The Copernican revolutionaries legislated for nature

I. Copernican revolution

(i) The ideological background of Kant's philosophy

(1) Political background: French Revolution; (2) scientific background: Newtonian mechanics in the field of natural sciences, Rousseau's theory of man in the field of humanities; (3) philosophical background: theory of solipsism (dictatorship) and empiricism (skepticism).

(ii) The Problem of Kant's Philosophy

To put them into account: the crisis of reason (empiricism and theory of solipsism are in trouble at each end of the question of explaining the universal necessity of scientific knowledge), the loss of freedom (the prevailing mechanistic view of nature deprives freedom of its place), and the metaphysics exists in name only (the limitations of experience make metaphysics exist in name only). In short: in a world strictly limited by the laws of nature, there are no people

Have freedom? Is there a value and dignity that is different from other natural beings?

Kant's breakthrough in solving these philosophical problems was epistemology: the universal necessity of scientific knowledge requires epistemological proof, the loss of freedom stems from the infinite expansion of the field to which the natural sciences apply, and the demise of metaphysics in name only because philosophers try to make it a science like the natural sciences.

(iii) Copernican revolution

On epistemological issues, Kant advocated "reconciling" empiricism with theory of solipsism. On the one hand, he agreed with the principle of empiricism——— that all knowledge must be derived from experience, and on the other hand he agreed with the critique of empiricism by theory of solipsism—that experience alone is not enough for scientific knowledge; its universal necessity can only be innate. But then we find ourselves in a dilemma: if knowledge must be based on experience, knowledge cannot have universal necessity; if knowledge has universal necessity, it must be innate and cannot be based on experience. Kant posed this conundrum in one sentence: How can we experience objects beforehand?

If, according to the traditional metaphysical notion about knowledge, that knowledge must conform to the object in order to become real and reliable knowledge, I

We can never prove the universal inevitability of scientific knowledge. For we can neither explain how external things and their properties can be moved

In consciousness, it is even less a demonstration of the universal necessity of knowledge that must be based on experience. Since knowledge must match

The road of object is not feasible, we may as well change the angle like Copernicus, and reverse the relationship between knowledge and object,

Look at what would happen if the object conformed to knowledge, that is, the subject's inherent form of knowledge. In Kant's view, the problem is thus perfectly solved: on the one hand, our knowledge must indeed be based on experience, but on the other hand, the subject who carries out the activity of knowledge also has a whole set of forms of knowledge, and since these forms of knowledge exist in the cognitive capacity of the subject before experience and as a condition of experience, cognition is only the result of the subject's synthesis of empirical material in accordance with the rules through the innate form of knowledge, and the knowledge thus formed has a universal necessity.

Kant's "Copernican Revolution" proved the universal inevitability of scientific knowledge in a transcendental way, but at the same time it also arose

The negative consequences are extremely serious. For if it is not knowledge that must conform to the object but that the object must conform to the form of knowledge of the subject, that

This means that things for us are divided into two aspects: on the one hand, things that are known through the form of knowledge of the subject, Kang

Virtue calls it the "apparition" of things to us, and on the other hand, the "thing-in-itself" outside the limitations of the form of cognition. We can only know things relative to our apparitions and cannot know things themselves. Thus, the metaphysical ideal of attempting to transcend the limitations of experience and grasp the unifying nature and laws of the universe is doomed to be impossible. That is to say, natural science is possible, while metaphysics is impossible. From this point of view, the "Copernican revolution" is, in the final analysis, a limitation on the capacity of rational cognition, and is completely negative.

However, in Kant's view, this negative restriction can be transformed into some kind of positive result. Although the body of the epistemic form is limited

The limitation of the capacity to know is present, but on the other hand it also shows that there is an unfinished form of knowledge outside the realm of our knowledge

Regulation may thus be an area of infinite freedom. Within the scope of knowledge, empirical material is formed by the processing and collation of the form of knowledge

Consciousness has a universal necessity, and Kant called this field a "phenomenon." And the phenomenon as a phenomenon shows that it is not the ultimate thing, in the phenomenon

Beyond there is the thing itself that stimulates our senses to give rise to sensory experiences which are not phenomena in themselves. Everything within the phenomenal realm is obeyed

In the natural causal law, the object itself that gives rise to sensory experience outside the phenomenal realm can be seen by us as a cause that no longer has a cause

"Cause of freedom". If we try to understand the cause of freedom within the phenomenal realm, it is certainly illogical, but to conceive outside the phenomenal realm

A cause of freedom does not fall into a logical contradiction, which means that freedom, though unknowable, can think of its possibilities. So, to reason

The limitation of the cognitive ability opens up an infinitely broad world for another ability of reason, the practical ability, because practical reason or

Speaking of Germany is based on freedom. So, Kant believed, it was necessary to limit knowledge in order to leave a place for faith.

It follows from this that Kant's philosophical revolution should consist of two aspects: on the one hand, it establishes the universal inevitability of scientific knowledge through the subject's innate form of knowledge, and on the other hand, it opens the way for freedom through the limitation of the ability to know, and this latter aspect truly embodies the fundamental spirit of Kant's philosophy.