A Study On Kant 's Causality

A study on the causality problems of Kant is beneficial on our understandings of history of western philosophy, of Kant’s philosophical system and of contemporary philosophy. However, a divergence on the causality problems of Kant per se among commentators of Kant leads to different readings of Kant’mode of causality. Hence, the method of functional structuralism is adopted to locate the causality problems of Kant in a certain structure, thereby indentifying the causalpheme, and reconstructing his mode of causality.Basically, the causality problems of Kant are derived from the theories of causality in the 17th and 18th century, among which are those of rationalism and empiricism. The theories of rationalism can be divided into three types, namely, physical influx, occasionalism, and pre-established harmony, which serve as glue for the metaphysic of substance. Meanwhile, empiticists pay more attention to the conditions of the possibility of causality instead; therefore, they turn the discussion from the realm of metaphysic to the realm of epistemology. Those theories of causality together form the context of the causality problems as well as the solution of Kant, both in the so-called the pre-critical period as well as the critical period.In the pre-critical period, Kant built his metaphysical theory of causality on the criticism against the internal problems of Leibniz’ pre-established harmony, especially on the problems related to monad, Efficient force and law of sufficient reason. Based on that, the theory of Kant can be rebuilt as about the real interaction between finite substances under the guaranty of infinite substance, which is a variant of pre-established harmony in nature.In the critical period, the skepticalism against causality of Hume forces Kant to reflect and defend the doctrines employed in the pre-critical period. There are two pressing causaliy problems imposed by Hume, according to Kant, viz, problem of the necessity of causality and the paradox between nature and freedom. To adress the first problem, Kant converts it into a epistemological problem, that is, how are a priori synthetic judgments possible? In this occasion, the a priori synthetic judgments is that there is always a cause for whatever happened. Eventually, Kant grounds the necessity of causality on transcendental apperception. The heterogeneous problem between category and empirical objects is solved by the method of Homogenization. As to the second problem, Kant tackles it by presenting the duality of appearance-thing in itself and one of causality of nature-causality of freedom. Kant modifys his theory in to a ternary of cause-causality-effect, which is an alternative to the event-based theory of Hume.Kant’theory of causality has resonance in contemporary philosophy. Several analytical philosophers focus on the problem of event-based theory and the factual causality, which are left over by Kant; and the study of freedom by continental philosophers is considered as laying a foundation for the Kant’causality of freedom. Kant’s theory of causality, in turn, fuctions as a usable resource to settle related problems of causality against a backdrop of contemporary context.