Kant's Transcendental Idealism

[Music] hello and welcome to philosophy vibe the channel where we discuss and debate different philosophical ideas today we're going to be focusing on some metaphysics around the philosophy of perception and looking into the works of immanuel kant and the fascinating theory of transcendental idealism amazing before we get started there are three main concepts we need to briefly go over within the philosophy of perception the first one is realism now realism is the idea that the reality that you perceive is exactly what exists in the external world what your mind perceives the objects the colors etc is exactly what corresponds to the external world there is no difference between what you perceive and what exists outside your mind and outside your own perception from there we have indirect realism this is the idea that there does exist physical objects outside of your mind however a lot of what you perceive is mind-dependent it is subjective it does not exist outside your mind so when we perceive an object the things like the extension and the figure these exist in the external world whereas the things like the object's color or taste or smell these are mind dependent they exist solely in your mind not in the external world we therefore have an indirect view of reality half of it is external half of it is mind-dependent ideas and finally we have idealism this is the rejection of the material world altogether it claims that everything we perceive is solely mind-dependent all that exists is minds and ideas there is no physical external world beyond our minds great summary thank you ok so back to the topic at hand now rather than picking one of these three lanes in the 18th century emmanuel kant in fact developed a new approach to the philosophy of perception known as transcendental idealism broadly speaking you can say that transcendental idealism sits in between indirect realism and idealism as a theory really how starting from an indirect realist perspective we understand a large part of the reality we perceive exists solely in the mind but still there does exist a physical reality yes kant takes this a little further but does not jump straight into a full idealist perspective so we typically agree the five senses to be mind dependent the perception of color taste smell sound and physical sensations kant however argued in addition to this the concepts of space and time were also functions of the human mind what do you mean kant saw the concepts of space and time as a priori forms of the human intuition our minds come stopped with the ability to perceive the external world through a spatial temporal lens think of it like this space and time are not things in and of themselves at the same time they are not part of other objects yet they do exist we all understand what space and time is and we understand their existence so how is this the case how can something not exist in itself not be part of something else yet have full existence that we all understand the reason is because space and time are intuitions of the human mind they do not exist outside the human mind and outside the human experience okay so the external world does not have space or time correct when we perceive an object kant explains we are just experiencing the appearance of an object what we cognize is not what actually exists outside of our minds let's use this example i am looking at a carrot on a plate on a table now as i look at these objects my mind is creating their color the taste the smells etc etc but what i'm also perceiving is that these objects are occupying a portion of space and are existing throughout time these objects are spatial temporal or at least that is how i am cognizing them so what is actually happening my mind is getting the raw data of these objects as kant would say from the things in themselves as they exist in the external world that has no space all the time as the data goes through the lens of my mind my intuitions organizes this data so i can as kant describes intuits them basically my mind orders this data for me into a spatial temporal format so i can understand it as the data from the external world passes into my mind my time space intuitions filter order and arrange these objects into what i am currently perceiving interesting so time and space are solely products of the mind outside our minds time and space do not exist in the external world and so if there were no human minds to perceive the world if every human died so too would time and space as they solely exist in the human mind they are completely mind-dependent okay but the objects we perceive and experience they do exist in the external world yes in some sense but not as i am perceiving them this is not full idealism like that of george barkley there does exist an external world and the objects we are perceiving are coming from this external world our minds are not creating the objects the reason i am seeing the carrot and plate and table is because there really is a carrot plate and table in the external world feeding me that perception it is not that these objects are mental ideas they physically exist but our intuitions are just ordering and filtering them so we can process and intuit them this is the metaphysics of the theory all objects exist outside of our minds but what we perceive are just the appearances of the objects cans calls this the phenomena outside of our minds these objects exist independently the things in themselves which cant refers to as the numenor the true raw objects as they naturally exist outside the filters of our intuitions they exist in an external world without space and time i see now we can never have direct access to the pneumonia our human minds are programmed to perceive the world in a spatial temporal way all we can perceive and experience is the phenomena this is where the term transcendental comes from transcendental meaning transcendent beyond the human experience going beyond what is directly in front of us yes this makes sense so there we have kant's transcendental idealism our minds possess a priori intuitions of space and time space and time are solely forms of the human intuition everything we perceive is filtered through our subjective time and space intuition the objects we intuit are just appearances of the actual objects existing independently from our minds in an external world these independent objects are the things in themselves that we can never directly perceive since emmanuel kant's theory in the 18th century scientific works around space and time developed a lot the early 20th century we saw einstein's general theory of relativity reached the forefront of scientific inquiry and one can argue this scientific investigation and discovery gives huge support and credibility to cancer metaphysics very fascinating theory a compelling and strong approach to the philosophy of perception indeed however as with all metaphysical theories kant's transcendental idealism comes with a lot of problems like what well transcendental idealism tries to blend indirect realism with idealism in effect i think it meets all the objections that both sides are faced with how okay let's start with the idealism side one of the main arguments against idealism was explaining the continuity that exists without minds present to perceive a typical example would be if i lit a candle and left the room hours later when i returned the candle has burnt to the bottom and the wax has melted how if physical objects only exist in the mind's perception did this happen if there was no mind to perceive the candle i believe this same objection can be applied to transcendental idealism i disagree you need to remember that transcendental idealism still believes in the existence of the external world unlike traditional idealism there still exists a physical world with physical objects in themselves it is not the objects that need a mind's perception to exist rather the appearance of the objects the objects in themselves still exist external to the human mind yes i understand but transcendental idealism still holds that time and space of subjective ideas and this is why the continuity problem still applies how can a candle continue to burn if there is no time how can wax continue to melt if there is no time the word itself continuity is a temporal word it implies that something is persisting throughout time how can the candle stay alight if it does not take up a portion of space so if i light a candle and leave the room i am no longer perceiving the candle which would mean it is no longer a spatial temporal object yet somehow even without my perception the candle continues to burn it continues to exist playing by temporal and spatial rules how if space and time is completely subjective and mind-dependent can this happen i see what you're saying but still behind the mental appearance of the candle and the flame that we perceive is a physical candle and flame in itself whilst we can't definitively say how the continuity persists i think it's fair to say that continuity makes more sense as there is a mind independent world we are getting our perception from no i disagree sure we have the external world in place but an external world devoid of space and time doesn't allow for continuity it doesn't really allow for any causation as causation is purely a temporal thing time is needed for cause and effect to happen so how can appearances follow the logical rules of time if the things in themselves where the appearances come from do not follow these same temporal laws this is what i'm struggling to get my head around cause and effect cannot be applied to things in themselves so how can they be applied to the appearances yes i see the problem outside of this kant's transcendental idealism is met with problems from the indirect realist side as well go on as with all indirect realism theories we have a veil of perception thrown over our eyes we can only perceive the world indirectly we have no idea what the external world is beyond this veil we are in no position to guess or infer anything the same applies here according to kant all we have access to is appearances this is the only world we know the phenomena how then can we start theorizing about the world that is beyond our perception beyond our understanding how can we start theorizing about the pneumonia kant basically claims things in themselves exist but we do not know and we cannot know anything about these things in themselves this is a huge problem if all we have access to is appearances then why should we reach further and claim there exists this external world that we cannot know or that we cannot understand or cognize or intuit this external world starts to feel like a far-reaching fantasy hmm good point if you would like the script to this video and you would like to help support the channel then please check out our philosophy of perception ebook available on amazon a very interesting read it has the scripts to our lock video our berkeley and hume video as well as our script on celebsism but that's all the time we have for now thank you for watching we hope you enjoyed the vibe and what does everyone else think who out there is a transcendental idealist and why do you think this is the best approach to the philosophy of perception let us know in the comments below don't forget to like and share and for more philosophical debates please subscribe to our channel take care and we look forward to seeing you all soon bye

Channel: Philosophy Vibe

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Keywords: Philosophy, Vibe, transcendental idealism, transcendental idealism kant, transcendental idealism explained, transcendental idealism immanuel kant, kant's transcendental idealism, idealism philosophy, indirect realism philosophy, transcendental idealism criticisms, immanuel kant philosophy, philosophy of perception, Kant time and space, time and space philosophy, kant perception of reality, phenomena kant, noumena kant, phenomena noumena kant, phenomena vs noumena

Id: JZEhrABp2wQ

Length: 13min 3sec (783 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 17 2021