Metaphysics of Science, Session 1
Details
FOR NEXT TIME! A new bedevilment as we begin Kant's Metaphysics of Natural Science. We will start at the new gate of hell that is the Preface. Please read
Pages 183 - 193, Gregor translation, Cambridge (see Amazon link)
Sections 4:467 - 4:479
I will be using the Cambridge volume entitled Theoretical Philosophy after 1981 which includes this work plus other writings about science.
These editions contain multiple Kantian works, but we're only interested in the Metaphysical Foundations of Science which is under 100 pages.
COMING UP
Metaphysics of Natural Science, Session 1, 11/12/23 - Preface
Metaphysics of Natural Science, Session 2, 11/26/23 - 1st Chapter
Metaphysics of Natural Science, Session 3, 12/10/23 - begin 2nd Chapter
GROUNDWORK §II - FROM COMMON SENSE TO METAPHYSICS
Here's a quote I pulled off of Quora that perfectly describes my sense of the Four Example Duties. The speaker, Aaron, is responding to the question, "What do Kantian ethics say about giving/risking your life for someone else's?". This question interests me because it would give me an idea as to whether Kant believes that suicide is acceptable, possibly necessary, in certain situations. Here's the response.
"The toughest question I've heard posed is: what would Kant say to do if a mother was giving birth and it became clear that one of the two must be sacrificed for the other to survive. . . .
What is clear to me is that the scope of Kant's ethics begin in the day-to-day ethical decisions; e.g., should I steal the bike, take the bribe, tell the lie, etc. As they stretch up to the life-and-death decisions, we find, frustratingly, that some examples we can think of aren't covered; so we are left to apply the rule for ourselves and see how it works out. The CI gives us the means for making the decision, and not an exhaustive catalog of ethical situations and their prescriptive decisions."
GROUNDWORK SECTION III
The Foundation of Morality
"The speculative use of reason with respect to nature leads to the absolute necessity of some supreme cause of the world: the practical use of reason with regard to freedom leads also to an absolute necessity, but only of laws of actions of a rational being as such. . . Hence it [reason] restlessly seeks the unconditionally necessary and sees itself constrained to assume it without any means of making it comprehensible to itself, fortunate enough if it can discover only the concept that is compatible with this presupposition.
Human vs Rational Being
Why does Kant sometimes use the terms as if interchangeable? Wood, in a footnote to his translation, states, "Menschlichkeit; this term refers to one of our three fundamental predispositions: (1) animality (through which we have instincts for survival, procreation, and sociability); (2) humanity, through which we have the rational capacities to set ends, use means to them, and organize them into a whole (happiness); and (3) personality, through which we have the capacity to give ourselves moral laws and are accountable for following them . . . Humanity’ thus means the same as ‘rational nature’, and Kant’s use of it involves no retraction of the claim that moral commands must be valid for all rational beings, not only for members of the human species" (translator's footnote to 4:429).
Do we buy this?
How is the Categorical Imperative Possible?
To my will affected by sensible desires there is added the idea of the same will but belonging to the world of the understanding which is like the concepts of the understanding being added to intuitions of the world of sense and thereby making possible synthetic propositions a priori on which all cognition of a nature rests. The moral ''will" is thought by him [by any human being] as "ought" only insofar as he regards himself at the same time as a member of the world of sense.
MetaScience
"Since in any doctrine of nature there is only as much proper science as there is aprioriknowledge therein, a doctrine of nature will contain only as much proper science as there is mathematics capable of application there." --from the Preface, Metaphysics of Natural Science
Metaphysics of Science, Session 1