On Nov 9, 11:39 am, John Jones <jonescard...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> 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.- Hide quoted text -
>
Very good, even "GordgeProof" since the contradiction arises between
beliefs we have about the world, not actual contradictions. I think
the antinomies point out that up till then we couldn't know and it
seemed strange that we couldn't. Well Kant may not have pondered the
possibility that our minds evolved in a way that we understand how to
reason about survival but not reason well about the necessary
conditions that must be satisfied if we believe in change. Here is
some comentary on the third antinomy;
THIRD ANTINOMY. Thesis. The causality of natural law is insufficient
for the explanation of all the phenomena of the universe. For this end
another kind of causality must be assumed, whose attribute is freedom.
Proof. All so-called natural causes are effects of preceding causes,
forming a regressive series of indefinite extent, with no first
beginning. So we never arrive at an adequate cause of any phenomenon.
Yet natural law has for its central demand that nothing shall happen
without such a cause.
Antithesis. All events in the universe occur under the exclusive
operation of natural laws, and there is no such thing as freedom.
Proof. The idea of a free cause is an absurdity. For it contradicts
the very law of causation itself, which demands that every event shall
be in orderly sequence with some preceding event. Now, free causation
is such an event, being the active beginning of a series of phenomena.
Yet the action of the supposed free cause must be imagined as
independent of all connexion with any previous event. It is without
law or reason, and would be the blind realization of confusion and
lawlessness. Therefore transcendental freedom is a violation of the
law of causation, and is in conflict with all experience. We must of
necessity acquiesce in the explanation of all phenomena by the
operation of natural law, and thus transcendental freedom must be
pronounced a fallacy.
http://www.publicbookshelf.com/public_html/Outline_of_Great_Books_Volume_I/transcende_bid.html
Kant faces a similar problem in his attempted resolution of the
contradiction of the third antinomy (that either "there are in the
world causes through freedom" or "that there is no freedom but all is
nature.") (Prolegomena, 80) Kant holds that these statements are not
really contradictory, and are only viewed as such due to a
misunderstanding of what each statement is asserting. Kant resolves
the contradiction by stating that "if natural necessity is referred
merely to appearances and freedom to things in themselves, no
contradiction arises if we at the same time admit both kinds of
causality, however difficult or impossible it ma y be to make the
latter kind conceivable." (Prolegomena, 84) But Kant is once again
making an unjustified claim about the nature of things-in-themselves,
for if freedom did exist only in the realm of things-in-themselves, we
would not at all be aware of it., and if we are aware of freedom, then
in must be present in the world of experience.
http://www.olist.com/essays/text/hsieh/kant_turn.html
(ii) In the third antinomy the thesis and antithesis could both be
true but about different sorts of things.
Thus it could be true that everything in the space-time world happens
according to natural causality, without our having to deny that a
different kind of causality might be effective in a noumenal or non-
natural order which connects with, but is distinct from, that world.
[Walsh, p.200]
http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/philosophy/Personnel/susan/Antinomies.html
----------defined
Antinomies are contradictions that Kant believed follow necessarily
from our attempts to conceive the nature of transcendent reality. Kant
thought the Antinomies cannot be resolved and that attempts to
conceive the transcendent will always produce irresolvable
contradictions. This does not mean that there is no transcendent or
that attempts to conceive the transcendent are meaningless. They are,
just as Kant said, necessitated by reason itself. It does mean,
however, that the transcendent defeats rational representation.
Speculative reason will be mis-applied beyond the limits of possible
experience while considering such topics. The contradiction arises
because valid arguments can be made in favour of both views. If
unresolved this antimony could lead to 'the euthanasia of pure
reason' (AKA skepticism).
They are contradictory, but validly proven pairs of claims that reason
is compelled toward. The contradictory claims could both be proven
because they both shared the mistaken metaphysical assumption that we
can have knowledge of things as they are in themselves, independent of
the conditions of our experience of them.
An antinomy produces a self-contradiction by accepted ways of
reasoning. It establishes that some tacit and trusted pattern of
reasoning must be made explicit and henceforward be avoided or
revised.
http://www.faithnet.org.uk/Philosophy/kant.htm
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=antinomy+kant
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