Kant, Immanuel
Kant, Immanuel
Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was born in Königsberg (then in East Prussia) and spent his entire life there. He studied at the University of Königsberg and taught there from 1755 until a few years before his death.
Kant’s philosophy lies between empiricism and rationalism. He took from Hume the idea that man is “nothing but a bundle or collection of perceptions which succeed each other with inconceivable rapidity” (Hume 1739–1779, p. 320 in 1826 edition), and from Spinoza the concept that ideas are independent of experience. Yet he could accept neither a pure rationalism nor a pure empiricism; his primary work, theCritique of Pure Reason, begins as follows: “There can be no doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience . . . but it does not follow that it all arises out of experience” ([1781] 1950, p. 41). In this and another major work, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783), he was concerned to find the “valid source” of human knowledge, the way of establishing truth.
Kant’s particular concern was to determine whether what he called synthetic a priori judgments are possible, that is to say, whether it is possible to establish necessary and universal connections among objects. Convinced that mathematics provides such synthetic a priori propositions, he sought to prove that it is possible in like manner to obtain knowledge of the laws of nature.
Newton’s construction of scientific and mathematical theories suggested to Kant the process by which such knowledge might be acquired: “Accidental observations, made in obedience to no previously thought-out plan, can never be made to yield a necessary law, which alone reason is concerned to discover. Reason . . . must approach nature in order to be taught by it. It must not, however, do so in the character of a pupil who listens to every-thing that the teacher chooses to say, but of an appointed judge who compels the witnesses to answer questions which he himself has formulated” ([1781] 1950, p. 20 in Preface to 1787 edition).
Man, according to Kant, approaches experience in terms of basicAnschauungen (kinds of intuition) that are themselves not derived from experience and are not subject to empirical proof; these intuitions are space, time, and causation. Together with four categories (quantity, quality, relation, and modality), these intuitions are the basis of all understanding. Knowledge is merely an application of these categories, or a priori concepts, to sense perceptions, which are intuitively structured in time and space. Human knowledge is limited to these spatial and temporal phenomena; it does not extend to what is behind phenomena, that is, to the noumena, or things-in-themselves.
Influence on psychology. Much controversy in psychology developed as a result of Kant’s distinction between the self as a thing-in-itself, or noumenon, and the self as a phenomenon. Since the first self is the transcendental unity of self-consciousness or apperception, it is inaccessible to inquiry except by introspection; its sole expression is moral judgment. According to Kant, only the phenomenal self can be the subject of empirical studies, and so it becomes part of anthropology (“Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht” 1798). This empirical or pragmatic psychology deals with what an observer can know about mental processes. Kant’s dichotomy between what an individual may know of his own mind (noumenon) and what others may know of him (phenomenon) gave rise to the controversy between the introspectionist and the behaviorist approaches to psychology.
For the introspectionists, awareness of oneself, Bewusstsein or consciousness, became the core concept and introspection the chief method. Their subject of study was inner experience, and introspection provided the only means of access to the data. The behaviorists rejected this method, relying exclusively on observation of the overt behavior of the phenomenal self.
While Kant’s “anthropology” (i.e., psychology) does not contain many new ideas, his critique of the concept of soul was a significant departure both from the Judaeo-Christian tradition and from Pla-tonic philosophy. “The concept,” he wrote, “is there-fore quite void as regards all hoped-for insight into the cause of appearances and cannot at all serve as a principle of explanation of that which inner or outer experience supplies” ([1783] 1951, p. 79).
Social theory Kant’s social theory was based on the concept of progress, the source of progress being the inner conflict between man’s sociability and his selfishness. Kant called this antagonism the “unsocial sociability.” Man, according to Kant, “has an inclination to socialize himself by associating with others” but he is also driven by anti-social forces. Kant’s conception of the positive dynamic consequences of man’s conflict are well expressed in this passage: “Man wishes concord; but Nature knows better what is good for his species, and she will have discord… The natural impulses that urge man in this direction, the sources of that unsociableness and general antagonism from which so many evils arise, do yet at the same time impel him to new exertion of his powers, and consequently, to further development of his natural capacities” ([1784–1795 1891, pp. 11–12).
The social order that Kant recommended, based as it was on this analysis of man’s nature, would permit a maximum of individual freedom and com-petition, yet would have enough power to restrain this freedom whenever it threatened to produce oppression or anarchy. He proposed a similar system for international affairs; each separate state should be free to run its own affairs, but a supra-national federation of sovereign states would have enough power to regulate international relations and prevent war.
Kant believed not only in political progress—the history of the human race could be viewed as a development toward a perfect political constitution —but also in moral progress. The stages in man’s moral development are anomy, heteronomy, and autonomy. In the natural, primitive, anomic state, impulses were naive, innocent, and uncontrolled. Civilization began when man broke with the natural state and accepted externally imposed moral law; this is the stage of heteronomy. Ultimately, there will be moral autonomy, a state of absolute freedom, in which the individual will obey only a self-imposed law, the “moral imperative.”
Benjamin B. Wolman
[For the historical context of Kant’s work, see the biographies ofHumeand Spinoza. For discussion of the subsequent development of Kant’s ideas, seeGestalt Theory; Phenomenology; Psychology, article onEXISTENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY; and the biographies OfDurkheim; Hegel; Hering; Koffka; KÖhler; kÜlpe; Lotze; MÜller. Georg Elias; Stumpf; Weber, Max; Wertheimer; Wundt.]
WORKS BY KANT
(1781) 1950 Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by N. Kemp Smith. New York: Humanities. ? First published in German.
(1783) 1951 Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics. New York: Liberal Arts. ? First published in German.
(1784–1795) 1891 Kant’sPrinciples of Politics, Including His Essay “On Perpetual Peace.” Edited and translated by W. Hastie. Edinburgh: Clark.? First published in German.
(1798) 1907 Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht. Volume 7, pages 117–333 in Kant’s gesammelte Schriften. Berlin: Reimer.
Kant’s gesammelte Schriften. 22 vols. Berlin: Reimer, 1900–1942.
SUPPLEMENTARY BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brett, George S. (1912–1921) 1962 Brett’s History of Psychology. Edited and abridged by R. S. Peters. London: Allen & Unwin; New York: Macmillan.
Cassirer, Ernst 1918 Kants Leben und Lehre. Berlin: Cassirer.
Hume, David (1739–1779) 1964 The Philosophical Works. 4 vols. Edited by Thomas Hill Green and Thomas Hodge Grose. Aalen (Germany): Scientia.
Paton, Herbert J. (1936) 1951 Kant’s Metaphysic of Experience: A Commentary on the First Half of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft. 2 vols. London: Allen & Unwin.
Spinoza, Benedict (1677) 1950 Ethics. Translated by A. Boyle. London: Dent; New York: Dutton.
Weldon, Thomas Dewar (1945) 1958 Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. 2d ed. Oxford: Clarendon. ? First published asIntroduction to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason.
Wolman, Benjamin B. (editor) Historical Roots of Contemporary Psychology. New York: Harper. ? Contains an essay by Wolman on “Immanuel Kant and His Impact on Psychology.” Scheduled for publication in 1968.