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Stabilizing Kant's First and Second Critiques: Causality and Freedom

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Stabilizing Kant's First and Second Critiques: Causality and Freedom Stabilizing Kant’s First and Second Critiques: Causality and Freedom * Justin Yee B.A. Candidate, Department of Philosophy, California State University Stanislaus, 1 University Circle, Turlock, CA 95382 Received 9 April, 2018; accepted 15 May 2018 Abstract In the Critique of Pure Reason and the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant examines the problem of causality and freedom in relation to epistemology and ethics. What is puzzling about the two Critiques is how each Critique produces a different outcome regarding the status of causality and freedom. This results in clear differences between the extent of causality and freedom in the world, especially in regard to the possibility for there even being freedom at all. The problem of discontinuity arises between the first Critique and the second Critique as the second Critique must reconcile freedom and choice with the first Critique's mechanical causality. In order to resolve this problem, this paper will refer to and focus on the proposal by Bencivenga who argues that Kant’s conception of causality changes from a causality of imposition in the first Critique to a causality of regularity in the second Critique. Understanding this change will resolve the discontinuity between the two Critiques and produce two separate arguments that are coherent. Keywords: Kant, Bencivenga, philosophy Introduction between the two Critiques, Bencivenga argues that the In the first Critique, Kant strongly establishes first Critique is operating on the terms of a causality as causality and determinism by arguing that causality is imposition, while in the second Critique causality must an a priori concept of the understanding, while freedom be understood as regularity. remains uncertain as the antinomies show freedom to be In response to this problem, various solutions have neither provable nor disprovable. On the other hand in been presented, such as the one by Basterra, who argues the second Critique, it is through Kant’s conception of that this discontinuity can be resolved in reference to the the duality of the will, where the will consists of a usage of different spheres of reason, theoretical reason legislative role and an executive role, that Kant is able and practical reason.1 Guyer presents another solution to clearly affirm the reality of freedom while also by arguing that “determinism is either irrelevant to or maintaining causality and determinism. A actually necessary for the most important forms of disjointedness between the two Critiques appears to moral judgement.” 2 Alternatively, Pinkard points out have occurred as the second Critique establishes what that there is a difference between free-choice and free- the first Critique found to be impossible, freedom in will, in which the latter, free-will, cannot truly be reference to causality. In order to solve the separation established.3 However, this paper will attempt to show * Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] 1 Gabriela Basterra, The Subject of Freedom Kant, Levinas (New York: Fordham University Press, 2015), 15. Basterra analyzes various problems within and between Kant’s first Critique and second Critique, including the relationship of causality/determinism and freedom. In regards to any discontinuities, Basterra argues, “that the two different approaches…do not necessarily signify a shift in Kant’s conception. Rather they should be interpreted in light of the limits of theoretical reason as Kant conceived of it”(15). Basterra is arguing that the argument of causality/determinism and freedom in the first Critique must be understood and interpreted differently than the argument in the second Critique because Kant is contextualizing each argument in reference to a different field of reason, theoretical reason versus practical reason. Basterra understands that when the arguments of causality and freedom are understood this way, both arguments in the first and second Critiques are equally valid. Basterra’s argument is structured in reference to Kant’s third Critique, where Kant emphasizes the different spheres of reason. 2 Paul Guyer, Virtues of Freedom: Selected Essays on Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 146. Guyer argues that determinism is irrelevant because “even if our future choices are in principle fully determined by our prior histories and the laws of nature, we can in practice never know either of those in adequate detail to know what they actually entail, and so can instead only try to determine what would be right or best to do and to act accordingly, just as we would if our actions were not actually determined by our past.” In other words, determinism is irrelevant because it is impossible to truly know those causal laws, which results in one still being in the position of having to act as if one’s actions were not determined. Guyer also argues that determinism is necessary in moral judgment because reward and punishment presupposes the belief in determinism, or that they “do act as causes that will contribute to the determination of future actions”(146). 3 Terry Pinkard, German Philosophy 1760-1860: The Legacy of Idealism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 55. Pinkard argues that, “Our actions in the social order could only be regarded from the moral point of view as an expression of free choice, not free will; since there is no way that a public order could ever peer into men’s souls to discover whether they were acting out of a sense of duty or a sense of personal advantage, the highest level of ethical life to which the public order could aspire would only be that of a harmonization of free choices under public law, not that of a that Bencivenga’s proposal was correct in interpreting the fact that through them alone is experience possible the causality in the first Critique as mechanical and the (as far as the form of thought in it is concerned). For in causality in the second Critique as regularity, and that that case the categories refer to objects of experience this interpretation is necessary for the coherency of the necessarily and a priori, because only by means of them two Critiques. can any experiential object whatsoever be thought at Bencivenga begins by differentiating between a all…Without that original reference of these concepts to causality of imposition and a causality of regularity. possible experience wherein all objects of cognition Bencivenga understands causality of imposition to be occur, their reference to any object whatever would be “an event literally forcing another to come to pass” quite incomprehensible.5 while a causality of regularity is “events of certain kinds Kant is arguing that the a priori concepts, or following one another in predictable ways, according to categories, are the foundation that allows for the form patterns that can be recognized.”4 What differentiates a of thought in experience to be possible. It is because one causality of regularity from a causality of imposition is can note the consistency and coherence of thought in that a causality of imposition is a kind of kicking in the relation to objects of experience that a priori concepts door that produces an event with unique universality must be assumed. When the a priori concepts of and strict necessity, while a causality of regularity does understanding are combined with intuition’s a priori not. In other words, a causality of imposition entails the forms space and time, only then can comprehensible process of Cause A universally and necessarily cognition take place. Therefore, Kant finds that the producing Effect B in which Effect B always follows establishing of a priori concepts of the understanding is Cause A with strict necessity. If Effect B was discovered necessary and justified. to not have been produced by Cause A but a Cause C, Kant then applies the general argument for a priori then under the terms of mechanical causality there concepts to the concept of causality by arguing that an a would only be a causal relationship between Cause C priori concept of cause and effect is also required for and Effect B, and Cause A would be dismissed. A consistency in experience. Kant elaborates upon cause causality of regularity differs from the causality of and effect as an a priori concept of the understanding by imposition because it does not makes the claim of strict writing, exclusivity. A causality of regularity allows for the The concept of a cause would get lost entirely if we possibility to account for Effect B by a multiplicity of derived it as Hume did: viz., from a repeated association independent causes. In other words, a causality of of what happens with what precedes, and from our regularity would allow for Effect B to be fully resulting habit of connecting presentations (hence from accounted for by Cause A, as there are patterns of a merely subjective necessity). But we do not need such regularity in which Effect B follows from Cause A, but examples in order to prove that pure a priori principles also that Effect B could be fully accounted for by Cause actually exist in our cognition. We could, alternatively, C if there too are patterns of regularity. What is establish that these principles are indispensable for the effectively produced by the concept of causality of possibility of experience as such, and hence establish regularity, is that different explanations may be given in their existence a priori. For where might even relation to the context of different aspects in a singular experience gets its certainty if all the rules by which it situation. proceeds were always in turn empirical and hence contingent…6 Critique of Pure Reason and causality as imposition In other words, the concept of cause and effect must be an a priori concept or else causality will be derived In order to establish causality as imposition, Kant from empirical observations and fall susceptible to begins by providing a justification for a priori concepts.
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