scholarly journals Hermann Cohen and His Idea of the Logic of Pure Knowledge

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 378-393
Author(s):  
Zinaida A. Sokuler
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
German Idealism ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Continuous Processes ◽  
Sense Data ◽  
Thing In Itself ◽  
Uncritical Acceptance ◽  
Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Hermann Cohen

Hermann Cohen, as it is well known, criticised the Kantian notion of the thing-in-itself. And before him the Kantian thing-in-itself was criticised by Fichte and other German idealists. Probably for this reason, Hermann Cohen is sometimes regarded as a person who said things similar to Fichte. This gives a completely wrong perspective, making it impossible to understand the philosopher's ideas. The basis for his critique of the Kantian thing-in-itself is quite different from the motives, determining the criticism of Kant in the classical German Idealism. Such interpretation does not allow to see close connection of Cohen's theoretical philosophy with revolution in physics which took place at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The article explains how Cohen's demand that pure thinking must form its own content is connected with transformations taking place in physics and mathematics, and the peculiarity of Cohen's understanding of idealism is demonstrated: for him, correct idealism must realize that autonomous, free thinking should work seriously with sense data. The closeness of Cohen's ideas to the postpositivist thesis of the theory-ladenness of observation is explained. For Cohen, serious work with sense data is opposite to uncritical acceptance of them as given. The origin of scientific thinking is thinking itself. It responds to the challenge of sensory material by creating its own constructs. Mathematized natural science becomes for Cohen both an example and a confirmation of this thesis. For him, what is real is what is described in the language of mathematical analysis, i.e. continuous processes, in spite of the fact that any data are discrete. It is shown that the source of Cohen's assertions on this issue is in Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, namely in the doctrine of the Principles of pure natural science and, more specifically, in the Anticipations of Perception. Cohen's conviction of the constructive character of the theories of mathematized natural science is confirmed in the article by references to the authority of A. Einstein.

Force in Nature

2020 ◽  
pp. 146-160
Author(s):  
David Carus
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Core ◽  
Thing In Itself ◽  
The Will ◽  
Insight Into

This chapter explores Schopenhauer’s concept of force, which lies at the root of his philosophy. It is force in nature and thus in natural science that is inexplicable and grabs Schopenhauer’s attention. To answer the question of what this inexplicable term is at the root of all causation, Schopenhauer looks to the will within us. Through will, he maintains that we gain immediate insight into forces in nature and hence into the thing in itself at the core of everything and all things. Will is thus Schopenhauer’s attempt to answer the question of the essence of appearance. Yet will, as it turns out, cannot be known immediately as it is subject to time, and the acts of will, which we experience within us, do not correlate immediately with the actions of the body (as Schopenhauer had originally postulated). Hence, the acts of will do not lead to an explanation of force, which is at the root of causation in nature. Schopenhauer sets out to explain what is at the root of all appearances, derived from the question of an original cause, or as Schopenhauer states “the cause of causation,” but cannot determine this essence other than by stating that it is will; a will, however, that cannot be immediately known.

scholarly journals SCHOOL MUSEUMS IN THE KINGDOM OF POLAND – IDENTIFICATION OF MAIN ISSUES

Muzealnictwo ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 59 ◽  
pp. 39-47
Author(s):  
Aldona Tołysz
Keyword(s):  
Secondary School ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Blind People ◽  
National Education ◽  
Teaching Aids ◽  
Museums And Collections ◽  
And Mathematics ◽  
Scientific Value

School museums – which had been founded mostly in the vicinity of educational institutions – used to collect teaching aids. So-called natural history cabinets were the most popular among them, recommended, inter alia, by the Commission of National Education in 1783. The tradition of collecting this type of exhibits was common until the middle of the 20th century. There are two types to be distinguished: school museums and pedagogical museums, which differ with respect to the character of their activity and the kind of exhibits. School museums collected basically objects of natural science, instruments for teaching geography, chemistry and mathematics as well as prints and facilities used during lessons. The second group also specialised in exhibits of natural science, but they were no longer used and usually of higher scientific value, including patterns and examples known in the education system. Among the earliest school museums created in the Kingdom of Poland were Warsaw collections of the Institute for Deaf and Blind People (1875), and those of the Eugeniusz Babiński’s so-called Realschule. At the beginning of the 20th century the idea was spreading, inspired inter alia by the exemplary activity of the Polish School Museum in Lviv (1903). The biggest number of school museums and collections were created in institutions founded by the Polish Educational Society (1906–1907). The survived resources give us relatively detailed information about the collections from Warsaw and Pabianice, which aspired to be categorised as pedagogical museums. The Secondary School for Boys of the Merchants Association in Łódź and the Pedagogical Museum in Warsaw (1917) had also in their possession some interesting collections. The latter one was based upon the collections of former governmental schools, in which – in accordance with a decree issued by Russian authorities – the scientific exhibits were to be collected.

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.

scholarly journals Transzendentalphilosophie als kritische Bestimmung des Stand­punkts. Eine wissenschaftstheoretische Annäherung

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-50
Author(s):  
Rudolf Meer
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Transcendental Logic ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
Celestial Bodies ◽  
Expanded Concept ◽  
Constitutive Principles

Both the categories and principles of understanding as well as the ideas and principles of reason build transcendental elements to conceive transcendental philosophy as a philosophical system. Accordingly, in addition to the “Transcendental Analytic”, Kant develops in the “Transcendental Dialectic” an expanded concept of the transcendental. The transcendental ideas do not denote object-constitutive principles but, in a weaker sense, conditions of the possibility of experience. The relation between Division One and Division Two of the “Doctrine of Elements” can be demonstrated exemplarily with regard to Kant’s references to astronomy. Based on the constitutive principles of understanding, which are directed towards the field of possible experience and provide a connection of cognition through reasons and consequences, as well as the regulative principles of reason, which form maxims of research, astronomy is a proper and rational natural science. The analysis of the case studies of astronomy shows that Kant uses the term transcendental within the framework of the “Transcendental Logic” of the Critique of Pure Reason to denote conditions that are constitutive for the possibility of an object in general and for describing necessary regulative conditions of experience. With these reflections, Kant places his transcendental philosophy in a long tradition of philosophical thought in which the celestial bodies are the preferred subject.

Immanuel Kants transzendentaler Kritizismus und die Frage nach Gott

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland Mugerauer
Keyword(s):  
German Idealism ◽  
Transcendental Philosophy ◽  
Pure Reason ◽  
Critique Of Pure Reason ◽  
Rational Theology ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Modern Thinking

For those who are interested, the study of Kant's relevant writings is facilitated here, especially that of the ´Critique of Pure Reason´. Immanuel Kant's transcendental philosophy and criticism of reason has left a lasting mark on modern thinking. The author gives an overview of Kant´s criticism. The focus is on Kant's philosophical treatment of the subject of God and his criticism of affirmative rational theology. If one wants to understand Kant, the God theme is of outstanding importance. Moreover, it is gaining increased philosophical interest nowadays. The author concludes with an outlook on the philosophical theologies in German idealism.

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”.

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