Grundlegung Session 1 - Laying the Groundwork for Ethical Thought

NEXT READING : Finally breaking moral ground, specifically Kant's Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals. I'll be using the Cambridge Practical Philosophy for my reference.

https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Philosophy-Cambridge-Works-Immanuel/dp/0521654084/

Free source for Enlightenment essay: http://www.columbia.edu/acis/ets/CCREAD/etscc/kant.html

For our next meeting, read Preface of Groundwork and PAGE ONE ONLY to Sec I, "Transition from Common Rational to Philosophic Moral Cognition"

Pages 39 to 49 of the Cambridge Practical Reason
Sections 4:388 to 4:393

COMING UP

Grundlegung Session 2, 9/17/23 - Discuss Section I of the Groundwork
Grundlegung Session 3, 10/1/23 - Finish Section II of the Groundwork
Groundwork Session 4, 10/15/23 - Section III and end of the work
Critique of Practical Reason 1, 10/29/23 - Preface and opening to Chap I.

KANT AND BERKELEY

Berkeley's doctrine essentially was that that which we perceive is not a representation of something outside ourselves, but is an inner idea or construction. Compare that to Kant who believed that that which we perceive, e.g., my perception of my dog, is an appearance of, or representation of, something outside my mind. Berkeley's doctrine is referred to as "idealism" or "phenomenalism" in contrast to materialism, which holds that only matter is real. Most philosophers of the day, including Kant, maintained some dualistic stance between these two poles. While Kant's philosophy includes some elements of idealism, grounding space and time ideally, perception while culminating in appearance, is at least partially grounded outside the ideal of space and time, which why we have an inner and outer sense. And here I am explaining how I distinguish Kant and Berkeley, not how Kant distinguishes himself from Berkeley.

Kant distinguishes himself in at least two ways. One of them, which is approximates what I describe above, he explains in the section, "Refutation of Idealism," in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. In the Prolegomena, however, he draws a different distinction which I believe is based on a misreading of Berkeley. That distinction assumes that Berkeley was not an empiricist. This assumption is made evident when he states that Berkeley does not value experience, that he believes it to be illusion. In fact, Berkeley IS an empiricist, he does value experience. It's just that he believes our experience is all virtual rather than material. The fact that our perceptions are products our mind and do not refer to a world "out there" does not make them less real when that virtual reality IS reality. Berkeley believed that experience, i.e., perception, is an important source of truth. It's just that he believed that that experience is ideally grounded. This is what makes Berkeley an empirical idealist, grounding perception in the mind, while Kant was empirical realist, grounding perception outside the mind.

The "Refutation of Idealism" was included in the second edition of the Critique, not the first, which makes me think that Kant boned up on his Berkeley between the two editions. In the Prolegomena he distinguishes himself from Berkeley not on the basis of a belief in the material world, as he does in the Critique, but on the basis that Berkeley was not an empiricist, saying that Berkeley considered experience to be an illusion, i.e, an unreliable source of truth or knowledge, which is not the case. Berkeley DID believe that our knowledge comes from experience, that the pain I experience from touching that virtual hot stove is just as instructive as the pain I receive from the material hot stove.

Sources: Henry Allison's Transcendental Idealism and SEP's article on George Berkeley which explain his doctrine of idealism in contrast to that of materialism. According to that article, most of the people of his of his day, including Kant, representational dualists in some sense. If the Descartes and Locke thought differently from Kant, it was because of the nature of that relationship, not because they believe that only matter existed or only ideas existed. Berkeley was unique in believing that only ideas existed and Hobbes in that only matter existed.