Notes on <Kant's Transcendental Idealism> - Between Cosmology and Autonomy : Kant's Theory of Freedom in the Critique of Pure Reason

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According to Kant’s own retrospective account of the situation in the Critique of Practical Reason, he First Critique establishes the possibility of transcendental freedom through the resolution of the Third Antinomy, while the Second Critique establishes its reality by showing its necessary connection with the moral law, which itself has the status of a “fact of reason”. The moral law thus becomes the ratio cognoscendi of freedom, since it is through the consciousness of this law that one becomes aware of one’s freedom.

This account reflects Kant’s discovery of the principle of autonomy, the presumed capacity of the will to be a law to itself and to act for the sake of the law, which he first clearly articulates in the Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals in 1785. If one were to limit oneself to the Critique of Pure Reason, a different picture of freedom would emerge. It would still be linked with the cosmological dispute of the Third Antinomy, but would also be connected to a view of human agency in general rather than to moral agency.

I hope to show that the Critique of Pure Reason contains at least the outlines of a theory of human agency (practical freedom) that does not rest upon an appeal to any specifically “moral” facts and that constitutes an essential ingredient in the overall Kantian treatment of self-knowledge. We are not only conscious of ourselves as epistemic subjects, the owners of representations, we are also conscious of ourselves as agents, capable of resisting inclinations and of choosing between alternative courses of action. And elucidating this consciousness is precisely what the account of practical freedom in the Critique of Practical Reason is designed to do.

Freedom and the Third Antinomy: The Cosmological Context

The cosmological conception of freedom with which Kant is initially concerned in the Third Antinomy is characterized as “transcendental freedom”, which is defined as “the power of beginning a state spontaneously” (A533/B561). This is contrasted with “causality according to laws of nature” or more simply, mechanistic causality, which governs the connection of events in time. According to this conception, familiar to us from the Second Analogy, every occurrence has an antecedent cause, but this cause is itself an occurrence in time. Consequently, it too must be determined by an antecedent cause, ad infinitum. Since both parties to the antinomical dispute assume the exclusive reign of mechanistic causality within the world, the point at issue is whether it is also necessary, or even possible, to appeal to the other mode of causality (transcendental freedom) in order to conceive a first beginning of the world. The thesis affirms the necessity of appealing to such a cause in order to find the required resting place for reason. Correlatively, the antithesis denies both the necessity and the possibility of doing so. It affirms instead that all causation must be of the mechanistic type; in so doing it commits itself to the assumption of an infinite causal chain.

Argument for the third antinomy can be found in here.

Of greater significance than the arguments is the manner in which Kant endeavors to resolve the Antinomy. In contrast to the first two, or mathematical Antinomies, where both thesis and antithesis are shown to be false, Kant suggests that here and in the Fourth, the Dynamical Antinomies, it is possible for both thesis to be true. The difference stems from the manner in which the regress from conditioned to condition occurs in the two cases. In the Mathematical Antinomies the conditioned and its conditions are always homogeneous; that is, they are all members of the same spatiotemporal series. Thus it seems necessary to assume that this series has either a finite or an infinite number of members, which means that the opposing claims are regarded as contradictories.

In the Third Antinomy, by contrast, the regress is from effect to cause or ground. Here the elements can, but need not, be homogeneous, for it is at least conceivable that there is a cause or ground of an event that is not itself sensible, that is, not part of the series of appearances. Such a non-sensible cause can be called “intelligible”. The transcendentally free cause affirmed in the thesis is such a cause. Correlatively, the argument of the antithesis, with its verificationist appeal to the conditions of possible experience, really rules out the possibility of such a cause only within the phenomenal world. The possibility is left open that both sides may be correct: the thesis, with its assertion of an intelligible, transcendentally free first cause of the whole series of appearances; the antithesis, with its refusal to admit such a cause within the series. Kant’s claim is that causality through freedom is not incompatible with mechanistic causality. This resolves the Antinomy because it shows that the conflict rests on an illusion.

The illusion rests upon the common assumption that appearances are things in themselves. As Kant puts it, “If appearances are things in themselves, freedom cannot be upheld. Nature will then be the complete and sufficient determining cause of every event” (A536/B564).

However, we still need an independent account for the transcendental freedom. In Critique of Practical Reason, Kant contends that the reality of transcendental freedom is “deduced” from the moral law as a “fact of reason.” No such claim is forthcoming, however, in the Critique of Pure Reason.

The act of choice is commonly thought to involve an element of spontaneity. The transcendental Idea provides a model for conceiving of human choice or agency. Since an act of transcendental freedom, which constitutes an “absolute beginning” is thought as a beginning only in the sense of beginning in causality, there is no contradiction in assuming the possibility of a number of such acts within the world. Moreover it is suggested that ordinary cases of voluntary action are to be conceived in this way.

Although some aspects of this preliminary account is central to Kant’s position, the general remarks reflect the dogmatic standpoint of the thesis more than they do Kant’s own critical view. Now we can turn to Kant’s account for connection between transcendental and practical freedom for an accurate picture for Kant’s view on the matter.

Transcendental and Practical Freedom: The Two Accounts

Kant discusses the connection between transcendental and practical freedom in Dialectic and the Canon of Pure Reason. These two accounts seem to differ from one another.

In the Dialectic, transcendental freedom is described in the manner as the “power of beginning a state spontaneously.” “pure transcendental Idea”, neither derivable nor referable to any object that can be given in experience. By contrast, practical freedom which directly relevant to the understanding of human action and agency, is defined as “will’s independence of coercion through sensuous impulses”. Kant attempts to clarify this by means of a distinction between a pathologically affected and a pathologically necessitated will. The former includes any will that is affected by sensuous motives. The point is that not every will that is pathologically affected is also necessitated. This applies only to the animal will, not to the human will, which is characterized as an arbitrium sensitivum, but nonetheless liberium. About the connection between them, Kant writes: “It should especially be noted that the practical concept of freedom is based on this transcendental Idea, and that in the latter lies the real source of the difficulty by which the question of the possibility of freedom has always ben beset” (A533/B561). “The denial of transcendental freedom must, therefore, involve the elimination of all practical freedom.” (A534/B562)

The defining characteristic of an arbitrium liberum is rationality; such a will is capable of choosing a course of action on the basis of general rules or principles, rather than merely responding in a quasi-mechanical fashion to stimuli. The capacity to act on the basis of reasons and the freedom from determination by inclination can thus be construed as the positive and negative aspects of the concept of a practically free will. This is different from the well-known distinction of positive and negative concept of freedom.

In the Canon, Kant describes practical freedom in substantially the same terms. He introduces the conception by distinguishing between animal and human will. Similarly practical freedom is regarded positively as the capacity to act on the basis of the recognition of an “ought”; and once again this is not construed in exclusively moral terms.

The only hit of discrepancy between these two accounts of practical freedom concerns Kant’s claim in the Canon that “practical freedom can be proved through experience”. And “we thus through experience know practical freedom to be one of the causes in nature, namely to be a causality of reason in the determination of the will” (A893/B831) These claims have no precise parallel in the Dialectic. He regards the capacity of the will to resist inclination and to act on the basis of imperatives as a “fact” of which we can become conscious in much the same way as we can become conscious of our capacity to think. Even if it does not count as “experience” in the technical Kantian sense, such consciousness can be regarded as sufficient to establish the reality of practical freedom; and this is the main point of the passages from the Canon.

The same can be said about their characterizations of transcendental freedom. In the Dialectic, transcendental freedom is defined as absolute spontaneity, and this is understood in essentially negative terms as a causal power that is itself independent of determination by antecedent causes. In the Canon he does not define transcendental freedom but he does remark that “Transcendental freedom demands the independence of this reason in respect of its causality in beginning a series of appearances from all determining causes in the sensible world” (A803/B831). This suggests that the absolute spontaneity and independence from everything sensible is regarded specifically as the spontaneity and independence of reason in determining the will.

The compatibility question does arise regarding the connection between transcendental and practical freedom in the two accounts. The Dialectic affirms the dependence of practical on transcendental freedom. By contrast, the Canon divorces these two conceptions.

In [A803/B831] Kant’s main point is that from the practical standpoint, where the question is simply what one ought to do, the concerns are solely with the rule of action and with reason, as the source of rules and imperatives. Thus theoretical questions about what might be termed the “transcendental status” of our practically free acts do not arise. The problem arises, however, with the further suggestion that the reality of practical freedom is not threatened by the possibility that the rules of action and the incentives for following these rules might be traceable to our sensuous nature, and that “that which in relation to sensuous impulses, is entitled freedom, may … in relation to higher and more remote operating causes, be nature again.” If latter were the case, we would not be free in the transcendental sense. This would stand in contradiction to the doctrine of the Dialectic.

Interestingly, Kant also maintained in he Canon that the ultimate reducibility of freedom to nature is compatible with morality, which must be the case if the question of transcendental freedom is of no practical relevance. He does distinguish between moral and pragmatic laws, and he does maintain that former are “pure and determined completely a priori”. This means that the moral laws themselves are not derived from a consideration of what will yield happiness. In this epistemic sense they are independent of sensibility; but this is quite distinct from the claim that the will must be motivated by respect for law as such. The latter doctrine is the keystone of Kant’s fully developed ethical theory, is incompatible with the reducibility of freedom to nature, and with the denial of transcendental freedom. Nevertheless, Kant asserts that apart from the postulation of God and a future life, “reason would have to regard moral laws as empty figments of the brain” (A811/B839). And again, in a notorious passage, “Thus without a God and without a world invisible to us now but hoped for, the glorious ideas of morality are indeed objects of approval and admiration, but not springs of purpose and action” (A813/B841). Given such an ethical position, it is not surprising to find Kant is not concerned about the reality of transcendental freedom.

However, another reading is that Kant is affirming a necessary connection between the concept of practical freedom and the transcendental Idea, rather than between the reality of the two types of freedom. This would be compatible with the Third Antinomy and the Canon. And next we will argue that this is Kant’s position in the Dialectic.

Ideality and Spontaneity: The Doctrine of the Dialectic

If we are to understand the account of the relationship between practical and transcendental freedom contained in the Dialectic, we must begin with a further consideration of the metaphysical framework in which the whole discussion is enmeshed. This framework is transcendental idealism. Kant’s strategy is to suggest that just as transcendental idealism makes it possible to resolve the Antinomy by finding a “transcendental location” fro the concept of intelligible causality or transcendental freedom in the noumenal world, it establishes the conceivability of human freedom too. This is needed because although the ordinary concept of human freedom is for the most part empirical, it contains an essential non-empirical or transcendental component; namely, spontaneity. Accordingly, room must be found for this spontaneity alongside mechanistic causality, and it can only be accomplished by appealing to the transcendental distinction. It resolves the problem because the same actions, which when considered as appearances are connected to other appearances according to empirical laws, might, when considered from another point of view, be thought to have grounds that are not appearances.

The contrast between an empirical and an intelligible character is between two distinct ways in which the causal activity of an agent can be considered. Kant also applies this distinction to the causal agent (the subject of causality), and talks about this subject as having both an empirical and intelligible character. There is no indication that this subject is to be conceived of in psychological terms as a person.

To consider a subject and its causality according to its empirical character is to consider it as part of the phenomenal world. Kant insists that when a subject is considered in this way, there is no possibility of ascribing freedom to it. Considering a subject in its intelligible character, which is required if one is to conceive of it as a free agent, turns out to be a much more complex and mysterious procedure. The general idea is similar to “we are constrained to think a transcendental object as underlying appearances, though we know nothing of what it is in itself” (A540/B563). We form our conception of the putative intelligible character of an agent by stripping away all those features which pertain to its empirical character. Since considered in this way the subject would not “stand under any conditions of time,” it follows that we could no longer speak meaningfully of something happening in or to this subject, and thus of its being determined by antecedent conditions.

This whole line of analysis raises two obvious and closely related problems. One is that this account of an intelligible character is purely analytic. It tells us, in negative terms, how such a character must be conceived by contrasting it with the familiar thought of an empirical character, but it does not provide an alternative positive characterization. The other is that the distinction can be applied to every action or event and to every subject. Consequently, the appeal to this distinction does not make it possible to delimit a class of actions or events which, in some determinate sense, are characterizable in terms of a free or intelligible causality. On the contrary, the analysis seems to lead to the absurd result that in order to conceive of freedom anywhere we must be ready to conceive it everywhere.

Fortunately, this object is not as damaging as it appears, for Kant was aware of the problem and addressed himself specifically to it. While admitting that in principle every occurrence can have some unspecified transcendental ground, he insists that this consideration becomes relevant only when we are actually constrained to think of a kind of causality which cannot be characterized in empirical terms.

As the causal power of a sensible being (man), the effects of the will are manifested in the phenomenal world; but the power itself, as involving spontaneity, is non-sensible. The basic idea behind this has already been discussed: in willing, as in thinking, we have an activity of which we can become conscious, but which, since it involves spontaneity, cannot be “experienced” in the strict Kantian sense of the term. Kant gets to the point in an important and well-known passage in [A546-47/B574-75]

The most striking feature of the passage is the claim that man “knows himself also through pure apperception”. This suggests that through apperception we somehow obtain knowledge of ourselves as spontaneous, noumenal beings, or at least as beings with an intelligible character. The obvious problem is that this stands in contradiction to Kant’s official account of self-knowledge. But we need not take Kant to be doing anything more than thinking that apperception provides a consciousness of the spontaneity of thought. This involves an awareness of something non-sensible, or non-experienceable, which cannot be accounted for in terms of the mechanism of nature or the empirical character of the subject. Man is seen as a “merely intelligible object”, one which can be thought but cannot be given in intuition.

Practical Freedom and Predicatability: The Problem of Compatibilism

The above interpretation of Kant’s First Critique theory of practical freedom not only resolves the apparent contradiction between the Dialectic and the Canon, but also puts us in a position to deal with the difficult issue of compatibilism. As Kant characterizes the situation in the First Critique: “IF we could exhaustively investigate all the appearances of men’s wills, then would not be found a single human action which we could not predict with certainty, and recognize as proceeding necessarily from its antecedent conditions” (A550/B578). At the same time, however, he also insists that this does not prevent us from considering the same actions “in relation to reason,” that is, as products of practical freedom. From this perspective we can impute the actions to an agent and claim that they ought or ought not to have been performed. This is because in viewing actions in this manner we are considering them in relation to “something intelligible”, which stands outside of the temporal order of the phenomenal world. This sis the agent’s practical spontaneity, his capacity to act on the basis of reason, which is assigned to his intelligible character.

However, this doctrine is not acceptable as it stands, the common retort is that if an action can be explained or predicated by being subsumed under a covering law, then one can no longer properly characterize that action as free or hold an agent responsible for its performance. Nor is Kant’s distinction between an empirical and an intelligible character brought to resolve the difficulty.

As a first step in response to this line of criticism, it is important to note that Kant has neither the need nor the right to assert dogmatically that, given sufficient knowledge, we could infallibly predict human actions. This claim presupposes the principle of the uniformity or lawfulness of nature, but this is itself merely a regulative Idea of reason, not a constitutive, transcendental condition of the possibility of experience. What Kant should have said here is that the thought of the complete explicability and predictability of human actions is merely a regulative Idea, required for the scientific investigation of human behavior. As merely regulative, this principle leaves room for the possibility of an appeal to a different regulative Idea for the conception of agency and the imputation of actions. The solution to the conflict between causal determinism and freedom in the First Critique is analogous to the solution to the conflict between mechanism and teleology in the Third Critique.

The Second Analogy contends that every event has a cause. Thus the concept of practical freedom seems to be threatened by the Second Analogy, In order to deal with this objection, we must look more closely at Kant’s conception of practical freedom. The essential point here is that this conception does not preclude the assignment of causes to practically free actions; rather it requires us to construe the connection between such actions and their causes differently than we do when we connect effects with their causes according to the mechanistic model.

By the “cause” of a practically free act is meant its incentive. Kant recognizes that other causal factors and “standing conditions,” such as environment and education, enter into the explanation and prediction of human actions. Kant does not deny that free actions have incentives. On the contrary, he insists that they do throughout his career, even in the Critique of Practical Reason.

The principle that an incentive can only determine an agent to act insofar as the agent incorporates that incentive into his rule or maxim of action. Consequently when we consider an act to be free, that is, when we impute it to an gent, we do not deny that this act has an antecedent cause, or incentive; but we also assume that the incentive leads to the act only through the adoption by the agent of a rule of action according to which the incentive can serve as a reason for the act in question. The act of incorporation is what Kant means by the “causality of reason.” It is also the element of spontaneity that constitutes the essential ingredient in the conception of practical freedom and that requires an appeal to the transcendental Idea of freedom.

Since this conception of practical freedom denies neither the necessity of an antecedent cause for a free action (its incentive) nor the possibility of explaining the action in terms of this cause, it does not conflict with the Second Analogy. It simply requires an an additional factor the act of incorporation, which does not enter into an empirical account of human behavior. The additional factor is “non-sensible” and is connected to the agent’s “intelligible character”.

The essential point in all of this is that the reality of practical freedom is not affected by the possibility that what we call freedom “may … in relation to higher and more remote operating causes be nature again”.

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