| Part 2 The Theory of Faith and Reason | Hirohumi Hoshika |
This chapter examines Kant's idea of the "Separation of Phenomenon and Thing-in-Itself", which caused a schism in Protestant Christianity. If you think it is impossible for God to speak to humans in rational language (the Bible), or for human immanent reason to meaningfully describe a transcendent God, then you should read this chapter.
The idea of "Separation of Phenomenon and Thing-in-Itself", which is considered the greatest achievement of Kant's philosophy, divides the world into what can be recognized and what cannot. As a result, this idea, which is said to have originated from Kant, separated the world of science from the world of religion, and constructed a worldview in which there was no competition between the two.
Christianity, which has a history of erroneous criticism of science through the medieval criticism of the heliocentric theory and the Inquisition, saw Kant's idea as a principle to protect religion from science, and moved toward accepting it.
However, as a result, traditional Christianity has transformed into a Christianity where scholarship and faith are separated, denying transcendent phenomena such as "revelation" and "miracles" academically but accepting them as faith. This is the situation of modern mainline theology, which is now the majority in Protestant churches.
On the other hand, conservative Christians have tried to maintain traditional Christianity since the early church by rejecting Kant's philosophy. However, this was not an overcoming of Kant's philosophy, but merely a passive response of cutting ties with ideas that the church considered dangerous.
As a result, while conservative churches intensified their criticism of Neo-Protestantism, which adopted Kantian philosophy, they themselves became increasingly fundamentalist and authoritarian compared to traditional Christianity. It can be said that rejecting logic has led the conservative church to a certain kind of stubborn faith.
This treatise begins by understanding that Kant's idea of "Separation of Phenomenon and Thing-in-Itself" is an idea that would bring about a fatal division in Christianity, and is also an idea that is difficult to refute, and then attempts to overcome Kant's philosophy through an explanation of "Critique of Pure Reason".
The word "transcendental", coined by Kant, is used throughout the table of contents of Kant's new thought, "Critique of Pure Reason", and its meaning has been interpreted in countless ways. However, all of these fails to capture the obvious interpretation that should be adopted in the first place regarding this word. That is,"transcendental" means nothing other than "Pure Reason Critical" or "'Critique of Pure Reason'-based".（Refer to Section 7）
"Transcendental" is a term Kant used to distinguish the view of cognition that he attempted to present in "Critique of Pure Reason" from existing views of cognition. For example, "Aesthetic" which is placed at the beginning of the book, should have been called "'Critique of Pure Reason'-based Aesthetic", but since the expression "Critique of Pure Reason-based" requires several words in itself, the new adjective "transzendental" was devised to express it in one word.
Therefore, this term can only be accurately understood in the overall view of the cognition of "Critique of Pure Reason".
Nevertheless, in an attempt, the title listed as "Transcendental ... (theory)" in the table of contents of "Critique of Pure Reason", the part where it is stated that "... can be called transcendental", and the If we read each of the paragraphs in which "Metaphysical Exposition of ..." is followed by "Transcendental exposition of ..." as "Pure Reason Critical", we can see that this supposedly difficult term is actually used in a very simple manner. It also makes what is said clearer.
This term "transcendental" preserves the classical meaning since Aristotle of "a position that straddles two realms." This is clear from the opening statement of the "Introduction", "all our knowledge begins with experience", and "But though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of experience". Kant's epistemology, like traditional epistemology up until the 18th century, which discussed the relationship between the subject and the external world, takes as its starting point of consideration the relationship between the two realms of "subject" and "object".
In "Critique of Pure Reason", up to "First Division Transcendental Analytic" and from "Second Division Transcendental Dialectic" onwards, this relationship between "subject" and "object" is described in two different descriptive methods.
The former is inference of affirming the antecedent that deduces "phenomenon" from the subjective functions of pure intuition and pure understanding conception. In contrast, the latter's main argument is inference of affirming the consequent that attempts to resolve the contradiction inherent in metaphysics by viewing the empirical concept of "object" presented at the beginning of the "Introduction" as both a "phenomenon" and a "thing-in-itself," thereby proving the correctness of Kant's perspective.
Therefore, the position of Critique of Pure Reason, that is, the position of "transcendental", means taking the position of both from "Transcendental Aesthetic" to "Transcendental Analytic", and "Transcendental Dialectic". In other words, "transcendental" refers to the entire view of cognition that explains the formation of experience from two perspectives: "a position that speaks only of phenomenon deductively" and "a position that speaks simultaneously of phenomenon and thing-in-itself hypothetically-deductively."
Accordingly, "thing-in-itself" as a transcendental realm in Kant's philosophy is a concept whose existence is assumed from the beginning when discussing it, and is not a concept that, as a negative concept of "phenomenon", arose from "phenomenon". Cousequently, the transcendental relationship between "phenomenon" and "thing-in-itself" in "Critique of Pure Reason" must be reinterpreted not as "phenomenon" and "thing-in-itself", but as "phenomenon only" and "phenomenon and thing-in-itself". This is a different relationship from the dichotomy of "recognizable/unrecognizable" based on the law of excluded middle in classical logic.
Kant himself did not deny that transcendence is related to immanence, and he repeatedly stated that "thing-in-itself" are the causes of "phenomenon". (Refer to A251, B61, and many others, Section 7-2)
However, this point was raised as an issue in later discussions known as "affection theory", and the understanding that as long as "thing-in-itself" are transcendent they cannot be involved in immanent "phenomena", became dominant. In addition, Kant's own statement, which is repeated in "Critique of Pure Reason", that "phenomena are not things-in-themselves"' was also used as evidence to support the idea of "affection theory".
Nevertheless, the idea that "thing-in-itself" cannot be involved in "phenomenon" is clearly incorrect when we consider the following points. Kant's concept of phenomenon is a concept that exists as a synthesis of sensibility and understanding, so a phenomenon is an occurrence that is "both sensuous and understanding".
Then, if we consider the negation of "being both sensuous and understanding", "being not sensuous or being not understanding" is led to by De Morgan's law. This is the exact concept of the thing-in-itself as the negation of phenomenon. However, there are three kinds of concept of the thing-in- itself here.
The details are given in the main text (Section 4-5), that is, but the thing-in-itself as the negation of the phenomenon, is not necessarily "neither sensuous nor understanding."The idea that thing-in-itself cannot be involved in phenomenon is simply a result of the fact that thing-in-itself have been thought of only as something that is "neither sensuous nor understanding."
In this chapter, we will show how the understanding of the "separation of phenomenon and thing-in-itself", which has been established in various forms as modern ideology, is derived from the "Critique of Pure Reason", and aim to accurately understand "Critique of Pure Reason". Then, based on four issue points, we will show the possibility that thing-in-itself can be involved in phenomenon, that is, the possibility of transcendent cognition in transcendental cognition.（Refer to Section 4-5）
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