The main question in the CPR is "how are synthetic a priori judgements possible". Analytic a priori judgments merely inventory what something is by definition, but synthetic a priori judgments are along the lines of "all things have a cause", where causality is not inherent in the definition of thing. It is a priori because it cannot be derived from experience, but only from reason.
The modes of intuition are spatiality and temporality. We perceive all phenomena as having extension in space, as well as duration and often alteration. We cannot prove these qualities belong to the things themselves, rather than being how we are constrained to relate to things.
The synthetic unity of apperception is the act of subsuming all phenomena into one experience, according to our modes of intuition and the formal requirements of our reason, so that phenomena must conform to the pregiven terms of our mentality. Thus, we know that every phenomenon must have a cause because our minds bind up phenomena according the principle of causality.
A categorical imperative is a moral law. THE categorical imperative is the "foundation" law. It is : never treat another rational being merely as a means, but as an end also.
The motivation for morality, for Kant, is reverence for the law. As rational beings, we try to order the moral universe, as we do the physical universe.
Beauty is diversity within unity, or diverse sensory material in harmony with reason.
David Hume. |
