Paralogism (Kant)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The paralogism of Pure Reason in Immanuel Kant is a paralogism so fallacy that a syllogism mimics, particularly philosophy historical significance. In Critique of Pure Reason , he describes the “first class of dialectical conclusions”, that is, conclusions to which reason a priori and necessarily tends. These are transcendental paralogisms.

As further classes of dialectical conclusions Kant names the hypothetical conclusions of pure reason leading to the antinomies of pure reason and the disjunctive conclusions of pure reason that lead to the ideal of pure reason (transcendental ideal) (Immanuel Kant: AA III, 261-262) . All dialectical conclusions of pure reason is based on the maxim of the logical use of reason. "Find [...] to the contingent of the findings of the understanding the unconditioned whereby the unit is completed" ( Immanuel Kant: AA III, 196 )

General

Kant distinguishes the transcendental paralogism from the ordinary paralogism insofar as it is supposed to be a 'material', not a 'formal', final error. The transcendental paralogism takes the form of a categorical reasoning.

“The logical paralogism consists in the falsity of a reasoning according to the form, its content may be whatever it wants. A transcendental paralogism, however, has a transcendental reason: to infer the wrong form. In such a way such a fallacy will have its basis in the nature of human reason, and will lead to an inevitable, although not indissoluble, illusion "

- Immanuel Kant: AA III, 262

Kant thus sets himself the task of exposing the claim of previous metaphysics to be able to really find unequivocal truths about the soul, the world and God as false. This pseudo-knowledge is replaced by the possibility of a rational belief .

The content of the transcendental paralogism of reason is the soul as the substrate of knowledge. Kant indirectly criticizes Descartes' famous sentence : Cogito, ergo sum (German: I think therefore I am). It is true that Kant also presupposes something that guarantees the unity of consciousness. However, this prerequisite is only accessible to knowledge as a function between ideas. This functional conception of the ego is to be distinguished both from a soul and from empirical self-experience. With this distinction, the transcendental paralogisms of pure reason turn out to be invalid for Kant.

Kant now claims that every project of a rational psychology presupposes these paralogisms. According to its founder, the philosopher Christian Wolff (1679–1754), it is to be distinguished from all empirical psychology. Rational psychology, which deals with thinking, is thus also an object of metaphysics according to Kant. If the category of substance is applied to thinking, then according to Kant, a material idea is awakened. When thinking is reified, a dialectical semblance arises. The soul has no existence, but also no non-existence. It remains an indispensable transcendental idea.

"Accordingly, the expression I, as a thinking being, already means the object of psychology, which can be called the rational theory of the soul, if I ask nothing more of the soul than to know what is independent of all experience (which determines me more precisely in concrete) from this concept I , insofar as it occurs in all thinking, can be inferred "

- Immanuel Kant: AA III, 263

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Immanuel Kant, Collected Writings. Ed .: Vol. 1-22 Prussian Academy of Sciences, Vol. 23 German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, from Vol. 24 Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Berlin 1900ff., AA III, 261–262  / KrV B 396 et seq.
  2. ↑ Immanuel Kant, Collected Writings. Ed .: Vol. 1-22 Prussian Academy of Sciences, Vol. 23 German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, from Vol. 24 Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Berlin 1900ff., AA III, 196  / KrV B 364.
  3. ↑ Immanuel Kant, Collected Writings. Ed .: Vol. 1-22 Prussian Academy of Sciences, Vol. 23 German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, from Vol. 24 Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Berlin 1900ff., AA III, 262  / KrV B 399.
  4. ↑ Ralf Ludwig: The Critique of Pure Reason. Kant for beginners , dtv 30135 Munich 1st edition 1995, 8th edition 2002, ISBN 3-423-30135-X , page 121
  5. ↑ Christian Wolff : Philosophia rationalis sive logica , Frankfurt-Leipzig 1728 ( digitized version of the 3rd edition 1740 in the Google book search), page 51, § 112
  6. ↑ Immanuel Kant, Collected Writings. Ed .: Vol. 1-22 Prussian Academy of Sciences, Vol. 23 German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, from Vol. 24 Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Berlin 1900ff., AA III, 263  / KrV B 400.