The a priori "templates" which consciousness conformed to were universal to all rationals beings, and it is this global characteristic which accordingly was demanded of any non-contingent moral principle as well (or one could say: required by its very definition). But compared to their contribution in philosophy of mind, I care less about the role of such in regard to practical philosophy (morality, freedom). The relationship between the mind's faculties of the Understanding (forms of thought) and the Sensibility (forms of space/time imposed upon the data of sense) finally provided a direction for explaining cognition, as well as the start of experience being viewed as a merger of the two (conceptual application providing interpretation of appearances / manifestations). In natural science, explanations would revolve more around perceptual information being "understood" by a brain's memory system serving as the function of Kant's categories (concepts).David Handeye wrote:Thank you for your complete explanation, hammock. I wrote something in Italian about Kant, but often language happens to be a barrier.I think synthetic a priori do not exist. That is. In other words, a metaphysical thought is impossible. You could never have a thought without sensitive intuitions. [...] So, do you think are possible synthetical a priori? I mean, as a matter of fact, he also used to say "act as if any of your actions should be taken as a universal example".
ANDREW BROOK = Three ideas define the basic shape (‘cognitive architecture’) of Kant's model and one its dominant method. They have all become part of the foundation of cognitive science.
1. The mind is complex set of abilities (functions). (As Meerbote 1989 and many others have observed, Kant held a functionalist view of the mind almost 200 years before functionalism was officially articulated in the 1960s by Hilary Putnam and others.)
2. The functions crucial for mental, knowledge-generating activity are spatio-temporal processing of, and application of concepts to, sensory inputs. Cognition requires concepts as well as percepts.
3. These functions are forms of what Kant called synthesis. Synthesis (and the unity in consciousness required for synthesis) are central to cognition.
These three ideas are fundamental to most thinking about cognition now. Kant's most important method, the transcendental method, is also at the heart of contemporary cognitive science: To study the mind, infer the conditions necessary for experience. Arguments having this structure are called transcendental arguments. Translated into contemporary terms, the core of this method is inference to the best explanation, the method of postulating unobservable mental mechanisms in order to explain observed behaviour.
To be sure, Kant thought that he could get more out of his transcendental arguments than just ‘best explanations’. He thought that he could get a priori (experience independent) knowledge out of them. Kant had a tripartite doctrine of the a priori. He held that some features of the mind and its knowledge had a priori origins, i.e., must be in the mind prior to experience (because using them is necessary to have experience). That mind and knowledge have these features are a priori truths, i.e., necessary and universal. And we can come to know these truths, or that they are a priori at any rate, only by using a priori methods, i.e., we cannot learn these things from experience. Kant thought that transcendental arguments were a priori or yielded the a priori in all three ways. Nonetheless, at the heart of this method is inference to the best explanation. When introspection fell out of favour about 100 years ago, the alternative approach adopted was exactly this approach. Its nonempirical roots in Kant notwithstanding, it is now the major method used by experimental cognitive scientists.
Other things equally central to Kant's approach to the mind have not been taken up by cognitive science, as we will see near the end, a key part of his doctrine of synthesis and most of what he had to say about consciousness of self in particular. Far from his model having been superseded by cognitive science, some important things have not even been assimilated by it. [Kant's View of the Mind and Consciousness of Self]
David Handeye wrote:[...] After having closed doors at metaphysics with transcendental dialectics, he seems to re-open those in ethics' field [...]
In Kant's scheme, the proper target of the Understanding was the appearances of the Sensibility (empirical events) -- not metaphysical affairs which only offered an absence of exhibited content. A kind of "internal metaphysics" was permitted however, as far as offering theories / hypotheses about the phenomenal / natural world [which has now been taken over by the activity of physics]. But the noumenal territory which was forbidden to speculative philosophy was allowed in practical philosophy, since the latter was not concerned with futile attempts to "prove" anything, but merely recruited the intelligible world as a refuge for items which reason or some of our traditions deemed necessary. Kant, however, confined practical philosophy specifically to topics of freedom and morality, which natural philosophy (science) had little interest in, anyway. While I could quote the relevant passages below directly from Kant, John Watson's summary of them is slightly more lucid and to the point. Contained at the end is an elaboration on the distinction between "practical" as used in "practical reason / philosophy" and "technical-practical" which refers to social circumstances in the mechanistic / phenomenal world.
JOHN WATSON = There are only two kinds of conception by reference to which the division of philosophy into theoretical and practical can be made. Theoretical [speculative] philosophy is concerned solely with conceptions of nature; in other words, it deals with those pure conceptions or categories which are essential to the constitution of the orderly system of phenomena. The conception of freedom, on the other hand, is merely a negative principle of theoretical knowledge; i.e., it only tells us that a free subject, if such a subject exists, must be independent of all sensuous desire. But this conception also enables us, through the consciousness of the moral law, to enlarge the sphere of the will, and the will is simply practical reason. These two conceptions, then, when they are grasped clearly, enable us to keep theoretical philosophy and moral philosophy perfectly distinct. The former is the philosophy of nature, the latter the philosophy of the free or moral subject. These terms, however, have not been consistently employed, but a confusion has been introduced by an ambiguous use of the term "practical," which has been applied both to sciences that are occupied with nature and also to the free or moral subject. Now, the former application is obviously illegitimate, when we consider that in the proper sense nothing is "practical" except those actions which proceed from a free moral subject .
Desire as such is simply one of the many causes which belong to the world of phenomena; in other words, our own actions, so long as we look at them from the phenomenal point of view, are events of the same character as other events, and as such come under the same laws. More particularly, desire must be viewed as subject to the law of mechanical causation. If an attempt is made to remove desire from the sphere of nature on the ground that our actions are preceded by an idea of the object to be attained, Kant answers that this of itself does not introduce any fundamental distinction; for, the mere fact that an act is preceded by an idea does not show that it is taken out of the sphere of phenomena. So far as it is regarded as an event, desire belongs to the sphere of nature, and therefore it obviously falls within the domain of theoretical philosophy. On the other hand, when we look at our acts from the point of view of the noumenal self, the self as free, they must be regarded as practically possible or practically necessary; i.e., they must be regarded as the self-determination of a rational or free subject. So regarded our actions fall within the sphere of moral philosophy. The true contrast, then, is between events that are brought under the law of natural causation and actions that proceed from the free subject.
It is of the greatest consequence to distinguish clearly between these two spheres. If we look at the will from the point of view of natural causation, we cannot, strictly speaking, say that we are dealing with a problem which belongs to practical philosophy; for, so far as even our own actions can be regarded as phenomena, they are at the most only technically practical, not morally practical. 308 o All technically practical rules are simply applications of theoretical philosophy to specific cases. They contain the rules of art and skill, or of the practical sagacity which enables us to influence men, but in themselves they have nothing to do with what is morally practical, and therefore they do not belong to the sphere of practical philosophy. Thus we obtain a perfectly clear distinction between the two contrasted spheres. Nothing belongs to practical philosophy except the laws of freedom, and those postulates which necessarily follow from them. Such so-called "practical" arts as surveying, statesmanship, farming, etc., and even those prudential rules by which happiness may be obtained, are merely technically practical rules, and therefore belong to the sphere of theoretical reason. In this way we see that practical philosophy is identical with moral philosophy, which rests upon the supersensible principle of freedom; whereas theoretical philosophy is limited to the connexion of phenomena, whether these are events occurring in the case of lifeless matter or merely animal instinct, or our own desires, so far as these are viewed simply as events in the phenomenal world. [The Philosophy of Kant Explained]
Kant actually introduced this dichotomy of speculative / practical philosophy before The Critique of Practical Reason was released, in the CPR:
KANT = But as will be shown, reason has, in respect of its practical employment, the right to postulate what in the field of mere speculation it can have no kind of right to assume without sufficient proof. For while all such assumptions do violence to [the principle of] completeness of speculation, that is a principle with which the practical interest is not at all concerned. In the practical sphere reason has rights of possession, of which it does not require to offer proof, and of which, in fact, it could not supply proof. The burden of proof accordingly rests upon the opponent. But since the latter knows just as little of the object under question, in trying to prove its non-existence, as does the former in maintaining its reality, it is evident that the former, who is asserting something as a practically necessary supposition, is at an advantage (melior est conditio possidentis). For he is at liberty to employ, as it were in self-defense, on behalf of his own good cause, the very same weapons that his opponent employs against that cause, that is, hypotheses. These are not intended to strengthen the proof of his position, but only to show that the opposing party has much too little understanding of the matter in dispute to allow of his flattering himself that he has the advantage in respect of speculative insight. Hypotheses are therefore, in the domain of pure reason, permissible only as weapons of war, and only for the purpose of defending a right, not in order to establish it. But the opposing party we must always look for in ourselves. For speculative reason in its transcendental employment is in itself dialectical; the objections which we have to fear lie in ourselves. We must seek them out, just as we would do in the case of claims that, while old, have never become superannuated, in order that by annulling them we may establish a permanent peace. [Critique of Pure Reason]
KANT = But when all progress in the field of the supersensible has thus been denied to speculative reason, it is still open to us to enquire whether, in the practical knowledge of reason, data may not be found sufficient to determine reason's transcendent concept of the unconditioned, and so to enable us, in accordance with the wish of metaphysics, and by means of knowledge that is possible a priori, though only from a practical point of view, to pass beyond the limits of all possible experience. Speculative reason has thus at least made room for such an extension; and if it must at the same time leave it empty, yet none the less we are at liberty, indeed we are summoned, to take occupation of it, if we can, by practical data of reason. This attempt to alter the procedure which has hitherto prevailed in metaphysics, by completely revolutionising it in accordance with the example set by the geometers and physicists, forms indeed the main purpose of this critique of pure speculative reason. It is a treatise on the method, not a system of the science itself. But at the same time it marks out the whole plan of the science, both as regards its limits and as regards its entire internal structure. [Critique of Pure Reason]
KANT = To know an object I must be able to prove its possibility, either from its actuality as attested by experience, or a priori by means of reason. But I can think whatever I please, provided only that I do not contradict myself, that is, provided my concept is a possible thought. This suffices for the possibility of the concept, even though I may not be able to answer for there being, in the sum of all possibilities, an object corresponding to it. But something more is required before I can ascribe to such a concept objective validity, that is, real possibility; the former possibility is merely logical. This something more need not, however, be sought in the theoretical sources of knowledge; it may lie in those that are practical. [Critique of Pure Reason]
