Peak 064 Practical Rationality

So, at this point, a new task is introduced, which is that after legislating for nature, the law has already set a rule for nature, which is the rule of reason. However, there is still one most important task for humans that has not been completed, or in other words, their main work has not been completed. This task is how to legislate for our 'freedom'.

And how to legislate for freedom has entered the realm of practical reason, so from "Critique of Pure Reason" to "Critique of Practical Reason", it is a very logical deduction process.

After Kant solved the problem of legislating for freedom and nature, he naturally thought that legislating for nature only played a role in clearing the battlefield, but there was another battlefield that needed me to build, manage, and construct. In this battlefield, his main task was to legislate for freedom.

The transition from nature to freedom is actually Kant's transition from the first critique to the second critique. However, while legislating for nature, it is also a necessary requirement for humans to be regulated. And this inevitability requirement is reflected in a priori form, which determines the overall human grasp of objects in an intuitive way through an intellectual concept. Therefore, it has a priori and innate inevitability requirement.

Therefore, this inevitability conflicts with the concept of freedom discussed in the practical field. That is to say, do we have freedom? Within the scope of rationality, can we utilize our rational ability and exercise it freely on the level of practical rationality.

Therefore, this involves a question of the relationship between prior freedom and practical freedom.

We see that prior freedom is based on rational freedom, and it is understood as a foundation of practical freedom, because once we have prior freedom or the provisions of prior rationality, we can truly discuss the issue of so-called practical freedom.

So, here we can read that the reason why it first did 'Critique of Practical Reason' and then did 'Critique of Practical Reason' is that when we have already laid this foundation, we can discuss human rational abilities in the sense of a priori philosophy, and these human abilities are presented in an innate and inevitable way.

Once such regulations are in place, we will then discuss what the concept of freedom of practice is at the practical level.

Therefore, the concept of prior freedom is the foundation of practical freedom, and according to its understanding, practical freedom is the independence of experiential stimuli, that is, the starting point of a world that arises from itself as a moral behavior. Therefore, the basis of the relationship between the two is related to causality and the distinction between phenomena and things in themselves.

As a concept of freedom in practice, it originates from an external stimulus, which is a stimulus response process of experiential behavior to human subjective consciousness activities. Therefore, such stimulus response itself contains causality. Because the process of stimulus response is a causal relationship.

So, in this sense, there is a close connection between prior freedom and practical freedom. However, regarding this issue, in "Critique of Practical Reason," we discuss a dialectical relationship between the two.

So I can understand why the most opposing views on critical philosophy I have encountered have turned towards the following two aspects:

1、 The objective reality of the categories applied to ontology is denied in terms of the theoretical part of our knowledge, but recognized in terms of the practical part.

2、 For the same subject self, we have two different demands. On the one hand, we believe that the self is both a free subject and therefore an ontology. On the other hand, we believe that the self belongs to the natural world and therefore, in its own experiential consciousness, it is nothing but reality.

He said, 'From this, I understand why the most prominent criticisms I have encountered so far are revolving around two buttons.'. On the one hand, it is an objective reality that is denied in theoretical knowledge and affirmed in practical knowledge, and on the other hand, it is a paradoxical requirement to make oneself an ontology as a free subject, while at the same time making oneself a phenomenon in one's empirical consciousness in nature.

These are two paradoxes. The first paradox is about an ontological category, that is, a priori category, which is an ontological category. If the priori category is denied in epistemology, in other words, if it is limited in rational ability, it has a negative negative effect. However, in the process of practice, it becomes a affirmed reality.

Therefore, Kant believed that how to deal with this paradox is that the positive aspects are manifested in practical reason, while the negative aspects are manifested in a pure reason. The difference between practical rationality and pure rationality may have been explained in the first part of his preface, where he said:

As for why this book is called 'Critique of Practical Reason' instead of pure practical reason, it should only clarify the existence of pure practical reason and criticize its entire practical ability in this intention. Therefore, if this is achieved, there is no need to criticize pure ability itself, and reason surpasses itself with such ability as a pure hope. Just like what happens in speculative rationality.

Here, he attempts to use the limitation of human pure rational ability in "Critique of Pure Reason" to discuss the critique of pure practical ability in the field of practical reason.

However, such criticism itself provides a new regulation, and it is important to note that this regulation is not negative or negative, but rather positive and affirmative. This is a prerequisite for resolving its paradox.

Another paradox is to make oneself an ontology as a free subject, while at the same time making oneself a phenomenon in one's own experiential consciousness in terms of nature.

What does this sentence mean?

The meaning of this sentence is that in the realm of freedom, human existence exists as a subject, because humans are exercising their own free will.

Therefore, humans are the subject of free will. However, the subject of such free will in nature, that is, in the realm of pure reason, we can only face objects presented to us as empirical representations, that is, we can only accept objects presented to us as representations.

Therefore, at this point, you do not exist as nature, you do not exist as a subject of freedom, but only as a passive object of acceptance.

So, at this point, you no longer have freedom, you exist only as a receiver, as a receiver of another set of concepts formed by the intuition of pure objects. Therefore, the subject at this point has no inevitability, no freedom, and no freedom.

In practical reason, humans have freedom. Therefore, many critics believe that Kant, when discussing this issue, is actually facing two difficulties at the same time. How can you solve them?

Therefore, he directly expressed his understanding of freedom later on. He said that the concept of freedom is a stumbling block for all empirical problems, but for critical moralists, it is the key to the highest practical principle.

So, he said, although this book is based on the foundation of moral metaphysics, it only exists independently in terms of familiarizing people with some principles of obligation. So, he said, as for the lack of criticism like speculative rationality and the addition of a practical scientific division for completeness, effective basis can also be found in this trait of practical rationality ability.

Therefore, here we can read that Kant attempted to redefine the ability of human freedom, distinguishing it from the human activity of understanding the inevitability of nature.

Therefore, he finally said that in this way, the two abilities of the mind, namely the ability to recognize and the ability to desire, the innate principles, have been identified from now on and have been defined according to their scope and boundaries of application, thus becoming a systematic technical theory as a science and a practical philosophy, laying a more reliable foundation.

In other words, Kant provided us with two types of abilities here, namely the ability to desire and the ability to know.

However, his first critique (Pure Criticism) discussed human cognitive ability, while only in the second critique (Actual Criticism) did he begin to address human desire ability. In fact, there is a third ability ("Judgment"), which is the ability to make people happy, that is, the ability of human emotions.

So, the three criticisms are aimed at the three abilities of human beings. Let's take a look at his concept of practical rationality. What is practical rationality?

Kant himself said the same thing. He said that for humanity, there is only one reason, and the existence of reason is human. However, for the same reason, there are different applications, so there are practical applications of reason and theoretical applications.

Therefore, practical rationality is not another rationality different from pure rationality. Practical rationality is the application of the same rationality in practice, while pure rationality is the application of a theory of rationality. Therefore, it is two different applications.