Ende dieses Seitenbereichs.

Beginn des Seitenbereichs: Inhalt:

"Erscheinungen zu buchstabieren, um sie als Erfahrung lesen zu können." The kantian justification of the knowledge through the categories

This contribution was written under the supervision of Professor Rainer Enskat during my stay in the Wintersemester in Martin Luther Univeristät Halle Wittenberg. I owe to him the reflexions of this paper.
     The concept of experience deploys a very deep influence in the critical project and constitutes its core. In Prolegomena (§§ 27 and 28) and in KrV (A 764-5/B 792-3), Kant himself has defended this concept against the humean one. In order to describe the content of such a concept it is necessary, following Kant, to pay a special attention to the notion of judgment of experience (§§ 18, 19 and 20), because insofar as they fulfil its conditions, they overtake the subjective reference of the judgments of perception and make possible an objectively and universal speech.
     From my point of view, Kant here intends to solve the same problem as Plato in Theatetus and, in modern epistemology, as Gettier. This is the problem of the justification of the transition from perception to experience. In other words, the transition from the mere empirical awareness, documented in the judgment of perception, and is overtaken by the pure consciousness shaped by the categories. These are the form of those judgments, which rise universal validity and require the agreement of others. However, such judgments do not take place exclusively in the theoretical consciousness of the transcendental philosopher, but in the one of any other human mind (Enskat, 2015).
     Both mathematics (§6) and pure natural science (§14) are precisely the document through which it is possible to recognize that the judgments of experience describe the human insight of the world. The issue I would like to address is: how can the human mind earn this insight, which comes embodied both in mathematics and pure natural science? To find an answer I will focus on the kantian concept of experience insofar as both disciplines take part of it.
     Indeed, the way in which mathematics and pure natural science take part of experience is different. As Enskat shows (2015), the concept of "fruchtbares Bathos der Erfahrung" (Prol. Ak. IV 373), defined by the so called "judgments of perception" is the point from which we are capable to achieve parts of the whole of experience and, at the same time, to form that insight of the world.
     This problem of justification should be deployed as it follows: how is it possible to achieve, from an amount of mere judgments of perception, an objective knowledge and, thus, an objectively valid knowledge? Kant's answer is oriented, from my point of view, 1) to the way in which this knowledge is to be produced, that is, 2) to the form by which we make use in the judgment of experience of what it was presented in the very perception and, also, 3) to the form through which it is documented in the logical form of a judgment of perception.
     This happens in mathematics because its object is the very form of any object, insofar as it has to be given in the sensibility in order to be known and, therefore, it is also shaped by the forms of pure intuition (Koriako, 1999 and Wolff-Metternich, 1995). However, the case of pure natural science is different, because the claim of universal validity risen by the judgments of experience is subject to certain circumstances (§ 19), and overtakes the mere subjective reference of judgments of perception.
     The way in which we make use of what was presented in the judgment of perception is what Kant recognizes with the metaphorical expression: "a" (Enskat2015 and Makreel 1990). The meaning of this quotation, which I assume as the common thread of my exposition, shows how an objective knowledge of the world from the mere subjective laws of experience given a priori is, in fact, possible.

Kontakt: Sekretariat

Fachoberinspektorin

Ingeborg Röllig

Institut für Philosophie

Heinrichstraße 33/EG, 8010 Graz

Telefon:+43 316 380 - 2295

Parteienverkehr:
Mo - Fr 9.00-12.00 Uhr

Ende dieses Seitenbereichs.

Beginn des Seitenbereichs: Zusatzinformationen:

Ende dieses Seitenbereichs.