self in accordance with that assumed law of nature.
Kant's solution is that freedom does not belong to the phenomenal world of appearances, but rather to the world of noumena, about constitution of which we have no real idea, because our lack of intuition of the kind. The causal determination on the other hand belongs to the world of phenomena, which is grounded in our own psychological structure. The former is given to our sensibility and understanding, while the latter is deduced by pure reason. Reason still has its limits and no insight into noumena.
Without noumena we could not give any account for objectivity of the phenomenal world.
Man is a citizen of two worlds means that he is physically determined to the extent of his physical nature and free in his noumenal sense. Freedom is transcendental, natural causality (determinism) immanent. Freedom is real determination is just an appearance, which is determined by our structure the foundation of which is unknown to us.
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17. Explain and discuss Kant's attempted refutation of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God.
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Kant begins his attempt on the presupposition that (1) God is a thing, (2) we have just empirical intuitions of things, and if we don't it is impossible to think a thing into existence, or logic is always abstract from existence or reality. The predicate of being is illegitimate. The contradiction may arises only if the thing with its predicates is given, but if we cancel the existence of a thing all its predicates are automatically cancelled. God does possess the predicate of the greatest, but this predicate exists only as far the concept of God is posited. It the latter is cancelled, the former is cancelled too without a contradiction. Hence, the ontological argument is a tautological one, because it proves what was already presupposed ...
We can doubt (1), saying God is not a thing, not anything like we encounter in sensual experience. It is the greatest in transcendental sense. Also we can doubt (2), and say: we possibly can have non-empirical intuitions, which are transcendent to our regular ones. Still, those transcendent intuitions deal with different kind of reality, or existence, beyond the realm of physical senses.
In this case Kant's noumena becomes Knowable to us when ever we have those transcendental intuitions, which are usually inaccessible for the majority of us, and that is why we need proofs of logic.
We can also say: "God being transcendental sometimes projects Himself as a phenomenon, in order for those without developed transcendental intuition to perceive His at least in this reduced fashion ". At those times He is given even in empirical intuition and is not just an empty concept.
But can we (on the condition of these) prove the possibility of the ontological argument and save it from Kant's critique? I think it is worth a try. I already wrote on the subject before, and believe, can do more and better, but it will be in some other essay, because the limits of this one are already overstretched.
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18. Critics of Kant say that while Hume awakened him from his dogmatic slumbers, the moral argument for God and immortality [in either the second Critique or in the Canon of Pure Reason in the first Critique, culminating in A815/B843] shows him returning comfortably to that sleep. Is that fair? Does Kant's distinction between an "immanent" and a "transcendent" moral theology [Cf. A819/B847] provide an answer to such a critic?
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It is not a precise question, because it does not state what kind of critics are those and what are their favorite conception of Hume. Also, it presupposes that Hume himself was not dogmatic, which is at least not obvious. We could also question Kant's possible dogmatism even before that chapter on the Cannon of Pure Reason. But anyway, we could speculate in general and give an answer as good or bad as the question itself is.
Hume was an empiricist which with his skepticism brought the empiricism itself to a ridicules position, but his reasoning looked consistent, powerful and impressive to many and Kant himself. It was also offensive toward contemporary dogmatic philosophy and theology. But the point is that before and after Hume was a believer "in the name of Fact" as C. Dickens put it:
Now, what I want is Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. . . . Stick to Facts, sir! "(Charles Dickens, Hard Times , Chapter I)
Baconian method impressed s...
