MILESTONES OF LIFE AND CREATIVITY Johann Gottlieb Fichte was born on May 19, 1762 in the village of Rammenau, in East Saxony. His father was a craftsman. Need accompanied him from the cradle until his death.

VII. A noble life and a vulgar life, or energy and inertia We are, first of all, what the world around us makes of us; the main features of our character are formed under the influence of impressions received from outside. This is natural, since our life is nothing but our

2. Introduction to the theory of creativity Any creative process is the use of certain syntaxes for a set of building elements. This rule applies universally: it applies to everything that can be constructed. Full set of syntaxes,

ChapterIII

Early Kant. Precritical period

(1746 - early 1770s)

The early or so-called pre-critical period of Kant's work covers a good half of his scientific activity: from the first work of the thinker in 1746, "Thoughts on the true assessment of living forces" to the thesis "On the form and principles of the sensually perceived and intelligible world", which was published in 1770. However, it is difficult to establish the exact time of Kant’s final transition to the positions of criticism, since the publication in 1781 of the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason was preceded by a decade of silence, when the thinker did not publish a single work, with the exception of small articles and reviews that were not related to his main philosophical topics. . His evolution during this period is evidenced only by a few letters, as well as scattered fragments and rough sketches on separate sheets or in the margins of textbooks on which he lectured; moreover, the question of the exact dating of these materials causes serious disagreement among researchers.

The solution of the question of time, and most importantly, of the essence of the thinker's transition to the positions of criticism, is further complicated by the fact that critical motifs are often found in pre-critical works, and he included fragments or entire sections written at different times in the main body of the Critique of Pure Reason. , and in any case not during those 4 or 5 months when, by Kant’s own admission, he “as if on the move” (“in flight”) processed the results of his twelve-year reflections, “with the greatest attention to the content, but much less taking care of the presentation. Even less in

in his critical writings, the thinker took care to acquaint the reader with the questions of the genesis or formation of the basic principles and attitudes of criticism, with the reasons and prerequisites for its maturation and emergence, and even more so with the evolution of his own views, his subjective searches and disappointments that led him to implement such called the "Copernican revolution" or "revolutionary change in the way of thinking". With a few exceptions, the mature Kant practically does not refer to his pre-critical works, and this lack of critical self-reflection, as already noted in the Introduction, makes it extremely difficult to adequately understand that specific historical and philosophical context, that real problem-content situation, to which a direct answer or a way of understanding , overcoming and solving which became the Critique of Pure Reason. The historical and theoretical significance of these issues goes far beyond the study of the creative biography of the thinker and even overcoming the common notion of Kantian criticism as the “beginning” of German classical philosophy that arose like “God from the machine”. We are talking about the need to rethink and reassess the whole period, not only in history German philosophy XVIII century, but also the philosophy of the Age of Enlightenment, and the New Age as a whole as one of the most critical and dramatic stages in the history of world philosophy in general. At the same time, without understanding the rootedness of Kantian philosophy in this particular stage in the history of philosophical thought, without knowing the direct threads connecting it with the whole complex of “hot” topics and problems at that time, it is often simply impossible to “decipher” its “strange” language and conceptual apparatus, a significant part of its specific attitudes and principles, inexplicable paradoxes and contradictions, etc.

1. The search for a metaphysical justification for the scientific picture of the world (40 - early 60s)

The heritage of early Kant is very heterogeneous and multifaceted in its content; it is possible to single out various stages and periods when the thinker changed his attitudes and orientations, however, all of them are characterized by some common features and features that allow us to talk about their problematic unity and a well-defined focus. First of all, it must be said that at all stages of his early, pre-critical, as well as late, critical work, the thinker retained a deep and ineradicable "love" for metaphysics, a firm conviction that only metaphysics alone is capable of "igniting the light of knowledge", and not only in the field of theoretical, scientific exploration of the world, but also in solving the “meaningful and vital” questions of human existence, its place and purpose in the world [see: 47, vol. 1, p. 318; vol. 2, p. 204-206, 213, 348, 363; cf. vol. 3, p. 73-105, 119].

On the other hand, or rather, because of precisely this “love” of metaphysics, Kant was unusually keenly and deeply worried and aware of the clearly unfavorable, even crisis state in which this “queen of the sciences” found itself by the middle of the 18th century. In this respect, he was in solidarity with many of the thinkers discussed above, primarily opponents and critics of the Wolffian school, and as for the frequency and harshness of critical statements about metaphysics, the early works of the thinker are hardly inferior to his later, actually critical writings (the latter are even much more calm in tone and balanced in assessments, but of course, deeper and more reasonable in essence).

Strictly speaking, both of these motives determined the main direction and main content of all - both early and late - Kant's work, namely: the search for a new method of metaphysical knowledge, "new illumination" of its first principles, their "only possible foundations", "degree of clarity and, finally, the solution of the question of the possibility of metaphysics as a science.

Kant begins his first work by proclaiming freedom in the investigation of truth, the search for which must follow the dictates of reason alone, and by no means the authorities of great men: Newton, Leibniz, Wolff and others, whose prejudices, he believes, "still retain a rigid dominance" over crowd. Thus, from his first steps, the thinker resolutely declares his independence and even opposition to tradition, his intention to follow his own untrodden and predestined path and unwillingness to abandon the “daring” thought that the truth was “opened” to his mind for the first time, "on which the greatest masters of human knowledge have labored in vain".

However, in his first work, Kant still fully shares the point of view of traditional Leibnizian metaphysics regarding the existence of certain simple, incorporeal substances that have an original internal activity or force, i.e. in fact, he reproduces the teachings of Leibniz on monads or Wolff on "simple things" or elements [i.e. 1, p. 63-64, 67]. Being created by God as an accessory to a multitude of possible worlds, they underlie “our” real, corporeal world and all its spatio-temporal, physical characteristics and properties (extension, movement, etc.) [i.e. 1, p. 63-64, 68-72].

Quite in the spirit of traditional metaphysics, Kant formulates the main task of his "True Evaluation ..."; it consists in the search for irrefutable evidence and proof of the existence of spiritual substances and their

internal, living forces acting outside, as well as in an attempt to give a new, "true assessment" of these forces. Correctly noting that the definition of force as a measure of movement, proportional to speed (in Descartes) and the square of speed (in Leibniz) serves as a description various ways existence and manifestation of energy (mechanical interaction and movement of bodies and their kinetic energy), Kant mistakenly took the latter as a way of expressing and defining living forces. In other words, he uses the properties of physical bodies and their by no means “living” forces, as well as the methods of their mechanical definition and mathematical measurement, to prove the existence of metaphysical substances and their active forces.

However, along with this kind of confusion of metaphysical ideas with physical, "living" forces with "non-living", he already in this work notes the fundamental differences and even the opposition that exists between them. He points out that it is wrong to define the essential force of substances by the way it acts or manifests itself in natural and moving bodies, and therefore should be designated not as a "motive force" (vis mottix), but as an "active force" (vis activa), [i.e. 1, p. 63-64]. This seemingly insignificant terminological difference, he further gives a detailed substantive interpretation.

Thus, referring to Aristotle and Leibniz, Kant emphasizes that, unlike mechanical motion and other observable actions of internal forces, the latter remain inaccessible not only to mathematical knowledge, but also to the senses [i.e. 1, p. 63, 79, 81]. This internal essential force exists apart from and “even before extension” and, moreover, it turns out to belong not to natural extended bodies, but to some, although existing, but incorporeal, unextended and spatially “not located anywhere in the whole world” substances [i.e. 1, p. 63, 68]. At the same time, however, the question of the relationship between the metaphysical and physical worlds and their "forces"

remains essentially unanswered. Kant confines himself to a mere postulate or assurance that the former underlie the latter, and despite his attempts to give a "true assessment" of the former, the question of the principles of metaphysical knowledge remains open.

However, even more indicative and important from the point of view of the subsequent evolution of the thinker's views is the fact that he links the problem of the relationship between the metaphysical and physical worlds, spiritual substances and bodies, living and inanimate forces with the question of how the latter relate to the human soul. Kant asks the question: why is matter and its physical movement capable of causing not only movements, but also representations in the soul [i.e. 1, p. 66], and the latter turns out to be capable of setting matter in motion, causing changes in external things and bodies, without being itself a physical body. It is in this circumstance that he finds the most weighty confirmation of the existence of living forces. The very fact of such an interaction between the soul and the body indicates the limitations of the mechanical and mathematical understanding of nature, since from the point of view of the latter one can at best imagine that matter, by its physical action, “will move the soul from its place”, but it is impossible to understand “that the force that causes only movements could give rise to representations and ideas. “After all, these are such different kinds of things,” Kant points out, “that it is impossible to understand how one of them could become the source of another” [i.e. 1, p. 66].

This question was lively discussed in the discussion about the theory of pre-established harmony and its relationship (in which, as we have seen, Kant's teacher M. Knutzen actively participated). In his subsequent works, Kant will constantly return to it, gradually focusing on it the whole complex of metaphysical problems. As for the solution of this question in the "True Evaluation ...", it comes down to very abstract and

internally dualistic reasoning that matter changes the internal state of the soul, since, being connected with the body, the soul itself “locates in some place” and therefore is able to act outside, to set external bodies in motion. At the same time, in its internal states and ability to represent the world, the soul remains a kind of incorporeal and unextended substance, which, while existing, does not contain any space, “is not located anywhere in the world” and has no real connection and physical interaction with bodies [ t. 1, p. 66-68].

It is difficult to say to what extent Kant himself was aware of the inconsistency and inconsistency of these ideas. In any case, he was apparently aware of the complexity and unresolved nature of the problems, and it was not by chance that after the first job there was an almost ten-year period of silence, which can hardly be explained by the external circumstances of his life alone (work as a home teacher). The subsequent explosive creation of a significant number of works in the mid-1950s testifies to the inner work of his thought during this period.

Among them, a relatively independent cycle of works devoted to natural science issues stands out. Kant appears in them as a naturalist, analyzing specific questions of the physics of the earth, the theory of winds, sea tides, and so on. From that time until almost the end of his life, Kant lectured in mathematics, mechanics, physics, physical geography, anthropology, optics, acoustics, and other specific scientific disciplines.

Of the series of these works, the Universal Natural History and Theory of the Sky (1755) gained the greatest fame, in which the thinker developed his famous cosmogonic hypothesis, which constituted an era in the development of the scientific picture of the world. Kant explains the emergence of the solar system and other stellar systems in the universe by the interaction of attraction and repulsion, in which

sees the manifestation of the "power" inherent in the elements or particles of matter to set each other in motion [i.e. 1, p. 157]. Proceeding from the recognition of certain “innate and original properties of matter” and the ability of the mind to cognize them, the thinker considers it possible “to say without any arrogance: give me matter and I will build a world out of it” [i.e. 1, p. 117, 126-127].

Kant is firmly convinced that in the universe there are no hidden properties or causes that are inaccessible to the human mind, and even more so miraculous events that deviate from the natural and correct order of phenomena and their mechanical laws. He constantly emphasizes that there is complete agreement between his system based on the arguments of naturalists and the arguments of the defenders of religion, however, God was considered by him as the creator of the real world and its natural laws, the correct and perfect order. In his hypothesis, he tries to explain the emergence of the solar system from the original nebula and, in the framework of solving this rather specific problem, relies exclusively on natural causes, mechanical laws, the data of contemporary science, etc. [t. 1, p. 117-119, 122, 201-207, 217, 228, 261].

It is indicative that starting from The Theory... in Kant's works (including the critical period), the image of the starry sky above one's head constantly appears, a picture of an infinite, expediently and perfectly arranged universe, bound by natural, simple, universal and necessary laws [t . 1, p. 117-119, 122-126, 135, 201, 301,453-454; vol. 2, p. 212-213, 306-313, 408-424; cf. vol. 4, part 1, p. 449-500]. And it was these laws, the “eternal and strict” order of the universe that increasingly became a stimulus for the thinker in his metaphysical studies, prompted him to search for its root causes, foundations, conditions and sources of the diversity of properties and connections of the material world, the prerequisites for its knowledge, etc. "Reasonable"

admiration for the perfect and correct structure of the universe, reverence for the scientific picture of the world became for Kant a source of urgent need for their philosophical and epistemological understanding and justification, constant critical rethinking of traditional methods for solving that problem. This trend can be seen in the series of works of the 1950s devoted to the actual metaphysical problems: "New illumination of the first principles of metaphysical knowledge" (1755), "The use of geometry-related metaphysics in the philosophy of nature" (1756) and "The only possible basis for the proof of being God" (1762).

True, even in these works Kant still largely reproduces the corresponding arguments of Leibniz-Wolf's metaphysics: simple substances or monads are taken as the basis of the corporeal spatio-temporal world, its properties and laws; their existence is made dependent on God as the creator and cause of all things, and their absolute simplicity, impossible from the point of view of the infinite mathematical divisibility of space, is explained by their special, incorporeal or ideal nature. Due to this nature, they can exist in such a way “not to be in any place”, “filling” space, not “occupying” it, not having extension, volume, and thus not representing any complex and divisible value. At the same time, thanks to the internal force inherent in these substances and its outwardly directed activity, they determine the spatial and all other properties of physical bodies: their multiplicity, divisibility, impenetrability, inertia, attraction, repulsion, etc. [t. 1, p. 309, 311, 318-336 and others]. The latter are considered as external manifestations of the activity of simple substances, as their sensory-observable spatial presence, which is the subject of mathematical and physical knowledge, which, however, does not affect the internal definitions of substances, their

necessary and independent existence, closed in itself and isolated or "secluded" from "our" or real world [i.e. 1, 311-312, 319-326].

Nevertheless, in all these works, Kant is far from meekly following the “opinions famous people"(Leibniz, Wolff, Baumgarten, etc.), whom he reproaches with infertility, "idle and vague cunning", etc. [t. 1, p. 265-266, 314]. Moreover, his criticism of the latter and attempts to find new approaches relate to the most important and fundamental issues of metaphysics. The depth and seriousness of his intentions is already evidenced by the fact that he begins "New Illumination ..." with a critique of the laws of contradiction and sufficient reason precisely as the "highest" or "first principles of metaphysical knowledge." Behind the first law, he denies the meaning of "the first and all-encompassing principle for all truths", replacing it with the principle of identity, since only it allows one to prove true propositions by revealing the identity between the concepts of subject and predicate, and not by concluding to the impossibility of the opposite [i.e. 1, p. 266-272].

This replacement was necessary for Kant to formulate the principle of defining reason, with which he tries to replace the Wolffian principle of sufficient reason. He proceeds from the fact that any true position is based on the connection, agreement and even identity between the subject and the predicate; any connection or relation between them is carried out on some basis; the ground that presupposes this relation with the exclusion of its opposite, i.e. as necessary and is, according to Kant, the determining basis. And it is precisely such a foundation that serves not only as a criterion, but also as a source of truth, allowing one to designate what is “really sufficient for understanding a thing in this way and not otherwise” [i.e. 1, p. 272-276].

In the last words, in fact, the essence and purpose of all these arguments are revealed: speaking of

"ambiguity", the expression "sufficient reason", Kant sees in it the absence of a logical necessity in understanding the truth: it allows us to assert that "something is rather than not," without excluding, however, the possibility of the opposite "something", i.e. e. not a necessary, but an accidental connection between the subject and the predicate. And the point is not that, along with the necessary truths and the principle of identity as their determining basis, accidental truths were admitted in general. The fact is that in this way factual truths imperceptibly crept into the composition of the first principles of metaphysical knowledge, i.e. concepts borrowed from experience, empirical observation of things, etc., which was the eclectic essence and methodological inconsistency of Wolffian rationalistic metaphysics. And in his critique of the law of sufficient reason, Kant actually points to this fundamental contradiction.

True, at first he overcomes this contradiction in a very peculiar way, namely, by supplementing the concept of a determining foundation with the concept of an antecedent foundation and endowing the latter with the meaning of the foundation of being or becoming, answering the question “why” [i.e. 1, p. 273]. Thus, in addition to the meaning of the logical foundation, which is called upon to establish or establish the relation of identity between the subject and the predicate, it acquires the status of a real foundation that determines not only the necessary form, but also the content of truth, i.e. not only a logical possibility, but also the temporal emergence and spatial existence of a thing, which, according to Kant, constitutes the “complete definition of a thing” [i.e. 1, p. 275, 278, 280, 283-285].

In other words, the overcoming of Wolffian dualism or eclectic "concessions to empiricism" is achieved by strengthening the dogmatic-rationalistic moments of traditional metaphysics, by more consistent implementation of the principle of the identity of thought and being,

the coincidence of the logically possible, necessary and really existing, accidental, or rather, even the subordination of the second to the first. This persistent appeal of Kant to the metaphysical foundations of the physical or mechanical picture of the world is explained by the following circumstances. Firstly, for him it is quite obvious and not subject to discussion the fact of the impossibility of deducing the universal and necessary laws and categories of mechanics, the theoretical picture of the world from experience, from empirical observations of sensory data, random and changeable things of the real world. This explains Kant's disagreement with the Wolffian law of sufficient reason, in which one is "satisfied" with the random attributes of things and includes them in the concept of reason [i.e. 1, p. 275].

Secondly, and this is especially important, he proceeds from the fact that neither experience nor the law of sufficient reason can solve the question of the cause of the emergence and existence of a thing, and the existence is not accidental, but necessary, without which a “complete definition of a thing” is impossible. excluding the opposite, i.e. her non-existence [i.e. 1, p. 282-285]. AT this case Kant addresses the problem that caused the greatest difficulties for representatives of both rationalistic metaphysics and empirical philosophy, namely, the question of the existence of the real world, the objective reality of things, the possibility of substantiating their existence.

And it is precisely on this point and on this occasion that Kant diverges radically from the Wolffian tradition and begins to depart from dogmatic rationalism (despite the seeming strengthening of the latter, as mentioned above). He emphatically states the need for "a careful distinction between the ground of truth and the ground of existence" or "the ground of truth and the ground of reality" and opposes the extension of the principle of determining ground in the realm of truths to the realm of existence [i.e. 1, p. 281, 284].

Base truth he refers to defining grounds that establish an analytically necessary connection between the subject and the predicate, according to the principle of identity. The foundation existence he calls antecedent-defining the foundation, by means of which it is not considered the logical connection or the relation of identity between the subject and the predicate, but supposedly the question of the very existence of things, and the reason for their occurrence, i.e. on the basis of their being and becoming (Sein, Werden) [vol. 1, p. 273, 280-285].

It is the antecedent-determining foundation that Kant opposes to the Wolffian law of sufficient reason, considering its empirical genesis to be a disadvantage of the latter, due to which he relies only on contingent existence and allows only to assert that “a thing is more likely to be than not to be”, which is not enough for “its complete definitions." The principle of the antecedent-determining ground is devoid of this shortcoming and makes it possible to understand the necessary emergence and existence of real and even random things. In this case, Kant is somewhat cunning, because according to this principle, there can be no question of any accidental existence or the existence of an accidental: the previous reason determines the subsequent one with the same necessity with which a logical conclusion follows from the premise according to the law of identity or according to the “foundation of truth” .

Nevertheless, behind Kant's distinction between the foundations of truth and reality, there was a very deep formulation of the problem of existence, the thinker's ever stronger conviction that the conclusion from the concept of a thing, from its logical possibility to existence, which is characteristic of traditional metaphysics, is unjustified. Anticipating the famous thesis of his future "Critique ..." - "a hundred real thalers do not contain one iota more than a hundred possible thalers" [i.e. 3, p. 552], Kant already in the work of 1762 “The only

possible basis for proving the existence of God" indicates that existence cannot be a logical predicate of a concept and that in the logical connection of the concept of a thing with all thought predicates, "there is never a difference from that which is only possible" [i.e. 1, p. 406].

He tries to build his own substantiation of existence, the proof of the existence of a thing or “something”, on the basis of the concept of “positing” (Setzung, Position), apparently borrowed from Crusius, and the interpretation of being as a “simple position” (schlechthin Gesetzsein). Kant argues as follows: in the statement "a thing is" the word "is" (ist) is not an expression of the logical connection between the subject and the predicate of the judgment, but the positing of the thing itself or the assertion of being "the thing considered posited in and for itself" (die Sache an und fur sich selbst gesetzt betrachtet), [vol. 1,403; Russian translation in this case is not quite accurate, cf.: 186, v. 2, p. 73]. This not very intelligible statement is based on an uncomplicated and highly incorrect logical and grammatical procedure, namely, the auxiliary verb “is” (ist) turns from an affirmative connective into a “simple statement” of the concept of the subject (“things” or “something”), to which first, the indefinite form of the verb “to be” (sein) is “imperceptibly” added, and the latter is just as “imperceptibly” transformed into a noun (Sein) and endowed with the ontological meaning of “simple positing” or “simple posited” “being of a thing”. This "being" is not derived from the concept of a thing and is not attached to it as a predicate, it is "simply posited" by an extralogical but subjective act of asserting a concept or even the word "thing" that "is". Feeling the undoubted weakness and obvious subjectivism of his proof of the concept of “being of a thing”, the uncertainty of the content and ontological status of the latter, Kant notices that “being” (Sein) in this

case "would mean the same thing as existence" (Dasein), [ibid.]. In fact, by this next terminological substitution, he tries to give his concept of "being" the appearance of real or present being, i.e. endow with signs of things that really exist, given in the experience. However, even this equivalence towards an empirical understanding of existence does not relieve him of some doubts about the reliability of his proof, and therefore he “willingly admits” that the signs of a simple and indecomposable concept of a thing are “not much clearer and simpler than the thing itself” and that the explanation of the concept of existence is “only becomes more distinct to a very small extent through the indication (Erklärung) of existence” (Existenz) .

Turning to God and proving his absolute existence, in fact, turns out to be the only way out of this impasse. Firstly, only the subjective act of positing acquires the status of some kind of absolute “divine” act, and secondly, the indefinite concept of existence acquires the super-empirical and super-logical features of some unconditionally necessary being. Instead of the modest “thing is”, it is proclaimed: “there is a god”, i.e. exists before, "primary" the concept of it, "precedes" its logical possibility.

Kant considers the thesis “something possible” to be the main argument of his proof of the existence of God, and sees its persuasiveness in the fact that “it is based on the most primary given”, namely on the very “possibility of things”, which, in turn, is based on the existence of God as "true" or "maximum possible reality" (wahre grosst mögliche Realität). With the elimination of God as “the beginning of all possibility,” the inner possibility of things will also be destroyed, everything conceivable in general will be abolished, and therefore the non-existence of God “is completely

unthinkable”, and its existence is unconditionally necessary, i.e. "can't not be".

Thus, the question of the real world, of the relationship between the possible and the real, the logical and the real, is not only not resolved, but is not even touched upon; the proof of the existence of God is, as Kant proudly declares, "completely a priori" and on the "only possible basis" that "something is possible." Nevertheless, the thinker's constructions turn out to be a deductive system of logical thoughts about the world within the framework of the "existence" of which and only in relation to which God "exists" with unconditional necessity as its "first foundation".

All these flaws in his proof of the existence of God Kant realized and showed in the Critique of Pure Reason, where, under the guise of a refutation of the ontological argument, he criticized his early works (though without referring to them). He shows the impossibility of proving the existence of anything outside of experience and sense data, and recognizes behind the assertion of such existence the character of a logically possible, but unprovable assumption (Voraussetzung) or hypothesis [i.e. 3, p. 523]. Attempts to turn such an assumption into a proven position, and hypotheses into a postulate, have as their source only the desire of the mind to know the unconditional and are nothing more than an expression of the thinker's subjective need to substantiate and complete his metaphysical system, as a result of which the mind "plunges into darkness and falls into contradictions”, and metaphysics “into dilapidated, worm-eaten dogmatism” [i.e. 3, p. 73-74].

Strictly speaking, this is exactly what took place in Kant's interpretation of existence as a "mere positivity" and in the proof of the unconditionally necessary existence of God in "The Only Possible Ground" and in "The New Illumination...", where he not only fails to overcome the dogmatism of traditional metaphysics, but even reinforces its inherent traits of fatalism. This was especially evident in

in his work "The Experience of Some Discourses on Optimism" (1759), where he, clearly simplifying the ideas of Leibniz's "Theodicy", argues that "some fictitious freedom" is not needed, should be abolished and replaced by "good necessity" . True, already in the “New Illumination ...” he tries to avert accusations of the fatalism of his teaching and reproaches that his principles restore “the unchanging necessity of all things and the fate of the Stoics” and thereby eliminate “all freedom and morality” .

At the same time, in "The Only Possible Foundation", as in "New Illumination ...", along with unsuccessful attempts at a "new" proof of the existence of God, as well as a "correction" of traditional metaphysics, the thinker's interest in the actual theoretical cognitive issues. In this connection, it is significant that he adds a third link to his distinction between the foundations of truth and existence, namely the concept of a real foundation of knowledge, different from the first two, but at the same time called upon to play the role of a kind of mediator between them. In contrast to the foundation of truth, which concerns only a logically consistent, correct form of thinking or that "how" something is conceived in a concept from the point of view of its form, the real foundation of cognition concerns this conceivable “something” itself and constitutes the material or content side of the concept.

Kant illustrates his idea with the following example. The concept of a quadrangular triangle is certainly impossible according to the law of contradiction, however, the concepts of a triangle and a quadrilateral "in themselves" are possible, they are "something" (Etwas), "given" (Data) for thinking, constitute the real or material side of the original concept, its content, independent of its formal side (Formale), i.e. logical inconsistency and impossibility.

The formal side serves as the basis for the logical possibility of the concept, it is a necessary condition, without which knowledge is certainly impossible, however, it does not say anything about the actual possibility of the concept as knowledge, i.e. about the cognitive content and meaning of the concept. On the contrary, the material side of the concept is the content of what "what" it is thought, serves as a real foundation, thanks to which the concept becomes knowledge in the proper sense of the word. Both of these aspects of the concept are relatively independent and independent of each other, but at the same time they are equally necessary conditions, constitutive prerequisites for any conceptual knowledge, although they differ in their functions and roles for the process of the emergence of this knowledge [i.e. 1, p. 408, 413-415].

Attention should be paid to the fact that Kant does not identify the real basis of cognition with the basis of existence, but the material side of the concept with the existence of a thing “in and for itself”, i.e. beyond knowing or thinking about it. This material side is considered by him precisely as a conceivable "something", as "given" in thought and even "posited" by it as its own content, internal property or component. In this case, the principle of “positing” acquires a new, more clearly expressed epistemological content, is introduced into the context of understanding the subject-content side of thinking, the cognitive significance of the concept, and not the assumption of the existence in general or the unconditionally necessary existence of a “thing”, “something” or God.

It is also indicative that the real basis of knowledge and the material side of thinking are not reduced by Kant to the "representation of some existing thing" given through feelings and experience. Such a representation has an empirical source, is random in nature and cannot serve as necessary real

the basis of knowledge or to have the meaning of "real necessity" for thinking, forcing it to be content with only random concepts. Kant, on the other hand, raises the question of the real basis not of accidental, sensual or empirical knowledge, but of necessary, theoretical or scientific knowledge, necessary both from the formal and material side, i.e. from the point of view of its logically correct, rigorous and demonstrative form, and from the point of view of the content conceivable in it, Kant in this case is not interested in any specific content of the material side of thinking, much less its empirical sources. It is important for him to show the necessary and constitutive significance of this side for any knowledge, for the transformation of only logically possible concepts into actual knowledge. This is why the material side plays the role of the real basis of cognition, since only thanks to it does thinking acquire cognitive content and meaning, i.e. becomes knowledge in the proper sense of the word.

In essence, raising the question of the real foundations of knowledge, of the material side of concepts, was nothing more than one of the first, still very vague and even contradictory attempts to understand the genesis, the emergence of necessary and objectively significant knowledge, as well as the analysis of its structure and essence. Kant is still far from any clear understanding of the essence of the problems he raised, however, he is already quite clearly aware that the possibility of such knowledge cannot be explained and justified either logically or empirically: it cannot be “derived” from the perfect mind of God. and pre-established harmony or acquired from experience and sense data. Unlike these traditional approaches, he seeks to resolve the issue of the necessary foundations, conditions and prerequisites for scientific knowledge through an immanent analysis of this knowledge itself, the discovery and clarification of it.

epistemological structure as a specific unity of various and even opposite sides or moments: formal and substantive, logical and real, etc. It was these questions that formed the main content of his works of the early - mid-60s: "False sophistication in the four figures of the syllogism" (1762), "The experience of introducing the concept of negative quantities into philosophy" (1763), "Study of the degree of clarity of the principles of natural theology and morality" (1764), as well as "Dreams of a visionary, explained by the dreams of metaphysics" (1766).

2. The problem of "real foundations" for the knowledge of the critic of "dreaming metaphysics" (the first half - the middle of the 60s)

It is significant that, unlike previous works, where Kant tried to solve the problem of objectivity of cognition and substantiation of the scientific picture of the world with the help of the postulates of traditional metaphysics and ontotheology, in these works his interest switches exclusively to the epistemological plane. And if “The only possible reason ...” he began with the image of a boundless ocean and the “bottomless abyss of metaphysics”, into which one must rush in order to find answers to its highest questions, and ended with a doubt about the possibility and necessity of proving the existence of God, then “False sophistication ..." he already begins with a criticism of the human mind, which "daringly pursues too great objects and then builds castles in the air".

Leaving aside the problem of proving the existence of things in the real world, he now seeks to understand and substantiate the possibility of achieving distinct and complete concepts about these things, and above all to solve the problem of the transition from sensory representations to concepts. Ideas about things, their relationship to each other

according to Kant, they are not at all their knowledge in the proper sense of the word, the conscious thought of them. For the emergence of knowledge, i.e. in order to transform a sensory representation into a concept, it is necessary that the content of the first be expressed in the form of a judgment, where the thing and its attribute acquire the status of a subject and a predicate, and their relations - with the help of a connecting-affirmative word "is" or a separating-negative "is not" .

At the same time, representations induce or bring into action a certain "basic power" or faculty of the soul, namely, the faculty of judging or judging. Kant is not clear about the nature and essence of this ability; he calls it "the mysterious power that makes judgments possible" and regards it as a faculty either of inner feeling, or of reason and reason. In general, this ability to judge (more precisely, “the ability to judge” - Vermögen zu urteilen) “can only belong to rational beings” and “the entire higher power of knowledge” is based on it, which unreasonable animals are deprived of and which constitutes the “essential difference” between them. and man.

Now Kant considers judgment not only as a logical form of thought, but as a subjective faculty, an active cognitive force, whose “action” (Handlung) consists in making “its own representations the object of its thoughts.” Comparing with each other ideas about things and their attributes, the ability of judgment or inner feeling establishes between them an affirmative or negative logical connection, i.e. relation of belonging, agreement, identity or relation of difference, opposition, contradiction. Directly perceived or clearly represented relations between things and their attributes serve as the basis for this act of judgment, a mental action that transforms the data of the senses or

the content of sensations into the form of a judgment, into a thought. It is this subjective act that “realizes” or makes possible distinct concepts of things or simple, inseparable and unprovable judgments in which the relation between subject and predicate is based on sensory representations of things and their attributes and therefore expresses a cognitive attitude towards them.

According to Kant, human knowledge is “full” of such judgments, and therefore those philosophers are mistaken, according to whom, “there are no unprovable truths, except for one.” In this case, he, in essence, casts doubt on the possibility of substantiating knowledge with the help of the concept of God as the first and only foundation of everything conceivable and real. Now he is not satisfied with such a "one-time" solution to the question of cognition and the interpretation of the latter as an endless logical deduction of concepts from pre-determining grounds.

Kant, in essence, moves here from theocentric and metaphysical attitudes to anthropocentric and epistemological attitudes, but at the same time naturalistic or empirical-psychological. The latter creates a threat to the necessary and universal nature of scientific knowledge, since it makes knowledge dependent on the random existence of things, their given representations, on the subjective order and nature of their perception.

In False Sophistication... Kant is still comparatively little concerned about this threat, however, already here he connects the inner feeling with reason and reason, and sees in the sensations and representations of things not the direct source of concepts and judgments, but only impulse to the action of cognitive power inside intelligent being. At the same time, it was precisely these difficulties that prompted him to more in-depth consideration of the issue of the difference between logical and real

foundations of knowledge in the work "The experience of introducing the concept of negative quantities into philosophy".

However, he begins this work by clarifying the fundamental differences between logical negations and contradictions, on the one hand, and the concepts of negative quantities and real opposites, on the other. In the first case, “with regard to the same thing, something is simultaneously affirmed and denied,” moreover, at the same time and in the same sense, i.e. violating the law of contradiction or the very logical form of combining predicates in the concept of a thing. The consequence of this combination of affirmation and negation is "nothing" (gar nichts), i.e. unthinkable and unimaginable, for example, a body that is and is not in motion. In the second case, “two predicates of the same thing are opposed (entgegengesetz), but not according to the law of contradiction (Widerspruchs). Here also one abolishes (aufhebt) what the other posits (setzt); but the effect here is "something" (Etwas). Thus, two forces of equal magnitude acting on a body in the opposite direction cancel each other, but without contradiction and therefore (as “true predicates”) are possible in the same body at the same time: their consequence is rest, i.e. something conceivable and representable, expressible by the concept of zero or the absence of motion.

With this difference, Kant wants to show that there are possible concepts that, being opposite and even denying or abolishing each other, nevertheless do not contradict each other and can be attributed to the same subject, included in its composition, without destroying the logically correct form this concept. The "real" nature of these concepts and their relations indicates the presence in them of some cognitive content, which does not depend on their logical form, i.e. is determined not by the law of contradiction, but by some other - non- or extra-logical source.

To determine this content and its sources, Kant uses the already familiar concept of real foundations, which he now interprets as some true, simple, and further indecomposable concepts, the relation of which to their consequences cannot be expressed and made more “understandable” (more precisely, “ distinct" - deutlich) through judgment. The specificity of real foundations lies in the fact that their relation to their consequences is synthetic in nature, in which one “something” presupposes (setzt) ​​or eliminates (aufhebt) something else, and therefore it cannot be established (established or abolished, removed) logically, seen or understood on the basis of the law of identity or contradiction.

As examples of real foundations, Kant cites the relation of rain to clouds and wind, the movement of a body to a push from another body, the real world to divine will, etc. The subjects of these statements (wind and clouds, a pushing body, divine will) are as a consequence of “something else” (rain, the movement of another body, the real world), the possibility of which cannot be understood analytically, i.e. by dismembering the concept of the subject and deriving from it a consequence according to the law of identity (“rain is determined by the wind not according to the law of identity”). However, in the heat of the controversy against the identification of logical and real foundations (unfairly blaming Crusius for this), Kant even argues that the relation of the latter to the consequences “cannot be the subject of a judgment” and is expressed through a judgment. In this case, he is right in that the connection between cause and effect, which is mentioned in the examples given, cannot be reduced to an analytical connection or to a logical relation between reason and conclusion, much less can be understood, received or known. through the law of identity or contradiction. Assuming that this connection cannot at all

become the subject of a judgment and be expressed in the form of a connection between the subject and the predicate of the judgment, he renounces his own point of view of "False sophistication ...", where the concept of a thing was considered precisely as the result of a judgment based on sensory representations, which our "ability to judge" turns into thought. Such a radical change in point of view was caused by the undoubted reaction of the thinker to the elements of empiricism and psychologism that took place in the previous work. However, now Kant falls into another extreme, namely, he asserts the absolute opposition between the sensible and the rational, the real and the logical, and most importantly, between the real and the conceivable, the object and the concept. But in this way the real foundations of knowledge hang in the air, and the question of the genesis of real concepts, i.e. about the origin of real knowledge remains open. Yes, and Kant himself openly admits that the possibility of concepts of real foundations and their relation to their consequences exceeds his "weak understanding" and even asks to "explain" this question to him.

However, in this case, he is somewhat disingenuous. Indeed, the examples he gives of the concepts of real foundations cannot be proved logically, obtained by analyzing concepts, but they are all taken by him from various areas of knowledge, where they were obtained by various methods or methods of cognition: empirical observation, mechanical consideration of nature and metaphysical speculation. In other words, each of them has its own epistemological genesis, epistemological sources and prerequisites, to which they owe their appearance or their “possibility”. However, having become true knowledge (which, however, only the first two examples can claim), i.e. real foundations of knowledge, they not only take the form of a concept, but also become the subject of judgment and may well

must be expressed through it, i.e. in the form of a logical connection between the subject and the predicate, the basis and the conclusion.

Strictly speaking, in the concept of the real foundations of knowledge, Kant touches on the problem that he formulated in the Critique of Pure Reason in the form of the question “how are a priori synthetic judgments possible?” In "Experience ...", however, he confines himself to a very abstract opposition of logical and real foundations, leaving open the question of the emergence of the latter, referring, however, to the fact that this question will be "set out in detail" by him in another work, namely in "An Inquiry into the Degree of Clarity (Deutlichkeit) of the Principles of Natural Theology and Morals" (1764).

However, in this work, too, he proceeds from the fact that in philosophy the concepts of things are “already given”, though in an unclear and vague (verworren, dunkel) form, the infinitely diverse signs or predicates of which are not distinguished and not delimited, not compared and not subordinated to each other, etc. The task of metaphysics as “the philosophy of the first foundations of our knowledge” is to analyze these concepts, divide them into some similar and basic elements, identify in them simple and “initially perceived data” (Data), unprovable, but directly reliable, obvious provisions. or judgments, and on their basis to form a distinct, developed (ausführlichen) and definite concept of the subject.

Kant calls this method of dismembering and explaining vague and complex concepts the analytical method and sees in it the only and genuine way to discover and achieve solid truths and reliable knowledge in metaphysics. Philosophical knowledge, he believes, therefore has the fate of rapidly disappearing opinions, and metaphysics, in essence, "has never been written yet", that instead of "simple and circumspect" in it

of the analytical method mistakenly sought to imitate the synthetic method of mathematics, ignoring the fundamental differences in these modes of cognition. Mathematical knowledge begins with a preliminary definition of concepts and their subsequent combination or synthesis according to certain rules. This is possible because mathematics deals with conventional signs, symbols, figures, etc., which are put "in the place of things themselves", replacing them, leaving them "outside the sphere of thought". The concept here becomes possible due to the arbitrary definition (in fact, the positing) of its features and their expression with the help of single, sensually represented signs, similar and even coinciding with their predetermined meaning.

Kant's thought in this case moves in line with the ideas of those opponents of Wolfianism, who pointed out the fundamental differences between mathematical and philosophical knowledge. Moreover, he outlines a number of moments of that understanding of mathematical knowledge, which he would later develop in the Critique of Pure Reason, where the idea of ​​the synthetic and visual nature of the latter will become the principle of constructing concepts in pure contemplation, in contrast to philosophical knowledge as knowledge by reason through mere concepts, but in relation to possible experience [see: v. 3, p. 599-617]. In the "Investigation..." he also believes that in philosophical knowledge it is always necessary "to have the object itself before one's eyes" (die Sache selbst), to represent or remember the meaning of general concepts, since it is expressed by means of words or abstract signs (in abstracto). And precisely because of such an abstract, abstract nature of philosophical knowledge in metaphysics they use the "perverted method" of arbitrary fabrication and synthetic construction of concepts with the help of invented, nominal definitions and

grammatical explanations of words devoid of any meaning or real cognitive content (as, for example, the concept of a dormant monad in Leibniz).

In the context of this criticism of the non-objective logicism of traditional metaphysics, its "synthetic" system creation on the basis of "invented", arbitrarily created concepts, the general idea of ​​Kant's appeal to the analytical method in philosophy is manifested. It is not just about the logical division and clarification of complex, confused and vague concepts that are "already given" in metaphysics, it is about an epistemological analysis of the structure of any subject knowledge, about attempts to isolate and discover what constitutes the extralogical content of conceptual thinking, forms it. cognitive value. As a matter of fact, "Investigation..." is an attempt, already begun in "The Only Possible Ground...", to make a critical analysis of the necessary "elements" or "beginnings" of scientific knowledge or experience, its composition and structure, matter and form, i.e. e. all that later became part of the content of the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements (Elementarlehre) in the Critique of Pure Reason.

In "Investigation..." Kant only gropes for approaches to such an analysis, and the result of applying the analytic method turned out to be very meager and even contradictory. Instead of simple and clear concepts, solid and reliable truths, he came to concepts that are extremely unclear and heterogeneous in content, epistemological status and functions. Indeed. He considers the real foundations of knowledge to be “the first foundations of our knowledge” or “material principles of the human mind”, linking them with direct and initial perception, sensual contemplation of “the objects themselves”, which must be “before our eyes”. They have the character of reliable, obvious and firm truths, since they are based on experience, its

undoubted data (Data), and not on logical proofs and conclusions, and therefore, Kant unexpectedly concludes, they are “indivisible concepts of the true, i.e. what is in the objects of knowledge, considered in themselves" (für sich).

Such a conclusion sounds very ambiguous and may well be interpreted in the spirit of the rationalistic identity of thought and being, concept and thing. Moreover, this inaccuracy turns out to be far from being an isolated and accidental slip of the tongue, and if we take a closer look at many of Kant's definitions of "immediately certain" and "given", then they turn out to be by no means sensory perceptions and intuitions, but rather simple concepts, the first and obvious "basic judgments ' or 'unprovable propositions' (Sätze), thoughts about the object. “Data” for such provisions as the real foundations of cognition are things and their signs, however, it is not sensibility that has the ability to directly perceive them, but “mind” (more precisely, reason - Verstand). In addition, Kant sometimes calls the “immediately perceived” the “concept of a thing”, and the “object” that “needs to be immediately before one’s eyes” turns out to be not a thing, but the “meaning” of general concepts, the representation of the “universal in abstracto”. The cognitive function of these first material principles, "undoubted data" or unprovable concepts, turns out to be just as unclear: they act either as "material for definitions", or as "grounds for correct conclusions".

What is the reason for this apparent inconsistency and even contradictory nature of Kant's position? Speaking against subjective fabrication and arbitrary "synthetic" construction of concepts in metaphysics and raising the question of the real foundations of knowledge, Kant is forced to appeal to the "things themselves", their immediate

given in sensory perceptions and contemplations. It is in them that he tries to find an extra-logical source of objective significance, the substantive content of those simple and unprovable concepts that are called upon to play the role of the real foundations of knowledge. However, as we have seen, he cannot agree either that these concepts arise from sensory perceptions, that the first foundations of knowledge, its firm truths and necessary laws, can be "seen in bodies" or that the things of the external world "generate" concepts. Therefore, following previous works, he connects the possibility of cognition with the active activity of the soul, on which, "as on its basis," "all kinds of concepts must rest."

In this regard, Kant's distinction between objective and subjective certainty is very indicative: the first depends on the "sufficiency" of signs of the necessity of a given truth, the second on the visual, contemplative nature of the cognition of this necessity. He connects the “insufficiency” of the latter with the subjective limitation or imperfection of sensory cognition, which may not perceive or notice one or another sign of a thing and therefore causes the mind to mistakenly think of it as non-existent. Moreover, giving an example with attraction, i.e. the action of bodies at a distance without visual perception of their contact and opposition, it fixes the fundamental circumstance that in science there are concepts that cannot be reduced to sensory perceptions of things, but nevertheless, have an objective meaning, cognitive reliability, etc. .

Strictly speaking, these are precisely the examples of “simple” concepts given by Kant: coexistence and sequence, space and time, attraction and repulsion, causes and effects, as well as ideas, feelings, desires, etc. .

Such concepts, which have objective certainty, Kant very vaguely calls "representations of the universal in abstracto" or "indivisible concepts of the true", and limiting himself to individual examples of such "unprovable basic truths", considers that their discovery "will never be the end" and that their list would be immense and therefore it is impossible to systematize them in a table. It is not difficult, however, to notice that his “list” of such “examples” is quite stable: starting from the very first works, his thought constantly returns to the concepts that constituted the theoretical framework of contemporary natural science, served as the initial principles, the main idealizations of Newtonian mechanics. It is impossible not to pay attention to another, no less important, circumstance: not only the “set” of examples itself, but also the way they are understood, interpreted and justified is very close to many of the attitudes and constructions of Crusius and Lambert. It is no coincidence that the latter, precisely in the "Investigation ...", saw similarities with his doctrine of simple and real concepts and the method of their justification, and Kant himself, who was very critical of Crusius in previous works, now begins to speak of him more loyally, or at least least, carefully. Behind this subjective change in assessments was an objective commonality of problems, as well as the closeness of a critical attitude to traditional

epistemological concepts, primarily to traditional rationalistic metaphysics.

Above, we noted the undoubted similarity of the simple concepts of "Research ..." with the content of the "Transcendental Doctrine of Principles" in the "Critique of Pure Reason", where the "list" of basic unprovable truths was presented in the form of a table of a priori categories and synthetic foundations of reason. It is also indicative that already in the "Investigation ..." Kant expresses hope regarding the possibility of using the synthetic method in metaphysics, although he believes that before that time "still far away" . However, from the point of view of understanding the process of evolution of Kant's views, for understanding the actual relationship between the pre-critical and critical periods of his work, the following point is even more important. In "Research ..." he proceeds from a firm conviction in the need to follow Newton's method, he even speaks of the identity of the "genuine method of metaphysics" with a fruitful and reliable method of research in natural science. Just as Newton stopped the "arbitrariness of physical hypotheses" with the help of the method "based on experience and geometry", so in metaphysics the elimination of "the eternal inconstancy of opinions and school sects" will become possible only with the help of a new method of thinking. It is necessary, Kant believes, “based on reliable data of experience and, of course, using geometry, to find the laws according to which certain phenomena of nature proceed.” In "Criticism..." he merely repeated this idea about the need to follow in metaphysics the example of mathematics and natural science, to imitate their changed way of thinking. Moreover, even in understanding the essence of this method, its foundations associated with the data of experience and the principles of reason, empirical observations and constant laws, as well as their necessary correlation and

interdependence, one can easily see an undoubted similarity with the ideas of the “Research ...” [cf.: v. 3, p. 85-87].

These ideas are even more clearly and consciously expressed in the following works of the thinker: “Notice on the schedule of lectures for the winter semester of 1765/66.” and in the most striking work of the mid-60s. "The Dreams of a Spiritualist Explained by the Dreams of Metaphysics" (1766). In the first, Kant considers his analytical method as a “some kind of quarantine”, a preliminary critique of a sound mind, a necessary condition for the teaching and learning of philosophy, which must begin with a simple one based on experience, on a comparison of sensations, on empirical data and concrete knowledge about the soul and nature. , and most importantly - on an independent understanding of things, etc. He opposes not only the rote memorization of certain “not yet written” books on metaphysics, but also the fact that its exposition begins with ontology, i.e. the sciences “about the general properties of all things”, as well as from other traditional metaphysical disciplines: rational psychology, cosmology and theology, since the concepts of the soul, the world and God interpreted in them are not based on experience, are false and are not explained in any way, are not confirmed by specific examples etc. Due to their extreme abstractness, they are not only difficult to understand, but useless and even harmful, since they are accepted dogmatically, without thinking about their origin, the nature of their subject and the method of acquiring knowledge about it. Therefore, all these concepts and metaphysical disciplines must be preceded by a special logic, which is a "criticism and prescription of learning in the proper sense of the word", i.e. “of the whole philosophy as a whole”, which allows us to understand the origin of its “views and errors” and “to draw up an exact plan according to which such a building of reason should be erected for a long time and according to all the rules” .

It is in this work that Kant first introduces the concept of a special, “complete” (vollständige) logic as a method and “tool” (Organon) of metaphysics, serving as a means of researching and criticizing its vague concepts and preceding its synthetic construction and systematic exposition. Here the contours of the ideas and approaches of critical philosophy are already outlined, not to mention the individual concepts included in the arsenal of the latter, including the concept of "criticism of reason", which was first used precisely in "Notification ...". A more accurate point of view of those researchers who see here, on the one hand, the strengthening of the Kantian opposition to traditional metaphysics, and, on the other hand, a further step towards comprehending the epistemological structure and genesis of experience, the scientific picture of the world [see: 218, 1, With. 49; 225, p. 129].

However, indeed, more often than in previous works, in "Dreams ..." one can find statements according to which all our concepts should be based on signs detected by the senses, on given sensations as the source of simple concepts and the "fundamental principle" of all judgments about things and forces. , causes and actions, etc. . Nevertheless, Kant here is by no means inclined to consider experience exclusively through the prism of sensory knowledge, and does not at all reduce it to a random collection of sensations given to an individual subject. As in previous works, he sees in the composition of experience the presence of some general and simple concepts of real foundations: extension and figure, coexistence and sequence, stability and density (Solidität), which

express the properties of the most "filling world space" matter and "assume" the possibility of its mechanical knowledge or physical and mathematical explanation.

True, even here he does not give any detailed explanation of the emergence and possibility of such concepts in which there is a correspondence with sensory data, and even with matter itself, with things “outside thoughts”. However, this very correspondence, the unity of the sensible and the conceivable, the empirically given and the conceptual, he not only considers an indisputable fact, but also uses it to criticize the non-objective logicism of metaphysics, its imaginary and illusory knowledge, fictitious or "cunningly acquired" concepts, through which it ascends into the empty space, builds "air worlds of ideas".

Kant again contrasts this method of metaphysics with the reliable method of Newton, which is based on experience and geometry, and also uses hypotheses and even “fictions” (Erdichtungen), only in contrast to the “invented” concepts of metaphysics, their truth can be proven “at any time” and is confirmed by the fact that they can be "applied" to the phenomena of experience or verified with the help of the latter. Moreover, Kant now asserts with all certainty that all knowledge (more precisely, knowledge) (Erkenntnisse) has two ends: a priori and a posteriori, and opposes "certain modern naturalists" who recognize only the latter kind of knowledge, i.e. ascents from the data of experience to general and higher concepts. This way, in his opinion, is “not scientific and philosophical enough”, because it comes up against some “why”, to which there is no answer. But even with a priori cognition, proceeding from the highest point of metaphysics, a difficulty arises, “namely: they start in an unknown place, and they arrive in an unknown where, and the arguments develop, nowhere touching experience”, nowhere meeting, like two parallel lines.

Considering both of these sources of knowledge as equally necessary, Kant, contrary to the opinion about the empiricist nature of "Dreams ...", it is in this work that he formulates the principle of universal validity as an integral feature of scientific knowledge, one of the conditions and criteria for its truth. Moreover, he equally opposes this principle both to the “dreamers of the mind” or metaphysicians, “inventing” their concepts, and to the “dreamers of the senses”, inventing images associated not only with violations of the senses, morbid imagination, etc., but also with the inevitable subjectivism inherent in the individualistic and psychological epistemology of sensationalism in general. In both sensory and rational cognition, it is necessary to take “the point of view of a human mind that is alien and outside of me”, and compare the results of one’s knowledge with the data of the “local” and “common for all” world, similar to the one in which “it has long been mathematicians live. Here Kant also introduces the concept of "general human reason" as a means for "messaging to all who thinks some kind of unity of reason." These ideas, apparently, were used by Tetens in his interpretation of universal validity as intersubjectivity, and later transformed by Kant himself into the doctrine of the transcendental subject in the Critique of Pure Reason.

In "Dreams ..." Kant for the first time defines metaphysics as "the science of the limits of the human mind", whose task is to know not only objects, but also their "relation to the human mind". The task of metaphysics is not to know the "secret properties" of things, not in groundless and pretentious attempts to solve questions that go beyond the limits of any experience through speculation and sophistication, but in determining the boundaries of reliable and generally valid knowledge, in keeping the mind from expanding them, soaring into the sphere fictions and chimeras, etc. The critique of metaphysics must

come from itself, i.e. to be self-criticism, where it "is the judge of its own method" and where the limits of reason are set by its own "astringent power of self-knowledge." The critique of reason "cuts off" the "wings of metaphysics" and binds knowledge to the "low ground of experience", which provides an object for our understanding, but at the same time points to its boundaries, the point or line where it "ends". These limits put an end only to metaphysical, but by no means to empirical knowledge; the first goes beyond the limits of all possible experience, everything accessible to the senses; the scope of the latter is inexhaustible. “In nature,” Kant writes, “there is no object accessible to our senses ... about which it could be argued that observation or reason has already exhausted it: so infinite is the variety of everything that nature, even in its most insignificant manifestations, offers for a solution to such a limited mind like a human." Moreover, he refers to these objects of nature the phenomena of life, as well as the actions or manifestations of the human soul, its thinking and will, however, only those that can be obtained from experience, become known from the senses and the concepts of which can be confirmed by experience and proven in every time .

This kind of "natural" incomprehensibility or "inevitable ignorance", associated with the awareness of the limitations of experience and, at the same time, the recognition of the possibility of its expansion, Kant contrasts with all sorts of fictions, illusory and empty concepts of metaphysics, devoid of reliance on experience and filling the sphere of the unknown with "airy locks of ideas”, special intangible principles, etc. Such concepts serve only as a “refuge for lazy philosophy”, which, instead of the thorny path of knowledge, prefers to “philosophize indiscriminately”, to resolve all issues with an “imaginary

thoughtfulness”, to ascend into the empty space of spiritual visions, illusions, etc. .

Kant takes a sharply negative attitude to this kind of "dreaming" metaphysics and its invented concepts, putting them on a par with the "nonsense of the worst of all science fiction writers" - the visionary Swedenborg. Nevertheless, confessing his “love” for metaphysics, he by no means identifies it either with the dreams of spiritual vision, or with the dreaming and “thinking indiscriminately” traditional metaphysics, or even with its understanding solely as a companion of wisdom and the science of the limits of the human mind. . Moreover, the assertion of the limitation of knowledge to the sphere of experience is not at all identical with "the cognized impossibility of thinking something beyond the boundaries of experience and sense data." The ban on fabrications, the creation of empty and illusory knowledge through speculative soaring beyond the limits of experience does not mean that beyond these boundaries there is only “empty space”: the denial of the possibility of empirical knowledge of the supersensible sphere is not yet a basis for dogmatic denial of its existence beyond the boundaries of experience. The possibility of the spirit world cannot be proved, but neither can it be refuted by the arguments of reason and the data of experience.

Kant even admits that “he is very inclined to insist on the existence of non-material entities in the world and to attribute his soul to their category” . At the same time, he repeatedly emphasizes that he “understands absolutely nothing”, how the spirit enters the world, is present in it and is separated from it, how the soul is connected with the body and acts in it, where its “residence” during human life and after death, etc. But precisely because these questions "far exceed" his "understanding" and he knows "absolutely nothing" about them, he does not dare to "completely deny all the truth of various stories about spirits", he admits "a grain of truth" in them, although doubting each of them individually.

It would be wrong to see in these statements only a recurrence of an inexhaustible love for metaphysics, especially since a similar and even more powerful “relapse” took place five years later in the Dissertation of 1770. And in the Critique of Pure Reason itself, Kant evaluates metaphysics , its "natural inclination" to the knowledge of the unconditional beyond the boundaries of experience, by no means from a negative-skeptical position. However, attention should be paid to a significant shift in the understanding of the subject of metaphysical knowledge: in "Dreams ..." it is increasingly closer to the concept of the human soul, and metaphysics is defined as rational psychology. But what is especially important, Kant does not reduce the essence of the soul to the ability of representation and thinking, but sees its inner strength in the will, linking the methods of its activity with the moral will and behavior, subject to the laws of duty. The latter cannot “completely unfold” in the corporeal world and the physical life of a person, but suggest the possibility of a special, supersensible world, namely the world of moral unity.

No less significant is the fact that in "Dreams ..." he already distinguishes and differently evaluates the attempts of the mind to leave the "low ground" of experience and soar to immaterial principles. If they are based on the tendency of "lazy philosophy" to satisfy their cognitive needs, then they must be discarded. But if they are based on moral needs associated with "hope for the future", with faith in the immortality of the soul, then they are fully justified. In this case, Kant comes close to the idea of ​​the moral, practical sources of metaphysics, reducing its subject and tasks to substantiating the possibility of free and good will as the basis of moral consciousness, virtuous behavior, etc.

It is in "Dreams ..." that the contours of his future concept of theoretical and practical reason are outlined, which became the cornerstone of his entire critical

philosophy. However, it should be noted that this topic and, more broadly, the problem of man, not only as a thinking and knowing, but also as a moral being, possessing a free, but at the same time bound by the moral law will, became an independent topic already in the created shortly before Dreams.. ." work "Observations on the sense of beauty and sublime" (1763). At the same time, Kant himself speaks with gratitude of J.-J. Rousseau, whose ideas helped him overcome his own limitations, one-sided isolation on the problems of cognition, substantiation of the scientific picture of the world, etc. .

It should be noted, however, that Rousseau's influence was mediated by Kant's own reflections on the problems of freedom and morality, in particular in the "New Illumination ..." and in the "Experience of Certain Discourses on Optimism". Moreover, in these works, as we have seen, he was still far from distinguishing between physical and moral necessity or duty, and in his understanding of freedom he opposed Crusius from the standpoint of the rationalistic determinism of Wolffian metaphysics [see: v. 1, p. 285-396; vol. 2, p. 45-49]. And it was precisely the awareness of the danger of fatalism, as well as the failure of all attempts to speculatively prove the existence of God, that served for Kant as fertile ground for the perception of Rousseau's ideas.

Now he firmly believes that the theoretical or speculative knowledge of God is "unreliable and subject to dangerous delusions," and attempts to resolve questions about the nature of the soul, its freedom, immortality, etc. lead only to "indiscriminate philosophizing", supposedly thoughtful teachings and refutations, i.e. to illusory knowledge. Only in the sphere of morality, moral duty and faith, independent of the "subtleties of empty reasoning", all these questions and the expectations and goals associated with them find their true and positive solution and implementation. A necessary precondition for this must be a clear

distinguishing, firstly, “the ability to represent the true” and “the ability to feel good”, and secondly, the laws of nature and the laws of morality and, accordingly, the areas of their applicability.

Kant directly connects this distinction with another equally important issue: he believes that the uselessness and even the danger of theoretical substantiation of the immortality of the soul, "scientific awareness" of the existence of God and the existence of a future life, leads to a distortion of the essence of morality. Indeed, in this case, the motive for a virtuous life and actions is not the moral feeling of an honest and noble soul, but the hope for the next world and by no means disinterested hopes for reward. To these hopes, he contrasts voluntary adherence to the moral law, the dictates of duty and a sense of goodness, which are “good” in themselves, and not because they promise an afterlife reward. To attempts at speculative soaring into the “mysteries of the other world”, this refuge for dreaming and lazy philosophy, he contrasts the difficult path of knowing the “world of this world”, based on given experience and feelings, provable and reliable arguments of the mind, etc. Our fate, Kant believes, depends on how we performed our duties in this world and how we used our abilities to know it, and completes his work with the words of Voltaire's Candide: "Let's take care of our happiness, let's go cultivate our garden."

He expresses a similar thought in a letter to M. Mendelssohn, who expressed concern for the fate of metaphysics after its Kantian criticism in "Dreams ...". “I am convinced,” Kant writes, “that even the true and lasting good of the human race depends on it [metaphysics], however, for this it is necessary to comprehend its nature and real place among human knowledge and, above all, subject it to unfounded views, imaginary and even harmful knowledge to "skeptical consideration", remove

from her "dogmatic attire". Such criticism, he believes, allows "to get rid of stupidity", but at the same time, it serves as a precondition or preparation for understanding the positive benefits of metaphysics.

However, after writing "Dreams ..." there followed an almost five-year period of silence, more precisely, the inner work of the philosopher's thought on the problems and conclusions that he came to by the mid-60s. The result of these reflections was the dissertation "On the form and principles of the sensual perceived and intelligible world" (1770).

3. Dissertation of 1770: a step towards criticism or the last chance to "save" metaphysics? Choice of 1772

The Dissertation established a firm reputation as a transitional work from pre-critical to critical philosophy, and even almost its own critical one. On this basis, some researchers exclude this work from consideration of the legacy of early Kant [see: 36]. Indeed, the third section, which is central in its place and in its theoretical significance for the entire work and for the subsequent development of the thinker, contains the doctrine of time and space as pure forms of sensual contemplation, which subsequently entered, with minor changes, into the “transcendental aesthetics” of the Critique of Pure Reason. ". Nevertheless, it was not by chance that it took Kant more than ten years for the final maturation of the ideas of criticism. The fact is that it was in the Dissertation that he made the last desperate attempt to save his "favorite" metaphysics, which he himself criticized in "Dreams ...".

Thus, the evolution of his views did not proceed along the line of a direct transition from dogmatism to criticism, but along the line of a backward movement from the skepticism of Dreams... to the dogmatic metaphysics of the Dissertation. Similar processes took place in many predecessors and

contemporaries of Kant. As we have seen, in Crusius, Lambert and even Tetens, not entirely successful and largely unfinished attempts to "improve" or reform metaphysics, one way or another turned into an appeal to the "old truths" of metaphysics, a return to some concepts and principles of traditional ontology, rational psychology and theology, etc.. The paradoxical feature of Kant's rollback to metaphysics was that in order to "save" it, he tried to use his fundamentally new, already critical in its essence, doctrine of space and time, although it was aimed at protecting against the threat of skepticism first of all scientific knowledge, and not metaphysics.

For the formation of this new doctrine, a small work written two years before the Dissertation “On the first basis for distinguishing sides in space” (1768) played an important role. Here Kant approaches Newton's position to a large extent, arguing that "absolute and original space" has "its own reality independently of the existence of any matter." Moreover, based on the fact of the incongruity of figures in space, he believes that its properties are not consequences of properties, relations and the state of things (as Leibniz thought), but, on the contrary, the latter are consequences of the former, which serve as the basis for determining things, their spatial relationships and properties, shapes and figures, etc.. .

It should be noted that in this work, Kant, although he presents space as a kind of divine "receptacle" of things, nevertheless, believes that its reality is not comprehended "through the concepts of reason" and even "is not an object of external perception"; it is contemplated by the inner sense, and its relation to bodies and parts of matter is taken "in the sense in which the geometer thinks it" and in which it is introduced "into the system of natural sciences". In other words, space

appears here not only as an ontological reality, but also as a subjective way of representation associated with the geometric construction of figures. And, apparently, it was these conjectures that geometry is not only a method of subjective synthesis of concepts, but also a form of spatial representation of a sensually given world, became for Kant the source of that “great light”, which, according to one of his handwritten notes, "brought" him 1769.

In any case, in the Dissertation of 1770, he already categorically states that the idea of ​​space as "the absolute and immeasurable container of all possible things", as well as the objective reality of time, is the "empty" and "most absurd invention" of the mind, referring to the world fairy tales. However, Kant is even more resolutely opposed to considering the properties of space as relations of the existing things themselves, and the properties of time as abstractions from successive changes in the internal states of the soul or the movement of external bodies [ibid.]. He connects this point of view with Leibniz and his supporters, however, the real subject of his criticism was not so much the metaphysical derivation of the spatio-temporal properties of the corporeal world from simple and incorporeal substances, but the empirical understanding of space and time as concepts abstracted from experience.

Kant sees the fallacy of such an understanding in the fact that, borrowing the definitions of space and time from sensory data and observations, it reduces mathematics to the category of empirical sciences, deprives it of necessity and universality, accuracy and reliability, and thereby casts doubt on the possibility of a scientific picture of the world, its strict laws and regulations. However, such a threat did not come from the “supporters of Leibniz”, but from representatives of the empirical

epistemology, whom he speaks of as "English philosophers". But the most significant thing is that in this case, in fact, either not quite conscious, or carefully hidden criticism of their own views of the mid-60s took place.

As we have seen, during this period (primarily in Dreams...), in an attempt to find the real foundations of knowledge and to overcome the non-objective logicism of metaphysics, Kant appealed to the data of sensibility and experience as the "fundamental principle" of general judgments and concepts [see: 2 , With. 296, 331 and others]. And although these ideas cannot be considered consistently sensationalistic, nevertheless, the very opposition of hard truths “based on experience” to the illusory and fictitious concepts of metaphysics inevitably turned into a question about the source of the necessary and universal concepts of scientific knowledge, which are confirmed in experience, but by no means from it is not "extracted". Strictly speaking, Newton's "fruitful method" itself remained a problem, which, with the help of experience and geometry, explains nature according to the necessary laws, but does not at all draw them from nature itself, does not see them directly in its things and processes.

Kant's doctrine of space and time as subjective, pure and original forms of sensual contemplation arose from the need to solve this particular problem, although, as we will see below, in solving it he pursued a dual goal: not only to substantiate the scientific picture of the world, but also to "salvate" metaphysics. To achieve the first goal, he really tried to "link" geometry with experience, and for this he did not just turn space and time into subjective ways contemplation, but, on the one hand, connected them with the principles of mathematical-synthetic construction, constructive positing and determination of objective forms of the sensually perceived world, and on the other hand, conditioned this activity by the “presence of an object” and its

"action" (afficiatur) on the faculty of receptivity of the subject.

Particular attention should be paid to the latter circumstance, since from the moment of the creation of his new doctrine of sensory cognition, Kant not only considered it directed "against idealism", but sought to maintain those attitudes towards experience, with the help of which he hoped to overcome the pointless logicism of metaphysics. Moreover, now mathematics also reveals its cognitive and applied significance: in contrast to the point of view of “Research ...”, where mathematical concepts left the things they denoted “completely outside the sphere of thought”, in the Dissertation the forms of sensory contemplation are aimed at ordering and coordinating precisely sensations, and their very cognitive application is determined by the action of the object, which delivers these sensations, serves as their source. It is true that the action of an object only "causes" the activity of sensory cognition, supplies the content or matter of intuitions, but does not determine their form or "type", i.e. the spatio-temporal connections and relations themselves, the order of coexistence or the sequence of phenomena of the sensually perceived world. These universal and necessary forms, regular connections and order are established or “required” by the subject himself, but not arbitrarily, but according to the strict rules of mathematics, the laws of the activity of the mind or soul, coordinating its sensations and thereby constituting the space-time form of the sensory world.

That is why sensory knowledge turns out to be a source not of vague, confused and random, but of distinct and “extremely true knowledge”, which provides “a model of the highest evidence for other sciences”. Strictly speaking, it also delivers to the mind those very real foundations or “first contemplative data”, from which it “according to logical laws

draws conclusions with the greatest certainty. True, for a number of reasons, on which we will dwell below, Kant does not call these grounds “real”, however, it is they that constitute the condition and prerequisite for the logical application of reason, for comparing, comparing and subordinating sensory data to each other according to the law of contradiction and their summing up. under more general laws phenomena or experience.

Since the logical application of reason is mediated both by the empirical content and the necessary form of sensory cognition, then, according to Kant, rational cognition also has all the signs of objectively significant and necessary knowledge, and therefore serves as a prerequisite for physics and psychology as rational sciences about the phenomena of external and internal the senses . Thus, both sensory and rational cognition participate in the creation of scientific knowledge, and it is thanks to the latter that phenomena or sensory representations of things are combined into experience or into a scientific picture of the world. Thus, the concept of experience turns out to be mediated or conditioned by the necessary mathematical and logical forms of cognition, which, apparently, allowed Kant to consider that the tilt towards sensationalism with its obvious threat of skepticism, which, contrary to his wishes, still took place in " Dreams ... ".

And yet, in the interpretation of rational cognition, its logical application, the Dissertation retains many aspects of its empirical understanding. And the point is not that he calls rational concepts empirical and even sensible, but that he associates their very emergence and application with the process of abstracting certain properties of sensory cognition, their inductive generalization and reduction to a greater degree of universality. Kant does not seem to notice that by means of such an understanding of the understanding

the substantiation of scientific knowledge, its strict, universal and necessary laws, turns out to be simply impossible. The appeal to pure and necessary forms of sensory cognition is a necessary but not sufficient condition for substantiating the possibility of theoretical natural science and creating a scientific picture of the world: they allow us to explain only the way it is spatio-temporally given, its representation as a visual and concrete subject of mathematical knowledge. However, they cannot serve as a source of such universal concepts and abstract categories or principles (for example, substances, causality, interactions) that are not included in sensory representations, cannot be seen in them and abstracted from them. It is no coincidence that Kant himself points out that their source "should be sought not in feelings, but in the very nature of pure reason." Moreover, these concepts are not innate, but abstract, but not from sensibility and its data, but from the actions of the mind itself, aimed at processing and coordinating sensory data.

It is no coincidence that two years later, in a letter to Hertz, he admits that in the Dissertation he “passed over in silence” the question of the relation of pure concepts of the understanding to sensory data and to experience. And it was precisely this problem, which formed the content of the "Transcendental Deduction of Categories" in the "Critique of Pure Reason", that became almost the main subject of almost ten years of research and cost him, by his own admission, "the greatest work". Moreover, this problem included the need for a radical revision of the very concept of reason and the methods of its application, which took place in the Dissertation.

We noted above that although Kant connects the logical application of the understanding with the processing of sensory data, and calls the concepts that arise in this way empirical, however, he emphatically emphasizes that

these concepts "do not become rational in the real sense." In contrast to the logical, the real application of the understanding is directed to objects inaccessible to sensibility, and there is the ability to initially give (dantur) representations, concepts or ideas about things “as they really exist”. It is here that the “second plan” or the two-pronged idea that underlies the Kantian doctrine of space and time as pure forms of the sensually perceived world of phenomena and its opposition to the intelligible world of noumena, existing outside and independently of the world given in the senses, is revealed. This approach makes it possible to substantiate the possibility of reliable and "highest degree of true" scientific knowledge about the world; but since this knowledge refers exclusively to the sensible world and is limited by this world, then outside it, as well as beyond the boundaries of empirical or scientific knowledge about it, it opens up the possibility of assuming the existence of a special world of noumena with "internal and absolute qualities" inaccessible to sensibility, but in nature soul or "mind" - a special ability - real reason (rationalis), which goes beyond the limits of the sensually given world in its application. Strictly speaking, Kant also uses this method of distinguishing and even agnostic-dualistic opposition of the sensible and intelligible worlds in the Critique ..., however, unlike the Dissertation, it serves the opposite purpose there, namely, criticism of the unfounded claims of reason to knowledge of the supersensible peace. In the Dissertation, this technique is aimed at overcoming skeptical criticism in relation to metaphysics, to its “fictional” concepts and air worlds, which took place in “Dreams ...” True, in this work the existence of an “immaterial world” (mundus intelligibilis) Kant considered, although little plausible and mysterious, but nevertheless possible and

admissible "premonition of a sophisticated mind". In the Dissertation, the existence of this intelligible, intelligible world of noumenons is accepted as a reliable and obvious fact, and in addition to sensory and logical knowledge, the ability of the mind to a special - real - application is recognized, through which this world is thought and known.

The most indicative here is the transformation or metamorphosis that the concept of “real” undergoes: now it not only does not belong to the foundations of sensory or empirical knowledge, but is also taken out beyond them, beyond the boundaries of scientific knowledge in general, becoming entirely the property of metaphysics, its main disciplines. : ontology, rational cosmology, psychology and theology as sciences about the "principles and forms of the intelligible world" and its noumenal objects - about the soul, the world as a whole, and God, "because they are realities" . In other words, Kant's many years of efforts aimed at finding the real foundations of knowledge and overcoming the non-objective logicism and "invented" concepts of traditional metaphysics turned into a recognition in the Dissertation for the latter of the status of "real" in the "strict sense of the word" .

Moreover, he now considers the distinction between two worlds and ways of knowing them to be the method "which corresponds to the special nature of metaphysics." The harmful and imprudent confusion of sensory and rational knowledge was, in his opinion, the source of all the failures of metaphysics, the reason for its transformation into an "empty game of the mind", which gave rise to absurd concepts and questions about the location of non-material substances, the abode of the soul, the presence of God in space or about the time of the creation of the world. This is the application of the principles of sensory knowledge, forms and definitions of space and time to the objects of the intelligible world and

Kant calls the principles of rational knowledge "the metaphysical fallacy of substitution" or "spurious axioms". To eliminate this "harmful and erroneous" confusion, he proposes the corresponding "principles of correction", which prohibit the ascription of sensory predicates to intelligible objects or noumena, i.e. apply them to the concepts of the soul, the world in general and God.

It is easy to see that in this case we are talking about concepts that in the "Criticism ..." will become the content of the three ideas of dialectical reason, as a special ability that goes beyond any experience and empirical knowledge and serves as the basis of three metaphysical disciplines: rational psychology , cosmology and theology. And it is far from accidental that already in the Dissertation Kant sometimes calls these “real” concepts “pure ideas” (ideas puras), and the ability by which these concepts are “given”, generated or posited is sometimes defined not as reason (intellectus), but as "pure reason" (rationis purae). In the same way, he is not unambiguous in the definition of the real application of reason: he calls it now "rational" (intelligentia), then "reasonableness" (rationalitas).

Terminological inaccuracies in this case accurately reflect the problematic searches and contradictions of Kant's thought, which is even more clearly manifested in the substantive inconsistencies and contradictions of his reasoning. Thus, declaring the need to correct the “mistake of substitution” or eliminate the “harmful confusion” of sensory and rational cognition, Kant seems to “forget” that he associated the very possibility of the former with the “presence” of an object and its effect on the ability of receptivity. Seeing in things or objects "as they actually exist" the source of sensations or the matter of representations, he comes into conflict with his agnostic-dualistic

opposition of sensual phenomena to things, "as they really exist" or phenomena - noumena.

This contradiction, as is known, was preserved in the Critique..., however, its source should be sought precisely in the Dissertation, in the interpretation of the intelligible world developed in it, and in general in his long-standing and completely unconquered "in love" with metaphysics. This is not the place to go into the question why, having shown the illusory nature and refusing to understand things in themselves as incorporeal substances, special noumenal entities and, above all, the “highest being” - God - Kant, nevertheless, retained in the Critique ... almost absolute opposition of things in themselves to the phenomena of the sensible world, which deserved numerous reproaches of agnosticism, subjective idealism, etc. Incidentally, Lambert was the first to voice such a reproach to him in a letter dated October 13, 1770, pointing out that the point of view of the Dissertation transforms space and time, the entire sensuously perceived world and its changing things into something invalid [see: 196, p. 361-366].

In addition to terminological inaccuracies in designating the real mind and its concepts, Kant is also very inaccurate in determining the content of these concepts, as well as the way they relate to the intelligible world. So, among the real concepts that are "given by the very nature of the mind," he includes the concepts of substance, existence, possibility, necessity, reason, etc. and contrary to the assertion that “real concepts” concern only noumena, he admits the possibility of their application to sensible phenomena and even considers that they are acquired due to “the action of his [mind] in experience” .

Subsequently, as already noted, it was this question that would become the central and most difficult in the creation of the "Critique ..." and, above all, a new theory of experience, where, in essence, the rationale for the scientific picture of the world, over which he struggled, starting from the very first

their works. No less important was the fact that in the "Criticism ..." he connects the real application of reason precisely with experience and limits it to exclusively empirical application, i.e. cognition of sensually given phenomena or phenomena, and not noumena. In the chapter “On the basis of the distinction of all objects in general into phenomena and noumena” (which, by the way, like the chapter “On the deduction of pure rational concepts” required significant revision in the second edition of the Critique ...), he, under the guise of criticism of “recent writers” and "German writings" actually undertook a self-criticism of his Dissertation of 1770. Here he emphasized the fundamental difference between the concepts of "intellectual" or "reasonable" (intellectuel) and "intelligible" or "intelligible" (intelligibel). The first relate only to the categories and foundations of the mind, which allow it to bring sensually given phenomena under rational and necessary laws and principles, due to which empirical knowledge acquires the character of theoretical and proper scientific knowledge (Kant considers the Copernican system of the world and Newton's theory of gravitation to be a model of such knowledge). The latter refer to supersensible objects, intelligible entities or noumena; however, the understanding can only create a negative and problematic concept of them, which is devoid of all the data of sensory intuition, and therefore remains indefinite and empty, without any cognitive content and objective meaning. Moreover, the concept of noumenon acquires here a meaning directly opposite to that which took place in the Dissertation, namely, it denotes not an object a border real application of the understanding, which puts it "to itself, recognizing that it cannot know things in themselves by means of categories", although it can think of them as "an unknown something".

Kant here deals with a question that has become (and remains) the subject of heated debate in world and domestic Kant studies, namely the question of the relationship, connection and difference between the concepts of “thing in itself” or “in itself” and “noumenon”. However, the origins of this problem, as well as some inaccuracies and contradictions in its formulation and solution in the "Criticism ...", should be sought precisely in the Dissertation, where the distinction between sensory and rational cognition and their relationship to their objects pursued the goal not of critical overcoming, but of dogmatically positive justification of metaphysics.

In the Dissertation, Kant mediates the possibility of sensory cognition by the "presence of an object" and its effect on the subject's ability to perceive. The existence of this object is not directly proved, and the properties of this “acting something” are not defined in any way, nevertheless it acts as a source of matter or sensations of external and internal feelings, as well as a necessary prerequisite for the ordering activity of pure forms of contemplation. All this serves as an indirect confirmation or evidence of its existence as an object; its “internal and absolute qualities”, although they remain inaccessible to the senses and are not expressed in spatio-temporal images of things and their relations, nevertheless, are considered in the context of sensory, empirical and theoretical knowledge (in physics, mechanics, psychology, etc. .) and even the “natural order” of everything that happens in the world, i.e. his scientific picture.

Reason in its real application seems to be able to cognize objects inaccessible to the senses, to give concepts of things and their relations "as they exist." It would seem that we are talking here about the very things that act on sensibility, deliver matter to intuition, etc., however, by the real application of reason, Kant does not mean cognitive

the relation to objects, and indeed its very ability, by its “nature”, from the very beginning to “give” (dantur) the concept of “things”, does not have a cognitive character at all. The appeal to “objects” is in this case a kind of trick: he uses the “fact” of their existence (only indirectly confirmed by the data of the senses) as a “foundation” so that the concepts “given” by the real mind turn out to be not “empty inventions of the mind”, not by "invented" ideas, etc., but by "real concepts", i.e. supposedly having an objective content and meaning.

The “fact” of the inaccessibility of these objects of sensibility, their unrepresentability in the forms of space and time, i.e. Kant uses the empirical unknowability to put the traditional metaphysical content into the "real concepts", namely: to make their object the immaterial soul, the world as a whole and God. The “correction” or elimination of the “harmful mixture” of sensibility and reason turns out in fact to be a new way of “justifying” metaphysics, a means of “saving” it from the crushing criticism that he himself subjected to it in earlier works and to which it was subjected by opponents of the Wolffian school. generally.

This was precisely the initial idea and the final conclusion from his “critical” doctrine of the subjectivity of space and time, which turned from forms of sensual contemplation into the phenomenon of the “omnipresent” God and his “eternity” as “ common cause”, i.e. into the forms of its manifestation as an architect and creator of the world, “supporting” with its infinite power “the mind itself with everything else”. In other words, the faculty of sensory knowledge turns out to be conditioned not by the presence of the object and its action, but by the "presence" of God; the coexistence of sensible things in space and their successive change in time turns into a kind of “co-presence” and “residence” of everything in God.

Thus, all the “higher” concepts of metaphysics turn out to be not only “saved”, but also laid at the foundation of the sensually perceived world, its phenomena, as well as the forms and principles of its sensual and empirical knowledge. But in this case, the danger of “harmful confusion” and “mistake of substitution” arises again, though not in the form of applying the forms of the sensory world and its cognition to the world of intelligible essences and the principles of the real application of reason, but, on the contrary, subjugation and even dissolution of the first into the second. Therefore, Kant is forced to maintain a certain distance between them, to recognize their relative independence from each other and even their dualistic juxtaposition and agnostic opposition. However, the consequence of this attempt to preserve the independence and purity of the intelligible world and the principles of the real application of reason is a clear lack of positive arguments in proving the existence of this world and inconsistency in understanding the latter.

Indeed, the ability of the real mind to “give” or create concepts of things or noumenons remains a very indefinite act, or rather, the subjective “positing” of concepts, if not the arbitrary generation of fictions and chimeras, but by no means the knowledge of things “as they exist in themselves.” ”, and even more so - proof of the existence of the soul, god, etc. Therefore, by analogy with the structure of empirical and scientific knowledge, based on the forms of sensory contemplation, Kant ascribes to real reason or "mind" the ability of "purely intellectual contemplation", free from sensory laws and relating to "objects themselves" . Unlike sensuous contemplation, which is passive and dependent on the action of objects, intellectual contemplation is active and capable of creating "prototypes" or "prototypes" (archetypus) of these supersensible objects.

Kant's appeal to this ability was undoubtedly a consequence or echo of his many years of reflection on the foundations of truth and existence, the logical and real foundations of cognition, attempts to solve the problem of being through the concept of "unconditional positing" and overcoming its extremes as a logicalist solution (being as a predicate of a concept), so and empiricist (being as a given of direct sensory perception). However, this appeal to intellectual contemplation or "prototype intellect" was only the last and desperate attempt to "save" the metaphysics "beloved" by him, for which it is necessary "only" to find in "our mind" an ability that could penetrate the world of noumenal entities, inaccessible to the "ordinary" cognitive abilities - sensibility and reason - unprovable using known methods of cognition - logical thinking and sensory observation. But at the same time, which is very significant, he proceeds from the firm conviction that this ability must combine the features of both: conceivability and visibility, logical necessity and evidence and direct contemplative certainty, etc., i.e. possess those properties that are somehow inherent in any knowledge.

The trouble, however, was that, unlike “ordinary” abilities, a person simply does not have the ability for intellectual contemplation, and therefore Kant sometimes calls this ability “divine contemplation”, leaving it not entirely clear whether it is contemplation god or contemplation through god. And he does this not by chance, since in this case he again finds himself in a kind of logical trap. Indeed, if we recognize as the "only possible" and "real" basis for the knowledge and proof of the existence of God the ability to contemplate him "mentally gaze," means either to resort to

trickery or outright deception, or fall into subjective illusion, reverie or daydreaming. If, however, this ability is given the status of “divine,” then either one resorts to a beautiful epithet and a purely nominal definition, or to base the proof on something that still needs to be proved, namely, the existence of God.

It is no coincidence that in the letter to Hertz mentioned above, Kant declares that the appeal to the "god from the machine" "in determining the source in the significance of our knowledge" is absurd and harmful, contains a vicious circle, encourages an "empty dream" and a "fantastic chimera" . Therefore, he now resolutely rejects the ability of reason to be the cause of an object “through its ideas”, and by the real application of reason he means by no means intellectual contemplation or the creation of “prototypes” of things, “just as divine knowledge is imagined”, but activity human cognition, independent of experience, but directed towards experience and limited by experience.

However, for the final clarification of this issue, it took him more than ten years, when in the “Critique ...” he declared the ability of intellectual contemplation as not only “not peculiar to us”, but also “the very possibility” of which we “cannot be seen” . He defines his former point of view (referring, however, to Plato, and not to his Dissertation) as "intellectualistic", i.e. prescribing mystical reality to rational concepts, and to their objects - some kind of intelligible essence, comprehended through intellectual contemplation. Instead of real reason, he introduces the concept of pure reason and its special - dialectical application, in which it goes beyond the limits of experience, seeks to know the supersensible and therefore generates only illusory and internally antinomic ideas.

Traditional metaphysics, with its dogmatic "positing" of supersensible things and noumenal entities, will henceforth become the subject of criticism of the baseless claims of pure reason, plunging it into "darkness and contradictions." The problem of substantiating the “natural and correct” structure of the Universe, the real and sensible given world and the “real foundations” of its knowledge will act exclusively as an epistemological problem, i.e. teachings about sensibility and reason, about their pure forms and categories as a priori conditions for the possibility of experience or a scientific picture of the world. However, even in critical works, the thinker's attitude to metaphysics was not unequivocally negative, but now its problems have acquired for him a predominantly practical-moral orientation, associated with the doctrine of freedom as the basis of moral law, duty, responsibility, etc.

This motif, as we have seen, arose in Kant in the mid-1960s, and, along with the problem of substantiating the scientific picture of the world, formed the main problematic axis of all his philosophical research up to the last works of the critical period. This motive is clearly visible in the most skeptical work of early Kant - in "Dreams ...", and it was he who, along with became one of the reasons for the metaphysical outburst in the Dissertation of 1770. It is no coincidence that he includes the concept of moral perfection among the real concepts of reason, which in The difference from theoretical perfection does not deal with the knowledge of the world and things, their essence, etc., but with what should be due to freedom (per libertatem).

It is significant that in his letter to Hertz, criticizing the ideas of his own dissertation, Kant recognizes the possibility of a real application of reason in the field of morality, i.e. his ability to set good ends and, in this sense, to be the "cause of an object." Moreover, speaking of

conceived by him the work “The Limits of Sensibility and Reason”, he includes in its composition both theoretical and practical parts, where, respectively, the concepts relating to the sensory world and its knowledge and the concepts that make up the nature of morality should be considered. Moreover, it is precisely with regard to the “pure principles” of the latter that Kant claims that he “has already achieved quite noticeable results before.” However, for the final implementation of this plan, i.e. it took him several more years after writing the first Critique to develop a doctrine of practical reason. It is important, however, that during the entire long process of the origin and maturation of the ideas of critical philosophy, the problems of cognition and morality, the world and man, truth and goodness appeared for the thinker in a direct, complementary and mutually corrective connection.

I. Introduction.

II. "Precritical" period.

III. critical period.

IV. "Critique of Pure Reason".

V. The concept of a priori and its role in Kant's theoretical philosophy.

VII. Ethics. Moral law.

VIII. Conclusion.

IX. Used Books.

I. Introduction.

Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in Prussia in the family of a saddler. Birth in a working German family of the 18th century. also meant the acquisition of special moral principles. Speaking of Kant, the term "pietism" is often used, meaning worship of God, fear of God, internal religiosity.

Kant studied at the Friderican College, a good educational institution for those times, where, first of all, they taught ancient languages. Kant studied Latin and mastered it excellently. He paid tribute to the study of the natural sciences. During his school years (1733/34 - 1740), Kant's inclination towards the humanitarian and philological disciplines was finally determined.

Since 1740, when Kant was enrolled in the University of Königsberg. A life full of work and learning began. Kant would later publish some of the works that he conceived and began to write as a student. During the years of study at the university, Kant was already thinking about how to form a new philosophy. He carefully studies the philosophical systems of previous philosophers. In particular, he is attracted by English philosophy - the teachings of Locke and Hume. He delves into the Leibniz system and, of course, studies the works of Wolff. Penetrating into the depths of the history of philosophy, Kant simultaneously mastered such disciplines as medicine, geography, mathematics, and so professionally that he was later able to teach them.

After graduating from the university in 1746, Kant had to embark on the path followed by other classics of German thought, in particular Fichte and Hegel: he became a home teacher. The years of teaching did not pass without a trace: Kant worked hard, and already in 1755, Kant, thanks to his original works, occupied a special place in philosophy, in the renewal of the philosophical thought of Germany.

Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804), the founder of German classical philosophy, can rightfully be assessed as one of the greatest minds of all times and peoples, whose works are studied and interpreted to this day.

II. "Precritical" period.

This is the period in the creative activity of Immanuel Kant, starting from his graduation from the University of Königsberg and until 1770. This name does not mean that during this period Kant did not turn to criticism of some ideas and views. On the contrary, he always strove for a critical assimilation of the most diverse intellectual material.

He is characterized by a serious attitude towards any authority in science and philosophy, as evidenced by one of his first published works - “Thoughts on the true assessment of living forces”, written by him back in his student years, in which he raises the question: is it possible to criticize great scientists , great philosophers? And he comes to the conclusion that it is possible if the researcher has arguments worthy of the opponent's arguments.

Kant proposes to consider a new, before him unknown, non-mechanical picture of the world. In 1755, in his work "The General Natural History and Theory of the Sky," he tries to solve this problem. All bodies in the universe consist of material particles - atoms, which have inherent forces of attraction and repulsion. This idea was put by Kant as the basis of his cosmogonic theory. In its original state, Kant believed, the Universe was a chaos of various material particles scattered in the world space. Under the influence of their inherent force of attraction, they move (without an external, divine push!) towards each other, and "scattered elements with high density, due to attraction, collect around themselves all matter with a lower specific gravity." On the basis of attraction and repulsion, various forms of motion of matter, Kant builds his cosmogonic theory. He believed that his hypothesis of the origin of the universe and planets explains literally everything: their origin, and the position of the orbits, and the origin of movements. Recalling the words of Descartes “Give me matter and motion, and I will build the world!” give me matter, and I will show you how the world should arise from it”

This cosmogonic hypothesis of Kant had a huge impact on both the development of philosophical thought and science. The materialistic ideas of his cosmogonic theory led Kant himself to a critical attitude towards the then dominant formal logic, which did not allow contradictions, while the real world in all its manifestations was full of them. At the same time, even in his “pre-critical” period of activity, Kant faced the problem possibilities of knowledge and above all scientific knowledge.

III. critical period.

Kant's desire to create a philosophy that countered the "destructive skepticism and unbelief" that flourished in France and timidly made its way to Germany during the Sturm und Drang movement led Kant to his most characteristic "critical" period.

The specific Kantian philosophy, which laid the foundations of all German classical philosophy, was formed after the publication of his three Critiques - the Critique of Pure Reason (1781), the Critique of Practical Reason (1788), and the Critique of Judgment (1790). All these works are connected by a single idea and represent successive steps in the substantiation of the system of transcendental idealism (as Kant called his philosophical system). The second period of Kant’s work is called “critical” not only because “the main works of this period were called critics, but because Kant set himself the task of conducting a critical analysis of all the philosophy that preceded him; to oppose a critical approach in assessing the capabilities and abilities of a person to the dogmatic approach that prevailed before him, as he believed. In the first of these books, Kant expounded the doctrine of knowledge, in the second - ethics, in the third - aesthetics and the doctrine of expediency in nature. The basis of all these works is the doctrine of "things in themselves" and "phenomena".

According to Kant, there is a world of things independent of human consciousness (from sensations, thinking), it affects the senses, causing sensations in them. Such an interpretation of the world indicates that Kant approaches its consideration as a materialist philosopher. But as soon as he proceeds to study the question of the limits and possibilities of human cognition, its forms, he declares that the world of essences is the world of “things in themselves”, i.e. unknowable through reason, but being the subject of faith (God, soul, immortality). Thus, “Things in themselves”, according to Kant, are transcendent, i.e. otherworldly, exist outside of time and space. Hence his idealism was called transcendental idealism.

Introduction

One of the brightest representatives of subjective idealism is Immanuel Kant (1732-1804), who called his philosophy transcendental idealism.

Kant's life was uneventful. He lived a quiet and measured life, traveled little and acquired a reputation as a very punctual person.

Kant, like no other, combined the speculative originality of Plato with the encyclopedic quality of Aristotle, and therefore his philosophy is considered the pinnacle of the entire history of philosophy until the 20th century.

In the "pre-critical" period, I. Kant stood on the positions of natural-scientific materialism. The problems of cosmology, mechanics, anthropology and physical geography were at the center of his interests. Under the influence of Newton, I. Kant formed his views on the cosmos, the world as a whole.

In the "critical" period, I. Kant was occupied with the problems of cognition, ethics, aesthetics, logic, and social philosophy. Three fundamental philosophical works appeared during this period: Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, Critique of Judgment.

Kant begins with the question of how a priori, metaphysical knowledge is possible, and ends with the conclusion: a priori knowledge is possible in the form of mathematics and theoretical natural science, since here a priori forms have an object, sensual images. But metaphysics is impossible, since God, the soul and nature are “things in themselves”, people do not and cannot have their sensual images. This is the essence of Kantian agnosticism.

First of all, Kant comes to the conclusion that the disclosure of concepts does not give real knowledge, because it does not expand knowledge, does not add new information to the known.

According to the teachings of Kant, the object of knowledge is constructed by human consciousness from sensory material with the help of a priori forms of reason.

Kant's criticism of rational thinking had a dialectical character. Kant distinguished between intellect and reason. He believed that the rational concept is higher and dialectical in nature. In this regard, of particular interest is his teaching on the contradictions, antinomies of reason. According to Kant, the mind, solving the question of the finiteness or infinity of the world, its simplicity or complexity, and so on, falls into contradictions. Dialectics, according to Kant, has a negative negative meaning: with equal persuasiveness one can prove that the world is finite in space and time (thesis) and that it is infinite in time and space (antithesis). As an agnostic, Kant erroneously believed that such antinomies were unresolvable. Nevertheless, his doctrine of the antinomies of reason was directed against metaphysics and the very posing of the question of contradictions contributed to the development of a dialectical view of the world.

Creativity of Immanuel Kant in the pre-critical and critical period

With the name of the great German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) link the beginning of German classical philosophy. For more than two centuries, Kant's work has been subjected to deep, often ardent and passionate study, thousands of articles and books have been written about him, and special journals devoted to his ideas and their development are still being published. Today it is hardly possible to find in the thought or life of Kant any "back street" that would remain unknown to researchers. But at the same time, Kant in his mental life constantly touched on such eternal questions that will never be answered definitively, so the analysis of his ideas is a necessary moment in the study of philosophy.

In the history of philosophy, Immanuel Kant is often regarded as the most important philosopher after Plato and Aristotle.

Kant's life is not rich in outward events. He was born in a family of artisans in Königsberg, at the age of seventeen he entered the University of Königsberg, where he studied theology, natural sciences and philosophy. For several years, Kant earned his living as a home teacher, then he got a job as a Privatdozent, and quite late - when he was 47 years old! are professors at their home university. Despite the dry manner of presentation, his lectures attracted a significant number of listeners with their content and originality. In addition to logic and metaphysics, he lectured on mathematics, physics, mineralogy, natural law, ethics, physical geography, anthropology, and theology.

Despite the relatively late entry into the university and scientific world, Kant became famous during his lifetime, he was called "the number one German philosopher."

The philosophical activity of Kant, relating to the second half of the 18th century, falls into 2 periods: subcritical and critical. In the pre-critical period, he dealt mainly with questions of natural science and the philosophy of nature.

All the successes in culture that serve as a school for a person are achieved by the practical use in life of the acquired knowledge and skills. The most important subject in the world to which this knowledge can be applied, the German philosophers believed, is man, for he is the very last goal for himself. Kant wrote about this in Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. In his opinion, knowledge of the generic characteristics of people as earthly creatures gifted with reason deserves the name "world science", although a person is only a part; earthly creatures.

Kant made an attempt to systematically present the doctrine of man, anthropology, which the philosopher divided into physiological and pragmatic. What did he see as their difference? Physiological anthropology studies what nature makes of man, how he is created and how he develops. Pragmatic anthropology (human science) studies a person as a freely acting being, trying to understand what he can become as a result of his own efforts.

Physiological human science has its limits. For example, Descartes sought to understand what memory is based on. This problem can be considered in another aspect. As soon as the researcher thinks about, say, what makes memory difficult or facilitates it, tries to expand it or make it more flexible, such a researcher inevitably enters the sphere of pragmatic anthropology.

In the first period of his activity, Kant focused on questions of natural science and the philosophy of nature. The result was an outstanding treatise, The General Natural History and Theory of the Sky. In it, the philosopher outlined his famous cosmogonic hypothesis, according to which he presented the initial state of the Universe as a chaotic cloud of various material particles.

One of the most important tasks of philosophy, Kant considered the development of problems of morality, which determines human behavior. He wrote: “Two things always fill the soul with new and stronger surprise and reverence, the more often and longer we think about them, this is the starry sky above me and the moral law in me.”

The development of ethical problems occupies a special place in Kant's work. This is the focus of his work, such as "Fundamentals of the Metaphysics of Morality", "Critique of Practical Reason", "On Primordial Evil in Human Nature", "Metaphysics of Morals". In substantiating his system of morality, Kant proceeded from the presence of "good pain" as the essence of morality. The will, in his opinion, is determined only by the moral law. In addition to the concepts of goodwill and moral law, the basic concept of morality, the philosopher believed, is the concept of duty.

The moral law, according to Kant, contains the fundamental rules of human behavior, or practical principles. Here is how one philosopher put it: “Act in such a way that the maxim of your will can at the same time have the force of the principle of universal legislation”. This formula is called Kant's categorical imperative. It shows how a person who aspires to become truly moral should act. "The categorical imperative would be one that would represent some act as objectively necessary in itself, without reference to any other goal."

Kant advises a person to strictly and urgently, most attentively, treat the maxims of his behavior. At the same time, one should correlate one's subjective rules with universal human morality. It is necessary in every possible way to avoid such a situation when a person and humanity can become for someone only a means to achieve their own goals. Only such an action can be considered truly moral, in which man and humanity act as absolute goals. According to Kant, without free moral decisions and actions, freedom and morality cannot be established in the world.

Ethics of Kant is closed within the framework of the will and its defining foundations, i.e. internal determining factors.

It can be argued that the pre-critical period in Kant's activity was a necessary prerequisite for the critical one.

The entire pre-critical period of Kant's activity passed under a certain influence of mechanical natural science. This does not mean that during the critical period he abandoned this natural scientific basis for his philosophical views.

In 1770, Kant's transition to the views of the "critical" period took place.

This event took place under the influence of the works of D. Hume. Kant later wrote that it was "Hume who awakened him from his dogmatic slumber". It was Hume's ideas that forced Kant to think critically about the process of cognition. In 1781 his Critique of Pure Reason appeared, followed by a Critique of Practical Reason (1788) and a Critique of Judgment (1790). Hence the name of the second period in his work - critical.

Hume basically rejected the pre-experimental, i.e. a priori knowledge, which in his time was called pure, opposing it to empirical experience. Hume negatively resolved the question of the possibility of metaphysics, i.e. teachings about non-experiential being, information about which allegedly comes directly from the mind, by analyzing the concept.

Hume's radical judgments seemed too straightforward to Kant, and he decided to return once more to the problem of so-called pure knowledge.

In 1781, his main work, Critique of Pure Reason, was published, in which this theory acquired the features of completeness. Historical conditions, natural-science and philosophical prerequisites constituted the necessity due to which the theory of scientific knowledge appeared. It can be argued that the pre-critical period of Kant's activity was a necessary prerequisite for the critical one. If in the first period, Kant, dealing with issues of natural science and the philosophy of nature, he himself developed various kinds of natural science theories, then in the second period his attention was turned to the study of what scientific knowledge is, and in particular to such a specific form of it as theory. In the second period, Kant becomes aware of the practice of developing natural scientific theories, the creation of which he himself was involved in the first period.

"Critical" Kant considers space as an external, and time - as an internal form of contemplation. The "critical" Kant argues that space and time are given to us independently of empirical experience.

The subjective interpretation of the fact of the universality of space and time, which Kant calls "metaphysical", he supplements with a "transcendental interpretation". The essence of the latter is the substantiation of the thesis: only the recognition of the a priori nature of space and time makes mathematics and mechanics possible.

Kant made a significant contribution to social philosophy. In his works, such as , "Idea world history in the global civic plan","To Eternal Peace", Kant proceeded from the idea of ​​progress in the historical development of mankind put forward by the ideologists of the Enlightenment. At the same time, he believed that history develops according to a certain plan. The philosopher attached decisive importance to the activities of the people themselves.

According to Kant, the main problem of mankind is the achievement of a legal civil society. He considered the republican system to be the ideal state structure.

Becoming one of the largest in the XVIII century. theorists rule of law”, Kant insisted that in a true republic universally binding laws should rule, and government officials should ensure strict observance of these laws. Kant referred to the most important principles of the republican structure as “separation of the executive power (government) from the legislative power”, which was supposed to remain in the hands of the monarch, who, however, was alienated from the executive power.

Kant was convinced that the transition from despotic absolutism to "legal civil society" is possible and desirable if it is carried out through reforms carried out "from above" by enlightened monarchs. Justifying the right to criticize existing forms of government and all kinds of social institutions, Kant at the same time considered unacceptable any unauthorized actions of subjects to implement even the most reasonable projects to improve the existing order of things.

Kant pointed out that “if the revolution is successful and a new system is established, then the illegality of this undertaking and the commission of the revolution cannot free the subjects from the obligation to submit as good citizens to the new order of things, and they cannot evade honest obedience to the government that now has power” .

An important place in the socio-historical philosophy of Kant was occupied by the problems of war and peace. Already in The Idea of ​​a Universal History... Kant supported the call of the French thinker early XVIII in. Charles Saint-Pierre to the conclusion of a "treaty of perpetual peace" between European states. Kant pointed out that endless wars threaten to create for mankind "a pitch-black hell, full of suffering", and with their devastation to destroy the achieved high stage of civilization. From Kant's point of view, eternal peace is the same cardinal task and goal of world-historical progress as the establishment of a "universal legal civil status": both are inextricably linked.

Kant believed that if the issue of war is decided not only by politicians, but by all citizens (as is the case under republican rule), then the latter “think carefully before starting such a bad game, because they will have to take on all the hardships of the war” , and understanding this should encourage them to decide to save the world. Therefore, the provision that the civil system in every state should be republican figured in Kant as the first article of the draft "treaty of perpetual peace between states" developed by him.

Kant published this project shortly after the conclusion in 1795 of a peace treaty between coalitions of monarchical states and republican France. It then seemed to him that eternal peace is “a task that is being gradually” solved and is getting closer to implementation.

In the essay “Towards Eternal Peace”, six “preliminary articles” of the project proposed by Kant were first formulated: 1) “a peace treaty destroys all existing causes of a future war,” even those currently unknown to the contracting parties (by, for example, canceling possible grounds for mutual territorial claims - grounds hidden in unexplored archives); 2) “no independent state should be acquired by another state either by inheritance, or in exchange, or as a gift”; 3) "standing armies should eventually disappear completely"; 4) it is prohibited to use state loans to finance the preparation of war or its conduct; 5) "no state should forcibly interfere in the political structure and government of other states"; 6) “no state, during a war with another, should resort to such hostile actions that would make a future state of peace impossible”, for example, to such actions as sending murderers around the corner and poisoners, violation of the terms of surrender, incitement to treason in the state of the enemy, etc. I must say that until the end of the 20th century. in all subsequent projects to eliminate the threat of wars, provisions appeared on the elimination or significant reduction of standing armies, non-interference in the internal affairs of states, respect for their sovereignty and territorial integrity.

According to Kant, states by nature are “in a non-legal state” among themselves, which is a state of war, since they are guided in their relations by the primitive animal “right of the stronger”. They consider themselves entitled to wage wars to resolve conflicts that arise between them by such forceful means.

Kant stated that if it is theoretically impossible to prove the achievability of "eternal peace", then it is also impossible to prove its impracticability. In such a situation, the most important, according to Kant, is the following prohibitive verdict on the part of practical legal reason: "there should be no war." From the point of view of such an obligation, Kant believed, the question is no longer whether the eternal world is real or unreal, but whether we should contribute to its implementation (and the establishment of a “republican” system conducive to this, which was conceived as rooting out the encroachments of the rulers to lead wars in their own, predominantly dynastic interests). Kant's answer to the question posed was unconditionally positive: "Even if the full realization of this goal would remain a good wish, nevertheless we, no doubt, are not deceived by accepting the maxim to work tirelessly in this direction, for this (pacifist) maxim is our duty" .

Kant explained that "the establishment of a universal and permanent peace is not just a part, but the ultimate goal of the doctrine of law within the limits of reason alone." Kant pointed out that the pacifist rule of obligation "is borrowed a priori from the ideal of the legal association of people under public laws." He exclaimed with pathos: “what can be more sublime than this pacifist idea”, adding that in the sense of its universal significance, i.e. humanistic value, it has "absolute reality".

The teachings of Kant, replete with contradictions, had an enormous influence on the subsequent development of scientific and philosophical thought. With his doctrine of the antinomies of reason, Kant played an outstanding role in the development of dialectics.