 Welcome to this course on aspects of western philosophy lecture 20 module 20. This lecture is a little special, because it is about a very special philosopher Immanuel Kant, who is also known as the prophet of enlightenment. Kant in Europe in the philosophical world is almost synonymous with Kant's contributions is thinking and he is a perfect representative of the spirit of enlightenment. Kant even has written an essay, what is enlightenment? Of course, we would be discussing some aspects of this essay in our later lectures, not in this one. So, we will be dealing with Immanuel's Kant's contributions to philosophy with two three lectures, because is as I mentioned in the beginning is a very special thinker, is a very special philosopher and one of the greatest philosophers in the entire world. And so today what I am going to do in this lecture is that I will introduce the notion of critical philosophy, which for which Kant is known, well known Kant is known as a philosopher, a critical philosopher. And for various reasons of course, and one of the reasons is that he has some of his major contributions are in this direction, where he conceives philosophies objective as critiquing, critiquing what that is a question. So, we have been examining in the previous some of these previous lectures, particularly after I introduced the contributions of rationalist thinkers like Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume. All these philosophers have been engaged in a form of critiquing, no doubt. They were all examining the limitations, the scope, the nature of something, what is that something, for them it was a human mind. And of course, by studying the human mind, they thought they can study human understanding and human knowledge as well. And they have opposing conceptions of knowledge, the rationalist held that all knowledge is a priori, which is already there in the mind. And for the empiricist, the emphasis is on experience, so knowledge for them is a result of experience. And when you come to the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, there is something special about it. He has these two traditions in the background, the rationalist and the empiricist. In one sense, he begins with rationalism. He was tremendously influenced by many people including Wolf, who was a German representative of the rationalist school, then Leibniz was also there. So, he was tremendously influenced by these thinkers, but gradually he developed a kind of critical attitude, a kind of distance, then he started keeping with these people. And then he was attracted by empiricist, particularly the thinking of David Hume as Kant himself has acknowledged that Hume has awakened him from his dogmatic slumbers. What he means by dogmatic slumbers are the kind of security, the kind of safety feeling you get when you are a rationalist. But these concepts which are there in the mind would explain every process of knowledge. That kind of an idea, that kind of a dogmatic assumption was shaken by Humean criticism, Humean skepticism. This is what Kant mentions and with these two traditions, but the interesting point is that that is what makes Kant important. Like unlike other philosophers, he is not saying that his predecessors are wrong, he is neither accepting them completely, nor rejecting them. He sort of appropriates both the traditions of philosophy and tries to reconcile that is his optic mind of Kant, which tries to see the, I mean he was rather instead of focusing on the contradictory viewpoints, the contradictory assumptions of these two traditions, he was thinking in terms of finding out what would make them mutually complimenting each other, what would make the rationalist more complete if they sort of start listening to the empiricist and vice versa. So, he was trying to arrive at a more comprehensive system of philosophy with this critical attitude. So, this lecture would introduce this critical philosophy, some of its important features as I see them. Then I would also very briefly mention Kant's objective. In the classification of judgments, this is also very important in Kantian framework, we will not be going to the details of this in this lecture, because particularly when you talk about the classification of judgments, what Kant thought was if you examine the possible kinds of judgments, because judgment is something which represents knowledge, there will be subject and object and all kinds of things. So, if you examine the different kinds of judgments, you can probably examine the structure of human mind. And while examining the different types of judgments like a priori judgments, a posteriori judgments, synthetic judgments, analytic judgments and the various combination of these things, he found that traditionally philosophers have accepted the possibilities of synthetic a posteriori and analytic a priori judgments. I will explain what these judgments are in due course, but Kant's contribution is to propose another one, one more, synthetic a priori. So, there used to be synthetic a posteriori and analytic a priori. Synthetic a posteriori judgments are based on experience, a posteriori, they are the result of experience. For example, there are 20 chairs in this room, that is an example for synthetic a posteriori judgments and when you talk about analytic a priori judgment, the best example can be cited is a tall man is a man, something which does not say anything about, I mean it does not add to our knowledge pool, it just makes a statement which is always true. According to Hume for example, these are the two possible types of judgments and synthetic a posteriori judgments are uncertain, they are contingent, there cannot be any certainty about them, because their truth depends on what is the case in the world. But on the other hand, analytic a priori judgments are true or false, they are sort of judgments which are always true, a tall man is a man irrespective of what is the case. When I say a tall man is a man to understand the statement, to know whether this statement is true or false, no one would go to the world and observe, that is pointless. So, can would say that there is one more type of statement which is called synthetic a priori, so that is this contribution and this very possibility of synthetic a priori judgments, how they are possible, how do you derive them, all these are issues which can would later face, which he tries to address with a very unique conception of philosophy which is often called as Kant's Copernican Revolution. So, this lecture is an introduction to Kant's philosophical program, particularly to his critical philosophy and there are basically three approaches in this critical philosophy, we will explain it briefly and we will focus on the first approach, I will explain it what it is. So, when you talk about Kant's life, he was born in Goinsburg in 1724 and hardly left his native place, province and worked as professor of philosophy at the university of Goinsburg and he published almost all his major works when he was a professor and gained immense fame and recognition when he was alive, his books were widely discussed and he was treated as one of the great intellectuals of his times, very fortunate in that sense, his important work the critic of pure reason was published in 1781, one of the most important works in philosophy which is followed by other critics, critic of practical reason and critic of judgment, these are the three critics which Kant has written and that is another reason why his philosophical approach is called critical philosophy. The philosopher of the enlightenment is often called as the philosopher of enlightenment, because the spirit of enlightenment finds his most comprehensive expression in Kant's critical philosophy, in all his attempts in all the critics you can see that spirit of enlightenment, which actually bestows a lot of faith in freedom in human mind, in human rationality and the powers of human reason to get knowledge, so this is the spirit of enlightenment and philosophy was sort of distancing itself from theology and religion and other fields of study which would emphasize on authority and tradition and philosophy has become more and more critical particularly about authority and tradition, so anything is philosophical only if you can rationally justify it and if it is not rationally justifiable something can never be attained the status of being philosophically strong or philosophically sound, this was the assumption prevailing during this period and that is it is in this in the light of this spirit of enlightenment Kant was trying to present a rational philosophical system which has got its epistemology in his critic of pure reason, its ethical and moral theory in critic of practical reason and his aesthetic theory in the critic of judgment aesthetic judgment, so this is an overview about his work and life and now when you see the background as I already mentioned Kant was a philosopher of enlightenment and modern philosophies faith in the power of the human mind to attain knowledge was underlined by this enlightenment thinkers, everyone after Descartes we can see that there is an implicit assumption that human mind is capable of gaining knowledge never questioned its abilities and 18th century western philosophy was dominated by empiricism though rationalist were also very strong it was predominantly you know you would find the influences were by the empiricist and the conflict between rationalist and empiricist were still there during Kant's period and Kant was as I mentioned in the beginning was primarily preoccupied with this problem, how to reconcile these two opposing traditions and the impact of Hume one of the most important influences on Kant's academic career is the work of Hume when he was introduced to Hume where Hume scepticism about the faculties of human mind actually we can see that the seed of critical philosophy we can find in this humane criticism in one sense because Hume who turns the entire sort of you know all these philosophers the enlightenment thinkers or the modern philosophers were questioning tradition and authority and every kind of authority with the use of reason. So, reason was sort of taken as a platform where they will stand and critically evaluate whatever happens around them. So, every institution is being rationally approached critically approached now what Hume does is Hume turns the table or rather we can put it in this way not turning the table rather Hume would examine reason critically the abilities of reason itself was critically examined by Hume. So, he does the same he applies the same thing to reason the critical examination of its faculties and this ultimately led to a kind of scepticism which we have examined in the previous two lectures. The faith in the power of human mind itself is now doubted and Hume would ultimately say that all these knowledge about the world knowledge concerning matters of facts are nothing but what based on customs and conventions because all scientific knowledge all knowledge about matters of facts depends on two things. One is the assumption that causality functions or cause effect relationship the other one is induction and Hume questions both these aspects there is no causality or causal explanation or cause effect relationship it is nothing but it is not a necessary relationship Hume underlines then what is it it is nothing but it is based on the habit of mind it is just accustomed to think that cause and effect are necessarily related. Now, when you come to induction again the same problem he questions induction the validity of induction and with all this the faith in the power of human mind itself is doubted significantly by Hume. Now, the impact of Hume is phenomenal in that sense to the entire philosophical world and particularly to the philosophical career of Immanuel Kant. So, he demonstrated the impossibility of rational theology, rational cosmology and rational psychology which we have seen in the previous lecture. Rational theology there is no concept you cannot any longer you talk about God existence and all these things in the sense in which it was being discussed by scholastic philosophers and many other modern philosophers. There is no rational cosmology you cannot take for granted the existence of objects independent of mind and there is no rational psychology where you can actually talk about a self which is spiritual substance. And it is impossible to gain knowledge of God, world and soul for Hume and again our knowledge of matters of fact is only probable there is only probability no certainty and Hume's famous statement there is no certainty that the sun will rise tomorrow. That is only a probability because it is based on our inductive inference which our induction our past experience tells us that sun has been rising, but that does not guarantee that the sun will rise tomorrow in the east. And there is no knowledge of necessary connection of substance of a self or anything according to Hume and it is in this context skepticism reason critiquing itself. So, here you can see that the seeds of critical philosophy in Humean thinking modern philosophy reason as undermined all authority and tradition finally reason turns to itself and Hume exposes the limitations of our understanding necessary knowledge is possible only in relations of ideas this is what I have already explained only in relations of ideas only in mathematics and geometry you can have this necessary knowledge matters of fact there is only probability and refutation of causation and validity of induction concludes Humean skepticism about knowledge about Humean faculties about the power ability of the Humean rational faculty to know or limitations of rationality itself is being exposed by Hume. So, basically we can see that Kant is also trying to do a very similar kind of thing, but of course the kind of approach is significantly different and the objectives are also different not just significantly it is entirely different Kant's objectives is entirely different he wants to show that or he wants to overcome he tries to overcome the skepticism initiated by David Hume. So, now when you see what Kant says about Hume to begin our understanding on Kant's contribution we have to actually see how Kant appropriates Hume or how Kant approaches Hume what is this view about Hume. If Hume is right very interesting observation made by Kant if Hume is right then there will be only empirical sciences and formal exercises of calculation all necessary truths or relations of ideas will be analytical and propositions expressing matters of fact would be synthetic truths and merely contingent like as I said there are 20 chairs in this room or the color of my shirt is what is it red or pink or whatever these are all contingent facts there is nothing that necessitates my shirt to be pink in color there is nothing necessitates this computer to be black in color there is nothing necessitates this room to have 25 chairs it is a contingent fact just because today it is 20 and again you know when you talk about color it depends a lot on how do you see it a lot of subjectivity involved in your perception remember the kind of distinction of primary and secondary qualities which Berkeley and Hume had rejected. So, all kinds of problems involved when we talk about synthetic judgments and this is what Hume's position is and now Kant's objectives is to limit Hume scepticism on the one hand and the old dogmatism on the other. Hume scepticism stands for the empiricist tradition which Kant subscribes to or rather standards influenced by not subscribed to but influenced by and the old dogmatism here stands for some sort of a rationalist philosophy which believes that the human mind already possesses all knowledge that is the kind of dogmatism. Kant's enlightenment spirited mind would not accept this for him the human mind does not possess all the knowledge. So, I repeat to limit Hume scepticism on the one hand and the old dogmatism on the other and to refute and destroy materialism fatalism atheism as well as sentimentalism and superstition. So, there is one aspect of Kant's work which examines the possibility of metaphysics and ultimately Kant would conclude that metaphysics is not possible as a rational enquiry which is something which Hume also arrived at a conclusion which Hume also arrived at but in a different fashion and with different implications Kant does it because when Kant does it he demonstrate where knowledge is possible what kind of knowledge is possible where is it possible how is it possible what are its limitations and what are its scopes all these things he has mentioned and then he says that this is the limit of human knowledge beyond that you cannot go. So, beyond that if you try to go it ends up in all kinds of superstitions metaphysical meaningless metaphysical speculations and all that. Now, when you talk about critical investigation as I mentioned the philosophy the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant that is the way it is being understood and I mentioned in the beginning that this investigation is into the powers of the pure reason itself. So, it tries to it actually turns it attention to pure reason reason turns its attention to reason itself and tries to understand how this so called pure reason works and what do you mean by pure reason what makes it pure what do you mean by pure means nothing to do with experience something which is devoid of something which is free from experience that is what it makes pure. So, what is that aspect of human reason with where it makes where it is totally devoid of any empirical content there is something pure in the human reason or human rationality that pure structures of reason we can call it and Kant is trying to understand those structures those pure structures of understanding which makes possible all kinds of experiencing the world opposes dogmatism the dogmatic procedure of the pure reason without previous criticism of its own power and enquire how reason arrives at some principles which it is long been in the habit of employing see the best example that comes to my mind is the principle of causality causation cause effect relationship something which we employ in our day to day life in our scientific explorations and you know we take for granted the validity of causality causal principle by seeing the clouds I infer that it is going to rain or by all kinds of you know my day to day life and my scientific examinations presuppose the validity of causal relationship. So, now he enquires how reasons arrives at such a principle of causality again in what way and with what right reason has arrived at these principles. So, these are the questions and Kant as I mentioned in the beginning itself it has a very peculiar synoptical mind unlike many other philosophy like that is what makes Kant very special different from many other thinkers because you know you can see that there is a process of critical discourse a tradition of critical discourse and as it has developed in the west we can see that every generation would produce a set of philosophers who would be critically evaluating their predecessors. So, every thinker is different from the other thinkers they have something new to see and this is how philosophy has developed in the west as a tradition of critical discourse. And you can see that you know when Kant was philosophizing 18th century Europe there were a lot of kind of conceptual oppositions between these two philosophies philosophical traditions rationalism and empiricism. But Kant possessed a very typical a very unique synoptical mind which attempts to reconcile the different views of philosophers rationalist and empirist and in this context I would just read out a passage views of the Kant and Leibniz concerning the nature of Visvaiva which is Latin for living force. I will just to reconcile the two great traditions of epistemology that gave contradictory accounts of the nature of human knowledge for we have already discussed this in detail for the rationalist it is a priori for the empiricist it is a posteriori. So, there is already present these two approaches to knowledge or these two conceptions of knowledge are already present in the tradition and Kant was trying to accommodate both they were mutually exclusive even in Hume system Hume would say that this analytic a priori knowledge is always certain necessary knowledge and which is possible only in mathematics geometry and sciences where there is human experience has no room at all. On the other hand for Hume matters of fact deal with the world experiential reality which is contingent for him where there is no certainty. But Kant just to remind you is trying to bring them together to reconcile his synoptical mind would try to bring them together he would say that we are in a way defending the honor of human reason when you reconcile it with itself in the persons of different writers of high intelligence Descartes, Leibniz all kinds of different philosophers representing different systems different writers of high intelligence and discover the truth which by such men is never entirely missed even in their contradictory utterances. So, he was trying to argue that this men of great intelligence though they held contradictory opinions they are not completely missed the truth. So, there is element of truth element of right approach in all of them though they apparently held contradictory opinions. So, he was trying to collect these different aspect different truths that is present in different philosophers and bring them together reconcile them and present in more comprehensive system of philosophy for the enlightenment. The philosophy for enlightenment is in that sense an examination of knowledge and the knowing mind separation between the world and knowledge about the world. This is something which is so central in modern philosophy we have seen from the very beginning you know the very possibility of conceiving philosophy as an epistemology in the modern world that is possible because the modern philosophers have separated the world of knowledge and knowledge about the world the world which we know and our knowledge. So, there is a certain difference between these two and now the question is as I have explained it in one of my previous lectures. The whole problem of knowledge the whole epistemological problem can be simplistically articulated by an examination of the relationship between the inner space which is the mind and the outer space which is the outside world. So, how this the outer space gets into the inner space that is the problem. So, there is a separation, separation between the world and knowledge about the world the separation between knowing mind and its object of knowledge between thought and reality. The most perplexing problem is whether the knowledge I get from this world is real whether it is whether there is a world outside about which I really know or is it something which I mix up things with it and superimbo certain things attribute certain other things to this world and know it in my own way. If that is the case then there is no certainty there is no communication possible there are several other conceptual riddles that would follow. Rationalism and empiricism have different accounts of this cleavage and can attempts to bring together the separated elements in a to a unified whole. So, here again can was trying to explain this relationship by bringing them together. So, this figure would explain Kant's evolution as a philosopher I have already mentioned about this in the beginning of this lecture that in the phase one we could see that he was influenced by rationalism he followed a kind of Volsian philosophy then later on he was attracted by the criticism of the empiricist thinkers particularly Locke and then Hume where the skepticism of the speculations not grounded in experience. So, basically the rationalist would emphasize on the speculations of the mind which is not grounded in experience, but now later on Kant would sort of develop a kind of doubt about this whole attitude of the rationalist and you can see that in the third phase which is a last phase of his philosophy the most matured phase of his philosophy there is a synthesis of all these approaches which is called as critical philosophy where he tries to synthesize rationalism with empiricism with a use of a critical method. So, what is this critical method it is an examination of the knowing process of the mind. So, that is why it is called critical method the mind turns itself mind turns to itself to discover the basis of the distinction between a priori and a posteriori sources of knowledge these some philosopher would say that necessary knowledge is possible only a priori and everything is a posteriori is contingent, but it is the human mind which knows both a priori and a posteriori knowledge and what is the basis of this distinction to establish the exact scope and function of the a priori and the a posteriori sources of knowledge and again distinction between what the mind discovers to be necessary and universal and what it gains from experience something which is gained merely from experience and something which the mind discovers to be necessary and universal. So, what is the basis of that distinction whether it is simply as what human maintained matters of fact and relations of ideas that is a very simplistic kind of an explanation you say that matters of fact there is no certainty there is only contingency and relations of ideas there is necessary, but there is nothing about the world it does not say anything about the world in that sense it does not add anything to our knowledge. So, whether this what is the basis of this distinction whether you can maintain it at all and here we will see that the important features of critical method there are two of them there is as I already mentioned there is an attempt to reconcile. So, reconciliation of two opposing views about the sources of knowledge reason and experience on the one hand where the distinction between analytical and syndical judgments are being proposed. Analytic judgment as I have already mentioned according to some philosophers the source of of knowledge is already the mind it is innate there every knowledge is analytical for example, the example which I have cited a tall man is a man where you do not have to really look into the world whether it is the case or not and synthetic judgments are based on experience when I say there are 20 chairs in this class or the color of my laptop is black these are all synthetic judgments. But another very important feature of transcendental method is to locate the universal and necessary elements in all knowledge in the nature of our thought a unique kind of knowledge which is common to all experience. So, in one sense this is what makes critical philosophy quite unique or this is what makes Kantian philosophy transcendental. It is a kind of transcendental criticism of human knowledge because it deals with the conditions of human knowledge it raises the question what is the basis what are the preconditions of human knowledge without which knowledge is not possible. So, what makes knowledge possible what are the conditions that make knowledge possible that enables human mind to know these are some of the questions which the transcendental philosophy would raise. So, I read it once again to locate the universal and necessary elements in all knowledge in the nature of our thought it is a unique kind of knowledge which is common to all experience. So, it is a kind of transcendental enquiry which is different from a psychological enquiry which a human others were engaged in. So, it is not a psychological enquiry into the nature of reason considered as a psychic entity. See I mentioned in the previous lectures that you know how these empiricist philosophers are sort of mixing the logical the philosophical and the psychological together they do not really distinguish them from one another. So, but here from Kant onwards we can see that there is a significant shift in this approach he is not concerned with the human mind as a psychic entity rather that is why I mentioned already that he begins with an examination of judgments what are the kinds of judgments which human mind is capable of arriving it and how does the human mind arrive at these judgments. So, in that process Kant would say that there is the analytic a priori judgments synthetic posteriori judgments and one more he proposes synthetic a priori judgments. Now, the his examination is how this is possible how does the human mind arrive at these different types of judgments. So, if you can explain that process of arriving at these different types of judgments you can probably explain the logical structure of the human mind it is not a psychological structure which he is interested in. So, his enquiry is not psychological it is transcendental examine how does reason make possible the a priori cognition and what are the pure conditions in the human subject as such for knowing objects. So, this is what I mentioned in the sometime back the pure reason something there reason thing there which is devoid of any empirical content. So, what is this pure conditions in the human subject the mind it is at the structure of the mind as such for knowing objects what enables what kind of a structure the human mind possesses which enables it to understand the world in the way in which it understands it. So, it is a kind of logical enquiry to that extent. And before I conclude my discussion on this critical philosophy there are certain other critics which he has written I have already mentioned it the critic of practical reason which we would discuss some of the some aspects of this critic of practical reason which has we have included in this lecture series. So, we will be discussing it in this lecture. So, it is it deals with our foundations of morality and again it tries to see how reason can justify moral action. So, what is the basis what is a rational basis of distinguishing right action from wrong action good should be distinguished from evil action how do you do that what is the basis of it. So, Kant's deontological approach tries to argue that there is certain criteria and here he talks about the postulates of morality like freedom, God and immortality of the soul these are according to him the necessary postulates of all morality without which you cannot really articulate any moral judgment at all. And on the other side you have critical judgment critic of aesthetic judgment to be more precise where he deals with aesthetics the experience of beauty and here the question of the experience of beauty is prominent and the unity to unify the two autonomous peers of pure and practical reason. So, here the concern is you know once Kant has separated pure reason from practical reason in a sense it is a separation of science from morality. So, the scientific and the concerns of practical reasons are different. So, the human subject itself or the mind itself or rational faculty itself is divided into two autonomous peers of pure reason and practical reason knowledge and morality. Now, the problem is how do you unify them you need to establish a kind of unity between these two and for that he proposes another form of judgment. The aesthetic judgment is a different it is a unique form of judgment which would provide a kind of unity which would actually help us to establish a unity between the other two approaches. Anyway we are not going to the details of this in this lecture series. Now, the beginning of critical investigation where Kant expresses his disagreement with Locke's crude empiricism which proclaims that all our concepts are ultimately derived from experience. So, this is a very crude form of empiricism everything is the result of experience and nothing else tabula rasa the human mind is a tabula rasa when it has come to this world it was a blank sheet nothing was written on it and experience goes on writing on it. So, all knowledge the ultimate fundamental building blocks of all knowledge are sensations and perceptions according to Locke and at the same time he oppose the notion of innate ideas propagated by the rationalist thinkers. And now in opposition to these two like here I am trying to see the critical investigations the beginning of the critical investigations both the traditions have been sort of brought into one single framework with a lot of caution exercised. The crude empiricist approaches are removed on the one hand and the dogmatism of connected with the notion of innate ideas is also removed. And Kant introduces this position which says that there are concepts and principles which the reason derives from within itself on the occasion of experience they are a priori. So, this is a recognition of an a priori element in human knowledge where Kant is recognizing the importance of the rationalist tradition, but on the other hand he would also emphasize the importance of the empiricist tradition by stressing on the importance of experience in the process of knowledge acquisition. And so, but this is a very important concept in Kant's philosophy there are a set of a priori concepts grounded in the mind's own structure. The mind itself the very structure of the mind is constitutive of certain a priori logical structures which is essential for which is a precondition for all knowledge according to Kant. And they are pure concept because they are devoid of all empirical content they are not derived from experience, but is applied to and governs experience. So, to experience I need them see for example the best example I can cite right now is I have a computer in friend of me a small laptop black color computer. This computer has to experience this object as a computer I should already possess certain structures certain a priori knowledge a priori structures in my mind which would suggest me that the percepts which I get from outside is meaning fully can be designated as a laptop computer. Two object I see around a chair or a table or a tree or a camera anything which I see around presupposes that the human mind is already equipped with a set of a priori concepts which I apply when I experience them. So, these concepts are pure and they are devoid of experience they are free from experience, but and they are not derived from experience, but experience is but it is applied to experience and it governs experience. So, in that sense they are very important in Kant's scheme of things they do not transcend experience hence cannot be applied to super sensible words this is something which you will see in the next lecture. And a child is born with it, but its reason derives it from within itself example a causation the child in that sense it is innate the child has it when it has come to this world and its reason derives it is from within not from experience. See for example, Hume's problem was you see the hands coming together me clapping the hand and you hear a sound clapping hearing the sound. Now, the relationship between clapping and the sound is causality causal relationship which Hume questions Hume would say that there is no necessary connection between me clapping and the sound heard this is causation, but here what Kant would say this that the human mind already possesses the structure of understanding things in this particular way. So, that structure is already there in the mind and it is only applying it to what it sees in this world. So, to understand this as causal relationship that is the contribution of my mind. So, this is the basis of Kantian idealism. So, now the analysis of judgments this is again a very important phase in Kant's philosophical contributions I have already mentioned about these things I am just going to a bit elaborate them there are analytic judgments where the predicate is merely explicative it exhibits some obvious and essential characteristic of the subject the example I cited is a tall man is a man and the synthetic judgment is a predicate adds some characteristic attribute to the nature of the subject. Give us information about some aspect of the subject which no process of analyzing the idea of the subject can give us. So, from this you can say that the all analytic statements are a priori because the predicate is merely a explicative it is already contained in the subject and synthetic judgments are apparently a posteriori because the predicate adds something new when I say the chair is blue in color it is adding something to my existing pool of knowledge. So, analytic a priori statements are true by definition they are certain, but contain no information about the factual world the predicate is logically contained in the subject its negation would be meaningless and the example is a tall man is man everything has a size these are examples for analytic a priori statements and for synthetic a posteriori they are contingent they contain information about the factual world they are not certain their truth depends on perception examples are my car is white this room is large these are examples. Now, synthetic a priori statements are the central problem of Kantian first critic critic of pure reason deals with this topic synthetic a priori proportion the question is how synthetic a priori propositions are possible Hume's dichotomy according to Hume I have already mentioned it there are only two types of judgments possible synthetic a posteriori analytic a priori matters of fact and relations of ideas. Now, Kant proposes that there is one more possible synthetic a priori which is synthetic based on experience a priori necessary. So, Kant was trying to bring back the concept of necessity which Hume had overthrown by overthrowing the concept of necessity Hume had introduced a kind of skepticism which Kant was trying to overcome by reintroducing bringing back this concept explaining how is it possible how can we legitimately talk about this in a different philosophical language. The possibility of R forming any synthetic judgments which have a purely a priori origin one example is a straight line is the shortest distance between two points it is a synthetic a priori judgment which is not completely devoid of experience in one sense but at the same time it does not its truth does not depend on experience. So, it is a priori at the same time there is a synthetic experiential content in it. The judgments which thought itself discovers to be the necessary and indispensable conditions of the very possibility of any sense experience what so ever. So, synthetic a priori judgments are judgments which thought itself discovers to be the necessary an indispensable conditions of the very possibility of any sense experience what whatsoever and what is it? Example 2 plus 2 equal to 4 a straight line is the shortest the distance between 2 points every event has a cause these are all the examples which can't sites for synthetic a priori judgments all mathematical propositions are synthetic a priori as they depend on intuition all mathematical propositions apply a priori concept to space and time which are also a priori. The truth is not dependent on reality, but only our intuition geometry arithmetic and physics are other examples geometry employs inductions of a spatial kind it deals with space and space is a a priori concept they are about the structure of space arithmetic employs intuition of the temporal kind time is also an a priori thing and they are about the structure of space and time and physics has both synthetic a posteriori or empirical propositions and synthetic a priori propositions as well. So, in physical science as we imply both the problem is synthetic a priori propositions are possible how is it possible that is a question judgments that are both synthetic and demonstrable as a priori how do you make such how is it possible how does the human mind arrive at such judgments to in order to examine this or to as an answer to this question can't analyzes the structure of human mind. And here as a result of this analysis he arrives at an understanding about the very conditions of human knowledge how are they possible the conditions of experience transcendental critical enquiry arrived at by reasoning, but substantially true of the world as well what sort of truth they are how can we establish them these are some of the very fundamental questions about the synthetic a priori propositions truths which are necessarily like mathematics, but applied to experience like sense impressions are possible science is possible to counter human here human raised a very serious doubt about the possibility of science. Because for him all relations are probable matters of fact can give us only probability non necessity causality is denied induction is questioned. So, science itself is questioned, but canvas trying to show that science is possible scientific knowledge presupposes that experience which is universal and necessary is possible. Again the synthetic a priori propositions says something about the world it is not something which is it is like every synthetic propositions they talk about the world, but it also says something about ourselves about the structure of our mind. So, on the one hand it is synthetic and on the other hand it is a priori. What the world is to us is the world as we experience it something which I see a mirror which sees the world, but when I encounter the world my encounter with the world is always mediated by certain categories of my understanding which are determined by the unique structure of my mind this is Kant's assumption and our capacities for experiencing anything would impose a restriction on the kind of world our world could be. So, let us take a very simple example if I am wearing a blue glass then the entire world would appear blue to me that is because my encounter with the world is mediated through a certain glass which imposes its structure on that perception of mind. See Kant would say that the mind possesses certain a priori structures logical a priori structures of the mind which would impose certain restrictions on our understanding of the world because every encounter will be necessarily mediated through this what you call the structure which is imposed by the mind. And now it is in this sense he reconciles rationalism and empirism explains the possibility of knowledge to demonstrate what are the preconditions of knowledge all our knowledge begins with experience there can be no doubt in that this is Kant's own statement all knowledge begins with experience. So, empiricist are true in that respect, but though all our knowledge begins with experience it does not follow that all arises out of experience there is something which is more than experience into all process of knowledge acquisition or to put it in other words experience alone would not be sufficient to explain the process of knowledge acquisition you need an active component from the mind as well. The structures of the mind the a priori structures of the mind the structures of understanding need to be present in order to legitimately interpret the kind of experience which you receive from outside. So, this process this coming together of rationalism and empirism reconciliation of these two approaches to knowledge acquisition happens in Kantian philosophy the mind plays a crucial role in this process. And this is known as the Copernican revolution in philosophy will conclude here this is the Copernican revolution because Copernicus places is Copernican interpretation of the universe makes the sun at the center it opposes all the previous accounts of you know the picture of the universe where the earth was considered as a center of the universe now says that the sun is at the center. And similarly in that sense he initiates a revolution in astronomy a similar kind of a revolution has been introduced by Kant in the world of philosophy by placing the mind at the center. So, the world we see it is our mind at the same time it is not a world which my mind creates at its fan in whatever way it wants there are certain inputs which I need in order for me to interpret those inputs in a certain way and understand it. So, these two processes are important the reception as well as the interpretation there is a synthetic process happening inside the mind. And in order to happen a synthetic process inside the mind the mind should possess certain structures air prey or eye which is not derived from experience which is already there he opposes the empiricist. The empiricist would say that these are derived from experience, but for Kant the very possibility of forming general ideas the very possibility of forming concepts pre suppose that the mind should already possess certain concepts our knowledge should confirm to objects objects also must confirm to our knowledge. I will explain this in the next lecture as well. The nature of our faculties determine what is the case in the world. So, my mind plays a very important role in knowing the world it is not a just impartial spectator it is not a just reporter of the what is happening in the world rather it is an active participant in the process of making the world. Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must confirm to the objects, but let us once try whether we do not get further with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must confirm to our cognition as well. So, this is the question which Kant raises of course, it is true that our knowledge should confirm to objects, but it is equally true that objects also must confirm to our knowledge. This insight has been summarized in a beautiful saying, percepts without concepts are blind and concepts without percepts are empty. We will elaborate upon this statement in the next lecture. Thank you.