scholarly journals Hermann Weyl, 1885-1955

1957 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 305-328 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Galois Theory ◽  
A Priori ◽  
First Year ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Elementary Number Theory ◽  
Foundations Of Geometry ◽  
Summer Vacation ◽  
Classical Work ◽  
Hermann Weyl ◽  
Kantian Philosophy

Hermann Weyl was born on 9 November 1885, the son of Ludwig and Anna Weyl, in the small town of Elmshorn near Hamburg. When his schooldays in Altona ended in 1904 he entered Göttingen University as a country lad of eighteen, and there remained (except for a year at Munich), first as student and then as Privatdozent, until his call to Zurich in 1913. Of these days he said (in the obituary of Hilbert for this Society, 1944), ‘Hilbert and Minkowski were the real heroes of the great and brilliant period which mathematics experienced during the first decade of the century in Göttingen, unforgettable to those who lived through it. Klein ruled over it like a distant god, “divus Felix”, from above the clouds.’ Among those nearer to his own age whom he found there were Carathéodory and Harald Bohr, Courant, Zermelo, Erhard Schmidt. While still a schoolboy he had picked up in his father’s house an old copy of the Critique of Pure Reason, and absorbed with enthusiasm Kant’s thesis of the a priori nature of Euclidean geometry. But in Göttingen Hilbert had just completed his classical work on the foundations of geometry, with its host of strange ‘counter’-geometries. Kantian philosophy could not survive this blow: Weyl transferred his allegiance to Hilbert. ‘I resolved to study whatever this man had written. At the end of my first year I went home with the “Zahlbericht” under my arm, and during the summer vacation I worked my way through it—without any previous knowledge of elementary number theory or Galois theory. These were the happiest months of my life, whose shine, across years burdened with our common share of doubt and failure, still comforts my soul.’ (133, 1944.)

scholarly journals Two Kindred Neo-Kantian Philosophies of Science: Pap’s The A Priori in Physical Theory and Cassirer’s Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Physics

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Mormann
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Physical Theory ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Logical Empiricism ◽  
Main Thesis ◽  
Modern Physics ◽  
Continental Tradition ◽  
Determinism And Indeterminism ◽  
Kantian Philosophy

Abstract The main thesis of this paper is that Pap’s The Functional A Priori in Physical Theory and Cassirer’s Determinism and Indeterminism in Modern Physics may be conceived as two kindred accounts of a late Neo-Kantian philosophy of science. They elucidate and clarify each other mutually by elaborating conceptual possibilities and pointing out affinities of neo-Kantian ideas with other currents of 20th century’s philosophy of science, namely, pragmatism, conventionalism, and logical empiricism. Taking into account these facts, it seems not too far fetched to conjecture that under more favorable circumstances Pap could have served as a mediator between the “analytic” and “continental” tradition thereby overcoming the dogmatic dualism of these two philosophical currents that has characterized philosophy in the second half the 20th century.

Three Kantian Routes to the Synthetic A Priori

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Robert Audi
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Insufficient Attention ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
The One ◽  
Philosophical Importance

Abstract Kant influentially distinguished analytic from synthetic a priori propositions, and he took certain propositions in the latter category to be of immense philosophical importance. His distinction between the analytic and the synthetic has been accepted by many and attacked by others; but despite its importance, a number of discussions of it since at least W. V. Quine’s have paid insufficient attention to some of the passages in which Kant draws the distinction. This paper seeks to clarify what appear to be three distinct conceptions of the analytic (and implicitly of the synthetic) that are presented in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and in some other Kantian texts. The conceptions are important in themselves, and their differences are significant even if they are extensionally equivalent. The paper is also aimed at showing how the proposed understanding of these conceptions—and especially the one that has received insufficient attention from philosophers—may bear on how we should conceive the synthetic a priori, in and beyond Kant’s own writings.

scholarly journals Epistemologia Kanta jako rozwiązanie sporu empiryzmu z racjonalizmem

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-168
Author(s):  
Michał Wendland
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
German Philosophy ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
Pure Intuition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Main Ideas

The article concerns some of the most important elements of I. Kant’s epistemology and its connections with earlier epistemological ideas, namely rationalism and empiricism. The history of dispute between rationalism (Descartes, Leibniz) and empiricism (Locke, Berkeley, Hume) is hereby shortly presented while Kant’s own philosophical achievements are suggested to be both alternative and synthesis of these. The main core of this paper is summary of basis of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason; some most important categories are described: apriorism, synthetic and analytical judgements, knowledge a priori and a posteriori, main ideas of transcendental esthetics (two forms of pure intuition: time and space), main ideas of transcendental logic (forms of judgement and twelve categories). Also the meaning of Kant’s „copernican revolution” is presented as a turning point for classical German philosophy as well as for whole modern epistemology.

scholarly journals The Tantalus’ Torments of Transcendentalism

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Sergey Chernov
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
Complete System ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
German Edition ◽  
Opus Postumum ◽  
Corporeal Nature

Kant’s manuscripts of 1796–1803, which the Academic German edition of his works combined in 21–22 volumes of under the invented by H. Vaihinger name ‘Opus postumum’, still attract the attention of researchers. Was there really a significant theoretical “gap” in the system of Kant's “critical”, transcendental philosophy, which built by 1790, needed to be filled, namely, to undertake a conceptual "transition" from the already constructed a priori metaphysics of corporeal nature (metaphysical principles of natural science) to experimental mathematical physics, to the entire scientific empirical investigation of nature? In the last years of his life Kant tried to solve a problem that was really decisive for the fate of transcendentalism, which he had already realized in ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ and concretized in ‘Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science’, however he found himself in a hopeless situation, which doomed him to the “Tantalus’ torments”. The problem that he was constantly thinking about necessarily arises in the system of transcendental philosophy, but has no solution in it. ‘Opus postumum’ is an important piece of evidence on the insurmountable difficulties faced by the attempt to “save” philosophy as a perfect and complete system of absolutely reliable, "apodictic" science, based on the idea of universal and necessary conditions for the experience possibility.

Reception of Kantianism in Neo-Scholastic Theory of Knowledge:Jaume Balmes’ Doctrine

2020 ◽  
pp. 172-180
Author(s):  
Rodion V. Savinov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
A Priori ◽  
Negative Attitude ◽  
Theory Of Knowledge ◽  
Intellectual Culture ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
Scholastic Philosophy ◽  
Universal Reason ◽  
Fourth Book ◽  
Kantian Philosophy

The Article is devoted to the Representative of the Early Neo-Scholasticism, Span­ish Thinker Jaume Balmes. The Focus of Attention is the Interpretation of the Kan­tian Doctrine of Knowledge, which Balmes proposed in the Fourth Book of his “Filosofia Fundamental”(1846). It is shown that contrary to the generally negative attitude towards Kant and the Philosophy of Criticism that prevailed by the 1830s in Catholic Intellectual Culture, Balmes not only seriously studies and evaluates the Results of Kantian Criticism, but also he finds many points of contact between Criticism and Scholasticism, for which he undertakes a large-scale rewriting of the Kantian Theory of Knowledge in Terms of Scholasticism. At the same time, he of­fers Criticism of Kantian philosophy based on the Resources of the Scholastic Tra­dition, which allows integrating the Transcendental Analysis of Cognition devel­oped by Kant into the Methods of Scholastic Philosophy. Balmes sought to restore the Possibility of Metaphysical Knowledge, as a Result of which he excluded a number of Important Points of the Kantian Concept, he changed idea of a priori, setting the Boundaries of Sensuality and Reason, to a moving and dynamic “Agent Intellect” (entendimento agente), and Balmes replaced a transcendental subject by a “Universal Reason” (razón universal). In Conclusion, it is shown that Balmes’ Interpretation had a profound Influence on the Development of Understanding of Kantian Philosophy in Neo-Scholasticism and Neo-Thomism.

A posteriori

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Moser
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
Sensory Experience ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Empirical Knowledge ◽  
A Posteriori ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
The Common ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Common Understanding ◽  
Priori Knowledge

A prominent term in theory of knowledge since the seventeenth century, ‘a posteriori’ signifies a kind of knowledge or justification that depends on evidence, or warrant, from sensory experience. A posteriori truth is truth that cannot be known or justified independently of evidence from sensory experience, and a posteriori concepts are concepts that cannot be understood independently of reference to sensory experience. A posteriori knowledge contrasts with a priori knowledge, knowledge that does not require evidence from sensory experience. A posteriori knowledge is empirical, experience-based knowledge, whereas a priori knowledge is non-empirical knowledge. Standard examples of a posteriori truths are the truths of ordinary perceptual experience and the natural sciences; standard examples of a priori truths are the truths of logic and mathematics. The common understanding of the distinction between a posteriori and a priori knowledge as the distinction between empirical and non-empirical knowledge comes from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781/1787).

Kant on Time I: The Kinematics of the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science

Kant-Studien ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 110 (3) ◽  
pp. 477-497
Author(s):  
David Hyder
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
A Priori ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Analytical Mechanics ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Principle Of Relativity ◽  
Theory Of Motion ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Moving Bodies

Abstract The theory of space-time developed in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason and his (1786) Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science is connected to Leonhard Euler’s proof of invariance under Galilean transformations in the “On Motion in General” of the latter’s 1736 Analytical Mechanics. It is argued that Kant, by using the Principle of Relativity that is the output of Euler’s proof as an input to his own proof of the kinematic parallelogram law, makes essential use of absolute simultaneity. This is why, in the Transcendental Aesthetic, he observes that “our theory of time explains as much a priori knowledge as the general theory of motion displays.” (KrV, B 67) In conclusion, it is shown that the same proof-method, under a different definition of simultaneity, leads to the parallelogram law of the “Kinematic Part” of Einstein’s 1905 “On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies”.

scholarly journals Kant’s Response to Hume’s Critique of Pure Reason

2019 ◽  
Vol 101 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin de Boer
Keyword(s):  
A Priori ◽  
General Question ◽  
A Priori Knowledge ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Synthetic A Priori ◽  
Priori Knowledge

Abstract In this article I argue that Kant considered Hume’s account of causality in the Enquiry to be primarily relevant because it undermines proofs for the existence of God and, moreover, that this interpretation is plausible and text-based. What the Prolegomena calls ‘Hume’s problem’ is, I claim, the more general question as to whether metaphysics can achieve synthetic a priori knowledge of objects at all. Whereas Hume denied this possibility, I show how the solution Kant develops in the Critique of Pure Reason is in agreement with Hume’s critique of dogmatic metaphysics, but salvages the synthetic a priori principles he takes to be constitutive of empirical cognition.

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