A Study Of The Third Antinomy In Critique Of Pure Reason

In the third antinomy of Critique of Pure Reason Kant raised a dilemma of freedom and natural determinism via a couple of a thesis and an antithesis which oppose each other.It based partly on the conclusion of transcendental analytic which confirmed the strict and absolute universality of laws of nature and partly on the demand for freedom of morality.Kant discussed the meaning of freedom for the first time in the resolution of the dilemma.This paper is divided into three parts.The first part reviews the thesis,antithesis and their proof of the third antinomy.The gain and loss of the thesis and antithesis is analyzed based on Kant's purpose.The dilemma of the third antinomy is concluded as accurately as possible,based on which a way out is trying to be found.The second part gives a profound investigation of how Kant resolved the third antinomy.Base on the division of phenomena and things in themselves,laws of nature and freedom can both exist and thus two kinds of causalities were established.The difficulty is it's confusing to understand the two independent causalities cause the same result.Via a analyzation of the mode of action of the causality of reason it's concluded that reason causes a will,which participate in the causality action of laws of nature.This kind of conjunction of two causalities results a disadvantage that Kant's freedom contains no ability of arbitrary selection.In the third part,the reason lead to the loss of the ability of arbitrary selection of Kant's freedom is found to be the strict and absolute universality of laws of nature.Kant proved the strict and absolute universality of laws of nature in transcendental analytic,especially in the second analogy.However via a deep investigation the demonstration of second analogy has a defectiveness which allows us to propose a new way out.In a phenomena world which is not strictly decided by laws of nature we can assume reason has an ability to interfere the process of the world arbitrarily in the place which is random in a view of laws of nature.