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Does Kant's transcendental philosophy study the structure of our thought rather than the world?
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Kants transcendental idealism is a theory that strongly rejects the concept of reality. It only studies the fundamental structure of our thought rather than that of the world. This is because Kant does not mention anything about empirical reality in his philosophy. He believes that what we experience through our senses are nothing but mere perceptions and are not real. All the things that happen in this world are based on human perception and hence they cannot be taken as real events. The concept of ‘transcendental’ is used by Kant to emphasize that it goes beyond empirical reality which makes it difficult for us to understand.
Prior to the emergence of Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) as one of the most influential philosophers of the Enlightenment, two major schools of thought in the field of epistemology, or the study of knowledge, prevailed: rationalism and empiricism.
The rationalist school argues that all knowledge and truth is innate in human beings. Knowledge, then, is the result of deductive reasoning. The empiricist school of thought prefers the proposition that all knowledge is derived from experience. Knowledge, then, is the result of inductive reasoning. Empiricists argue that observation, reflection, and sensory perceptions, not innate ideas, lead to the acquisition of knowledge. Kant attempts to merge these the prevailing ideologies.
Kant introduces a system known as “transcendental idealism,” which begins by drawing a distinction between the observable world and the metaphysical world, the latter of which is impossible to observe. He aims to find meaning in a material world through...
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an empirical approach. At the same time, in his view, free will and rationality provide life with purpose.
In his famous work, The Critique of Pure Reason, Kant writes:
“All the interests of my reason, speculative as well as practical, combine in three following questions: 1. What can I know? 2. What ought I to do? 3. What may I hope?”
Through his further writings, Kant molds these questions into a single ideology. He recognizes that people can determine their own ideas but that such endeavors reveal little about the world outside those ideas. Thus, we must have free will to determine rationally the things we observe.
The theory of transcendental idealism considers the relationship between the processes of the mind and reality of the objects observed in the mind. Kant proposes three tenets of his theory: he distinguishes objects as they appear in the mind from objects as they are in reality; he allows for the possibility that things are not as they appear; and human beings can only be cognizant of things they can experience. Kant theoretically bridges the gap between rationalism and empiricism.
Kant concludes that we must make sense of our experiences. Objects we perceive to be accurate in the world outside our thoughts might not be so in reality. To Kant, making sense of our actions and experiences must include a universal moral duty applicable to all. He believes we have the freedom to act, but argues that life is only meaningful if we adhere to a uniform code of duty.
To conceptualize his theory, Kant develops the “Categorical Imperative.” In his view, people must treat others consistently, acknowledge everyone’s worth, and, since we are all members of the same world, pursue goals that are consistent with the goals of others.