Critical review of Kant’s worldview. How judgement
shapes human comprehension, by Rudolf A. Makkreel
Kai de Bruin··
Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain
Review of: Rudolph A. Makkreel, Kant’s Worldview. How Judgment Shapes Human
Comprehension, Chicago, Northwestern University Press, 2021, 288 p. ISBN: 9780810144316
This
book in an exploration not only of how we form representative images of the
world around us and the limits of said ability, but also, more importantly, of
how we relate to them and how we structure their relations. Makkreel
studies the evolution of Kant’s main concerns in his logical, epistemological,
moral, aesthetic, and anthropological writings. He contrasts this evolution
with other sources such as his lectures and his personal annotations. Thus,
this book offers those who are already familiar with Kant a birds
eye view of his works, and, moreover, does so without sacrificing the clarity
that someone new to Kant would need to be able to follow and enjoy the book.
Aside from the thorough look a Kant works, this book contains a twofold effort
to situate Kant among other authors. Firstly by
explaining the influences that we can pick up on in his work, and secondly
through his continuos references to the main voices
in the current debate surrounding the issues discussed in this book.
The
central notion being taken into account is practical
reason, and therefore, the autor is focused on how
people interact and engage with each other and the world around them. Kant, in
this regard, speaks of two kinds of philosophy (described in chapter fifteen),
the traditional academic kind which is concerned with theoretical cognition,
and the more world-orientated philosophy (or cosmical philosophy)
which attempts to link our cognition with worldly ends. Both are necessary, but
Kant warns us that, without the latter, the former can be misleading and urges
us to rely on orientational reflexion.
Right
from first chapter we see this practical way of thinking come into play, when Makkreel announces that he intends to correlate the three
main divisions of the Critique of Pure Reason —the
Aesthetic, the Analytic, and the Dialectic— with the different ways we relate
to the world (see the first three chapters). Makkreel
proposes that, aside from the more passive input we receive from the world,
there are various layers of active intake. And furthermore, it is this active
intake that can shield us from the world-distorting effect of our prejudices,
that are sometimes hard to separate from the a priori conditions that frame our
experiences.
The
author then highlights the importance of comprehension (chapters three and
four), a type of cognition that is often overlooked. According to Kant
comprehension is useful because it goes beyond intellectual
understanding and recognise its limits. Also explored
in chapter four is imagination and the role of categories in ensuring that our
experiences are continuous and properly interlaced. This exploration bleeds
into the fifth chapter, that focuses on judgement and how it frames our
experiences. These two topics blend together so
seamlessly because, according to Kant, categories are the functions for judging
and unifying that which is given to us by our intuition. It is judgment that
gives us a comprehensive grasp on the objects of the world around us.
We
will not attempt to sum up here the unique role each of the categories play,
but it is perhaps relevant to point out that whilst the first nine categories —the
categories of quantity, quality and relation— deal with the relationship
between objects of our experience, the last three categories —the modal
categories of possibility, actuality, and necessity— “allow us to take into
account the empirical circumstances that place limits (Schranken)
on what we do actually know” (p.71). It is this last step —the addition of an
orientational approach to our understanding of the natural world— that takes us
from a “world-picture” that we view as spectators to a world-view
with which we are engaged.
Chapters
seven through ten examine Kant’s view on religion, morals
and art, and how each of these fields contribute to our cosmical wisdom. Makkreel's view of Kant’s moral philosophy (chapter seven)
frees it form the image of being rigid and unforgiving. He explores the role,
in Kant’s thought, of various feelings such as love, honor, benevolence, pride,
humility, and, most importantly, respect for the law and how to properly embody
it. The duties of virtue leave room for reflective judgment, and must do so because,
if we want to truly embody the law and not just follow its word, we have to be aware that:
Laws require
us to treat everyone as abstractly equal, but they can not
take account of the specific contexts that individuals find themselves in and
make sure that they are treated fairly. […] to be moral, we must act not only
in accordance with the letter of the law, but also as respecting the spirit of
the law. (p.210)
Similarly Makkreel states that
Kant’s more lasting contribution to the appreciation of
art is “opening up what an aesthetic judgment and symbolization can contribute
to our state of mind and to expansive modes of thought.” (p.123). Aesthetic
judgments do not add to our cognition but rather recontextualize how the things
we see fit into our world.
The
relationship between this formation of a world-view
and how we come to know ourselves is studied in chapters eleven though
fourteen. For Kant our inner sense is no less phenomenal than our outer sense. When
explaining what the soul and organic life are (see chapters eleven and twelve),
Kant, again, leans outward. He thinks of both from a functional point of view
and presents the soul not as a substance, but as way in which we feel ourselves
living. Thus in his anthropology (see chapter
thirteen), intended to replace empirical introspective psychology, the human
soul is not studied as a “stand alone” substance, but rather as something
related to the world. In Kant’s Anthropology we are asked to consider what it
means to have a world and what we can expect from ourselves in it. Presenting
anthropology this way shifts the way we think of self-cognition from “a project
of introspective self-description to one of sensible self-evaluation that will
ultimately require judgment and reflective comprehension.” (p.179)
The
last chapters focus on the end goal “for humanity” that Kant envisions; his cosmopolitanism. Makkreel
explains the difference between said cosmopolitism and Kant’s cosmical
philosophy, ensuring that “the proper way to reconcile cosmical philosophy and
cosmopolitan theory is for the latter to be encompassed by the former” (p.207).
Cosmical philosophy strives to cultivate our moral wisdom and therefore goes
beyond the skilful use of reason cosmopolitanism
requires. Cosmopolitanism is an ideal of external organisation,
but it guarantees nothing in the realm of human character. Moreover, cosmical
philosophy acts as a conditioning factor in the achievement of
cosmopolitanism’s ends.
Makkreel then takes a moment to bring our attention to one
of the weaker aspects of Kant’s idea of cosmopolitanism. And that is that he
underestimates the impact of history and culture and aspires to a level of
uniformity that is perhaps unobtainable:
Kant's final
demand for total consensus is itself an illusory prejudice associated with the
Enlightenment assumption that universality is about uniformity. He was right to
question the prejudices that we assimilate in life and that encourage many to
prefer what is local and familiar over what is strange and foreign. But the
reason why Kant's own universalism is also prejudiced is his acquired
conviction that one branch of the human race can
legislate what counts as universal for the race as a whole. (p.235)
Bearing
this in mind, Makkreel purposes that we rethink Cosmopolitanism
as an attempt, not to achieve universal agreement, but a point of view that
allows us to accommodate other cultural perspectives. Although Makkreel is well aware that “these
ideas about the need for multilateral understanding are not Kant's own” (p.226),
he argues that they can be thought of as a historically relativised
extension of Kant’s beliefs.
Kant’s world
view is one of the idealism of freedom, albeit not an
absolutist version. Despite the fact that there are
undoubtably core absolutes in Kant’s thought, he’s idea of transcendental
idealism implies, according to Makkreel, constant
reevaluation and critique. Humans must constantly deal with ongoing conflicts,
and need, therefore, to strengthen their ability to critically diagnose their
situation and to deal with said conflicts.
