Kant’s Analytics
peace,
About a decade and a half ago, I finished writing my doctoral dissertation on Immanuel Kant.
In my studies, I delved into Kant’s “Analytics.” In particular, I examined the imagination and the connection between this faculty of cognition and time in the light of Kant’s words about number and the act of counting.
I would like to point out to you a very big mistake in your words about Kant in “Truth and Unstable”:
Nowhere does Kant claim that all scientific theorems are synthetic-a priori!
Kant presents a very limited number of such sentences, the so-called “principles” known
He also points out that all mathematical theorems (arithmetic and geometry) are such that
The latter are granted a special status by virtue of the close connection between them and the forms of observation, space and time (and there is no place here to detail this not-so-simple justification on his part).
As for science, he concludes only that the statement “every event has a cause” is synthetic-a priori.
But he does not present any concrete scientific theorem as such!
I’m sorry that such a significant error crept into your words.
I understand that your book seeks to paint a very large subject with broad brushstrokes.
But this is not about a summary that is a necessity of reality, but rather a fundamental error.
This erroneous position is the one you “refut” but you are not refuting Kant with your words….
Regards
Hello.
Thanks for the comment/correction. I no longer remember my exact wording, but my argument is this:
Kant conceptualizes the category of the synthetic-a priori. He includes causality and induction in it. In doing so, he thought he had solved the epistemological problem of skepticism: how can one attain knowledge of the laws of the world (the laws of nature).
This means that the laws of nature are also essentially synthetic a priori, since they cannot be reached through experience alone. I am of course assuming here that although they have empirical (a posteriori) components, they are essentially synthetic-a priori, since the strength of the chain is determined by the strength of its weakest link.
In my understanding, this necessarily follows from his doctrine, even if he does not write it explicitly, but rather about causality and induction. Without this, his words contain no solution to the epistemological problem (see Bergman, Introduction to the Theory of Cognition, chapters 8-9).
So I guess you’re right that my words are not a quote but a reconstruction or reorganization of his teaching. But essentially it’s there.
Best regards,
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