COMMENTARIES ON KANT: THE CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON (4/N)

I have started these commentaries not in thin air but with a Purpose. Since 12th Grade, I got interested in Political Philosophy and especially in Marx. Reading Marx, I understood, the most interesting aspects of Marx, for me personally, is not his economic theory, although I have great respect of it, and I think it is really genius of a work but actually the Philosophy of Dialectic Materialism. 

In general, the two strands of thought, Idealism and Materialism, attract me a lot. So, Reading Marxism led me to Hegel, and I like through Zizek, I found this wonderful reclusive Idealist, GWF Hegel. Reading Hegel was difficult but reading him required me to know the legacy of German Idealism and school of Ideal thought, Fichte, Schelling etc.  

I am a person who believes that there is a mind space which connects all of us and we are all inhabitants of that Mindspace, which Hegel will call the Mindspace of absolute idea. That is why, I consider these divisions of Western and Eastern thought and for that matter, any sort of division to be Parochial and Frivolous. In fact, I consider myself more German Idealist, than a Charvakian Materialist or May be More Materialist than Advait Vedanti Idealist. 

You cannot tell me where my spirit will find solace. The spirit decides for itself which thought is its home. 

Yeah, so my aim of writing commentaries on Kant is, Kant is when the Enlightenment begins. Kant is when all this structure and edifice of modernity is created. But Kant is also the man who ends Empiricism, and a new kind of awakening takes place in Europe. German Ideal thought, in my opinion, is a love child, in a synthetic sense of the Kantian Universe. 

So, I thought, A complete picture of all this that I have needs an audience. So, I am starting with Kant, then I will move to Hegel. In the series, "Hallucinating with Hegel" and then to the whole German idealist tradition in brief and then Finally, "Manifesting Marx and Materialism" 

In this sense, I consider Hegel to be much more materialist than Marx at some places. So, In the Zizekian tradition, going back to Hegel to rejuvenate the Philosophy of Marxism, that is, Dialectic Materialism. Zizek obviously tries it in his books, especially in The Parallax View and The Absolute Recoil. 

So, my philosophical project is exactly that of Zizek's. I believe What Zizek has started has the potential of further radicalizing the Philosophy of Marxism and hence the struggle of emancipation.

So, this is a part of a larger Project. It can take 10-12 years, depending on many factors. But fuck it, Zizek devoted his life to the project.  I can at least give this. 

Coming back to commentary.

IV. Of the Difference Between Analytical and Synthetical Judgements

So, here as promised, Kant begins by distinguishing two kinds of Judgements, namely analytical and synthetic. You, till now, would have seen, the pattern of Kant's thought and thinking process. He thinks in binaries. 

Now, the reason why he is categorizing things, from cognition to knowledge to even judgements into two, is because he wishes to set a principle of epistemology which decides the problems about our conceptions of reason and reality. 

Now, Analytical judgements are those, which just expands or just puts into words, what is already inherently in the conceptions of something. Like, If I say, Words are made of letters. This statement is an analytical statement since, it is in the definition of words that it is made of letters. No new news is added to the stage. But just putting it in words makes it a predicate. 

Synthetic Judgements are those, which actually put some synthesis to the table. That is, it is derived from experience, and it is not inherently in the conception of the object under observation, it is not in the concept which can be extracted through analysis. You need synthesis to derive information. An example of Synthetic judgement is "this word is bad". Now, this is not in the conception of words. But this is a judgement derived by the judge, through his experience. Of course, this is not a universal statement. Analytical statements are universal, whereas Synthetic judgements are particular to experience, since no empirically informed statements can be truly universal. 

Now, he develops on that to examine, what is exactly in the foundation of a synthetic judgement, that makes it understandable to the other person? Or to quote Kant himself, "what is here the unknown = X, upon which the understanding rests when it believes it has found, out of the conception A a foreign predicate B, which it nevertheless considers to be connected with it?" 

And Kant says, it cannot be experience which becomes the basis of A and B. Since, B can change to C, and that will change the experience, but the grounding basis should be same for all pairs. A and B or A and C. 

That grounding basis has to be a priori, that is experience free. Purely that of conception or cognition. 

Kant says, "Upon such synthetical, that is augmentative propositions, depends the whole aim of our speculative knowledge à priori; for although analytical judgements are indeed highly important and necessary, they are so, only to arrive at that clearness of conceptions which is requisite for a sure and extended synthesis, and this alone is a real acquisition." 

This is exactly what I explained in the last blog. Glad that we reached this conclusion which he reached in the next section. This is the power of theory. We will continue from next section. This section ends here.