Descartes vs. Kant — What is Transcendental Philosophy?

The significant breakthroughs made by Immanuel Kant are often gathered together under the title of ‘transcendental philosophy.’ Indeed, Kant himself used that word, Transzendentalphilosophie, to describe his own thought.

But what is meant by the phrase ‘transcendental philosophy’? The reader will be aware that, in the history of philosophy, the simple paradigm is common in which Rene DesCartes is the representative of ‘rationalist’ philosophy, while John Locke is the icon for ‘empiricist’ philosophy. Each of those two was joined by teammates. Alongside DesCartes were, e.g., Jacques du Roure, Geraud de Cordemoy, Francois Bayle, and Jacques Rohault. Locke’s fellow empiricists included, among others, David Hume and Thomas Reid.

The rationalist team distrusted empirical knowledge, arguing that sense-data was unreliable. The rationalists found certain knowledge in a priori reasoning.

The empiricists discounted a priori knowledge as largely vacuous, consisting mostly of tautologies like “a = a” and “all triangles have three sides.” They argued that meaningful content came from sensations.

A sort of stalemate between these two teams had emerged by Kant’s time. Kant hoped to find a third option in philosophy: his Transzendentalphilosophie.

Webster’s dictionary defines ‘transcendental’ as “of or relating to experience as determined by the mind’s makeup” or “transcending experience but not human knowledge.” Webster offers an important contrast between ‘transcendental’ and ‘transcendent’ — the latter being “beyond the limits of all possible experience and knowledge.”

Random House offers a similar distinction: ‘transcendent’ is “transcending experience, not realizable in human experience,” while ‘transcendental’ is “of, pertaining to, based on, or concerned with the a priori elements in experience that condition human knowledge.” Random House adds that ‘transcendental philosophy’ is “based upon the doctrine that the principles of reality are to be discovered by the study of the processes of thought.”

Likewise, the dictionary of Funk and Wagnalls defines ‘transcendent’ as “lying beyond the bounds of all possible human knowledge,” and explains ‘transcendental’ as “having an a priori character; transcending experience.” According to Funk and Wagnalls,

Intuitive truths are those which are in the mind independently of all experience, not being derived from experience nor limited by it, as that the whole is greater than the part, or that things which are equal to the same thing are equal to one another. All intuitive truths or beliefs are transcendental. But transcendental is a wider term than intuitive, including all within the limits of thought that is not derived from experience, as the ideas of space and time.

Significantly, Funk and Wagnalls directed the reader to a reference work by Charles Krauth and William Fleming. This book went through several editions, with slight variations in the book’s title. Henry Calderwood seems to have been involved in one of earliest editions. It is usually cited as Vocabulary of the Philosophical Sciences. Fleming and Krauth give extensive discussions of the word ‘transcendental.’

Eric Kandel offers a glimpse into Kant’s philosophy of mind, and into Kant’s epistemology:

The view of the brain as a creativity machine that constantly uses inference and guesses to reconstruct the external world — the view advocated by Ernst Kris and Ernst Gombrich — was a dramatic shift from the naive philosophical realism of the seventeenth-century British philosopher John Locke that dominated thinking about mind at that time. Locke conceived of mind as receiving all the information capable of being gathered by the senses, a view in which mind simply mirrors the reality of the external world. Kris and Gombrich’s view of the brain was a modern version of Kant’s theory that sensory information allows reality to be invented by the mind.

Kant perhaps would not have phrased it as Kandel does, but the point is made: Kantian epistemology sees the mind as active. The mind doesn’t passively receive sense-data and then process them into perceptions. Even at the earlier stage of sensation, before perception, the mind is shaping the sense-data by placing it into space and time — or rather, by creating space and time around the sense-data.

Without using the word ‘transcendental,’ Eric Kandel describes the Kantian epistemological process:

The biological study of learning raises some familiar philosophical questions: What aspects of the organization of the human mind are innate? How does our mind acquire knowledge of the world?

Serious thinkers in every generation have struggled with these questions. By the end of the seventeenth century, two opposing views had emerged. The British empiricists John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume argued that our mind does not possess innate ideas; rather, all knowledge derives from sensory experience and is therefore learned. By contrast, the continental philosophers Rene Descartes, Gottfried Leibniz, and particularly Immanuel Kant argued that we are born with a priori knowledge; our mind receives and interprets sensory experience in an innately determined framework.

The definitions offered by Webster, Random House, and Funk and Wagnalls are compressed, intended for laymen, and somewhat simplified. They are not written by philosophers for philosophers. Eric Kandel is a brilliant and recognized neuroscientist, but his descriptions of Kant’s thought are not from the viewpoint of Kantian specialist and are not for an audience of Kant scholars.

A text coauthored by Julius Maria Roth and Paul Schulmeister points out that epistemology in general — and especially Kant’s epistemology in particular — is concerned not about what we know, but about how we know it, and the conditions which make knowledge possible:

Die Wende, die mit Immanuel Kants (1724-1804) Transzendentalphilosophie eingeläutet wurde, lässt sich am prägnantesten durch den Vergleich von Rene Descartes (1596-1650) und Kant nachvollziehen. Es handelt sich um den Unterschied zwischen Wissen und den Bedingungen von Wissen.

Roth and Schulmeister argue that DesCartes sought certain knowledge which can’t be doubted, while Kant sought the prerequisite which made knowledge attainable. Both Kant and DesCartes were concerned with the formal mechanisms of epistemology, but under the interpretation of Roth and Schulmeister, DesCartes was driving toward specific contents of knowledge as well as the form of knowledge:

Descartes ging es darum, sicheres Wissen zu erlangen, das nicht mehr bezweifelt werden kann. Kant hingegen fragte nach der Bedingung der Möglichkeit von Wissen.

DesCartes proceeded from the assumption that knowledge was possible, and so his questions were “What can we know? What do we know? Do we know what we think we know?”

Descartes setzte die Möglichkeit von Erfahrung als gegeben heraus. Ihn interessierte deshalb die Wirklichkeit von Erfahrung. Seine Frage lautete: Sind die Dinge wirklich so, wie sie uns erscheinen?

Kant, in contrast to DesCartes, focused on this question: “Can we know? How can we know? What are the mechanisms which would, or which do, make experience possible?” Understanding how experience is structured, or constructed, also points to the centrality of space and time in Kantian thought. Without space and time, there would be and could be no experience, and accordingly, early in the Kritik der Reinen Vernunft, Kant explores space and time.

Kant rückte jedoch genau jenen Aspekt in den Vordergrund, den Descartes als gegeben hingenommen hatte, nämlich die Möglichkeit von Erfahrung. Seine Frage lautete: Wie ist die Erfahrung überhaupt möglich?

The questions “How do I perceive objects? How do my experiences arise?” is closely related to the question “Why is it that my experiences and perceptions happen necessarily in a certain way?” The observer will note that it is not possible to have an idea of a physical object without having an idea of it in space. The mind finds it impossible to conceive of a physical object which is not in space. Likewise with time.

Kant’s exploration begins, not by asking about the objects in the world, but rather by asking about the mind which perceives them.

Bevor man wie Descartes danach fragt, ob die Dinge, wirklich so sind, wie sie uns erscheinen, lautet Kants Vorschlag, dass wir zunächst klären sollten, wie es überhaupt dazu kommt, dass die Dinge auf eine bestimmte Weise erscheinen. Mit Kant lernen die Philosophen, nicht gleich nach der Wirklichkeit und Wahrheit zu fragen, sondern zunächst das eigene Denken zu untersuchen. Genau das ist der Clou der Transzendentalphilosophie, die sich nicht vorschnell in metaphysische Gefilde vorwagen will, bevor nicht die Frage nach den Bedingungen der Möglichkeit von etwas geklärt ist.

The above summary of one part of Kant’s thought relies on Julius Maria Roth and Paul Schulmeister. The reader will ask, to which extent have those two authors accurately understood and expressed this part of the Kantian system?

Perhaps one of the main interpreters and advocates of Kant’s work is Carl Christian Erhard Schmid. Schmid is perhaps most responsible for explaining, and drawing attention to, Kant’s writings. Kant would have been much less well-known if Schmid hadn’t lectured and written about him.

Not only did C.C.E. Schmid offer a clear and influential exposition of Kant’s thought, but he is one of the few Kantian scholars to have published and lectured extensively during Kant’s lifetime. Schmid’s Kritik der Reinen Vernunft im Grundrisse nebst einem Wörterbuche zum leichteren Gebrauch der kantischen Schriften appeared in 1786, one year prior to the second edition of Kant’s Kritik der Reinen Vernunft. Schmid’s book about Kant went through several editions, the exact title changing slightly.

Schmid was writing and teaching about Kant, not only while Kant was still alive, but during Kant’s most productive years. It is left as an exercise to the reader to find primary source documents to answer questions about the extent to which Kant was aware of, and familiar with, Schmid’s writings — and questions about whether or not there was any direct communication between Kant and Schmid.

What is clear is that there was no objection from Kant about Schmid’s explanations of the Kantian system. In a hierarchy of reliability, therefore, Schmid would be near the top. To cite Schmid is arguably to cite one of the most dependable secondary sources on Kant.

Schmid’s Wörterbuch articulates a similar distinction between ‘transcendent’ and ‘transcendental’ and offers a lengthy entry on the latter word. The entry includes:

Transzendental bedeutet überhaupt eine Vorstellung (Anschauung oder Begriff), Urteil, Wissenschaft a priori, so fern sie sich doch auf Gegenstände bezieht, und darauf anwenden läßt; die Erkenntnis von dem objektiven Gebrauche, der rein a priori entsprungenen Vorstellungen und ihrer Vermögen.

Schmid’s detailed entry defining ‘transcendental’ merits detailed study, and is perhaps a powerful instrument for gaining insight in what is meant by the word Transzendentalphilosophie.

John Locke’s Epistemology: What Is Supernatural Knowledge?

In the long history of epistemology, many philosophers have asserted some form of a distinction between the knowledge humans gain through the five physical senses and the knowledge they gain through the exercise of reason. This distinction is drawn slightly differently from one philosopher to the next, and described in slightly different vocabulary, but the dichotomy is perennial one.

As an empiricist, John Locke looked to experience as the source of much or most of knowledge, and in some way, perhaps, the foundation of all knowledge. Yet Locke was aware of the complexities which arise when one uses this distinction in the careful analysis of knowledge.

There are relatively clear cut cases: The sense of vision may tell us that before us is a blueness; rational reflection may tell us that a = a. But between those extremes are a variety of borderline cases which are more complicated and do not always fall neatly into or or the other of those two categories.

One example is a perception which is the result of raw a posteriori sense-data which have been processed by a priori rational concepts, as J.L. Mackie explains:

The empiricist may, and Locke does, recognize that even the reception of ideas in perception is not wholly passive, but includes a considerable element of (unconscious) interpretation.

Locke shows how raw sense-data, which is a sensation and not yet a perception, needs to be processed by concepts in order to become a perception and eventually to become knowledge. A drawing on a two-dimensional paper of a three-dimensional object furnishes an example:

We are further to consider concerning perception, that the ideas we receive by sensation are often, in grown people, altered by the judgment, without our taking notice of it. When we set before our eyes a round globe of any uniform color, v.g. gold, alabaster, or jet, it is certain that the idea thereby imprinted on our mind is of a flat circle, variously shadowed, with several degrees of light and brightness coming to our eyes. But we having, by use, been accustomed to perceive what kind of appearance convex bodies are wont to make in us; what alterations are made in the reflections of light by the difference of the sensible figures of bodies; — the judgment presently, by an habitual custom, alters the appearances into their causes. So that from that which is truly variety of shadow or color, collecting the figure, it makes it pass for a mark of figure, and frames to itself the perception of a convex figure and an uniform color; when the idea we receive from thence is only a plane variously coloured, as is evident in painting.

There is a long series of thinkers in the history of philosophy who have written about this matter. Routinely, it is framed by some type of dichotomies: experience vs. reason, a priori vs. a posteriori, analytic vs. synthetic, etc.

As with any dichotomy, one may ask whether there are other alternatives in addition to the two given.

As William Uzgalis writes, “Locke claims that ideas are the materials of knowledge and all ideas come from experience.” Uzgalis is expressing the more-or-less standard understanding of Locke. It is worth noting that Locke, in most of his texts, hesitates to write that all knowledge comes from experience, but rather writes that all ideas come from experience: this nuance is worth noting.

In any case, however, another question presents itself: when Locke writes ‘experience,’ does he mean ‘sensory experience,’ i.e., from our five physical senses? Or does he leave room for some other types of experience?

Locke wrote about Paul, the author of several New Testament epistles, that Paul obtained something — ideas or knowledge — directly. Would Paul’s reception of propositions from God count as ‘experience’ for Locke? Locke writes:

Paul was miraculously called to the ministry of the gospel, and declared to be a chosen vessel; that he had the whole doctrine of the gospel from God, by immediate revelation; and was appointed to be the apostle of the Gentiles.

Even more direct, Locke uses the word ‘knowledge’ to refer to the content of Paul’s experience:

For his information in Christian knowledge, and the mysteries and depths of the dispensation of grace by Jesus Christ, God himself had condescended to be his instructor and teacher.

One could, then, begin to construct a paradigm with two categories of experience: first, the experience which arrives by means of the five physical senses; second, experience which arrives otherwise.

If there is such a thing as some type of experience distinct from physical experience, then what could it be? There might be more than one answer. Such non-sensory experiences could be emotional: experiencing happiness or sadness. They could be rational: the experience of calculating, for example. Locke speaks of ‘dictation’ to describe Paul’s experience: Locke says that Paul was “under the Spirit of God, that dictated these sacred writings.” Was this an audible dictation, i.e., the ordinary physical sense of hearing? Or was it somehow an experience of ideas: ideas arising without the five physical senses?

Rene DesCartes is often seen as the opposite of Locke, especially in terms of their respective epistemological systems. Locke however uses one of DesCartes’ more notorious vocabulary items when speaking of Paul’s experience. Cartesian scholars have long wrestled with how DesCartes uses the word ‘light,’ especially in the phrase ‘natural light’ or ‘light of nature.’ It seems to indicate, for DesCartes, an a priori bit of knowledge which is so obvious in its truth that it cannot be doubted. Critics of DesCartes accuse him of a deus ex machina move which begs the question of epistemological certainty when he invokes this natural light. Locke uses a similar phrase to describe the source of Paul’s knowledge:

He was full stored with knowledge of the things he treated of, for he had light from heaven, it was God himself furnished him.

As Locke uses the phrase ‘immediate revelation,’ so he also here speaks of a ‘truth’ which has been ‘revealed’ — truth being one of the usual ingredients of knowledge, as in ‘justified true belief.’

Like Francis’s Bacon’s listing of the sources of experimental error, Locke also indicates that human perception is liable to error, and proposes reliance on revelation as one possible measure against such error:

We are all men, liable to errors, and infected with them; but have this sure way to preserve ourselves, every one, from danger by them, if, laying aside sloth, carelessness, prejudice, party, and a reverence of men, we betake ourselves, in earnest, to the study of the way to salvation, in those holy writings, wherein God has revealed it from heaven, and proposed it to the world, seeking our religion, where we are sure it is in truth to be found, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.

John Locke’s epistemology, then, may have room for something more than the usual ‘experience vs. reason’ template to describe sources of ideas, of perceptions, and of knowledge. Or, at least, if he does limit the sources to those two, then he may be broadening the definitions of ‘reason’ and ‘experience’ to include more than one might at first suppose.