“YEAR OF DIALOGUE AND NATIONAL

RECONCILIATION”

FACULTY : RIGHT
PROFESSIONAL SCHOOL: LAW AND POLITICAL SCIENCES
ISSUE : EMANUEL KANT'S PHILOSOPHY
TEACHING : ARCADIO AGUIRRE ROJAS
COURSE : PHILOSOPHY
STUDENTS :
- CHOQUEHUANCA VASQUEZ, RAFAELA GRYZEL.
- DORIA QUIROZ, OLGA GRILDA.
- CHAUCA RIVERA, JHONY.
SHIFT : TOMORROW
CYCLE : Yo
CLASSROOM : 23

PERU – 2018
 DEDICATION:
To the people who are always
present in difficulty, to those who
make everyday life better…
 INTRODUCTION

In affirming that knowledge is limited to experience, Kantian philosophy is close to

empiricism, and in affirming that not all knowledge comes from experience, it is close
to rationalism. But the influence of the third great philosophical movement of
modernity, the Enlightenment, is also essential in Kantian thought. The enlightened
project is a common effort to transform and improve humanity through the development
of its own rational nature. To carry out this project, the fundamental tasks proposed are
the unveiling of the laws of nature and the rational ordering of human life. The two
great Enlightenment figures, Newton and Rousseau, clearly influenced Kant. For the
entire Enlightenment, Newton represented the culmination of modern science, an
example of the possibilities of a science that combines empirical experience and reason
and of the success that can be achieved if we limit scientific activity to the knowledge of
phenomena. Kantian philosophy is an attempt to philosophically clarify the conditions
of possibility of Newtonian physics. For his part, Rousseau was the philosopher of the
spirit, of subjectivity: in contrast to the causally determined external world, he proposes
also recognizing the internal world, that of consciousness, since in it man is discovered
as free, as a subject of moral responsibility. Rousseau reinforced Kant's belief in
autonomy and the independence of morality from the laws that govern the objective
world. Newton and Rousseau, the kingdom of nature and the kingdom of the spirit,
causality and freedom. Two worlds of which he feels a citizen, two legalities to which
he is subject. Does science annul all human access to the metaphysical? Can physical
causality and moral freedom be reconciled? This is an essential problem addressed by
Kant: the possibility of the metaphysical for man, the definitive clarification of how
man is a citizen of both worlds.
Kantian philosophy is a critical philosophy: it will try to analyze and understand the
possibility and limits of Reason both in its theoretical aspect and in its practical
dimension. His project consists of establishing the principles and limits of scientific
knowledge of Nature, while answering the question: what can I know?, establishing and
justifying the principles of action and the conditions of freedom, linked to the question:
what should I do?; and outlining the ultimate destiny of man in order to answer the
question: what can I hope for? And all three can be expressed with the most general
question: what is man?
 CHAPTER I
I. EMANUEL KANT'S PHILOSOPHY

II EMMANUEL KANT: Emmanuel Kant was born in Konigsberg, East

Prussia, on April 22, 1724 and died on February 12, 1804. From the age of
sixteen to twenty-five he studied at the University of his hometown where
his teacher was Martin Knutzen, who introduced him to Wolf's philosophy
and Newton's physics. After his father's death in 1746, he spent nine years
working as a tutor in various families. In 1755 he returned to Konigsberg
where he remained for the rest of his life. From 1755 to 1770 he was a
Privatdozent (non-salaried professor) at the University of Konigsberg. In
1770 he was appointed professor of philosophy, a position he held until
1797.

It is usual to distinguish two periods in Kant's literary activity. The first, the
pre-critical period, which runs from 1747 to 1781, when he wrote "Kritik der
reinen Vernunft"; the second, the critical period, which runs from 1781 to
1794.

I.II.PRE-CRITICAL PERIOD:
Kant's first book, published in 1747, was "Gedanken von der wahren
Schatzung der lebendigen Krafte" (Considerations on the True Estimation of
the Forces of Life). In 1775 he published his doctoral dissertation "On Fire"
and the work "Principiorum Primorum Cognitionis Metaphysicae Nova
Dilucidatio" (A New Explanation of the First Principles of Metaphysical
Knowledge) with which he qualified for the position of Privatdozent. In
addition to these works, in which he expounds and defends Wolf's
philosophical current, he published other treatises in which he applies this
philosophy to the problems of mathematics and physics. In 1770, the work
"De Mundi Sensibilis Atque Intelligibilis Formis et Principiis" (On the
Forms and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible Worlds) appeared, in
which he presented for the first time the features of an independent system of
philosophy. The years from 1770 to 1780 were spent, as Kant himself said,
in the preparation of the "Critique of Pure Reason."

I.III. CRITICAL PERIOD:

Kant's first work in which he appears as an exponent of Transcendental
Criticism is the "Critique of Pure Reason" (Kritik der reinen Vernunft)
published in 1781. A second edition was published in 1787. In 1785,
"Foundations for a Metaphysics of Morals" (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik
der Sitten) appeared. Then came a series of critical works, the most
important of which were The Critique of Practical Reason (Kritik der
praktischen Vernunft), the Critique of Judgment (Kritik der Urtheilskraft,
1790), and Religion within the Limits of Pure Reason (Religion innerhalb
der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, 1793).

The best editions of Kant's Complete Works are the second edition by
Hartenstein (8 vols., Leipzig, 1867-69), that by Rosenkranz and Schubert (12
vols., Leipzig, 1834-42), and that published by the Berlin Academy of
Sciences (Kants gesammelte Schriften, herausg.

During the period of his academic career from 1747 to 1781, Kant, as
already stated, taught the philosophy then in vogue in Germany, which was a
form of dogmatic rationalism as modified by Wolf. He had made
psychological experience the basis of metaphysical truth and, rejecting
skepticism, had subjected all knowledge to the judgment of reason. Towards
the end of this period, however, he began to question the soundness of the
psychological foundations of metaphysics and ended by discarding both the
validity and the value of metaphysical reasoning. The apparent
contradictions that he found in the physical sciences and the conclusions that
Hume had reached in his analysis of the principle of causality "awakened
Kant from his dogmatic slumber" and led him without hesitation to see the
need to revise or criticize all human experience in order to rebuild the
physical sciences on principles with a high degree of certainty and, also, in
order to lay a clear foundation for the metaphysical truths that Humean
phenomenalism had sown with skepticism. The old rationalistic dogmatism,
now revived, now placed much greater emphasis on the a priori elements of
knowledge; on the other hand, as was now realised for the first time, Hume's
empirical philosophy had gone too far in reducing all truth to empirical or a
posteriori elements alone. Kant, then, set out to review all knowledge to
determine which of them were a priori and which were a posteriori. As he
himself realized, his purpose was to "deduce" the a priori or transcendental
forms of thought. Thus, his philosophy is essentially a "criticism" because it
is an examination of knowledge and it is "transcendental" because its
purpose, in examining knowledge, is to determine the a priori or
transcendental forms that constitute it. Kant himself used to say that the
business of philosophy was to answer three questions: What can I know?
What should I do? What can I expect? He, however, considered that the
answer to the second and third questions depended on the answer to the first;
our duties and our destiny can only be determined after we have studied
human knowledge.

It might be found more convenient to divide the study of Kant's critical

philosophy into three chapters corresponding to the doctrines included in the
three "Critiques." We will successively undertake (1) the doctrines of the
"Critique of Pure Reason"; (2) the doctrines of the "Critique of Practical
Reason"; and (3) the doctrines of the "Critique of Judgment."

CHAPTER II.
II. Development of Kant's philosophy

II.I. THE THEORETICAL USE OF REASON

II.II KANTIAN APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM OF KNOWLEDGE

To answer the question, what can I know? we must point out the principles from
which a scientific knowledge of Nature is possible and the limits within which
such knowledge is possible, tasks that he carries out in his work "Critique of
Pure Reason."

to). The possibility of metaphysics as a science. The conditions of

scientific knowledge
The metaphysics in which Kant was trained (Wolffian rationalist
metaphysics) took mathematics as the ideal of science and considered
that philosophy should be a deductive activity, based on pure reason.
Kant initially defended this type of philosophy but soon wanted to find a
new foundation for metaphysics: attempts have been made, dogmatically
(through the use of pure reason) to develop philosophical systems but all
have failed because they have achieved neither progress nor agreement
among researchers, a failure that seemed to lead to skepticism. Kant
believed that a Critique of Reason itself, its scope and limits, a "critique
of the organ" of knowledge, was necessary for philosophy and for the
ultimate interests and ends of man. It is therefore urgent to raise the
question of whether Metaphysics is possible as a science. The critical
task will be to clarify the principles and limits of Reason. Kant believed
that errors came from an "overstepping" of Reason: not respecting its
own limits and claiming to attain knowledge beyond all experience
(dogmatic use of reason that gives rise to dogmatic philosophy). On the
other hand, Kant hopes to obtain two advantages from the establishment
of limits that Criticism establishes: to avoid new failures by showing the
human inability to attain metaphysical knowledge by pure reason, and to
safeguard the realm of the intelligible, ruining the pretensions of atheism,
materialism and determinism (this use of reason is a critical use and
brings with it a critical philosophy).
The fundamental problem to be solved is whether Metaphysics is
possible as a science and to do so we must first investigate how science is
 possible, find out the conditions that make it possible, to see whether
Metaphysics adjusts to them or not. In this task we need to distinguish
two types of conditions: empirical conditions, which are particular and
contingent, and a priori or universal and necessary conditions, also called
transcendental (not to be confused with “transcendent” = what is beyond
experience). A priori conditions are prior to experience in the sense that
they are its condition of possibility. Empirical conditions are not of
interest, since a Critique of Pure Reason is required, carried out through a
transcendental investigation of its necessary and universal conditions.

b). Classification of types of trials

Since science is a set of judgments, the above question can be expressed
more exactly as follows: what are the conditions that make the judgments
of science possible? Which requires establishing the fundamental types
of judgments, for which Kant presents us with two classifications:

 The first divides them into analytical judgments and synthetic judgments and
depends on whether the predicate concept is included in the subject concept:
analytical judgments if the predicate is included in the subject; to establish
the judgment it is enough to analyze the subject concept, so they do not give
us any new information, they are not extensive; and synthetic judgments
when the predicate is not included in the subject: they are informative or
extensive judgments and they expand our knowledge.
 The second classifies them into a priori and a posteriori and depends on the
way of knowing their truth: a priori judgments if their truth can be known
independently of experience, since their foundation is not found in it; they are
universal and necessary judgments; and a posteriori judgments if their truth is
known from experience; they are particular and contingent.
The most important judgments of science cannot be analytical or synthetic a
posteriori, but synthetic a priori judgments: because they are synthetic, they
are extensive, they provide information, they expand our knowledge; because
they are a priori, they are universal and necessary, and knowledge of their
truth does not come from experience. Precisely the fundamental principles of
science (Mathematics and Physics) are of this type.

III. THE DOCTRINE OF KNOWLEDGE IN THE "CRITICISM OF

PURE REASON"
 Task proper to the critique of pure reason: How are synthetic a priori
judgments possible?; a task that can be broken down into the following parts:
How is pure mathematics possible? How is natural science (pure or rational
Physics) possible? Are synthetic a priori judgments possible in metaphysics?

III.I. "Transcendental Aesthetics". The a priori forms of Sensitivity.

Transcendental aesthetics (from the Greek "aisthesis", "sensation") is the
science of all the principles of sensibility. Sensitivity is the capacity or
faculty of sensations. Aesthetics explains the way of having sensations
and being "transcendental" it will deal with the knowledge of the
transcendental conditions (universal and necessary) that allow sensitive
knowledge, a previous step for all knowledge. Kant distinguishes two
moments in perception: matter and form. The effect of objects on
sensitivity are sensations, which are, therefore, given a posteriori and
constitute, according to Kant, the matter of knowing at the level of
sensitivity. But sensations are presented in certain relations; that which
makes sensations appear in certain relations is form. Form is not given a
posteriori, but is already a priori in the mind, as the form of sensibility
(Kant also calls it pure intuition). The synthesis (union) of sensations or
empirical data, as matter, and the a priori form is the phenomenon.
The pure forms or a priori principles of sensibility are, according to Kant,
space and time. Space and time are the conditions of possibility of all
experience because no experience is possible that is not under these
relations. Now (and this is very important), according to Kant, space and
time are not objective properties of things themselves, but rather a priori
forms of sensibility. Space and time are the form of external experience,
and time of internal experience. Mathematics is possible (= it is an a
priori and synthetic knowledge) because of the a priori nature of time and
space: geometry and arithmetic deal, respectively, with space and time.
Since mathematics is founded on the forms of intuition, every object that
occurs in intuition must comply with the laws of mathematics.

III.II. "Transcendental Analytics": the spontaneity of understanding.

Sensitivity carries out the first syntheses by unifying sensations in time
and space, but perceiving such multiplicity (colours, shapes, sounds...) is
not, simply, understanding objects. Understanding what is perceived is
the proper function of the Understanding. Kant studies this faculty in the
Transcendental Analytic. Our knowledge includes concepts as well as
 perceptions, for to understand phenomena is to be able to refer them to a
concept; when we cannot refer sensible impressions to a concept, our
understanding of them becomes impossible. This activity of referring
phenomena to concepts is always carried out through a judgment. The
understanding can therefore be considered as the faculty of concepts, or
as the faculty of judgments, the faculty of judging. Kant distinguishes
two types of concepts: empirical concepts, which come from experience
and are a posteriori, and pure concepts or categories, which do not come
from experience and are a priori: categories (substance, causality, unity,
necessity, etc.) are notions that do not refer to empirical data, but are not
constructed or "invented" empirically by man, since they belong to the
structure of understanding (they are a priori).
Knowledge is possible because we apply the categories to the multiplicity
given in sensation. Pure concepts are transcendental, necessary
conditions of our knowledge of phenomena, since the understanding
cannot think them without applying these categories to them: everything
that is the object of our experience is substance or accident, cause or
effect, unity or plurality, etc. In this way, knowledge results from the
cooperation between sensitivity and understanding: sensitivity gives us
objects, understanding thinks them; but the categories are only a source
of knowledge when applied to phenomena (to the sensible impressions
that occur in space and time) and they have no valid application beyond
the phenomena. The error of dogmatic philosophy (based on the pure use
of reason) consists in using categories to refer to transempirical or
transcendent realities (God and the soul, for example). Physics is possible
as a priori knowledge because the world has a mathematical structure
(being subject to time and space) and because the categories have
empirical validity; because every phenomenon is structured according to
the categories. With this, Kant is philosophically legitimizing the
Newtonian Universe.

III.III. The "Transcendental Dialectic": Reason and its Demand for

the unconditioned.
"Transcendental Dialectic" studies Reason and the problem of whether
metaphysics can be a priori knowledge, and concludes that Metaphysics
as a scientific discipline is impossible. Metaphysics aims at things as they
are in themselves, its objects are transcendent (not empirical): the soul,
 its freedom and immortality, God and the world as a whole; but science
necessarily uses categories and these can only be legitimately used when
applied to phenomena, to what is given in experience. Theoretical
Reason, in a loose sense, is what allows knowledge of the world, and in a
strict sense, the faculty of argumentation. Kant understands "dialectic" as
false reasoning that appears true. "Transcendental Dialectic" must
therefore show how Reason makes apparently correct but illegitimate
arguments. The arguments of metaphysics are precisely of that type.
Intellectual knowledge formulates judgments and connects some
judgments with others, forming reasonings. But there is a peculiar
tendency in the use of Reason: Reason seeks to find ever more general
judgments, capable of encompassing a multiplicity of particular
judgments serving as their foundation. Reason aspires to the
unconditioned, to the foundation of foundations. When Reason, in its
search for the conditions of the conditioned, for more general and
profound laws, remains within the limits of experience, its use is correct
and does not give rise to contradictions; science advances precisely on
the basis of this tendency of Reason; but this tendency inevitably leads to
overstepping the limits of empirical experience in search of the
unconditioned: thus, all physical phenomena are attempted to be unified
and explained by means of metaphysical theories about the world, as all
psychic phenomena by means of metaphysical theories about the soul,
and, finally, some phenomena and others are attempted to be explained
and unified by means of metaphysical theories about a supreme cause of
both types of phenomena, physical and psychic: God. "God", "soul" and
"world" are therefore three ideas of Reason; ideas that do not have an
objective reference – they do not have a constitutive use – in the sense
that we cannot know the objects to which they refer (God, soul and world
as a totality); but they do have a regulative use, since they allow the
orientation of research and direct the use of reason in the aspiration to an
ever deeper explanation of reality.

IV. TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM: THE "PHENOMENON" AND

THE "NOUMENON"
IV.I. Kantian philosophy, overcoming empiricism and
Rationalism.

His thesis that knowledge can refer only to what is given to the
senses, and that, therefore, what is beyond the senses is
 unknowable and does not allow scientific treatment, is an
influence of empiricism. For its part, we have the trace of
rationalism in its assertions that strict knowledge is possible
(synthetic a priori judgments), extensive, but also universal and
necessary, although referring to mere phenomena, and that not all
the elements that intervene in knowledge are obtained from
experience, since there are a priori elements. The rationalists
called these elements “innate ideas,” although they understood
that these ideas were contents of knowledge referring to objects; a
priori structures are, for Kant, structures, not contents, and they
do not refer to objects but to the form that every object must have
so that we can experience it; they do not give information relative
to objects in the world, but to the structure of the world.

IV.II. The "Copernican revolution" (or Copernican turn) in

Philosophy.
Kant explains the epistemological change that his philosophy
represents with the analogy of the Copernican astronomical
revolution: Copernicus finds that the apparent movement of the
stars cannot be understood if we assume that the Earth is the
center of the Universe and the Sun revolves around it, and he
proposes that we reverse the terms and assume that the Sun is the
center of the Universe. Kant says the same thing: if the conditions
of the objectivity of being an object are not and cannot be sent to
us by things, since things send us only impressions, then all we
have to do is do what Copernicus did and say that it is things that
conform to our concepts and not our concepts that conform to
things. Categories, therefore, are pure, “a priori” concepts, which
we do not obtain by extracting them from things, but which we
impose on them.
The analogy of the "Copernican revolution" reflects very well an
important aspect of his thought: until Kant, it was considered that
the subject was passive in the act of knowledge and had to submit
to the object in order to know it; but in this way, a priori
knowledge cannot be given, since this knowledge supposes the
possibility of knowing something about things without them
being present in our consciousness, without us having experience
of them. The Copernican turn consists in rejecting the traditional
 conception of knowledge, rejecting that the subject must submit
to things in order to know them, and considering that the subject
is active: it is the things that must submit to us in order to know
them; if we assume that in order to know an object it must first
submit to the formal "a priori" conditions of the structure of our
cognitive faculties, we can understand that we know of things
some features that they must possess even before we have
experience of them: we can only know a priori of things that
which we have previously placed in them. The Copernican turn
refers to the fact that we can only understand a priori knowledge
if we admit that we only know phenomena and not things in
themselves or noumena, if we admit Transcendental Idealism as
the true philosophy.

IV.III. Kantian Philosophy: Transcendental Idealism

Transcendental Idealism is the culmination of modern thought,
which begins with the Cartesian approach to the problem of
knowledge: to have strict knowledge it is necessary to refer to the
subject of knowledge (the "cogito"), only then will we have
evidence powerful enough to support the rest of knowledge; but
this is achieved at the cost of problematizing the knowledge of
external reality. Empiricism continues along this same line by
considering that immediate knowledge deals with ideas or
perceptions and not with things in themselves and by suggesting
that the great problems of objectivity (the theoretical world and
the practical world) must be resolved after the analysis of the
psychological processes thanks to which the subject has
experience of the objects; but the subject that the empiricists
speak of is an empirical subject. Kant takes up this line of
explanation showing that we must reflect on the way of knowing
in order to discover the elements, foundation and limits of
knowledge, but he puts a different subject as the subject: the
Transcendental Subject, which cannot be identified with the
empirical, contingent self, made in this way but able to be in
another way; the Transcendental Subject is the meta-empirical
subject of which the different a priori forms are predicated and
which carries out the different syntheses that give rise to the
constitution of the phenomena. The consequence is a complete
 turn in the understanding of knowledge and the radical separation
between philosophy and common sense: universal and necessary
knowledge cannot be explained if we consider that the subject is
passive when he knows, but it can be explained if we consider
that the subject puts something into the known object and models
it based on the structures of our cognitive faculties (the forms of
sensitivity and the categories of understanding). As to the second
question, we must remember that the naive position, and all
philosophy prior to modernity, maintains a realist conception of
the world: essentially the world is as we know it; essentially
objects and their properties and relations exist independently of
any experience we may have of them; this is the characteristic
thesis of realism. But with modernity (with Kant) appears the
idealist conception: we do not know what the world can be like
independently of our experience of it; every object of which we
have experience has been influenced by the structure of our
cognitive apparatus. These ideas lead us to two fundamental
concepts of Transcendental Idealism: the concept of Noumenon
and that of Phenomenon. The Noumenon (or Thing in itself) is
reality as it may be in itself, independently of our experience of it;
premodern philosophy thought that we could know things in
themselves, although each school said something different about
the being of these things; the Phenomenon is a reality dependent
on the Transcendental Subject; it is reality structured by the forms
of sensibility and the categories of understanding; reality as we
experience it. When the subject knows, he does not leave the
known reality intact; he constitutes it in the act of knowledge
itself. Therefore, Transcendental Idealism can be summarized in
the statement that we only know phenomena.

CHAPTER III

V. THE PRACTICAL USE OF REASON

VI PRACTICAL REASON AND MORAL KNOWLEDGE

Concept of Practical Reason
 Moral conduct has to do with Reason because it is subject to
principles and linked to the universal, and only Reason is capable of
allowing this link. Reason has two aspects: Theoretical and Practical;
they are not two reasons but two different uses of the same reason.
Theoretical Reason is concerned with knowing how things are;
Practical Reason is concerned with how human conduct should be; it
is not interested in being but in what should be. Theoretical Reason
formulates judgments (propositions in the form "A is B") and
Practical Reason formulates imperatives or commandments (precepts
in the form "you must do X"). Works on ethics: "Critique of Practical
Reason" and "Foundation of the Metaphysics of Morals."

V.II. The “factum of morality”

Starting point of Kant's reflection on knowledge: the existence of
universal and necessary knowledge (a priori knowledge); the
"Critique of Pure Reason" attempts to show the transcendental, a
priori conditions of such knowledge. Starting point of Kant's ethical
reflection: in moral experience there is something analogous to that
fundamental fact of the sphere of knowledge: the "factum of
morality", the moral fact; this fact consists in the existence of duty: all
men are aware of being subject to moral prescriptions, they feel
obliged to do certain things and to avoid others. This awareness of
duty is the awareness of a determination of the will that has
characteristics analogous to those of the experience of knowledge:
universality and necessity. Kant believes that when a subject lives the
duty, he lives it unconditionally: if it is wrong to kill, it is wrong in all
circumstances and at all times, there are no exceptions, the mandate is
lived as having absolute necessity. Kantian ethics is an attempt to
understand the factum of morality (the universal and necessary
determination of the will) and its conditions of possibility (the
"postulates of practical reason" express these conditions); in the same
way that Kantian theory of knowledge is the investigation of the
conditions of possibility of science.

V.III. Types of principles or practical laws.

Practical principles: propositions that express how rational beings should

behave; Maxims: when these precepts express how we usually behave
 given certain circumstances; there are good and bad maxims. Will:
faculty that serves to set the subject in motion, faculty that moves to
action. The driving force that drives the will to action is called the
foundation of determination of the will. In human beings there are two
possible motors of action: reason or inclination; "inclination" is any
empirical determination, any determination of conduct that has as its
foundation the empirical constitution of the subject, fundamentally bodily
desires; any action done by inclination is an action done for the good of
the subject, for his own happiness, out of selfishness. Man is not
necessarily directed to do good, therefore duty is presented to him as a
mandate, with a constrictive, imperative character: you must do X!
Imperatives or commands can be hypothetical or categorical;
hypothetical imperatives command an action because it is a good means
to achieve an end. Categorical imperatives command the performance of
an action because that action is good in itself (or command the avoidance
of an action because that action is bad in itself). All imperatives have the
form “you must do X” (or “it is necessary to do X”) or “you must not do
X”; but to know if the imperative is hypothetical or categorical the mere
grammatical expression is not enough; it is necessary to know what has
been the basis of determination that the subject has had in carrying out
the action: if he has followed the precept “you must do X” in order to
achieve his own end (or to avoid something he does not want), then for
him, properly speaking, said command is a hypothetical imperative and is
expressed thus: “you must do X if you want to achieve Y”. If he has done
it exclusively by his own action, then the command is categorical for him
and his expression is "you must do X." Hypothetical imperatives are
imperatives of ability when the end for which an action is prescribed as
good is a merely possible end (an end not common to all men).
Hypothetical imperatives are imperatives of prudence when the end is a
real end (an end common to all men, happiness).

VI. KANT'S CRITICISM OF MATERIAL ETHICS

VI.I. Definition of material ethics

Until Kant, ethics had been material, compared to all of them, his ethics
is formal. Material ethics should not be confused with materialistic
ethics: the opposite of a materialistic ethic is a spiritualistic ethic, the
opposite of a material ethic is a formal ethic (that of St. Thomas is
 material, but not materialistic but spiritualistic, since he puts something
spiritual, God, as the Supreme Good). Material ethics are those according
to which the goodness or evil of human conduct depends on something
that is considered the supreme good: acts will be good when they bring
us closer to the supreme good, and bad when they take us away from it.
All material ethics starts from the premise that there are goods, good
things for man, and therefore begins by determining which is (among all
of them) the supreme good or ultimate end of man; and once such
supreme good is established, material ethics establishes the appropriate
norms or precepts to achieve it.

VI.II. The precepts of all material ethics are hypothetical, empirical,

Conditionals.

This means that they are not valid absolutely, but only conditionally, as
means to achieve an end; if this end is not desired, then the command is
not such for the one who does not want it. Kant will believe that
hypothetical imperatives can never be the expression of a moral
experience because moral experience is submission to a universal and
necessary precept, but hypothetical imperatives cannot be universal and
necessary: those of ability because they describe an action as good for the
realization of a merely possible end; but neither can those of prudence
because what happiness is for each one depends on his empirical
constitution; even if we could find something that would give all men
happiness, the way of realizing that something will depend on empirical,
factual questions: in some circumstances we will need certain means and
in others others. Empirical experience can only substantiate particular
and contingent imperatives (which are valid for particular cases, but not
always, and which are not necessary but contingent), and moral precepts
must be universal and necessary. Empirical theory cannot provide
universality and necessity, and therefore cannot substantiate a universal
and necessary prescription; material ethics, by drawing its content from
experience, substantiate only empirical, a posteriori determinations, and
cannot express the factum of morality.

VI.III. Material ethics are heteronomous

Heteronomy is opposed to autonomy; a subject is autonomous when he

 has the capacity to give himself his own laws (and the capacity to carry
them out) and is heteronomous when the laws do not rest on him, when
they come from outside; material ethics are heteronomous because they
describe an action as good only conditionally, they describe an action as
good because it is a good means to the realization of an end desired by
the subject. In heteronomous actions the subject has to submit to reality,
which imposes its conditions; the subject has to conform to the order of
the world.

VII. KANT'S FORMAL ETHICS.

VII.I. Formalism of Kantian ethics

Kantian ethics has three main characteristics: proposing a criterion of

legitimacy of the maxim that is exclusively formal, defending the
autonomy of the will in moral experience, and maintaining that good
actions are only those that have been done out of duty.
Kantian ethics is called formal ethics, and is opposed to material ethics.
The subject matter of the imperative is what is commanded (thus, in the
imperative "you must be truthful" the subject matter is the instruction to
tell the truth); the form is the degree of universality or particularity that
the imperative has: always, sometimes, never. Well, the essential
characteristic of Kantian ethics consists in indicating that a maxim
properly describes a moral action when it meets a purely formal
requirement: that it can be universalized. In Kantian ethics, it is not the
matter of the will (what is desired) but the mere form of the universal
legitimacy of its maxim that constitutes the basis for determining said
will (of the will). A purely formal requirement such as the possibility of
universalization can serve as a criterion to separate all behaviors into two
groups: good behaviors and bad behaviors. If the maxim of conduct can
be universalized then that maxim describes a good action, otherwise the
action is bad.

VII.II. Autonomy of the will:

Heteronomy is opposed to autonomy; a subject is autonomous when he
has the capacity to give himself his own laws (and the capacity to carry
them out); on the contrary, he is heteronomous when the laws do not rest
on himself, when they come from outside; material ethics are
 heteronomous, Kantian ethics is autonomous in affirming that only moral
actions are autonomous. Kant considers that only where we find moral
action do we find freedom: when we conduct ourselves morally, the basis
for determining our will does not come to us from outside, from the
world, or from religion, but from ourselves: it is our reason that gives us
the criterion of good conduct, it is we ourselves who determine ourselves.
It is not physical necessity, nor political demands, nor God nor priests
who should order our conduct, but our own conscience ─or practical
reason─. In moral experience we are autonomous because the law to
which we obey is within ourselves. The autonomy of the will defended
by Kant is linked to the enlightened character of his thought: the
Enlightenment is the passage to adulthood, the exhortation to the
autonomy of the subject, to the independence of his judgment and
conduct only subject to the indications of Reason, Reason that is not alien
to him but belongs to him and to all Humanity.

VII.III. Duty for duty's sake. Kantian rigorism

For Kant, the foundation of good actions is duty, not inclination. Duty is
the "need for an action out of respect for the law." For an action to be
good, it is not enough that it be in accordance with duty; it must also
have been done out of duty. Kantian rigorism involves two issues: duty
for duty's sake, even if it goes against my happiness and the happiness of
the people I love, and the universal character of the goodness or badness
of an action: if it is wrong to lie, it is wrong under any circumstance;
accepting an exception would imply accepting the conditions of the
world in determining the will, therefore, heteronomy. The categorical
imperative prescribes an action as good unconditionally, that is, it
commands something absolutely. It declares the action objectively
necessary in itself, without reference to any extrinsic purpose; only the
categorical imperative is the imperative of morality. Kant gave several
general formulations of the categorical imperative, among which the
most notable are the “universal law formula” (“Act only according to
such a maxim that you can at the same time will that it should become a
universal law”) and the “end-in-itself formula” (“Act in such a way that
you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any
other, always as an end at the same time and never merely as a means”).
VIII. POSTULATES OF PRACTICAL REASON:
Transcendental Idealism ends up denying the possibility of having
knowledge of reality in itself, and therefore of the fundamental themes of
Metaphysics: God, soul, freedom...; however, Kant will not deny all access
to the metaphysical, he will only deny intellectual access, scientific
knowledge, since there is only scientific knowledge of phenomena. But for
Kant there is another experience that can link us with full reality, with the
metaphysical, and that experience is the moral experience. And this is based
on the so-called postulates of Practical Reason or propositions that cannot be
demonstrated by theoretical reason but that must be admitted if one wants to
understand the "moral factum"; these postulates refer to the existence of
freedom, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God.

VIII.I. Postulate of liberty

Theoretical reason cannot demonstrate the existence of freedom because
it is only capable of reaching the world of phenomena, in which
everything is subject to the law of causality and natural necessity.
However, from the perspective of practical reason, it will be possible to
defend the existence of freedom insofar as freedom is the condition of
possibility of moral action. Behaviors that are not done freely are neither
good nor bad, and the person who performs them is not morally
responsible for them. Freedom is defined as the capacity of rational
beings to determine to act according to laws of a different kind than
natural ones, that is, laws that are given by their own reason; freedom is
equivalent to autonomy of the will. Liberty is the ratio essendi (the
condition of the possibility) of morality; morality is the ratio cognoscendi
(that which gives us notice of the existence of) of liberty. Kantian
statements force us to think that man belongs to two worlds or kingdoms:
the phenomenal kingdom, where everything is subject to the rigor of
causality, and the noumenal kingdom where the laws that govern are
moral laws (the sphere of freedom).

VIII.II. The "Supreme Good" (or SUPREME GOOD)

It is the synthesis between virtue and happiness. Its ultimate realization is
the condition of possibility of morality. Kant believed that whenever the
basis of determination of our conduct is happiness, our conduct is not
moral in the strict sense (although it may be in accordance with duty), but
he could not forget the extraordinary value that happiness seems to have
in the human sphere. This appears precisely in his conception of the
Supreme Good. Our moral conduct would be meaningless if there were
no possibility of achieving holiness (the absolute perfection of a will
through the perfect fulfillment of virtue); in this world we cannot achieve
holiness, therefore there must exist another life in which the moral
appetite acquires perfect fulfillment. Postulate of the immortality of the
soul: the supreme good seems to serve us to access the immortality of the
soul, since virtue needs infinite time for its full realization. Postulate of
the existence of God: in this world the realization of our happiness does
not coincide with the realization of good (there are good and unhappy
beings, and bad and happy ones) therefore we must think that God exists
(since only an absolute entity can make the laws that govern the
realization of happiness coincide with the laws that govern moral
conduct).
Strictly speaking, the postulates of practical reason cannot be
demonstrated because there is no room for a science of metaphysics;
but although the above arguments are not objectively valid
demonstrations, they have subjective validity since the postulates
serve to make sense of moral experience. The objects to which they
refer do not give rise to knowledge but to rational faith: faith because
they are only possible in terms of subjective conviction, but rational
because they are not given by the urgency of revelation but by reason
itself.
 GROUP ANALYSIS

Critics and historians disagree about Kant's place among philosophers. Some rate
his contributions to philosophy so highly that they consider his doctrines to be the
culmination of everything that came before him. Others, on the contrary, consider
that he made a bad starting point when he assumed in his criticism of speculative
reason that if there is something universal and necessary in our knowledge it must
come from the mind itself, and not from the external real world. These opponents of
Kant further consider that while he had the synthetic talent enabling him to construct
a system of thought, he lacked the analytical quality by which the philosopher is
able to observe what is actually going on in the mind. And in a thinker who reduces
all philosophy to an examination of knowledge the lack of the ability to observe
what is actually going on in the mind is a serious defect. But whatever our
estimation of Kant as a philosopher may be, we cannot devalue his importance.
Within the limits of the philosophy of science itself, his thought was the starting
point for Fichte. Schelling, Hegel, and Schopenhauer; and, as for contemporary
German thought, whatever it may be, whether it is not Kantian, it takes as its own
characteristics its opposition to many points of Kantian doctrine. In England the
agnostic school from Hamilton to Spencer took its inspiration from the negative
teaching of the "Critique of Pure Reason." In France, Comte's Positivism and
Renouvier's Neo-Criticism had a similar origin. Kant's influence reaches beyond
philosophy into several other departments of thought. In the history of natural
sciences his name is associated with that of Laplace, in the theory which explains
the origin of the universe through a natural evolution from a primitive cosmic
nebula. In theology his non-dogmatic notion of religion influenced Ritschl, and his
method of transforming dogmatic truth into moral inspiration found an echo, to say
the least, in the exegetical experiments of Renan and his followers.

Many philosophers and theologians maintain that the objective data on which the
Catholic religion is based are incapable of being proven by speculative reason, but
are demonstrable by practical reason, desire, feeling, or vital action. That this
position is, in any case, dangerous is proven by recent events. The Immanentist
movement, the Vitalism of Blondel, the anti-scholasticism of the "Annales de
philosophie chretienne," and other recent tendencies toward a non-intellectual
apologetics of the Faith, have their sources in Kantianism, and the condemnation
they have received from ecclesiastical authority fully shows that they have no clear
title to be regarded as a substitute for the intellectualist apologetics which is based
on the realism of the Scholastics.

CONCLUSIONS

Kant's thought plays an essential role in the history of philosophy; his transcendental
idealism paved the way for Fichte's subjective idealism, Schelling's objective
idealism and Hegel's absolute idealism.
Kant is the founder of German philosophy; it is impossible, even today, to
philosophize without coming across his thought.
Kant is above all an author who knew how to learn from others, and for this reason
he represents a synthesis of the rationalist, empiricist and enlightenment currents.
We have no doubt that he represents the root of all philosophical thought of the 19th
and 20th centuries. He was a man who had his ideas in great order, and this allowed
him to avoid contradictions. It is very important to differentiate metaphysics from
science, with this he managed to finally walk the right path, and it will be reached
that the idea of God is necessary in the morality of man, this may be very debatable,
but what is truly certain is that man, even if all sciences disappear, will base his life
on metaphysics, because what he does not understand, he will try to explain,
thinking that there is a superior being, who does understand it.
 RECOMMENDATIONS

More than a recommendation, our opinion of Kant is positive regarding all his Kantian
thoughts regarding the problematic idealism that belongs to rationalism. One must
resort to God, it is something moral, it is not experience. In order to have external
experience, one must first have internal experience. And the dogmatic idealism that
belongs to empiricism, Kant distinguishes between phenomena (reality) and
appearances (only subjectivity is valid). Regarding knowledge, it is very logical for us
that without experience there is no knowledge. Another very important section is space
and time, without them there can be no subject or objects. On the other hand, there is
science. For science to exist, there must be prior formal knowledge, it must not depend
on experience, a priori knowledge. It is logical that without formal knowledge in
science you will not get anywhere with experience alone. Another important point is
that the categorical imperative is an ethical mandate: act in such a way that your act is
universal. If we all did this, we would live in a better world.
 ANNEXES

Most famous quotes by Emmanuel Kant:

“The wise man can change his mind. The fool, never.”

“We see things, not as they are, but as we are.”

“Patience is the strength of the weak and impatience is the weakness of the strong.”

“Law is the set of conditions that allow the freedom of each to accommodate the
freedom of all.”

“Education is the development in man of all the perfection of which his nature is
capable.”

“With power comes responsibility.”

“I slept and dreamed that life was beauty; I woke up and realized that it is duty.”

“We all know where human beings come from, but few know where they want to go.”
 “Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of the imagination.”

“A man is jealous if he loves; a woman too, even if she does not love.”

“Liberty is that faculty which increases the utility of all other faculties.”

“Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the more
repeatedly and persistently one reflects upon them: the starry heaven above me and the
moral law within me.”

BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES

1. Kant, I.: Ideas for a history in cosmopolitan key and other writings on Philosophy of
History. Madrid: Editorial Tecnos, 1987.
2. Kant, I.: What is Enlightenment? 4th edition. Madrid: Editorial Tecnos, 1999.
3. Kant, I.: Perpetual Peace. 6th edition. Abellán, J. (trans.) Madrid: Editorial Tecnos,
1998.
4. Pérez Quintana, Antonio: Republicanism and peace. Oviedo: Eikasia, 2005
5. Eagleton, T.: The Foreigners. For an ethics of solidarity. Barcelona: Paidós, 2010.
6. Safranski, R.: Evil or The Drama of Freedom. Gabás, R. (trans.) Barcelona: Tusquets
Editores, 2000
7. Safranski, R.: How much globalization can we tolerate? Barcelona: Tusquets, 2004.
8. Tejedor Campomanes, C.: History of Philosophy, 2nd Year of High School. Madrid:
SM Editions, 2001.
9. Hernandez, J. L., Benitez, L., Diaz, J. A.: Modern philosophy. La Laguna-Tenerife:
Benchomo S. L., 2002
10. WWW.SCRIB.PE.
11. www.muyinteresante.es
 INDEX

I. COVER………………………………………………………….Page.
1
II. DEDICATION………………………………………………Page. 2
III. INTRODUCTION………………………………………….....Page 3
IV. CHAPTER I ………………………………………………....Page. 4
Emmanuel Kant……………………………………………….Page. 4
Precritical Period………………………………………..Page. 4
Critical Period………………………………………………...Page 4
V. CHAPTER II…………………………………………………………
Page. 6
The theoretical use of
reason……………………………………...Page. 6
The doctrine of knowledge in the "critique of pure reason"..Pag. 8
The “Transcendental Dialectic”: Reason and its demand for
The unconditioned……………………………………………………………………….Page
10
Transcendental idealism: the "phenomenon" and the
"noumenon"…..Page 11
Copernican Philosophy……………………………………....Page 11
Kantian Philosophy: Transcendental Idealism……………..Page 12
VI. CHAPTER III………………………………………………...Page 14
Practical reason and moral knowledge……………………Page 14
Types of Principles…………………………………………….Page
15
Kant's Criticism………………………………………………....Page
16
Kant's formal ethics…………………………………………..Page.
17
Autonomy of will……………………………………….Page. 18
Postulates of practical reason……………………………….Page. 19
The highest
good…………………………………………………..Page. 20
Group analysis……………………………………………..Page 22
Conclusions…………………………………………………..Page 23
Recommendations……………………………………………..Page
24
Annexes…………………………………………………………...Pag
e. 25
Bibliographic data…………………………………………..Page. 26
Index………………………………………………………….Page.
27