Kant

Two foundational distinctions

analytic/synthetic claims

a priori/ a posteriori justification

Analytic claims

• Claims that do not go beyond the definition of a term

• Examples, all bachelors are male or triangles. Have three sides.

Synthetic claims

• Claims that go beyond the definition of a term

• Example:  bachelors are messy

A priori justification 

Claims that can be justified apart from since experience

A posteriori justification

claims that can be justified based upon since experience

Four possible combinations

• Analytic a priori – Hume’s Relations of Ideas
• Analytic a posteriori - ? True by
definition…based on experience?
• Synthetic a posteriori – Hume’s Matters of
Fact
• Synthetic a priori – the critical category
• For Kant, any structure of knowledge MUST
be built upon Synthetic a priori claims.

Phenomenal

Objects as they appear to us

Noumenal

objects as they really are in themselves

Kant vs Hume

• Interrupted dogmatic slumber

• Concept of connection of causes and effect was biome, means the only concept by which the understanding things the connection of things a priori but that metaphysics consists altogether as such concepts

in other words 

• Any possible philosophy that justifies the foundational principles of the world and thereby provide structure for knowledge, must rely upon synthetic a priori claims( like cause-and-effect and material substance)

• but Hume has provided a devastating critique of justifying such claim empirically

Kant argue

That the synthetic a priori claims of
math/geometry are justified, AND
• The synthetic a priori claims of
science/astronomy are justified, BUT
• That this justification only applies to claims
concerning phenomenal objects as they
appear to us, NOT to objects as they really are
in themselves.

How the senses and a priori capacities
work together

thoughts [gained via a priori capacities] without content are
empty, intuitions [gained through senses] without concepts [to
organize them] are blind” (A51/B76) Critique of Pure Reason.
• It is, therefore, just as necessary to make the mind's concepts
sensible — that is, to add an object to them in intuition — as to
make our intuitions understandable — that is, to bring them under
concepts. These two powers, or capacities, cannot exchange their
functions. The understanding can intuit nothing, the senses can
think nothing. Only from their unification can cognition arise. (A50-
51/B74-76)
• Thoughts are a priori concepts founding math and science.
Intuitions are the sensory data that you combine with those a priori
thoughts.

The scope of knowledge for Kant 

We must pay close attention to approve that shows a possibility of this priori cognition, namely, that these principles contain only the condition of possible phenomenal experience in general as it is subjected to a priori laws

The limits of knowledge

I do not say that things in themselves the noumenal possesses a magnitude that the reality possesses a degree that their existing contains the connection of accidents and substance for no one can prove this because such as synthetic connection from your concepts is absolutely impossible.

Thus the essential limitation of the concept in these principles, is that all things necessary stand a priori under the condition, stated above only as objects of experience

A Kantian strategy for responding to Hume

• In order to experience with Hume’s problematic concept. Namely, the concept of cause we are first giving a priori by means of logic, the form of condition judgment in general

• We use one giving cognition as antecedent and another as consequent

Example, if a then b

response to hume 

• We may encounter in perception a role for this relation that states that a certain appearance is constantly followed by another, though not conversely, and this is a case when I can use a hypothetical judgment, and for instance, say if the sunshine is long enough upon the body goes warm, of course there is a yet no necessary, connection and thus  no concept of cause

…If the above proposition, which is merely a
subjective connection of perceptions, is to be a
judgment of experience, it must be viewed as
necessarily and universally valid. …Through its
light the sun is the cause of the heat. The rule
that was empirical above is now considered as a
law and not merely as valid of appearances, but
valid of them for the purposes of a possible
experience which requires universal and
therefore necessarily valid rules. -688

Therefore, I certainly do have insight into the
concept of cause as a concept necessarily
belonging to the mere form of experience and its
possibility as a synthetic unification of
perceptions in consciousness in general; but I do
not have any insight at all into the possibility of a
thing in general as a cause, because the concept
of cause does not at all denote a condition that
belongs to things, but rather only to experience,
namely that experience is only an objectively
valid cognition of appearances and of their
succession.-688

The transcendental proof for the principles of math and science

1. We haven't in fact, achieve a scientific account of objective phenomenal experience this account posits a complex object of scientific observation, which allows the ordering of all relevant appearances of object

2. The scientific of objective phenomenal experience was only possible because we presuppose certain synthetic a priori principles concerning the object of scientific experience

3. We must assigned to such objects, all the properties that constitute the conditions under which we think them, and through which we achieve the scientific experience of them

4. Therefore, the synthetic a priori principles needed for science, are necessarily true in regards to the phenomenal objects of science

Accomplishment of newtonain science

we have in fact, achieving scientific count of objective phenomenal experience this account posits a complex object of scientific observation, which allows ordering of all relevant appearance of objects

The necessary conditions or accomplishing Newtonian science

And other words, we presuppose principle such as material substance, cause in effect, mutual interaction of substances, example gravity

How this fact justifies a priori principles

we must assigned to such objects all the properties that constitute the conditions under which we think them in through which we achieve the scientific experience of them

The scope of conclusion

therefore the synthetic a priori principles needed for science or necessarily true in regards to the phenomenal objective science

But we do not know what either of these synthetic a priori principles are true concerning noumenal objects themselves or understand their relationship of phenomenal object, objects to noumenal objects