On The Paradox Of Kant 's Concept Of Freedom And Its Elimination

The phenomenon has been taken as merely results of our mind since Descartes, while the substance behind them, which Kant refers to by "things in themselves", is forbidden to both our sensory and intellectual abilities. This is where a typical skepticism comes from:the appearance, not the reality itself, is what can be known to us. Kant mentioned in his first critique that sensory organization can be stimulated by "things in themselves", that’s exactly the way sense-datum produced, which means that there seems a cognitive relation between"things in them selves" and our mind. Meanwhile, Kant insists that "things in themselves", in principle, is not available to our perception and reason. I will provide some clarifications in the first part by answering question of whether it is paradoxical to hold both of two opinions above.First of all, do things in themselves affect us? What affect us, things in themselves or empirical objects? It can only be the thing in themselves. Empirical objects are phenomenon and the phenomenon of Kant is the results of the relationship between mind and matter, that is, what in mind are already the results. It is strange to explain affecting as the results of affecting affect us. Secondly, why we can have no knowledge of things in themselves? Because how the object is given only depends on sensibility. There is no right to assume that such objects can be given without intuition. Since the guarantee of reality can be only provided by intuition, and all knowledge must also be knowledge of the real object, the boundary of knowledge is limited by sensibility. This is the boundary of our knowledge, and we can also have no knowledge of things in themselves. There is a contradiction between we are affected by things in themselves and we can have no knowledge of things in themselves, and it is one of the reasons why later philosophers want to give up the concept of things in themselves.In the second part, I will discuss the Langton’s (Rae Langton) interpretation of the concept of things in themselves. Through introducing the difference between intrinsic properties and relational properties, she can alleviate the problem that the we are affected by things in themselves and we can also have no knowledge of things in themselves. I think based on this interpretation, the above contradictions can be eliminated. First of all, things in themselves have intrinsic properties, and intrinsic properties are not relational properties. The relational properties are known, and the intrinsic properties are unknown. Secondly, Things in themselves are substances that have intrinsic properties; phenomena are relational properties of substances. We have no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of substances, because human knowledge depends on sensibility, and sensibility is receptive:we can have knowledge of an object only in so far as it affects us. So, we have no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of them. Finally, I think Langton eliminate the contradiction in this way: we do not know them as they are In themselves:we do not know what their intrinsic nature is. At the same time, we can still say that there exist things in themselves, there exist things that have an intrinsic nature. But we just do not know what their intrinsic nature is.