after the stigmatism in the analytic of principles the temporal form of our experience plays a central role you'll also recall that in the inaugural dissertation that was space rather than time which was the central form of sensibility that Kant was concerned with because he thought that it was space which underlay Euclidean geometry but when he came to the critique of pure reason things got turned in the in the transcendental aesthetic spaces still as it were the favored relation time was the poor relation indicating that the transcendental aesthetic was still echoing the position of the inaugural dissertation but once Kant got beyond the transcendental aesthetic then things shifted dramatically space seemed ceased to be an important factor in the argument and time became the central factor because reproduction in imagination according to a rule is reproduction of a temporal array of sensibility according to a temporal world a rule specifying in what temporal order the various elements of my subjective consciousness are to be reproduced so this is now the secondary prep the second premise he has remembered he has arrived already at an intermediate conclusion now he adds this second additional premise and this now enables him to say but since these representations must be reproduced an imagination according to a rule before they can be admitted to the unity of consciousness this he is taking from his previous conclusion they must have a rule determined time order which is the order of their reproduction that's from the secondary premise he is simply adding to the conclusion he's derived so far the additional premise that the organization of my subjective consciousness is temporal this then permits him to conclude any mental content in order to be treated as a representation with objective reference must be reproduced in a temporal sequence of representations according to a rule this from previous steps which is to say everything which happens that is begins to be presupposes something upon which it follows temporarily according to a rule and there is an objective order happenings or events and that is what was to be proved that is the total argument as I found it in the critique all those years ago now if I can move back into the picture without knocking light there we go and that's it that is the argument that I set out all those years ago how long is it now 62 years ago to find the argument that I finally found when I taught the critique for the first time at Harvard in the fall of 1959 which is now what 41 57 years ago it's the argument which is this is centrally presented in my book Kant's theory of mental activity it is not at all everything in the critique Lord knows it's not even everything at all in the first half of the critique and it is not at all the only possible way of interpreting the critique let me emphasize that but it is my way of interpreting the critique it's the argument I found when I went looking for it now I will admit that I was profoundly influenced in my search for this argument by three things of a quite personal nature first the fact that the very first encounter that I had with formal philosophy at the age of 16 was a course on symbolic logic with willard van orman quine then a middle-aged rule egytian at harvard and later a very famous philosopher second there's the fact that when I read David Humes treatise of human nature I was enthralled by it not only by his beautiful style but also by the power of the argument and third they're encountering their critique with Clarence Irving Lewis in that course in the spring of 1953 seasonally in a way that I had never been seized before by any philosophical work cons critique of pure reason was I think my first love and like all first loves one remembers it fondly forever after how I approached can't God helped me through the eyes of Hegel or if I approached can't through the eyes of any of the other great philosophers who have been influenced by him I probably would have looked for different things in the text and found my way to a different interpretation I say this because I want you very much to understand how one really studies philosophy it's not just a matter of swabbing up some stuff in a textbook it's a matter of engaging yourself with a great work struggling with it and finding in it your own interpretation now that doesn't mean any interpretation there are lots of wrong interpretations but just as there are a number of different ways of playing Beethoven's Violin Concerto brilliantly but also an endless number of ways of just miss playing it or playing it badly so there are a number of ways of reading a great work of philosophy successfully and many ways of just miss reading it or reading it badly not every way is good even if it feels good one must attend to the text and attend to the argument there is of course a great deal more in the critique the first half of the critique which we've been talking about the aesthetic and the analytic does not even take up half of the book after we finish the analytic there is the transcendental dialectic which runs longer than the transcendental analytic and the aesthetic combined and in that part of the book is all sorts of interesting stuff including perhaps most famously cause refutation of the proofs for the existence of God a refutation which almost single-handedly although with help from David Hume killed rational theology as a major branch of Western philosophy a branch of philosophy that had existed and flourished the 2,000 years before Cointreau after Kant people went on believing in God because you can't stop people from doing foolish things but they stopped doing serious rational theology except in Catholic universities which had a certain professional commitment to the subject but all of that is in the later part of the critique and I think nine lectures on the Conte is about as much as YouTube can bear although I must admit I am endlessly eager to find new clips from the Big Bang Theory but I think nine lectures on the critique will do it remains therefore only for me to thank all of you both those of you in this classroom and all of you who have been watching on YouTube for staying with me and for the great courtesy of allowing me to talk to you about my favorite work of philosophy I am grateful to you I hope that what I've had to say will stimulate you to study more about count about his ethical theory to go back to study the critique even more and perhaps even to go on and read the third critique a strange and difficult work which had a profound influence on the 19th century but has since I think not had the influence that it deserves at any rate I thank you all and goodbye

Channel: Alex Campbell

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Rating: 4.967742 out of 5

Keywords: lecture 9, kant, robert paul wolff, critique, critique of pure reason, synthetic, a priori, hume, causation, time, synthesis, ego, transcendental, idealism, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy, 18th century, german

Id: VmAl23AjmMw

Length: 31min 44sec (1904 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 08 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/locused]

Would anyone that has watched all of these mind informing me as to the utility of seeing them all?

As someone with a minor interest in moral philosophy, but not particularly Kantian philosophy, I'm curious if this is worth the time.

Any personal feedback as to whether or not this is worthwhile?

[u/Tempus--Edax--Rerum]

I haven't watched these yet(but I will)... but I have read Kants Crititique of pure reason.(the work that he is actually famous for)

He examines methods by which we aquire knowledge,he focuses on metaphysics, he examines the nature of reality through the lens of human observer. He regards stoic man as the ideal man( he him self followed a "hybrid model" of stoicism/asceticism).

I havent read his moral philosophy. But having read Decart,Hume,Seneca,Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, Critique of Pure Reason...I have an idea for what he is going to say..

Before you read Kant...you need to read Plato,Aristotle(at least an overview),Seneca, David Humes treatise on human nature(full work), broad overview of Leibniz, broad overview of Decart.

This is not a begginer friendly book.

If Montaigne's full work would be classified as Arithemtic, Kants critique would classified Quantum Physics...