Kant on Transcendental Freedom and Empirical Determinism
1. Introduction
Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (CPR) rejected the compatibilist conception of empirical freedom and causality and presented freedom as transcendental so that it would reconcile the contradiction between libertarian freedom and the deterministic nature. Kant considers the age-old question of whether we are free or brutally determined to be one of the cosmological ideas that the faculty of reason in our cognitive apparatus inevitably seeks under the transcendental unifying condition to have our mind settled on one systematic whole. For Kant, the idea of a free being unconditioned by causality is produced through a series of syllogism in reason because reason rationalizes judgements produced in the faculty of understanding and subjectively infers an ultimate idea of a spontaneous cause subjected to no conditions at all. However, this idea stands antithetical to an equally self-consistent and satisfying idea of eternal causalities as opposed to a free cause. This creates an antimony of antithetical claims that either there exists a finite free cause or there are only infinite causes. And Kant resolves this antinomy with his transcendental idealism that grounds all experiences to be based on phenomena and locates freedom transcendentally as part of the noumenal realm.
For this essay, in §2, I will explain the third antinomy of relation and examine Kant’s solution to the contradiction between freedom and causality raised by this antinomy. Then in §3, I will defend the consistency of Kant’s claim of the coexisting transcendental freedom in the noumenal realm and its strictly determined empirical effects in the phenomenal realm and respond to one possible objection. I argue that by the distinction of phenomena and noumena, transcendental freedom remains in the noumenal realm that do not contradict causalities in the phenomenal realm. Even though empirical effects of freedom are determined phenomenally, I argue that practical freedom is still consistent with the necessities of natural laws.
2. The Background and Solution for the Antinomy between Freedom and Causality
In CPR, Kant articulates an a priori cognitive apparatus so that it would generate objective knowledge about the mere representations of the world for any knowers. It is a response to the skeptic attacks on science which considers knowledge to be found only in objects as themselves. Kant rejects empiricists’ lost faith in knowledge due to our limited capacity to only know objects by appearances, he also rejects rationalists’ dogmatic assertions about arbitrary concepts connecting us to objects. Instead, Kant seeks objectivity in us by introspectively examining the transcendental conditions of our mind so that objects are conformed to all cognizers possessing these conditions. In short, our cognition processes empirical data in four faculties. It passively receives manifolds of empirical intuition in the faculty of sensibility; it also actively schematizes the manifold without rules in the faculty of imagination for the rough unities to be homogenously recognized further; it would then actively synthesize the rough unities produced by imagination with the rules under the faculty of understanding to produce cognitions of unified objects; lastly, it would continuously unify judgments on particular instances produced by the understanding with everything else in the faculty of reason and eventually give rise to transcendental ideas that aim to universalize all conditioned into unconditioned.
Cognitions and ideas are separate concepts. Cognitions are judgements about conditioned appearances of empirical objects produced by the categories of understanding, and these objects are phenomenal, which are representations perceived objectively in intuition. On the contrary, ideas are thoughts about transcendental objects produced by the unconditioned principle of reason, and these objects in themselves are noumenal, which are unperceivable as objective realities because their existence cannot be known but only implied as the ground that holds any empirical intuition. In other words, ideas are produced by our restless minds that are unsettled with answers to mere phenomena and seek beyond appearances in sensibilities about the nature of a transcendent reality that is, in theory, unknowable by finite beings.
Some of the transcendental ideas are cosmological regarding the totality of the conditioned causalities. They can be categorized into four groups according to the rules of understanding when not applied to phenomena but noumena. Each group forms antinomic pairs where each side can only prove itself in reductio arguments that invoke contradiction in the opposite. The theses represent rationalists’ dogmatic views that artificially invent a purely intellectual origin for all empirical objects in the noumenal sense. The antitheses represent the empiricists’ skeptical views that allow no totalities possible with its strictly empirical determinations that run infinitely.
The third antinomy of cosmological ideas arises from the relational category of understanding that determines causality in temporal series, and debates on how the totality of causations came about. Is there an existence of a spontaneous cause with absolute freedom that initiated the whole series of causes according to rational dogmas, or is everything brutally determined in eternity according to empirical skepticism? First, on the thesis side: according to empiricists, if all appearances are determined by causes, and there is an infinitely ordered causal chain, then there could be no original cause as all events are determined by a preceding cause; however, this would render the determination of the causal order an indefinite project and is in principle contradictory to the strict determinism for all in nature as sufficiently caused. Thus, the antithesis is contradictory, and the thesis must be true to assert the existence of a spontaneous self-causing entity. Then, on the antithesis side: according to rationalists, if there is a free cause that leads to a causal chain, this beginning must also be in the temporal order, which presupposes a time before it; however, a preceding time connects the free cause in natural causality. Thus, the thesis is contradictory, and the antithesis must be true to claim the infinite causal sequence instead of a free causality. After the reductio, Kant further argues for the antithesis that if any freedom exists in the causally ordered world, it cannot adhere to the lawful nature, and there couldn’t be any coherent language to discuss it because freedom denotes a lawless causality liberated from all rules.
Overall, neither idea of this antinomy can be proven true in terms of sensible phenomena because no sufficient evidence can be sought empirically. We cannot, through empirical technologies, locate either the uncaused yet causal efficacious big bang or the actual eternality of the universe. Nevertheless, reason couldn’t stop positing these transcendental ideas regardless of the impossibility of knowing the noumena behind them. Therefore, Kant’s solution to the irresolvable antinomies can only be his transcendental idealism that reminds us of the boundary to our knowledge as exclusively available on things as phenomena, and noumena only serve the function that recognizes and emphasizes the mere existence of phenomena.
In this antinomy between a free activity and the lawful order of nature, transcendental idealism offers a possibility of reconciliation as freedom need not exist as a phenomenon, which is brutally determined in nature but could belong to the noumenal realm while connected to appearances. For Kant, freedom is an intelligent causality in our transcendental ego. Firstly, humans are subjected to causal laws in nature as empirical egos who receive intuitions of phenomena. This empirical ego is made up of bundles of experience that indicate who we are and is entirely explainable by causal laws. Secondly, humans can also implicate themselves as having a transcendental ego according to the constant and active synthesizing of manifolds to produce judgments and thoughts through understanding and reason.
This function of active synthesis implies a pure subjective apperception that unifies sense data spontaneously, which is, in theory, unknowable due to its inexperienceable nature. It can act as an intelligible causality due to its capacity for spontaneous synthesis. Even though it is bounded by rules of the understanding as conditioned within itself, it is not determined by anything experiential. No natural phenomena can cause this transcendental ego to begin its function, and the cognitive apparatus would be working in any place with any combination of phenomena. Accordingly, this intelligible cause is theoretically free due to the active faculties that synthesize spontaneously. However, because we are only aware of the transcendental ego by its empirical effects that result in synthesized unities, freedom for us is limited to theories without actual knowledge of it in our empirical ego. Nevertheless, as long as intelligent causality is thought of as transcendental freedom, it can also be thought of together with empirical determinism in the same actions without contradictions, solving the third antinomy.
3. Consistency of Transcendental Freedom and Empirical Determinism
Kant never argued for the metaphysical existence of freedom as experienced but only admitted that the implicated free activity of an intelligent causality does not contradict the natural causality of the empirical world. I argue that these two concepts are indeed consistent because they belong to two different realms of understanding, the phenomenal and the noumenal. And even when practical freedom is applied in the phenomenal realm, it is still consistent with determinism due to its ground in transcendental freedom.
On the one hand, Kant’s transcendental idealism prescribes laws of causality in the phenomenal realm. Contrary to Hume, who denies the objectivity of causal laws in the empirical world and considers them produced from subjective habitual associations of perceived sensations in our minds, Kant instead posits that constant conjunction of events to preceding causes in the faculty of understanding presupposes a rule of succession that unites experiences of the closest relevance. Because our cognitive apparatus demands a unified order of time in the subjective apperception, perceptions of empirical experience must be governed by a law that appropriately assigns them places in the temporal sequence. Thus, there is a law of causality, and it affects the necessary causal determinations of empirical experience and is a priori before any experience. Very importantly, the application of causal laws is never conducted in the noumenal realm. Causal laws are presupposed by the free apperceptive function of the understanding, but they do not govern and affect the transcendental conditions of the mind. Therefore, causality or the determinism of causal successions belongs to the phenomenal realm as governing rules.
On the other hand, the intelligent causality of the transcendental ego resides in the noumenal realm. While noumena arise from implications of a possible ground for appearances, transcendental ego also arises from implications of a ground for the unifying synthesis. Both noumena of intuitions and the transcendental ego cannot be known in objective reality and can only be implied through knowledge of sensible appearances of objects and the empirical self. Our minds always synthesize appearances further to seek objects that are complete in themselves, and it also seeks the totality of all causal conditions in a unified free causality. By implication, the former mounts to the transcendental realism of objects in themselves, and the latter mounts to the transcendental ego that are also transcendentally free. Therefore, transcendental freedom belongs to the noumenal realm as an unknowable but inferable being.
Because causal determinism is only efficacious on appearances in the phenomenal realm, and the transcendental freedom that synthesizes appearances functions in the noumenal realm, they are consistent in their applications. It is when freedom and determinism are both posited in the same realm that results in contradictions. For empiricists, causal determinism and freedom both function in the phenomenal realm because all we can ever know lies in the empirical. So, either the empirical ego is free to conduct causal actions that violate the laws of nature, or everything, including the empirical selves, is strictly determined, ridding possibilities of freedom. For rationalists, the two concepts function in the noumenal realm because a noumenal figure of infinite god-like capacity is posited to connect us with all other noumenal objects in this world. So, either a free rational being causally connects objects in themselves, rendering the causal laws lawless, or noumenal objects are ordered causally, rendering the intellectual free being useless. Therefore, since Kant’s transcendental idealism presents freedom and determinism as concepts in separate realms of understanding, they are effectively consistent.
An objection to my argument might be that transcendental freedom affects the phenomenal realm in the form of practical freedom, which conflicts with natural laws if one could be free phenomenally. To save morality from the ruins of inexistent empirical freedom, Kant defines practical freedom as a causality that operates in nature as a power of choice free from coercion or sensuous impulses in determining the will. However, since it operates in the empirical world of phenomena, how could it be consistent with natural causalities? To this objection, I argue that even when practical freedom meets the causal laws in the phenomenal realm, it is still consistent due to its transcendental roots and application in the empirical as a natural cause.
Firstly, for Kant, the moral law of practical reason is built on the basis of it being independent of experiential circumstances, which is also a pure form of law giving that abstracts from any empirical contents. This practical freedom is the idea of acting freely but consistently within the maxim of your will, which is also willed to be the universal law. It is only because the understanding of the transcendental ego in the noumenal realm is freely producing consistency in experiences that the empirical ego in the phenomenal realm can act without any potential contradictions based on inconsistent beliefs presumed about the phenomenal realm. Thus, the practical freedom that we are entitled to believe for moral purposes is only possible because of transcendentally free causality. Moreover, Kant considers the rational reason that motivates the will practically to be a natural cause since it is only through experience that we know our practical freedom as one of the causes in nature. In other words, practical freedom is still exercised according to the necessity of natural laws. Thus, the application of practical freedom is in accordance with natural causality without contradiction.
To summarize, practical freedom by nature is grounded in the noumenal realm as maxims conforming to the constant law made possible by the transcendental ego; it is also applied with effects that obey the natural laws of causality in the phenomenal realm. Therefore, practical freedom is also consistent with empirical determinism because it stems from the transcendental freedom in the noumenal realm and effects causally under natural laws in the phenomenal realm.
4. Conclusion
Kant’s transcendental idealism reconciles the inevitably posed antinomy between freedom and causality due to the faculty of reason with its emphasis on freedom to be transcendental instead of empirical. I argued that Kant’s conception of transcendental freedom and empirical determinism is consistent because they are concepts in two different realms of understanding, with freedom being in the noumenal and determinism being in the phenomenal. Even though the two connect in the phenomenal realm, the practical freedom that produces sensations bridges them with its theoretical roots in the transcendental noumena and its empirical effects grounded in natural causation. Therefore, both transcendental freedom and extended practical freedom are consistent with the necessities of natural laws of causalities.
Bibliography
Kant, Immanuel. 1998. Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hume, David. 2000. An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. edited by Tom L. Beauchamp. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
