Re: Unusual line of reasoning in Kant's response to the antinomy of free will

On Nov 9, 7:19?pm, Scott H <zinites_p...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> In response to determinism, Kant explains how the antinomy of free
> will arises from a misuse of reason:
>
> "The possibility of an infinite origination, without a first member in
> regard to which everything else is merely subsequent, cannot be made
> comprehensible. But if you want to dismiss this puzzle of nature, then
> you will find yourselves compelled to reject many basic synthetic
> characteristics (basic forces) that you are just as little able to
> comprehend, and even the possibility of a change as such must then
> become objectionable to you."
>
> Up to here, I followed him. But then he says,
>
> "For if you did *not* find through experience that change is actual
> [my emphasis on "not"], then you would never be able to excogitate a
> priori how such an unceasing sequence of being and not-being is
> possible."
>
> If instead of "for" he had written "however," I wouldn't have
> considered it unsound writing. But then I would need a definition of
> "change as such."
>
> I would have expected a proof by contradiction, i.e., "If you *did*
> find through experience that change was actual, then..."

Experience tells us that change is actual, but experience does not
tell us that an unending sequence of changes can be experienced or
known as a whole. It is reason that excogitates the reality of that
unending sequence or change. But reason would not be able to
excogitate this change without first knowing change to be actual.

In other words, reason is driven by the idea that change is actual
(which it is) to suppose an unending totality.