Objective Knowledge According to Kantian Criticism

The “Copernican revolution” of Kant programmatically stems from an innovative critical reflection on the nature, the limits, the value, the articulation and meaning of the knowledge which science has made available to man since the birth of modern science.

When Galileo caused balls, the weights of which he had himself previously determined, to roll down an inclined plane; when Torricelli made the air carry a weight which he had calculated beforehand to be equal to that of a definite volume of water; or in more recent times, [...] a light broke upon all students of nature. They learned that reason has insight only into that which it produces after a plan of its own, and that it must not allow itself to be kept, as it were, in nature's leading-strings, but must itself show the way with principles of judgment based upon fixed laws, constraining nature to give answer to questions of rea­son's own determining (Kant 1787, B XIII).

als G a l i l e i seine Kugeln die schiefe Flache mit einer von ihm selbst gewahlten Schwere herabrollen, oder Torricelli die Luft ein Gewicht, was er sich zum voraus dem einer ihm bekannten Wassersaule gleich gedacht hatte, [...] so ging allen Naturforschern ein Licht auf. Sie begriffen, dass die Vernunft nur das einsieht was sie selbst nach ihrem, dass die Vernunft nur das einsieht, was sie selbst nach ihren Entwurfe hervorbringt, dass sie mit Prinzipien ihrer Urteile nach bestandigen Gesetzen vorangehen und die Natur notigen musse, auf ihre Fragen zu antworten, nicht aber sich von ihr allein gleichsam am Leitbande gangeln lassen musse (Kant 1787, B XIII).

Kant has indeed clearly understood the synthetic nature of scientific knowledge, which can never proceed from empirical observation conducted randomly and haphazardly, because in fact it always originates from a precise conceptual medi­ation through which it is possible to read, in an original and innovative way, the empirical reality which is always “read”, “reconstructed” and “normed” within a specific theoretical paradigm.

Reason, holding in one hand its principles, according to which alone concordant appear­ances can be admitted as equivalent to laws, and in the other hand the experiment which it has devised in conformity with these principles, must approach nature in order to be taught by it. It must not, however, do so in the character of a pupil who listens to everything that the teacher chooses to say, but of an appointed judge who compels the witnesses to answer questions which he has himself formulated (Kant 1787, B XIII).

denn sonst hangen zufallige, nach keinem vorher entworfenen Plane gemacht Beobach- tungen gar nicht in einem notwendigen Gesetze zusammen, welches doch die Vernunft sucht und bedarf. Der Vernunft muss mit ihren Prinzipien, nach denen allein ubereink- ommende Erscheinungen fur Gesetze gelten konnen, in einer Hand, und mit dem Experi­ment, das sie nach jenen ausdachte, in der anderen, an die Natur gehen, zwar um von ihr belehrt zu werden, aber nicht in der Qualitat eines Schulers, der sich alles vorsagen lasst, was der Lehrer will, sodern eines bestallten Richters, der die Zeugen notigt, auf die Fragen zu antworten, die er ihnen vorlegt (Kant 1787 B XIII).

For Kant scientific knowledge proceeds therefore “swayinglike a sailor”, pre­cisely because it rests, alternately, on the one hand on the “necessary demonstra­tions” (i.e. all mathematical and deductive inferences), and on the other hand on “certain experiences” (i.e. the experimental dimension which is realised in a sci­entific laboratory), as by the way Galileo had clearly argued and illustrated in The Assayer (1623).

Even physics, therefore, owes the beneficent revolution in its point of view entirely to the happy thought, that while reason must seek in nature, not fictitiously ascribe to it, whatever as not being knowable through reason's own resources has to be learnt, if learnt at all, only from nature, it must adopt as its guide, in so seeking, that which it has itself put into nature. It is thus that the study of nature has entered on the secure path of a science, after having for so many centuries been nothing but a process of merely random groping (Kant 1787, B XIV).

Und so hat sogar Physik die so vorteilhafte Revolution ihrer Denkart lediglich dem Einfalle zu verdanken, demjenigen, was die Vernunft selbst in die Natur hineinlegt, gemass, das- jenige in ihr zu suchen (nicht ihr anzudichten), was sie von dieser lernen muss, und wovon sie fur sich selbst nichts wissen wurde. Hierdurch ist die Naturwissenschaft allererst in den sicheren Gang einer Wissenschaft gebracht worden, da sie so viel Jahrhunderte durch nichts weiter als ein blosses Herumtappen gewesen war (Kant 1787, B XIII-XIV).

This its ability to investigate nature in accordance to what reason itself invests it with, coincides exactly with the discovery of the new heuristic plane of transcen- dentality, by which Kant constructs the overall theoretical framework of his epis­temological meta-critic reflection, deeply innovating not only the whole concept of knowledge, but also the style and modes of human rationality. The onset of this complex tradition of rationalist thought can in fact be identified, quite correctly, in that innovative Socratic criticism by which reason turns into a privileged critical-dialogical investigative tool, where, in fact, rationality is expressed in the ability to establish a critical argued comparison among different and even conflicting positions—according to the well-known saying of Heraclitus that “polemos is the father of all things and king of all” (Diel-Kranz 2006: Heraclitus B 53, 353).

In his reflection Kant therefore highlights precisely the conceptual dimension of science with full critical evidence, since in his view science is what it is precisely because—whatever may be Heidegger’s opinion—it is always capable of thinking its object by constructing it through a plastic critical interplay of continuous comparison with the experimental dimension. If for Heidegger “die Wissenschaft denkt nicht”, for Kant, on the contrary, science is always able to think, because without scientific thought there would be no objective knowledge of our world. However from a critical perspective we should avoid any possible transcendental amphiboly, confusing for example the empirical use of the intellect with its tran­scendental use, because for Kant only and exclusively the transcendental use of the intellect enables us to underline the indispensable conceptual component of all objective knowledge.

From this precise and innovative critical-transcendentalist perspective, the object (Gegenstand/Objekt) for Kant coincides with that in whose concept multiple aspects of an intuition are unified (Kant 1787: 137 B). Of course the object is still only offered through the receptivity of the sense impressions, but we must also add, it is always exclusively thought through the spontaneity of concepts (B 74). Therefore, for Kant objects constitute representations determined by the concepts of space and time according to the laws of the unity of experience (B 522).

In this way the dual structure of the Kantian conception of objective knowledge emerges again, because the concepts of objects in general, are always an aprioristic foundation of any possible, eventual empirical knowledge (B 126). For Kant the real object is therefore created when the concept appears to be in connection with perception and, through the latter, is determined and regulated conceptually through the intellect (B 286), while the necessary object is determined by means of a connection among perceptions implemented according to the categorical structures specific to concepts.

Exactly on this epistemological basis Kant, already in the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason, explicitly declares to undoubtedly support a distinctive form of transcendental critical idealism which delineates a specific empirical realism:

The transcendental idealist, on the other hand, may be an empirical realist or, as he is called, a dualist] that is, he may admit the existence of matter without going outside his mere self-consciousness, or assuming anything more than the certainty of his representations, that is, the cogito, ergo sum. For he considers this matter and even its inner possibility to be appearance merely; and appearance, if separated from our sensibility, is nothing. Matter is with him, therefore, only a species of representations (intuition), which are called external, not as standing in relation to objects in themselves external, but because they relate per­ceptions to the space in which all things are external to one another, while yet the space itself is in us (Kant 1787, A 370).

Der transzendentale Idealist kann hingegen ein empirischer Realist, mithin, wie man ihn nennt, ein Dualist sein, d. i. die Existenz der Materie einraumen, ohne aus dem blossen Selbstbewusstsein hinauszugehen, und etwas mehr, als die Gewissheit der Vorstellungen in mir, mithin dal cogito ero sum, anzunehmen. Denn weil er diese Materie und sogar deren innere Moglichkeit bloss vor Erscheinung gelten lasst, die, von unserer Sinnlichkeit abgetrennt, nichts ist: so ist sie bei ihm nur eine Art Vorstellungen (Anschauung), welche ausserlich heissen, nicht, als ob sie sich auf a n s i ch selbst a u s s e r e Gegenstande bezogen, sondern weil sie Wahrnehmungen auf den Raum beziehen, in welchem alles ausser einander, er selbst der Raum aber in uns ist (Kant 1787: A 370).

This delineates one of the most important, innovative and even controversial points of the critical perspective, which, not surprisingly, has often been misin­terpreted by many commentators. The empirical realism about which Kant writes seems to be an ambiguous perspective, and as such it is not able to satisfy either the tradition of classical metaphysical realism, or even less the tradition of modern empiricism (also metaphysical, as it was delineated by Hume until the logical positivists of the Wiener Kreis). Nor is it enough: because it is this demand for a realistic empirical perspective, intrinsic to his critical-transcendental idealism, which similarly enabled representatives of the traditional classical metaphysics to criticise Kant for having remained entangled in a form, however complex, of the metaphysical Cartesian dualism. In this regard, all Kant's stands setting a critical distance between himself and those very different traditions of thought were not sufficient to free him from many critical comments, which variously reduce his perspective to that of idealism or to that, though decidedly antithetical, of meta­physical realism. Despite all these misinterpretations of the criticism, Kant in fact delineated a new and very fruitful epistemological horizon which enables us, even today, to have a better understanding of the intrinsically critical nature of human knowledge, liberating the very notion of objectivity from any metaphysical assumption. Kant stated clearly that

The transcendental idealist is, therefore, an empirical realist, and allows to matter, as appearance, a reality which does not permit of being inferred, but is immediately perceived. Transcendental realism, on the other hand, inevitably falls into difficulties, and finds itself obliged to give way to empirical idealism, in that it regards the objects of outer sense as something distinct from the senses themselves, treating mere appearances as self-subsistent beings, existing outside us. On such a view as this, however clearly we may be conscious 1 of our representation of these things, it is still far from certain that, if the representation exists, there exists also the object corresponding to it. In our system, on the other hand, these external things, namely matter, are in all their configurations and alterations nothing but mere appearances, that is, representations in us, of the reality of which we are imme­diately conscious (Kant 1787, A 371-372).

Also ist der transzendentale Idealist ein empirischer Realist und gesteht der Materie, als Erscheinung, eine Wirklichkeit zu, die nicht geschlossen werden darf, sondern unmittelbar wahrgenommen wird. Dagegen kommt der transzendentale Realismus notwendig in Ver- legenheit, und sieht sich genotigt, dem empirischen Idealismus Platz einzuraumen, weil er die Gegenstande ausserer Sinne vor etwas von den Sinnen selbst Unterschiedenes, und blosse Erscheinungen vor selbstandige Wesen ansieht, die sich ausser uns befinden; da denn freilich, bei unserem besten Bewusstsein unserer Vorstellung von diesen Dingen, noch lange nicht gewiss ist, dass, wenn die Vorstellung existiert, ach der ihr korre- spondierende Gegenstand existiere; dahingegen in unserem System diese aussere Dinge, die Materie namlich, in alien ihren Gestalten und Veranderungen, nichts als blosse Erscheinungen, d. i. Vorstellungen in uns sind, deren Wirklichkeit wir uns unmittelbar bewusst werden (Kant 1787: A 371-372).

Here we can grasp all the revolutionary character of Kant's epistemological stance, which delineated a new image of objective knowledge by liberating it from all the traditional metaphysical assumptions which actually lead to making knowledge absolute. Kant's objective is certainly not easy, because he seeks to maintain the objective cognitive scope of science, liberating it, however, from undue—and traditional—metaphysical absolutisation. Which is not without con­sequences for the complex relationship with the tradition of scepticism itself, which is criticised by Kant because it claims to aprioristically deny the very possibility of knowledge, but which he nevertheless appreciated to the extent that it helps us to liberate ourselves from all the “metaphysical cramps” of our reason. As Jules Vouillemin rightly observes.

Avant Kant, la philosophie classique essaie, une fois ebranles les systemes theologiques du Moyen Age, de decouvrir un absolu susceptible de fonder la verite. Par exemple, les concepts de substance, de cause, de force, de necessite regoivent ce role de substituts de Dieu. L'acte revolutionnaire de Kant dans l'histoire de la pensee, sa «revolution coperni- cienne», a consiste, en reprenant l'analyse de ces differentes notions par rapport a la fonction qu'elles exercent dans la connaissance objective, a montrer que, loin de monnayer l'absolu, elles ne conservaient de signification que dans les limites de l'experience possible, c'est-a-dire si on les coupait de leur contexte theologique. A cet egard, la theorie kantienne de la connaissance est la premiere theorie consequentet vraiment philosophique d'une connaissance sans Dieu. [...] la genie critique a consiste a refuser de replacer le probleme de la verite par celui de la convention ou de la commodite, a maintenir donc la question de la difference entre le reel et l'apparent, entre le necessaire et le contingent, a l'interieur d'une philosophie qui s'interdit de parler des choses en soi et qui fonde toute sa physique sur la relativite du mouvement (Vuillemin 1955: 3658-359, ma cfr. anche Holzhey 1970, passim).

To this decisive point, Kant himself returned on several occasions, especially in the writings devoted to the criticism composed in the latter part of his life. For example, in his invaluable notes, which he did not publish but were later published by Rink in 1840, he prepared to answer the famous question asked by the Royal Academy of Sciences of Berlin in the last years of the eighteenth century, about Welche sind die wirklichen Fortschritte, die die Metaphysick seit Leibnizens und Wolf’s Zeiten in Deutschland gemacht hat? In this text Kant intended to show how criticism led metaphysics to take a decisive step forward, enabling it to move from a “critique of metaphysics” to the definition of a “critical metaphysics”, because in his view “real metaphysics” cannot but recognise the limits of human reason, delineating the possibility of a new critical ontology, no longer metaphysical. This ontology consists precisely in developing a systematic, critical meta-reflection on the different theories developed in various disciplines in order to finally identify the constitutive transcendental structures of the various disciplines. Kant also claims that a positive result of his investigation lies precisely in having determined that the theoretical knowledge of pure reason can never go beyond the objects of the senses and, in this perspective, he also repeatedly underlines that there is always a close correlation between empirical intuitions and intellectual categories, for it is through the intuition which conforms to a concept, that the object is actually given, while if the intuition of the senses is missing the object is thought as empty (because it is just thought). The objectivity of knowledge is built precisely within this critical interplay between pure concepts and the intuitions of the senses, while Kant claims that his criticism makes it possible to avoid both the despotism of empiricism and also the anarchic excesses of a limitless philodoxy. Moreover, Kant realised that his critical perspective allows us to understand the precise heuristic role that “critical metaphysics” always plays within scientific theories, enabling us to construct sci­entific disciplines which, in order to know the world, have to introduce regulatory epistemological concepts through which we are able to read and interpret the world cognitively, at least to the extent that these same concepts are intertwined with the results of different experimental verifications. Thus Kantian criticism, which also has the limitation of having never investigated the role of technology within the dynamic growth of knowledge made available by scientific research, however, had the merit of underlining that the key problem of scientific knowledge is rooted precisely in its own objectivity. Therefore Kantian criticism gives the subsequent debate—and also the contemporary one—the valuable suggestion to rethink the objectivity of scientific knowledge, liberating it from the traditional metaphysical reductionism of empiricism, and also, conversely, from any undue absolutisation typical of the composite tradition of positivism. Certainly in the Kantian reflection there is no critical awareness that the transcendental structures are not to be con­ceived as the “fixed stars” of thought, because they too are historical, relative and conventional. However, this our different epistemological awareness can only be based on Kant's discovery of a “Copernican revolution” which constantly reminds us of how the objectivity conquered by scientific knowledge can never be confused with absolute knowledge. But then, how can we conceive the objectivity of knowledge, taking into account its historical relativity and the conceptual changes which characterise the history of science?

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