On Kant’s Reconstruction Of Natural Causality

The question of causality no doubt occupies a very important position in Kant’s philosophy. As for why Kant thought highly of the question of causality, there is a very popular opinion in the domestic academic circle, that the reason why Kant attention to the causality is to respond to Hume’s skepticism, in order to resolve the crisis of collapse of the scientific knowledge building. It should be noted that such a view ignores causality and causal necessity are two different concepts, even if Hume’s skepticism does cancel causal necessity, it can not be said that the basis of the natural sciences therefore shaken, because the process of modern science repeatedly shown that it is not based on causal necessity.On the choice of the theoretical approach of the solution to causality, Kant must consider two factors:First he must follow the inherent logic of Hume’s theory to respond to "Hume’s suggestion"; Second, in order to rebuild the causal necessity, Kant must restore Aristotle’s doctrine of the reason theory tradition so as to re-establish the premise and foundation on which causal necessity is possible. A key step of Kant’s subjective theoretical approach is to deconstruct the past philosophical understanding of the concept of "objectivism". He construed "objectivity" as "universal necessity", that is, being universally valid for all subjects. In this manner he shifted the standpoint from the object to the cognitive subject.Because Hume put forward his views of causality in two aspects, Kant’s rebuilding of the natural causality must accordingly in the universal and individual aspects:first he must prove that the universal law of causality is objective and inevitable, second he must determined the premise and basis of the causal inference, the former can come down to how to confirm the a priori basis of the natural causality, the latter relates to the universal law of causality used in empirical facts. As Beck thought, Kant only solved the issue of the inevitability of universal causality, and did not solved the issue of the validity of the causal inference, as in Kant’s view, once the necessity of universal causality is resolved, the premise of causal inference can be determined at the same time. Specifically, the above-mentioned problems are solved by the discussion of the transcendental deduction of the categories and the a priori synthetic judgments, among which the transcendental deduction not only confirmed the objective necessity of the universal law of causality, but also proved the application of the law of causality to the experience is efficient and proper, especially the argument of the second analogy further discusses how the law of causality is applied to the experience. When above mentioned problems are solved, Kant’s causal theory is guided further to the issue of freedom.It can be said that the discussion of the relation of the natural causality and free causality is the core content of Kant’s theory of causality. Therefore, to determine the a priori base of the natural causality is just the starting point of Kant’s causal theory. In his discussion of the practical reason, aesthetic judgment and teleological judgment is the discussion of causality in full swing. Since Kant changed the meaning of the word "objectivity","objective" is no longer associated with the thing in itself, but rather with respect to all subjects. It can be said that the impact of Kant’approach is far-reaching, it changes the way that the traditional correspondence theory looked upon truth. Since being universal valid for all subjects can further be extended to the agreement by all subjects, cognition can be attributed to be the convention of all subjects and the previous absolute truth now only has relative meaning.Also Kant solved the issue of the natural causality with the theoretical approach which is from nature to freedom, his solution is still has several problems:First, Kant failed to solve the connection of two major areas of nature and freedom in so far; Second, since Kant changed the meaning of the concept "objectivity", that is to say,"objectivity" is interpreted as "universal necessity","objective" no longer has something to do with thing in itself, but rather with respect to the universal validity for all subjects. Kant must solve the issue that how could it be possible to introduce other ego to the cognition, otherwise Kant would follow the old path of the traditional correspondence theory. It can be said that Kant’s "Critique of Judgment" in many ways solves the above problems, in order to advance Kant’s reconstruction of natural causality. The theoretical approach of Kant’s reconstruction of the natural causality has a profound impact on the future causal theory. Since his theory itself contains factors which can deconstruct determinism, the researchers of the causality who are affected by Kant’s relevant theory are not only the determinists but also the non-determinists.