On the Philosophy of Kant

Kant is probably the most prominent philosopher of the last two thousand years. Numerous experts have studied his philosophy. Countless college students, voluntarily or involuntarily, have read his books. Yet his theory is still very obscure to many. If his theory is so obscure, why his theory is so prominent? If his theory is so prominent, why it can’t be made less obscure, after more than two hundred years?

To understand these questions, we first need to know Kant’s time. In eighteenth century, science progressed rapidly. We know that the earth, like other planets, moves around the sun. We know that the universe is vast. The earth is only a tiny spot in this vast universe. Many pioneers, such as Hume, already perceived human beings, including human mind, from an evolutionary perspective. The advance of scientific and philosophical thinking threatened the view that human beings are the master of the universe. For a long time, the supreme status of human beings is upheld by the religious doctrine that human beings are made by the God, according to the God’s own image. However, by eighteen century, religion is no more prestigious among the upper class. At the age of science and reason, there is an urgent need to produce a new theory with scientific method to maintain the supreme status of humans among all animals and as a consequence, maintain the supreme status of the ruling elites among all human beings. Kant’s theory fills such an urgent need.

Kant is a learned man. In most of his life, he is more interested in physics than in metaphysics. In the age of science and reason, this made him an ideal spokesman for a new religion to replace the discredited old religion.  

The most famous passages of Kant are the conclusion part of his Critique of Practical Reason, originally published in 1788, one year before the outburst of French Revolution. The conclusion part contains three paragraphs. We will study them in order.

In the first paragraph, Kant wrote  “the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me”, the most famous quote from him. With starry heavens, Kant, as well as other people, “stand into an unbounded magnitude with worlds upon worlds and systems of systems … a countless multitude of worlds annihilates … my importance as an animal creature”.

To assert the importance of human beings, Kant brings out “moral law”, which is unique to human beings. “the moral law reveals to me a life independent of animality and even of the whole sensible world, at least so far as this may be inferred from the purposive determination  of my existence by this law, a determination not restricted to the conditions and boundaries of this life but reaching into the infinite.” Simply put, moral law “infinitely raises my worth”. That is the true purpose of Kant’s philosophy.

But the concept of morality has been used and misused for so long and by so many people. “Morals began with the noblest property of human nature, the development and cultivation of which looked to infinite use, and it ended – in enthusiasm or in superstition.” The concept of morality has lost prestige by itself. In the age of science, to have prestige, Kant proposed a scientific morality, or morality studied scientifically in the second paragraph of conclusion. “In a word, science (critically sought and methodically directed) is the narrow gate that leads to the doctrine of wisdom, if by this is understood not merely what one ought to do but what ought to serve teachers as a guide to prepare well and clearly the path to wisdom which everyone should travel, and to secure others against taking the wrong way; philosophy must always remain the guardian of this science,”

Are you still confused? Kant knew you are confused. In the last paragraph, he concluded, “though the public need take no interest in its subtle investigations it has to take an interest in the doctrines which, after being worked up in this way, can first be quite clear to it.”

In essence, Kant said he studied philosophy scientifically and guarded science philosophically. He knew his theory is too subtle, in fact, too muddled for people to understand. Nevertheless, people should take an interest in his theory, for his theory “infinitely raise” the worth of human beings, at least the worth of those human beings who believe in his theory.

Kant’s theory is a response, a reaction to Hume’s theory. Hume’s theory is an evolutionary theory. It greatly simplifies our understanding of life. But in Hume’s theory, human beings no more have privileged position among living systems. As a result, many people want to restrict its scope. Kant’s theory obscures our understanding of life. By making simple things so difficult to understand, after making lengthy and obscure deductions, Kant somehow concludes that human beings possess “an intelligence … reaching into the infinite”.

Between a beautiful theory that reveals truth and an obscure theory that muddles the truth but infinitely raises their worth, most people instinctively know which one to choose. That is why Kant’s theory is so prominent.

Appendix: The Conclusion section of Kant, 1788(2015), Critique of Practical Reason, Cambridge University Press

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence,  the more often and more steadily one reflects on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me. I do not need to search for them and merely conjecture them as though they were veiled in obscurity or in the transcendent region beyond my horizon; I see them before me and connect them immediately with the consciousness of my existence. The first begins from the place I occupy in the external world of sense and extends the connection in which I stand into an unbounded magnitude with worlds upon worlds and systems of systems, and moreover into the unbounded times of their periodic motion, their beginning and their duration. The second begins from my invisible self, my personality, and presents me in a world which has true infinity but which can be discovered only by the understanding, and I cognize that my connection with that world (and thereby with all those visible worlds as well) is not merely contingent, as in the first case, but universal and necessary. The first view of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates, as it were, my importance as an animal creature, which after it has been for a short time provided with vital force (one knows not how) must give back to the planet (a mere speck in the universe) the matter from which it came. The second, on the contrary, infinitely raises my worth as an intelligence by my personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a life independent of animality and even of the whole sensible world, at least so far as this may be inferred from the purposive determination  of my existence by this law, a determination not restricted to the conditions and boundaries of this life but reaching into the infinite.

But though admiration and respect can indeed excite to inquiry, they cannot supply the want of it. What, then, is to be done in order to enter upon inquiry in a way that is useful and befitting the sublimity of the object? Examples may serve in this for warning but also for imitation. Consideration  of the world began from the noblest spectacle that can ever be presented to the human senses and that our understanding can bear to follow in its broad extent, and it ended – in astrology. Morals began with the noblest property of human nature, the development and cultivation of which looked to infinite use, and it ended – in enthusiasm or in superstition. So it is with all crude attempts in which the principal part of the business depends upon the use of  reason, which does not come of itself, like the use of the feet, by frequent exercise, especially when it has to do with properties that cannot be directly exhibited in common experience. But after there had come into vogue, though late, the maxim of carefully reflecting beforehand on all the steps that reason proposed to take and not letting it proceed otherwise than on the track of a previously well-considered method, then appraisal of the structure of the universe obtained quite a different direction and along with it an incomparably happier outcome. The fall of a stone, the motion of a sling, resolved into their elements and the forces manifested in them and treated mathematically, produced at last that clear and henceforth unchangeable insight into the structure of the world which, with continued observation, one can hope will always be extended while one need never fear having to retreat.

This example can recommend that we take the same path in treating of the moral predispositions of our nature and can give us hope of a similarly good outcome. We have at hand examples of reason judging morally. We can analyze them into their elementary concepts and, in default of mathematics, adopt a procedure similar to that of chemistry – the separation, by repeated experiments on common human understanding, of the empirical from the rational that may be found in them – and come to know both of them pure and what each can accomplish of itself; and in this way we can prevent on the one hand the errors of a still crude, unpracticed appraisal and on the other hand (what is far more necessary) the leaps of genius by which, as happens with the adepts of the philosopher’s stone, without any methodical study or knowledge of nature visionary treasures are promised and true ones are thrown away. In a word, science (critically sought and methodically directed) is the narrow gate that leads to the doctrine of wisdom, if by this is understood not merely what one ought to do but what ought to serve teachers as a guide to prepare well and clearly the path to wisdom which everyone should travel, and to secure others against taking the wrong way; philosophy must always remain the guardian of this science, and though the public need take no interest in its subtle investigations it has to take an interest in the doctrines which, after being worked up in this way, can first be quite clear to it. (P 130)