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Kant on knowledge of the soul, for Tucker
Apr. 22nd, 2005 12:50 am"Thus if materialism will not work as a way of explaining my existence, then spiritualism is just as unsatisfactory for it, and the conclusion is that in no way whatsoever can we cognize anything about the constitution of our soul that in any way at all concerns the possiblity of its separate existence."
"And how should it be possible to go beyond experience (of our existence in life) through the unity of consciosuness with which we are acquainted only because we have an indispensable need of it for the possibility of experience, and even to extend our cognition to the nature of all thinking beings in general, through the empirical but in regard to all kinds of intuition indeterminate proposition 'I think'?"
"Thus there is no rational psychology as doctrine that might provide us with an addition to our self-consciousness, but only as discipline, setting impassable boundaries for speculative reason in this field, in order, on the one side, not to be thrown into the lap of a soulless materialism, or on the other side not to get lost wandering about in a spiritualism that must be groundless for us in life; on the contrary, it rather reminds us to regard this refusal of our reason to give an answer to these curious questions, which reach beyond this life, as reason's hint that we should turn our self-knowledge away from fruitless and extravagent speculation toward fruitful practical uses. . . ." (B 420-421).
Background: Kant's diagnosis of these problems seems to be that we mistake the fact that we can, like Descartes, append "I think" to whatever passes through our minds (while this "I" has no characteristics), for our everyday selves (which have names and characteristics). The former "I" is not "empirical" (it's "transcendental"), but the latter one is. Empirical "I"s are the sorts of "I"s we know things about. But when we ask about whether the soul (or mind) is material or spiritual, Kant thinks, we're asking not about our selves--for then it would be obvious that we just don't know--but the "transcendental" one, which seems a little less tangible and more metaphysical. And the "transcendental" one, not being empirical, isn't the sort of thing we can know empirically. Onwards to non-empirical uses of reason, like ethical ones. Or something like that.
I don't know if this is my reason for rejecting the paradigm questions of philosophy of mind or not. Confusing the nonempirical with the empirical is my main criticism, but I think it may be too general in just that form.
"And how should it be possible to go beyond experience (of our existence in life) through the unity of consciosuness with which we are acquainted only because we have an indispensable need of it for the possibility of experience, and even to extend our cognition to the nature of all thinking beings in general, through the empirical but in regard to all kinds of intuition indeterminate proposition 'I think'?"
"Thus there is no rational psychology as doctrine that might provide us with an addition to our self-consciousness, but only as discipline, setting impassable boundaries for speculative reason in this field, in order, on the one side, not to be thrown into the lap of a soulless materialism, or on the other side not to get lost wandering about in a spiritualism that must be groundless for us in life; on the contrary, it rather reminds us to regard this refusal of our reason to give an answer to these curious questions, which reach beyond this life, as reason's hint that we should turn our self-knowledge away from fruitless and extravagent speculation toward fruitful practical uses. . . ." (B 420-421).
Background: Kant's diagnosis of these problems seems to be that we mistake the fact that we can, like Descartes, append "I think" to whatever passes through our minds (while this "I" has no characteristics), for our everyday selves (which have names and characteristics). The former "I" is not "empirical" (it's "transcendental"), but the latter one is. Empirical "I"s are the sorts of "I"s we know things about. But when we ask about whether the soul (or mind) is material or spiritual, Kant thinks, we're asking not about our selves--for then it would be obvious that we just don't know--but the "transcendental" one, which seems a little less tangible and more metaphysical. And the "transcendental" one, not being empirical, isn't the sort of thing we can know empirically. Onwards to non-empirical uses of reason, like ethical ones. Or something like that.
I don't know if this is my reason for rejecting the paradigm questions of philosophy of mind or not. Confusing the nonempirical with the empirical is my main criticism, but I think it may be too general in just that form.
