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Objects exist and we can sense them, think about them, and the relation between them, and reason about them. The relation, however, between an objects existence and the activities of sensing them, thinking about them and reasoning about them, is a complex one that Kant believes neither common sense nor the rationalism and empiricism of his day can fathom. The ancient Greeks did not speak about reality in these terms. It has been noted, too, that the Latinisation of Greek Culture and Greek Philosophy transformed the term “hypokeimonon” into subjektum. This together with the translation of “ousia (primary being) into substantia set the stage for an epistemological interpretation of the being that underlies all appearance and all knowledge of it. Kant’s Copernican Revolution is an attempt to restore our relation to Being and give an account of that which remains the same throughout change: the enduring subject. This account takes the form of a metaphysical/transcendental inquiry in which the existence of reality is neither assumed by the subject nor constituted by the subject characterised by Kant in terms of the faculties of sensibility, understanding and reason. This is clearly neither a realist nor an idealist position and perhaps is best construed as an elaboration upon Aristotelian hylomorphism.
The First Critique is a paradoxical work in that it provides us with a very technical abstract account of experience (concepts and intuitions), but it nevertheless is very concerned to limit metaphysical speculation by principles of experience. Kant criticises all principles that transcend any possible experience, especially principles purporting to be rational. Experience is, of course, broadly defined, and includes not just what happens to us but also what we do, e.g. thinking. Insofar as we are dealing with the latter notion of experience, Kant focuses upon my understanding of reality in terms of the “I think”. In the course of the examination of the first person case of thinking the focus is upon not my sensory encounters with reality but rather my understanding of what is encountered–an understanding that is concerned with objects that:
“render intelligible the objective validity of its a priori concepts”(Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, Trans, Kemp Smith, N., London, Macmillan, 1929, P.12)
In this form of examination there is also a rejection of reference to examples which appeal to the faculty of Sensibility and a verdict in favour of conceptual clarity and distinctness. Concepts are a form of general principle and determine, therefore, the way in which an object is thought about. Logic is an important tool in Kant’s investigation and is applicable in both theoretical and practical forms of reasoning. The telos of these forms of reasoning is either epistemé (knowledge) or making something ( the object of the thought) actual. Galileo, Torricelli and Stahl are cited as examples of scientists who refused to be led by natures leading strings, and instead forced nature to answer questions formulated in a tribunal of reason. The tools of judges in such a tribunal are both logical reasoning and the experiment. The procedure of the tribunal ought to provide a guideline for metaphysical reflection (The Queen of the Sciences):
“Hitherto it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects. But all attempts to extend our knowledge of objects by establishing something in regard to them a priori, by means of concepts have, on this assumption ended in failure. We must therefore make trial whether we may not have more success in the tasks of metaphysics, if we suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge.”(P.22)
This is the famous “Copernican Revolution” initiated by Kant, and the difference between his Critical Philosophy and Aristotle’s hylomorphic Philosophy may be seen in Kant’s focus upon the idea of an object. This focus was a reflection of the epistemological discussions of his era– a discussion which , prior to Kant, disregarded the earlier integration of epistemological and metaphysical issues we encounter in Aristotle. Kant’s “destruction” of the metaphysical projects of his times aimed at a better integration of these two perspectives. Kant’s “revolution” also required a division of the mind into the faculties of Sensibility, Understanding, and Reason, and this in turn also encouraged a focus upon objects and what we can know of them via observation and experiment as well as what we can know of them via a priori knowledge. Objects. concepts, and principles are a reflection, then, of the activity of the above faculties but the focus upon the object is also an important consequence of Kant’s emphasis upon the importance of the principles of experience in his Philosophy. A priori knowledge was another important emphasis and also necessary to give an exhaustive account of scientific activity and theory in terms of the principle of sufficient reason. Kant criticises the metaphysical tendency to abandon all contact with experience and insists upon the role of the understanding and transcendental structures of the mind in determining what is possible, actual and necessary in experience. Critical thinking, then uses the principles of noncontradiction in the following manner:
“For what necessarily forces us to transcend the limits of experience and of all appearances is the unconditioned which reason by necessity and by right demands in things as required to complete the series of conditions. If, then, on the supposition that our empirical knowledge conforms to objects as things in themselves, we find that the unconditioned cannot be thought without contradiction and that when, on the other hand, we suppose that our representations of things as they are given to us, does not conform to these things as they are in themselves, but that these objects as appearances, conform to our mode of representation, the contradiction vanishes…..(P.22)
This mode of representation can be intuitive or conceptual dependent upon the faculty of mind involved and dependent upon the nature of the experience. The above makes it clear why sensibility or intuition as such is not co-extensive with what is real (in-itself). Kant will later claim that sensibility plays an important role in what we regard as “empirically real”. Kant further insists that things-in-themselves, as a consequence, cannot be known but that we can, however, think about them and reflect upon them.
The discussion of Practical Reasoning also confirms the above conclusion of theoretical thinking but its focus is upon action and the will that motivates it:
“there is no contradiction in supposing that one and the same will is, in the appearance, that is, in its visible acts, necessarily subject to the law of nature, and so far not free, while yet as belonging to a thing-in-itself, it is not subject to that law, and is therefore free.”(P.28)
So, we cannot know that we are free but are able to think this idea of practical reason, and it is critical for Kant’s ethical theory that this be so, because otherwise there would be no metaphysics of morals: merely a theory representing the determining causes of action. We must, Kant insists, ask not for the law-like causes of action, but rather for the reasons for action. Kant’s theory has distinct advantages over analytical theories which flatly reject the Aristotelian postulate that all human activities aim at the good, and probably also the Aristotelian claim that we praise people for the good that they do and blame them for the harm they cause by not doing what they ought to do. Unless, as Kant claims, freedom of choice trumped being caused to do these same things, praise and blame would be meaningless. There would be no general attitude in which people expected other people to do what they ought to do. On analytical views where the world is defined as the totality of facts, everything that is done is merely a fact, and there would be little point in praising anyone for anything–we do not praise reality for being what it is and not something else. Perhaps our regret or joy would then focus on the cause or causal chain that brought the event of the action about (and the associated “sensations”). For many analytical philosophers, the cause and the effect are neither logically nor conceptually connected and this leaves us in contexts of explanation with the refuge of many empiricists, the so-called “law of association”. Many attempts to construct psychological theories from such unlikely elements have been attempted, including the theory of the pragmatist, (and enemy of metaphysics), William James. Paradoxically, however, James’ definition of Psychology might have been found acceptable by the targets of his attacks (e.g. Aristotle and Kant):
“The Science of Mental Life, both its phenomena and conditions.”(Principles of Psychology, James, W, New York, Dover Publications, 1890, P.1)
James’ pragmatism is, however, grounded in materialism as is evident in his interpretation of the conditions of mental life:
“The experiences of the body thus are one of the conditions of the faculty of memory being what it is. And a very small amount of reflection on the facts shows that one part of the body, namely, the brain, is the part whose experiences are directly concerned.”(P.4)
One of the major laws of brain functions is of course the “law of association”. Given James’ admission that the boundary-line of the mental is obscure, and also his claim that:
“a certain amount of brain physiology may be presupposed as included in Psychology”( P.5)
we can but wonder whether the stage is not being prepared for another act in the drama or dance of the materialists and the dualists. James, however, mysteriously defines association in the following way:
“Association, so far as the word stands for an effect between things thought of—it is things, not ideas, which are associated in the mind….And so far as association stands for a cause, it is between processes in the brain–it is these which by being associated in certain ways, determine what successive objects shall be thought.”( P.554)
The only “things” in the brain, however, are neurones, and these are either connected with each other or not in various networks. We should recall that Psychological theory concerns itself with learning and one physiological definition of learning is:
“The facilitation of neuronal pathways such that, as a result, a type of experience is present that was not present before.”
James takes the example of a child reaching for the attractive stimulus of the light of a candle and as a consequence burning his fingers. The motor activity and the consequent sensation of pain (response) are associated in a network that now prevents the completion of the reflexive reaction to the light. A question that might arise here, given James’ earlier reflection is: “Is pain a thing?” It surely is an experience, but it is an experience that is undergone and the question then becomes whether the reflex operation of reaching for the candle is an experience? John Dewey in his work “Art as Experience”(Dewey, J., New York, Capricorn Books, 1958) defined experience both in terms of what is undergone, and in terms of what is done. The OED in its turn, defines experience as “practical contact with facts and events”, and this suggests that both sensory and motor events can be elements of experience. Yet in terms of the above quote by James, we still remain sceptical about the claim that a pain can be a thing. It certainly can be a fact, but it is not a fact that I observe in the normal case of my experience of pain. I can observe “things” and order them in causal networks. The act of reaching, and the feeling of pain, however, are not “things”, but the one event certainly causes the other, and the child would not have been transformed by the experience unless the events occurred in the context of a principle that prevented the effect of pain upon the next encounter with the exciting stimulus. Surely, one can insist, it is this kind of principle that we ought to be reflecting upon in a work entitled “Principles of Psychology”.
For Kant, pain is certainly something that we undergo and it is part of the activity of the faculty of sensibility which ought to be accounted for under the heading of “Physical Anthropology”. It is, however, “Pragmatic Anthropology”, Kant insists, that concerns itself with what we do and the principles behind what we do. In Kant’s view the ontological distinction between what we do and what we undergo is a key distinction that ought to be observed, and these ought also to be the concern of different disciplines. In Modern Philosophical Psychology, as we have seen, in our previous reflections on the History of Psychology, the sensation emerged as the postulated fundamental element of psychic life and consciousness. We argued that this was probably the result of materialist tendencies wishing to “atomise” and wishing to reduce the psychic whole to more comprehensible elements.
Merleau-Ponty, (MP) in a work entitled “Phenomenology of Perception.”(Trans Smith, C., London, Routledge, 1962) comments on the tendency to focus upon sensation:
“if we try to seize sensation within the perspective of the bodily phenomena which pave the way to it, we find not a psychic individual, a function of certain known variables, but a formation already bound up with a larger whole, already endowed with a meaning distinguishable only in degree from the more complex perceptions.”(P.10)
The brain, MP argues, is not a collection of contents (“things”) or facts, Rather its structures are ordered in terms of psychological functions or principles. The system of sensations of colour, for example, belong to a more comprehensive life-structure such that:
“The destruction of sight, whatever the injuries be sustained, follows the same law: all colours are affected in the first pace, and lose their saturation. Then the spectrum is simplified being reduced to four and soon to two colours: finally a monochrome grey stage is reached, although the pathological colour is never identifiable with any normal one.Thus in central as in peripheral lesions the loss of nervous substance results not merely in a deficiency of certain qualities but in the change to a less differentiated and more primitive structure. Conversely, normal functioning must be understood as a process of integration in which the text of the external world is not so much copied as composed”(P.10)
MP goes on to claim that physiological events obey biological and psychological laws. He does not however name these laws in the way Freud does. Freud regards the state of homeostasis the brain strives for, a result of the operation of the Energy Regulation Principle(ERP). This is the most primitive brain function for Freud. The next level up in the hierarchy concerns the psychological functioning of the entire organism and this occurs under the auspices of the Pleasure-pain Principle(PPP). It is at this level that the faculty of sensibility becomes the focus of attention for the Psychologist. Finally we arrive at the Reality Principle(RP) which governs the most complex aspects of mental functioning for human forms of life. This is the Kantian realm of the understanding/reason which for Freud is the field of operation for the agencies of the ego and superego. James does not directly appeal to any of these principles or laws but rather to the law of association between things, and the causal relations between them, thus succumbing to the reductionist strategies of the materialistically minded empiricists that MP, Freud, Kant and Wittgenstein rejected so convincingly. James does, however mitigate his empiricism with an interesting definition of the Mental:
“The pursuance of future ends and the choice of the means for their attainment are thus the mark and criterion of the presence of mentality in a phenomenon.”(P.8)
Here James is concerning himself not with the conditions, but with the phenomena to be studied and it is in this arena that he is at his best. In the above quote there is allusion to the Greek idea of telos, and by implication, an appeal to areté, since he goes on to evoke the idea of “intelligence” to explain what is meant by the above definition. This, however, if anything, is a narrowing (from a Kantian point of view) of what initially looked like a practical concern, to a theoretical concern, and it might be related to the earlier discussion of the laws of association in which “ideas” were replaced by “objects”. Of course there is no conceivable representation of an “association-relation” between ideas unless one “mechanises” what is essentially a logical or thought-relation. Perhaps such a concentration upon the condition of the possibility of experiencing an object is useful in the scientific process of exploration/discovery, but given the hypothetical nature of such activity, it would be problematic to characterise what is going on here as determined by a law or a principle. Such activity might assist us in the discovery of a law or principle but cannot itself be characterised as such. Moreover the unity of the “I think” we find in Kantian Critical Philosophy is missing from the account James provides us with. James, for example, claims that there is no unity of the self because we are constituted of a number of different selves and different kinds of self. This is empiricism at its most extreme. Once the unity of something that remains the same throughout myriad changes is compromised, the chances of producing a unified theory of Psychological Principles is diminished significantly. The pluralistic pragmatism James espouses is anti-metaphysical, and this is one explanation behind the move to give concrete and materialistic accounts of the conditions of phenomena. James’ discussion of the phenomenon of the “spiritual” self becomes puzzling and appears dualistic. We should recall that when the dualist Descartes was forced to answer mind-body relation questions he retreated to the materialist explanation of “brain activity”.
The Kantian metaphysical/transcendental investigation into the conditions of experience rests upon a priori knowledge in the form of intuitive representations (space and time) and the form of of the categorical framework of conceptualisation. James was familiar with this account and rejected it, but his grounds for doing so were unclear. In his work on Pragmatism we encounter an objection to metaphysics that, on inspection, turns out to be not a criticism of the Kantian account, but rather a criticism relating to a conceptual dispute over whether to say someone is circumambulating a squirrel when the squirrel is adjusting its position out of sight as we are circumambulating the tree in order to catch sight of it. This does not resemble the metaphysical disputes we usually encounter in criticisms of the major metaphysical systems of Aristotle and Kant. In his work on Pragmatism there is a reference to G K Chesterton, and James praises him for his claim that the most important thing about a man is his view of the universe. It is a pity that James did not pay attention to Chesterton’s fence-principle, which urges those who wish to tear down a fence to first ask themselves why the fence was built where it stands. James, however, is not alone in systematically ignoring metaphysical and transcendental logic in his Psychological and Philosophical investigations. Indeed it is almost a defining feature of our modern era that thinkers embrace some form of this anti-metaphysical attitude. Phenomenological thinkers, e.g. Husserl, believed, that one should abstract from the categories of the understanding and the principles of reason in order to “represent things as they are in themselves.” Many modern thinkers, would also object to the claim in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, that:
“We are in possession of certain modes of a priori knowledge, and even the common understanding is never without them.”(P.43)
The notion of cause, is an example of a priori knowledge that we impose upon representations as a category when we conceptualise experience. This category also contains, Kant argues, a relation to the modality of the necessary: a relationship Hume (the believer in the law of association) denied. Hume claimed, that we become acquainted with the idea of cause through the repeated association of causes and effects. Kant rejects this on the grounds that the mechanism of association could never produce the modality of necessity that is attached to causal judgements. Such judgements, Kant argues, cannot be negated without violation of the principle of noncontradiction and these judgements are further characterised by Kant as synthetic a priori judgements which he claims forms the nucleus of metaphysical investigations:
“Metaphysics, even if we look upon it as having hitherto failed in all its endeavours, is yet, owing to the nature of human reason, a quite indispensable science, and ought to contain a priori synthetic knowledge. For its business is not merely to analyse concepts which we make for ourselves a priori of things and thereby to clarify them analytically, but to extend our a priori knowledge. And for this purpose we must employ principles which add to the given concept something that was not contained in it… This metaphysics consists at least in intention, entirely of a priori synthetic propositions.”(P.54-5)
Kant then takes up a discussion relating to how such synthetic a priori judgements are possible. He points out that Hume did not realise that the propositions of Mathematics are synthetic a priori (e.g. the shortest distance between two points is a straight line). Had he realised this fact, Kant continues, he might have realised the importance of metaphysics for philosophical investigations. He would, that is, have realised the importance of the faculty of reasoning and its use of the principles of a priori knowledge. Kant also defines the transcendental in terms of reason:
“I entitle transcendental all knowledge which is occupied not so much with objects as with the mode of our knowledge of objects insofar as this mode of knowledge is to be possible a priori.”(P.59)
The principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason are, then, the substantial core of transcendental knowledge. The role of experience in this context has two aspects and depends upon whether the part of the mind involved in the experience is the faculty of sensibility or the faculty of understanding. If it is the former:
“In whatever manner and by whatever means a mode of knowledge may relate to objects, intuition is that through which it is in immediate relation to them, and to which all thought as a means is directed. But intuition takes place only so far as the object is given to us. This again is only possible to man at least, in so far as the mind is affected in a certain way.”(P.65)
Kant also claims, in hylomorphic spirit, that sensation is the matter, and that which is responsible for ordering all representations into a unity is a “form”(principle). Sensibility, for Kant, has both an inner and an outer aspect. Outer sense enables us to represent objects outside of us in space (a form of outer intuition). Inner sense, on the other hand, is ordered in Time and this is an a priori form(principle) which underlies all kinds of representation. The key Aristotelian notion of change, for Kant, is only possible via the a priori inner intuition of Time.
MP argues that Time is:
“the most general characteristic of psychic facts.”(P.476)
and even though we are aware of the fact that events occur in time, they nevertheless, according to both Kant and MP presuppose Time as a necessary condition of experience. Moreover:
“The events are shapes cut out by a finite observer for the spatio-temporal totality of the objective world.”(P.477)
This also applies to the activity of observation. The Kantian ship, for example, steaming down the river, cannot be divided up into events in proximity to each other. Neither can this experience be reduced to a series of “Nows” juxtaposed and tied together by some form of causality. The subject that “constitutes” time in the Kantian sense does so, MP argues, not by projection of memories into the future but via a network of intentions operating continuously throughout a “lived” process centred in the present. MP characterises the role of Time in experience in terms of the “Logos of the Aesthetic world”(P.498).
Aristotle, on the other hand, defines Time as “the measure of motion in terms of before and after”. The advantage of such a definition is that it places man in an active role as a measurer existing continuously, not in a series of juxtaposed “nows”, but as something that endures through change and moreover measures this change in terms of before and after–making the “now” a nothing–a mere point or boundary between these aspects of change. In terms of Aristotle’s categories, Time is a Quantity that is related to any enduring entity capable of initiating any change witnessed . This entity is also something that itself is capable of changing. As something capable of changing, e.g. acquiring a sun tan, material and efficient causes/explanations will be appropriately appealed to. If we are dealing only with the “logos of the Aesthetic world” as MP maintains and Kant suggests in his claim that no judgements of the understanding are involved in intuitive representations, then Mathematics in its use of number may be a science dedicated to the measurement of the aesthetic world and “counting” may be an activity that primarily involves the faculty of sensibility.
Thought about objects, for Kant, is a function of the faculty of understanding which uses concepts that provide us with a power to know objects. In the context of knowledge both sensibility and understanding are equally important, and the role of reason is that of an organiser of the categories of the understanding/judgement in knowledge systems, e.g. the sciences. Logic is the science that we use to explain/justify our claims at many different levels of thought:
“Logic again, can be treated in a twofold manner either as the logic of the general or as the logic of the special employment of the understanding. The former contains the absolutely necessary rules of thought without which there can be no employment whatever of the understanding. It therefore treats of understanding without any regard to the difference in the objects to which the understanding may be directed. The logic of the special employment of the understanding contains the rules of correct thinking as regards certain kinds of objects.” (P.93)
The general employment of logic uses the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason (pure a priori principles). Mathematics and the Natural Sciences are examples of knowledge systems that focus on different objects. Number, for example, focuses upon Time, and its relation to change-in-general, and Natural Science investigates the efficient and material causes of the physical changes we see in the natural world: a world that contains inorganic stars ( df= gravitationally bound balls of hydrogen and helium made self fluorescent by internal nuclear fusion) and organic life forms(psuche). Similarly different kinds of objects will be focussed upon in the practical and productive sciences as defined by Aristotle. Psychology is specifically mentioned by Kant in this discussion:
“General logic is called applied when it is directed to the rules of the employment of the understanding under the subjective empirical conditions dealt with by Psychology.”(P.94)
Psychology as a discipline also makes an appearance in contexts of practical reasoning where we are dealing with both pure and applied ethics. Pure ethics relates to the constitution of the moral law by the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. Applied ethics, on the other hand, is concerned with the limitations placed upon moral action by feelings, inclinations and passions. The activities of praising and blaming moral agents for their possession or lack of possession of the virtues is the empirical aspect of moral understanding. Insofar as rational demonstration or justification of an action is concerned this can only occur in deliberations in which principles relate to the moral law: it cannot occur in relation to the pluralistic sphere of the many and various virtues. In this context Kantian ethical theory is an elaboration upon and improvement of Aristotles pluralistic virtue theory.
The role of transcendental logic in Kant’s Critical Philosophy is partly as a regulator of the categories, and relates to the non empirical a priori origin of knowledge, its scope and validity. Insofar as experiential judgements are concerned, the role of transcendental logic relates to both the categories of the understanding and the principles of reason. In a discussion on the Nature of Truth, Kant adopts a position similar to that of Aristotle when he claims that a general definition of Truth cannot be given because truth claims carry specific reference to specific objects. Kant agrees, however, that we can “nominally” say that Truth is the agreement of knowledge with its object, but given the different realms of knowledge no universal formula is possible, and insofar as we attempt to apply the principle of sufficient reason, this is also limited to specific realms and their differing objects. Logic, insofar as it relates to the categories of the understanding, however, provides us with both universal and necessary rules, and here we use logic in its “special use”: a use which includes an understanding of the a priori elements of Space and Time. Kant calls the abuse of logic its dialectical use and he refers to this as “the logic of illusion”(P.99). The role of the concept in this system is clearly defined:
“concepts rest on functions. By “function” I mean the unity of the act of bringing various representations under one common representation.”(P.105)
Concepts are then used in judgements which have the structure of thinking something about something (a representation of a representation). Concepts are not in immediate relation to objects in the way intuitions are. They are, rather, that which we use to think about intuitive representations and they can also form conceptual and logical relations with each other in accordance with categories and principles. Pure concepts abstract from the content of judgement and form 12 logical kinds in accordance with 4 groups of categories. The most important question to ask in this context is “With what right is the concept used?” In other words, what is the justification for the use of the concept in the judgement. Kant calls this a quaestio juris, and distinguishes this type of question from one in which the answer expected is factual.
Consciousness as a phenomenon does make an appearance in Kant’s first Critique in the context of the deduction of the concepts of understanding:
“Intuitions are nothing to us, and do not in the least concern us if they cannot be taken up into consciousness, in which they may participate either directly or indirectly. In this way alone is any knowledge possible. We are conscious a priori of the complete identity of the self in respect of all representations which can ever belong to our knowledge, as being a necessary condition of the possibility of all representations.”(P.141-2)
This is Kant’s version of the more general Aristotelian principle of change whereby something endures throughout the change: if this change is to be understood and explained. Kant goes on to say that it is appearance of reality combined with this consciousness that produces Perception.(P.143). He further claims in a footnote:
“Psychologists have hitherto failed to realise that imagination is a necessary ingredient of perception itself.”.
It is the imagination that synthesises representations into the form of an image, which is the schema of the concept. In this context Kant speaks of the role of association not as a law but as a power of the faculty of Sensibility. This power rests upon the power of the mind to both synthesise and connect representations in an “abiding and unchanging I”(P.146). Once this power is exercised, a further power of the understanding in the form of the use of the categories is, then, also needed to provide the unity in experience required for knowledge. It is this combination of powers that allows us to view nature as law-governed. The activity of connecting or combining concepts, however, is not a matter for the sensible power of the imagination, but is rather an “affair of the understanding”(P.154), There is a difficulty which Kant acknowledges concerning the nature of the relation between the I that is conscious of itself (intuits itself) and the I that thinks (combines and connects concepts in thought). Kant points out that there is no difficulty in representing oneself as an object of intuition and inner perception. The “I” that thinks, on the other hand, is not a representation of an appearance but rather a representation of my existence. This is the region in which the difficult realm of knowledge of myself dwells. Kant is, in the context of this discussion, pointing to a distinction between the “phenomenal” self that “appears” in intuitions and an existential self which is not the same as the “noumenal” self and is the focus of activity in ethical action and reflection. All three notions of the self (phenomenal self, existential self, noumenal self) are aspects of the self-in-general that the Delphic Oracle had in mind when she challenged humanity with the imperative “Know Thyself!”. Kant insists that we cannot know ourselves except through the categories, judgements and intuitions of myself and my powers. The role of Judgement in the triumvirate of the higher faculties of knowledge (understanding, judgement and reason), is to decide whether something does or does not accord with a category and will therefore use special rather than general logic in an investigation that is in accord with the principle of sufficient reason. This opens up a space for the use of transcendental logic which will focus both on the category involved and an example that correctly exemplifies the category. The role of reason in this triumvirate is to be:
“the faculty of principles”(P.301)
The Principles of Logic, for example enable us to generate knowledge from a special principle, e.g. “All men are mortal”. The reasoning process in this case is familiar:
All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Therefore Socrates is mortal.
Both the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason are at work in the operation of the above deduction. But the ultimate task of reason is to provide us with the totality of conditions for phenomena and also to focus on what is unconditioned. Kant gives us a very illuminating example of the use of reason by Plato to illustrate both the scope and limits of reason:
“Plato made use of the expression “idea” in such a way as quite evidently to have meant by it something which not only can never be borrowed from the senses but far surpasses even the concepts of understanding (with which Aristotle occupied himself), inasmuch as in experience nothing is ever to be met with that is coincident with it. For Plato, ideas are archetypes of the things themselves, and not, in the manner of the categories, merely keys to possible experiences. In his view they have issued from the highest reason.”(P.310)
Kant continues:
“Plato found the chief instance of his ideas in the field of the practical, that is, in what rests upon freedom which in its turn rests upon modes of knowledge that are a peculiar product of reason.Whoever would derive the concepts of virtue from experience and make (as many have actually done) what at best can only serve as an example in an imperfect kind of exposition, into a pattern from which to derive knowledge, would make of virtue something which changes according to time and circumstance…On the contrary as we are all aware, if anyone is held up as a pattern of virtue, the true original with which we compare the alleged pattern and by which alone we judge of its value is to be found only in our minds.”(P.311)
Sensibility, and Human Nature in general, which Kant elsewhere characterises as prone to antagonism because of a desire to rule himself as he wishes and obey the rule of others only when he wishes, is an obstacle in the way of the achievement of the archetypal idea of virtue (areté). At the level of judgement, virtue or areté is characterised in action-terms as “doing the right thing in the right way at the right time” but at the level of reason, virtue is characterised in terms of the three formulations of the Categorical Imperative. Kant, as is the case with Aristotle, extends his account of practical reasoning from the realm of ethics to that of Politics:
“A constitution allowing the greatest possible human freedom in accordance with laws by which the freedom of each is made to be consistent with that of all others—I do not speak of the greatest happiness for this will follow of itself–at any rate a necessary idea, which must be taken as fundamental not only in first projecting a constitution but in all its laws”(P.312)
This projected perfect state of affairs of course does not, strictly speaking, exist, and will not do so, Kant argues, for another 100,000 years. One of the obstacles in the way of the actualisation of this perfect state of affairs is mans nature: man is a being, Kant argues, in need of a Master in his current pre-rational state, but there is ambivalence in his attitude toward living in a society because he also desires to live as an individual free of all ties, deciding for himself in accordance with his own selfish idea of “The Good”(The Good-for-himself). In this “primitive” state there still exists a moral disposition urging him toward good deeds but this disposition will not be transformed into an absolutely good will until the moral law becomes a dominating force in this species defined by Aristotle as “rational animal capable of discourse”. Until man becomes more rational, wars will continue to plunge us back into primitive states of nature. Eventually, however, a combination of catastrophic experiences and rationality will allow a moral disposition to mature into the good will required by the Categorical Imperative. This in turn will have consequences for the societies man dwells in and a so-called “kingdom of ends” will supervene in which the laws will be fully rational: man will treat man as an end-in-itself, and maxims of action be willed to be universal laws. Societies, that is, will transcend earlier stages of civilisation and culture. This is “the hidden plan” (Kant’s Political Writings, Ed. Reiss, H., Cambridge, CUP, 1970 “Idea for a Universal History”, P.50) of nature that is operative in human history. The Enlightenment in general, and Kant’s work in particular raised the idea of freedom to a central place in the march of History in accordance with this “hidden plan” and this has been a central theme of the 4 volumes of this work. The Globalisation process and its end-state, Cosmopolitanism, where all races and notions are integrated, perhaps not geographically, but morally, may well have been submerged by the tsunami of totalitarianism in the 20th century. One century, however, in a span of 100,000 years is merely a temporary setback for “the hidden plan”. Three generations of the 20th century experienced two world wars and a cold war before a light appeared at the end of the 20th century tunnel and the journey toward Cosmopolitanism continued ( very tentatively). The idea of the end of Cosmopolitanism is largely the result of the work of three thinkers, e.g. Plato, Aristotle, and Kant, but many other thinkers have contributed toward the idea of the archetype of the ideal society. All three thinkers, for example, consistently criticise the empirical tendency to deduce what ought to be done in the name of morality from the experience of what is done. One cannot jump in logic from an is-judgement to an ought- judgement without presuming a major ought-premise which manifests a principle relating to an archetypal idea or action in ethics or politics. All three thinkers also see Education as a necessary condition of moral and political action, and all three thinkers see the Law as something freely constituted by the rational activity of man. Laws must meet the criteria of justice demanded by Glaucon in the opening books of the Republic, namely that justice be both what is good in itself and what is good in its consequences. Other virtues such as wisdom, honesty, self control, magnanimity etc also need to meet Glaucons criteria.
In practical reasoning we see reason relating not to the objects of sensibility but to concepts and the categories of the understanding and judgement. Kant argues in this context that the metaphysics of critical philosophy ought to deal not only with freedom but also with immortality of the soul and God, as well as the complex of relations that exist between these ideas.
Psychology again emerges as a theme of the first Critique in relation to the concept/judgement “I think” which Kant connects to the understanding and conscious thought. Kant categorises this kind of reflection as “Rational Psychology”. Thinking something about something whether that be as banal as “Socrates is a man” or thinking the “I” as (an immaterial) substance is attributed to what Kant terms “personality”( rather than “intelligence”). Personality is the bearer of both lower psychological and higher mental powers (cf O Shaughnessy’s ontology). The cogito argument is the starting point for rational psychology which, for Kant, but not for Descartes, extends into a categorical framework for all thought. The first consequence of this Kantian account is the proposition claiming that the I is an absolute subject, substance, or principle of thought. This substance or principle is furthermore that which endures throughout processes of change. There can be no trace of sensibility or intuition in the characterisation of this thinking I, and as a consequence:
“We do not have and cannot have any knowledge whatsoever of any such subject. Consciousness is, indeed, that which alone makes all representations to be thoughts, and in it, therefore as the transcendental subject, all our perceptions must be found; but beyond this logical meaning of the “I”, we have no knowledge of the subject in itself, which as substratum underlies this “I” as it does all thought.(P.334)
Beyond reference to the categories there is nothing more to say about the “I” and the form of consciousness Kant is speaking about here is:
“Self consciousness in general is therefore the representation of that which is the condition of all unity and is unconditional.”(P.365)
Rational Psychology, therefore, will contain no empirical predicates asserted of the soul, and will in no sense be doctrinal, but merely serve as a discipline assisting us in avoiding the rocks of materialism and the sandbanks of dualism. Personality theory is here being theoretically presented as a theory of the soul, and no reference is intended to the body or the nature of the relation between the body and the soul. In this sense it conforms to the requirements of transcendental reflection, and is only substantial in the sense of being a principle. A principle can only have an abstract timeless relation to what it constitutes or regulates. If, then, the soul is a principle and is timeless, this is the respect in which it is immortal. In this case “immortal” merely means “not mortal” in the categorical sense of not belonging to the category of mortal things. Rational psychology, then obviously deals with the intelligible world to the exclusion of the ever-changing fluxions of the sensible world in which boats steam downstream and befores are transformed into afters by the time constituting intelligible subject or personality. Even as a sensible being occupying the sensible world, this sensible “I” legislates by ordering world-phenomena into a spatio-temporal framework. Kant’s Copernican revolution thus reaches down into the depths of the “logos of the aesthetic world”. Even at the level of the act of apperception that unites representations into a timeless concept there is an I functioning as a principle. The “I think” that legislates for the intelligible world of thought, however, is closer to the noumenal supersensible that lies at the source of our moral personality. We see this I at work in the world via the medium of action embedded in a framework of “Reason-Action-Consequence”(RAC). In such contexts the I-principle formulates maxims which are constituted by the categorical imperative: the action and consequences that follow upon this rational law are logically and conceptually linked.
Modern Psychological Theory systematically ignored the moral aspect of personality presented in Kant’s “Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view”. The term “pragmatic” connoted for Kant two ontological aspects: a concern for what man makes of himself via his actions and deeds, and a concern for what nature makes of man. In the former case we are dealing with a telos of uniting the citizens of the world into a cosmopolitan unity.
Eysenck’s personality theory is a good example of a theoretical account of the human being based on biological descriptions and explanations of what nature makes of man. References to genetics, the sympathetic nervous system and testosterone occur in a spirit of materialism and atomism. The personality traits that Eysenck delineates in his matrix are all innately determined and peripherally influenced by environmental factors. The human and moral dimension of a man making something of himself, e.g. doing his duty, telling the truth, and becoming a citizen of the world, are not directly the concern of Eysenck’s theory. What we are presented with is, rather, a trait theory that is built upon the obscure foundations of materialistic and atomistic energy regulation principles and pleasure-pain principles. The moral personality is atomised into a number of traits whose relation to the “I” is obscure and whose relation to each other is largely determined by a position in a matrix.
Freudian trait theory may be rooted in Biology (oral, anal, phallic, genital) but these characteristics were embedded in a developmental hylomorphic actualisation process in accordance with Principles (ERP,PPP,RP) which are operating in humanistic contexts such as a children identifying with parents and authority figures. There is, therefore, no inherent difficult for Freudian theory to engage in criticism of civilisation. In such contexts Freud does not refer to the sympathetic nervous system or testosterone, but rather to aggression and wars and the moral depravity associated with such phenomena. Freud’s theory has both Hylomorphic and Critical aspects, whereas trait theory of the kind one encounters in the writings of Eysenck and Jung would be consigned by Kant to be theories explaining what nature makes of man, i.e. theories that belong to what he termed “Physiological Anthropology”. For Kant all attempts to root moral character in a matrix of temperaments rooted in biological functions would be misdirected.
We know today what Kant merely suspected, namely that the formation of hypotheses in the context of exploration/discovery and the truth value of these hypotheses are dependent upon probability theory which in turn builds upon Bayes’ theorem (The probability of an event is determined by the information we have about that event). The problem with investigations rooted in contexts of exploration/discovery is that we do not know whether we have arrived at the terminus of complete information . Determining whether an event is probable at a high level of significance is not possible in such circumstances. We may, that is, think we have complete information about the functioning of the sympathetic nervous system or testosterone in character formation, but this must remain an open question as long as we isolate such biological “parts” from the biological/psychological whole. The relation, that is, between the parts of a person may not be relevant to the formal and final relations constituting a holistic phenomenon such as the character of a person. The probability of the event of the withdrawing of a white ball from a bag of 10 black and 10 white balls is easily determined, because the information about the variables of this system is complete: this is a so-called closed system. The material composition of the ball and the relation between any possible “parts”, e.g. its atoms, is irrelevant to this calculation. Returning to the Psychological theory of Eysenck, defining the axes of the matrix in terms of neuroticism and stability, and characterising these ultimately in terms of the arousal of the sympathetic nervous system may be useful in terms of clarifying a possible material necessary condition but this is only a part of the whole story of a persons character (and probably not the most important part–many including Socrates would have thought it to be irrelevant). In this realm of reflection we are seeking reasons (formal and final causes) and not causes. As far as Kant was concerned reflections upon the physiological characteristics connected with temperament are a concern for physiological anthropology.
Jung’s theory is similarly biological and is related to a matrix of two types of orientations toward the world (extraversion, introversion) and 4 psychological functions (thinking feeling intuition, sensation). Jung once claimed in a film documentary that the reason his theory was so different to Freudian theory lay in the fact that he was very much influenced by Kantian theory which he claims Freudian theory was not. The above matrix and its psychological functions are reminiscent of some of the concerns we find in Kantian Anthropology and they have also proved useful in the construction of personality assessment tools such as the Myers-Briggs Personality Index. Many aspects of Jung’s theory, however, appeal to genetic mechanisms for their final justification and are therefore problematic. Jung’s theory of the archetypes of the unconscious mind, for example, are supposed to be innate and transmitted by genetic mechanism– a position that genetic scientists themselves disavow. This is of course merely another form of materialistic atomism, a position that fails to acknowledge the Kantian view of Human nature. The moral implications of Jung’s theory are obscure and it appears that this was a deliberate strategy on the part of Jung.
The Freudian superego, we know, is a result of an environmental actualisation process of identification with authority figures, and Freud would have rejected any suggestion that genetic mechanisms had any relevant direct explanatory connection to the character of a person, We know Freud claimed that his Psychology was Kantian, and there is much that speaks for this characterisation, especially if one agrees with the thesis that Kantian Critical Philosophy is intimately aligned with Aristotelian Hylomorphic theory. If this is the case, then the view that Freud was a strict determinist is problematic. Indeed it is difficult to believe that Freud would not have subscribed to the following Kantian reflection on human freedom:
“But any beginning of action presupposes a state of the not yet acting cause; and a dynamical beginning of the action, if it is also a first beginning, presupposes a state which has no causal connection with the preceding state of the cause, that is to say, it nowise follows from it. Transcendental freedom thus stands opposed to the law of causality… It is not to be met with in any experience.”(P.410)
Kant cites the example of a man rising from his chair and claims that, when this is a spontaneous action, it is due to a self-originating source that generates the action spontaneously. Pragmatic Psychology rests upon the foundation of freedom and the forms of psychological explanation/justification that are provided in the name of this kind of Psychology are formal and final. The desire to arise from my chair, that is, has no prior material or efficient cause (e.g. the arousal of the sympathetic nervous system or the increase in testosterone) . Rather, it arises from an “I” that thinks and exists. It also ought to be pointed out that Kant does believe that there is a role for research into the role of biological factors, insofar as the body is concerned. Such research, however, would be a matter for physiological anthropology and not of interest for pragmatic anthropology.
In the act of arising from the chair, viewed intelligibly, there would be a reason and an action and the reason would incorporate Aristotelian efficient, formal and final causes. This same action, however, according to Kant, has an empirical character and could be categorised by the understanding in terms of a chain of causes appearing in the sensible world. My non-observational knowledge of what I am doing, however, has less to do with the observational knowledge of the above gained by acts of perception and more to do with an apperception and the I that thinks and exists. A clue that we are in the intelligible realm of reasons and actions is indicated by the way in which we use the concept of ought in our reasoning about our actions. In arising from my chair I might have done so “in order to” or because I ought to take the dog for a walk. This would in turn determine the consequence of fetching the leash for the dog. Looking upon this action with observational intentions it would not of course make sense for any observer to negate this “reason” by claiming that I ought not to take the dog for a walk. Such observations of mans behaviour and explanation in terms of causation in the sensible world of appearances are, for Kant, at the level of the understanding rather than reason. Things are as they are in such a context of exploration/discovery and there is no logical space for the unconditioned condition of all voluntary acts, namely freedom. How these two forms of explanation/justification interface can be seen clearly in the following passage:
“Let us take a voluntary action, for example, a malicious lie by which a certain confusion has been caused in society. First of all, we endeavour to discover the motives to which it has been due, and then, secondly, in the light of these, we proceed to determine how far the action and its consequences can be imputed to the offender. As regards the first question, we trace the empirical character of the action to its sources, finding these in defective education, bad company, in part also in the viciousness of a natural disposition insensitive to shame, in levity and thoughtlessness, not neglecting to take into account also the occasional causes that may have intervened. We proceed in this inquiry just as we should in ascertaining for a given natural effect the series of its determining causes. But although we believe that the action is thus determined we none the less blame the agent, not indeed on account of his unhappy disposition, not on account of the circumstances that have influenced him, nor even on account of his previous life…..Our blame is based on the law of reason whereby we regard reason as a cause that irrespective of all the above mentioned empirical conditions could have determined and ought to have determined the agent to act otherwise.”(P.471)
In other words , the agent was free to act otherwise. For Kant all the virtues are ideas of reason with practical power that ultimately resides in our freedom to choose what ought to be done. Ideals, for Kant have less practical power but function as archetypes, e.g. the idea of the statesman as a “phronimos”, a great-souled man, is an example to be imitated. The Phronimos might even approach divine status and be thought of as a God. We are clearly dealing here with a transcendental idea. Trying to prove the existence of this idea or ideal may be, for Kant futile, because it is the telos that is important–what will exist in the future– not what has existed in the past. We should rather, insists Kant, attempt to show how this idea or ideal can be thought. On the Aristotelian account we are entitled to ask how the idea or ideal came to be , i.e under what conditions.
Now whether or not the ideal or idea of God exists, I can nevertheless think of God and the power of divine agency. This thought, however, is probably more remote than the thought of my own existence and powers, which Kant pointed out can in fact supervene in the experience of the sublime. Kant insists that the existence of God cannot be concluded from the mere having of the idea of God as some ontological arguments would claim. This idea cannot be constitutive and can only be regulative:
“which directs us to look upon all connection in the world as if it originated from an all sufficient necessary cause.”‘(P.517)
Conceiving of the cause not as a materialistic form of substance but as a substantial principle, as both Kant and Aristotle did, serves to refocus the entire debate and allows Kant to reason his way to a being/principle that will ensure that a good will and good action will result in good consequences for all, namely a good spirited flourishing life. Aristotles conception of a “pure form” or principle is somewhat more abstract and theoretical and tends to identify God with all forms of pure contemplative thought. For Kant, however, the freedom of man was the most important of the three ideas of reason (God, immortality of the soul, freedom) and practical reasoning was the most important aspect of his philosophical contribution to the Enlightenment:
“By the “practical” I mean everything that is possible through freedom. When, however, the conditions of the exercise of the free will are empirical, reason can have no other than a regulative employment in regard to it, and can serve only to effect unity in its empirical laws.Thus, for instance, in the precepts of prudence, the whole business of reason consists in uniting all the ends which are prescribed to us by our desires in the one single end, happiness, and in co-ordinating the means for attaining it. In this field, therefore, reason can supply none but pragmatic laws of free action, for the attainment of these ends which are commended to us by the senses; it cannot yield us laws that are pure and determined completely a priori. Laws of this latter type, pure practical laws, whose end is given through reason completely a priori, and which are prescribed to us not in an empirically conditioned but in an abstract manner, would be products of pure reason. Such are the moral laws; and these alone, therefore, belong to the practical employment of reason.”(P632)
As we have noted previously this form of reasoning is then used as a platform to argue for the importance of the idea of God on moral grounds. The question “Is there a God?” and “Is there a future life?” are, then, answered in relation to the questions that define the scope and limits of theoretical and practical reason, namely “What can I know?” “What ought I to do?” “What can I hope for?” and “What is a human being?” In the answers Kant gives us to these questions the idea of happiness is a secondary idea related to the moral issue of whether one is worthy of happiness. In a world designed by a wise architect or author there will be a logical relation between what one is worthy of, and a good spirited flourishing life.
The role of Psychology in such an architectonic system must therefore be that of a science that is connected to Ethics and Politics and the world views embedded in these practical sciences. Physiological Psychology is clearly situated in a context of exploration/discovery where the focus of the investigations is what nature has made of man. We have suggested that there is always a question mark hanging in the air over such investigations: questions relating to whether we have collected all the necessary evidence relating to the conditions of the phenomena being investigated. Questions which, if answered completely, are in accordance with the principle of sufficient reason.