The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity: A Modern Philosophy of Life Developed by Scientific MethodsSteiner, Rudolf
Religion
The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity: A Modern Philosophy of Life Developed by Scientific Methods
Steiner, Rudolf
Anthroposophy; Free will and determinism; Knowledge, Theory of; Life
We may open the Critique of Pure Reason wherever we please, we shall
always find that in all its discussions these two dogmatic propositions
are taken for granted. Cohen [27] and Stadler [28] attempt to prove
that Kant has established the a priori character of the propositions
of Mathematics and Pure Natural Science. But all that Kant tries to do
in the Critique may be summed up as follows. The fact that Mathematics
and Pure Natural Science are a priori sciences implies that the "form"
of all experience has its ground in the subject. Hence, all that is
given by experience is the "matter" of sensations. This matter is
synthesised by the forms, inherent in the mind, into the system of
empirical science. It is only as principles of order for the matter
of sense that the formal principles of the a priori theories have
function and significance. They make empirical science possible, but
they cannot transcend it. These formal principles are nothing but the
synthetic judgments a priori, which therefore extend, as conditions
of all possible empirical knowledge, as far as that knowledge but no
further. Thus, the Critique of Pure Reason, so far from proving the
a priori character of Mathematics and Pure Natural Science, does but
delimit the sphere of their applicability on the assumption that their
principles must become known independently of experience. Indeed,
Kant is so far from attempting a proof of the a priori character of
these principles, that he simply excludes that part of Mathematics
(see the quotation above) in which, even according to his view, that
character might be called in question, and confines himself to the part
in which he thinks he can infer the a priori character from the bare
concepts involved. Johannes Volkelt, too, comes to the conclusion that
"Kant starts from the explicit presupposition" that "there actually
does exist knowledge which is universal and necessary." He goes
on to remark, "This presupposition which Kant has never explicitly
questioned, is so profoundly contradictory to the character of a truly
critical Theory of Knowledge, that the question must be seriously put
whether the Critique is to be accepted as critical Theory of Knowledge
at all." Volkelt does, indeed, decide that there are good grounds for
answering this question in the affirmative, but still, as he says,
"this dogmatic assumption does disturb the critical attitude of
Kant's epistemology in the most far-reaching way." [29] In short,
Volkelt, too, finds that the Critique of Pure Reason is not a Theory
of Knowledge free from all assumptions.
In substantial agreement with our view are also the views of
O. Liebmann, [30] Holder, [31] Windelband, [32] Ueberweg, [33] Eduard
von Hartmann, [34] and Kuno Fischer, [35] all of whom acknowledge
that Kant makes the a priori character of Pure Mathematics and Physics
the basis of his whole argumentation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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