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11EPISTEMOLOGICAL AND VALUE-REGULATORY ASPECTS OF WORLDVIEW IN KANT'S PHILOSOPHY
УДК 17
DOI: 10.24411/2658-4964-2020-1107
Chistyakova Ekaterina Yuryevna
PhD in Philosophy, assistant of professor, Department Philosophy and Theology, Belgorod National Research University, Belgorod
Shkuratov Dmitry Sergeyevich student of master program
The Philosophy of Politics and Political Anthropology
Department Philosophy and Theology
Belgorod National Research University, Belgorod
Chistyakova E. Yu. chistyakova.e.j @yandex.ru Shkuratov D.S. [email protected]
ANNOTATION
The article deals with Kant's methods of solving worldview issues such as "What can I know?", "What should I do?", "What can I hope for?" Antinomies limit human theoretical knowledge. It's impossible to give a rational answer to the question of the God's existence because it's a matter for faith, not rational. The sphere of application of practical reason and ethics of duty begins here. Kant believes that morality doesn't depend on religion and criticizes the traditional church. The innate moral feeling makes a person moral. Therefore, no compulsion of answers to worldview questions can't be justified.
Keywords: Kant, worldview, ethics of duty, belief, antinomy.
We live in the era of the ideological crisis, when the values of Soviet civilization have devalued in large measure, and the new ones are still rather illusive. Many people see a way out of this situation in resorting to religious forms of outlook. However, a "return to the sources," that is, a religious renaissance, in Russia led to a conflict between subjects of religious and non-religious worldviews [1]. The problem is the absence of a worldview tolerance that implies respect for the beliefs
of the Other. In this context, it is useful to consider the main points of ideological pluralism, the ancestor of which became the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.
When considering the phenomenon of world outlook, an approach that emphasizes attention to its epistemological and value-regulating (meaningful) aspects seems to be natural. In this regard, attention should be paid to the questions formulated by Kant at the end of the Critique of Pure Reason: "What can I know?" In my opinion, it's worldview issue.
So, the first question: what, according to Kant, is available to cognition, and what is not? In answering the second part of this question, Kant introduces in his transcendental dialectic the concept of "ideas of reason". These transcendental ideas have their subject the most abstract statement that can't be "grasped" in experience, however, the human mind seeks their sensually perceptible expression in the outer world. Trying to go beyond the limits of experience, reason becomes entangled in contradictions, because it can't think outside concepts and categories. As a result, pairs of contradictory exposition appear, to prove or to refute the truth of which by means of rational thinking is impossible. Antinomies appear in the form of extremely general statements, the subject of which aren't phenomena, but noumena. That is, antinomies arise in those cases when experience is not able to embrace the thing-for-us entirely (for example, the whole world), and makes an assumption about its properties, based on the ideas of reason (theoretical thinking). This leads humans to the illusion mistakes and optics - antinomies of pure reason. Thus, Kant discovers the applicable theoretical thinking borders by antinomies of pure reason. Transcendental antitetic allows Kant's to this contradiction of pure reason. It uses skeptical method which "aims at certainty, by endeavouring to discover in a conflict of this kind, conducted honestly and intelligently on both sides, the point of misunderstanding" [5, P.265].
Kant deduces four antinomies, or four groups of contradictory exposition: 1) "The world has a beginning in time, and is also limited in regard to space. / The world has no beginning, and no limits in space, but is, in relation both to time and space, infinite". 2) "Every composite substance in the world consists of simple parts; and there exists nothing that is not either itself simple, or composed of simple parts / No composite thing in the world consists of simple parts; and there does not exist in the world any simple substance". 3) "Causality according to the laws of nature, is not the only causality operating to originate the phenomena of the world. A causality of freedom is also necessary to account fully for these phenomena / There is no such thing as freedom, but everything in the world happens solely according to the laws of nature". 4) "There exists either in, or in connection with the world - either as a part of it, or as the cause of it - an absolutely necessary being / An absolutely
necessary being does not exist, either in the world, or outof it - as its cause" [5, P.266-290]. As a result, Kant comes to the conclusion that the dogmatic application of reason leads to beliefs that contradict each other. Antinomies lead the mind "to abandon itself to a despairing scepticism, or, on the other, to assume a dogmatical confidence and obstinate persistence in certain assertions, without granting a fair hearing to the other side of the question" [5, P.256].
That is why Kant takes for the sphere of applicability of reason the most "limiting" (in our interpretation - philosophical) questions that excite people. One of these questions (the fourth antinomy) is the question of the God's existence. Reason forms the idea of God as a necessary entity and as an unconditional cause of the whole world. However, the theoretical mind can't prove the God's existence. For this he refutes Thomas Aquinas five proofs of the God's existence.
But does this mean that Kant doesn't find a place for a worldview in consciousness, more broadly - in human life itself? Not at all. Kant finds a place for faith, when he limits the sphere of theoretical reason. In this connection, let us turn to his other work, the Critique of Practical Reason, in which he seeks answer to the question "What should I do?" The practical philosophy of Kant solves these two interrelated issues by turning to moral duty. This gives hope for the "highest good" - the unity between virtue and happiness. Moral feeling is a priori, but not automatic. A person is free to follow his own good will or selfish sentiments of feelings. However, egoism is incompatible with reason because it's driven by feelings. Therefore, Kant considers it necessary to curb the feelings of the individual. Thus he comes to the formulation of a categorical imperative. It affirms the need for the universality of a moral act for all people.
Kant insists on the independence of morality from religion. He believes that the moral law can't be deduced from the Ten Commandments. "Ethic, in so far as founded on the Idea of Humanity as a free Agent, binding himself, by virtue of that very Freedom, to an unconditionate Law of Reason, is by itself complete and entire; so that mankind neither requires the idea of any Superior person to enable him to investigate his duty, nor does he need any incentive or spring to its execution other than the law itself" [6, P. 1]. Religion can't compensate for lack of morality. Morality needs no justification, it's a priori and has as its goal the idea of the highest good. The existence of a higher moral being, like God, is necessary in order for this good to become possible. He considers "the existence of God, as belonging necessarily to the possibility of the highest good" [ 4, P.158].
"In this way the moral law, through the concept of the highest good as the object and the final purpose of pure practical reason, leads to religion, i.e., to the cognition of all duties as divine commands, not as sanctions <...> [Even as such,] these laws
must nonetheless be regarded as commands of the supreme being, because we can hope to reach the highest good, which the moral law makes it our duty to posit as the object of our endeavor, only through a will that is morally perfect (holy and benign) and simultaneously also all-powerful, and thus through harmony with this will" [4, P.164].
Thus, morality is a doctrine of how to become worthy of happiness, "only with religion does the hope for happiness first arise" [4, p. 165]. The ultimate goal of God is the highest good in the world. The goal of man is the conformity of the will to the supreme good.
Therefore, not morality arises from religion, and religion arises from the innate moral feeling of people. In Kant's understanding, faith in God becomes deducible from a sense of moral duty "Ethic issues, than, inevitably in Religion, by extending itself to the idea of an Omnipotent Moral Lawgiver, in whose will, that is the end of the creation, which at the same tome can ought to be mankind's chief end" [6, P.4]. But why does he say that morality leads to religion? Pure morality enters an insoluble contradiction with the reality of human life. Moral consciousness is fundamentally impossible without conviction in the final justice of posthumous retribution.
Kant argues that the problem of the existence of God it's a matter for faith, not rational. It's morally necessary to recognize the existence of God's good. Reason creates the idea of God to maintain the hope of a just moral order of the world. God guarantees the conformity of happiness and morality. Kant justifies the necessity of the God's existence as a support to the categorical imperative. After outlining the principles of his ethic of duty as an unconditional moral command, Kant notes that a person still needs a religious idea, a belief in the God's existence, who will support him in his efforts to follow moral duty. The moral law acts as the law of human freedom, which appears as awareness and fulfillment of duty.
Thus, Kant subordinates theoretical reason to practical, necessary postulates of which freedom, immortality, the God's existence. Faith in God gives us hope for our own moral strength [2]. The doctrine of religion is applicable only within the Kant's ethics. The question "What do I dare to hope for?" is solved in the Critique of Practical Reason by an appeal to religion.
In the treatise of "Religion Within the Boundary of Pure Reason" Kant distinguishes between the concept of true (single) religiosity - pure religion as the religion of reason, and historical (multiple) church's faith. Historical faith appears for the pure religious faith as auxiliary and must approach it. The German thinker distinguishes two types of faith: moral - soul - saving and church's - compulsory. He refers to the phenomenon of the "militant church". He hopes that humanity will come to a pure religion of reason, which is based on the moral way of life, and not
on coercion [6, P. 122]. Kant criticizes the church's belief that she pushes back the natural principle of morality [3, P.207].
Consequently, Kant regards faith in God as a "redemptive truth" [8, P.30]. This shouldn't be confused with rational thinking. Thus, Kant recognizes the possibility and even the need for a religious worldview, but limits the scope of its applicability to practical (moral) activity. From this we see the influence of Protestantism and the project of secularization on the Kant's ethics. However, Kant, as an agnostic, considers religious and non-religious beliefs fundamentally unprovable (which is reflected in antinomies). Antinomies give us the freedom to choose between a religious and a secular worldview: in the theoretical plan, both positions are unprovable [7]. But religious faith has a pragmatic suitability in order to support a person's efforts in following the ethics of duty. Kant "assigns an instrumental function to positive religion and church faith. He believes that people need visual examples, exemplary biographies of prophets and saints, promised and miraculous deeds, suggestive images and instructive narratives solely as "reasons" to overcome their "moral unbelief", and explains this fact the weakness of human nature"[3, P. 211].
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