COMMENTARIES ON KANT: THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON (2/N)

 

2. The Human Intellect, even in an Unphilosophical State, is in Possession of Certain Cognitions “à priori”.

Kant's whole assertion in this part can be summarized by his own statement, "But, for the present, we may content ourselves with having established the fact, that we do possess and exercise a faculty of pure à priori cognition; and, secondly, with having pointed out the proper tests of such cognition, namely, universality and necessity."

Let me expand on that. We will first understand his assertion in this and then raise our comments on it. So, Last time, he ended on a note that There exists a priori knowledge, different from empirical knowledge needs to be examined. 

Here, He has started to philosophize. He Assumes, as last time he did before philosophizing, that there exists a pure cognition which differs from an empirical cognition.

He says that although experience gives knowledge about existence of objects as such, but it need not mean that they cannot exist without our knowledge about it. 

Like, if there is a tree in a forest which no one saw, Kant says, it exists, nevertheless. That is, existence does not require a knower to know it. It does and it will, 

Now, he differentiates between Pure and Empirical cognition.

Here, he is talking about the brain. He says, there are some thinking processes in the brain, only activated by experiences. But this does not mean that Without experiences, The Brain with not have any thinking process or cognition going on. This, he calls, Pure cognition. 

So, In Kantian Universe, unlike Empiricists of England, Objects exist necessarily without needing an observation. Brains have pure cognition without needing an empirical angle. So, to reduce it, Kant wishes to separate the process of cognition and experiencing from Existence of objective universe as such. 

Now, once we have established that there are two kinds of cognition, Pure and empirical, now Kant goes on to explain the characteristics of Empirical cognition. 

There are two characteristics that Kant mentions of Empirical cognition, viz. 

1. Empirical or priori cognition or proposition for that matter, has in its conception, the idea of necessity. Now, what it could mean is, suppose you saw a black sheep. Now, if someone gives a proposition based on this experience, "This sheep is black!". This will mean two things. One, that, the observer might not know about other goats, but this Sheep is Black necessarily. Second, at least one Sheep in the universe is necessarily black, the observer may not know about others. This is the idea of necessity. That, the experience can only necessitate a particularity with a disclaimer that this can be typical of this case but can also occur otherwise in other cases. 

2. Assumed and comparative universality: Here, the second one means, that only claims to universality based on this particular experience can be an inductive one. That means, if we say this in our sheep example, we say, "All sheep are black, so far as the experience of the observer." Here, this is comparative universality as opposed to Absolute universality, which would have been, "All Sheep is black". 

As opposed to Empirical cognition, or in simple terms, experience-based knowledge, there exists, Kant says, a priori cognition, or pure cognition. Kant writes, "Necessity and strict universality, therefore, are infallible tests for distinguishing pure from empirical knowledge,"

If we say, without any direct experience, a statement like, "All bodies are heavy!". This comes from a point, where necessity and absolute universality has been claimed, this statement might be wrong. But this statement is coming from Pure cognition is what Kant means. 

Example of a pure cognition proposition: "Every change must have a cause". 

you can see, necessity working. "Must" and Universality, in "Every". 

necessity here will also imply, as a corollary, the negative, which is, any change will vanish, or will not exist, which does not have a cause. This is the essence of Necessity. Here, he agrees with Hume, the English empiricist. 

Now, another Assertion of Kant, "Besides, without seeking for such examples of principles existing à priori in cognition, we might easily show that such principles are the indispensable basis of the possibility of experience itself and consequently prove their existence à priori."

Kant's argument is, there must exist some rules in our brains or mind, through which experience renders itself possible. What he means is that these principles., like Necessity and Universality and may be some others, form the background of an observer's mind and then all empirical knowledge that is experience based knowledge begins. That is, a priori some knowledge must exist. 

Kant's last point here is, not only in judgements, however, but even in conceptions, is an à priori origin manifest. What he means is that even if we take away all the experience-based knowledge from the observer about an object, this will not annihilate the object in thought. What exists exists regardless of our experience-based cognition of it. That is, Material reality does not depend upon our cognition of it, which indirectly mean, that the idea of an object exists in our head a priori. The object in material reality exists a priori. Just the cognition of it by us makes it empirical evidence of its existence. 

In simple hindi, "Jungle mein Mor naacha, kisne dekha?" Kisi ne dekha ho ya na ho, Aapke dimaag mein naachte more ki chhabvi toh aa gayi, aur Kisi ne nahi dekha iska matlab ye nahi ki Naacha bhi nahi. 

This is what Kant means by "The Human Intellect, even in an Unphilosophical State, is in Possession of Certain Cognitions “à priori” and Objects do not annihilate in thought if empirical conceptions are taken out of it."

Here, his attack on English Empiricism is clear. David Hume, etc. This ends chapter 2 of introduction of the book, The critique of Pure reason.