The Emergence of Subjective Reason
In Kantian philosophy, a distinct concept of reason emerges: “subjective reason.” Descartes’ abstract reason—conceived as a form of “light” through which he sought to understand the world and objective truths—was called into question by Kant. Kant asked: “Where did you derive these intellectual concepts from?” He argued that our primary encounter with the external world and our point of contact with reality is “sensation.” We possess sensory intuition, but we lack intellectual intuition. Challenging the source of the rational concepts accepted by Descartes, Kant responded (as articulated in his Critique of Practical Reason) that we have not derived these concepts from anywhere external; rather, they pertain to ourselves and are a priori.
Fundamentally, these concepts do not relate to anything outside of us; they belong to the “subject” or the “knowing agent.” In other words, human reason is subjective and self-founded—a term used here strictly to denote cognitive autonomy, distinct from how “self-founded reason” might be used in contemporary theological discourse. The “self” in “self-founded” refers to the knowing subject, meaning that rational concepts are inherent to the human psyche. These concepts are not extracted or abstracted from the texture of reality. Thus, reason is not an illuminator or a lamp, but a veil. If reason were a lamp, upon reaching categories and concepts, it would cast light on them and discover them; however, Kant asserts that these rational concepts belong to us. When we perceive the world through these concepts, we have not received them from the world; rather, we have projected them onto the world.
The Analogy of the Mental Spectacles
Consider the analogy of spectacles: if we wear clear, colorless, and clean glasses, they help us see our surroundings better. However, sometimes these glasses are tinted or angled, distorting our vision. We perceive the exterior as colored, but that color belongs to the glasses we have projected onto the exterior. Kant maintains that all the rational categories we speak of—categories such as space and time, existence, non-existence, cause, effect, unity, and plurality—belong to us.
Structural Skepticism and the Inaccessibility of Reality
We encounter this world through sensation, but as soon as we attempt to give structure to this world, we utilize space and time, which are categories within our own minds. These categories are like a tint that cannot be separated from the “spectacles” of our mind. This reason is subjective and mental. Consequently, reason is a mental phenomenon, and rational studies are mental inquiries that do not relate to the external world. When you wish to know the external world, you turn to sensation; yet you can never know sensation without the mediation of the mind. Therefore, you are always casting your own “color” upon the world.
Accordingly, in Kantian philosophy, science falls into a type of “established” and “structural” skepticism. This structural skepticism is distinct from Descartes’ initial methodological doubt. In Kant’s thought, our image and discourse regarding the world is our “interpretation” and belongs to us; it is not that we can access the text of reality as it is, unless the world’s text has revealed itself to us only to the extent of our own capacity.
The Stability of Reason and the “Thing-in-Itself”
Despite this, for Kant, this reason possessed a degree of stability. Reason was like spectacles that are, for instance, part of our genetic makeup—unchangeable and fixed. We cannot know the world as it is, but we can know ourselves because we all share the same spectacles. Communication among humans regarding a subject is not problematic, but knowing the world and the “thing-in-itself” (the noumenon) is impossible. Objects outside of us are always “objects for us,” and we only know phenomena. Phenomena are the products of our own mental processing. In fact, we construct knowledge and give “form” to the world, rather than discovering a form within the world.
The Delegitimization of Divine Law and Transcendental Reason
In Descartes, intuitive reason and, subsequently, inferential reason were neglected or denied, leading to the eventual delegitimization of revelation and divine law. Descartes was not an atheist, but he was detached from divine law. Being detached from divine law did not pose a significant crisis in Christianity, as they had previously set aside strict religious legalism. Historically, the divine law underlying Christianity was the Law of Moses, which was marginalized after a time. Thus, setting aside divine law in a Christian context did not create much friction, and provoked little theological resistance.
However, in Kant’s philosophy, the concepts of God, immortality, and even the abstract concept of the soul and the soul’s image of itself were all considered mental, a priori images—merely our “spectacles.” On this basis, our encounter with the world occurs only through sensation and the mediation of the mental spectacles called “reason.” Because reason is a mental phenomenon, it is not an objectively “transcendent” entity, but rather a quasi-transcendent or “transcendental” one. Reason is transcendental because it is not bound by specific time or place, and it is common to all and fixed. It resembles the transcendent, but a transcendent reality does not actually exist as an accessible object of knowledge; rather, it is a concept we carry with us—merely a lens.
The Transformation of Metaphysics into Epistemology
Consequently, “reason” in Kantian philosophy not only lacks a transcendent dimension but also completely loses its “illuminating” quality regarding objective truths. By neglecting intuitive reason, Descartes had already begun to wither the roots of reason’s enlightenment, but Kant explicitly formalizes this. This issue impacted the meaning and scope of science, resulting in the total invalidation of metaphysical discussions that reason sought to engage in through abstract methods.
We no longer have a field called “metaphysics,” and metaphysics is not a “science.” Knowledge of the supernatural is merely knowledge of the various angles of the human mind itself. In studying the supernatural, we only imagine and hallucinate that we are knowing the world. Therefore, metaphysics is nothing but epistemology and the study of our own cognition. This is why it is said that in Kantian philosophy, metaphysics was transformed into epistemology. Kant argued that from the beginning, metaphysics was fundamentally nothing but epistemology; metaphysics was an illusion. We thought we were knowing God, immortality, and the soul; these are our own mental concepts, and we were actually knowing our own mental constructs. Thus, the reality of metaphysics is nothing but epistemology. The knowledge of the world occurs in physics. There, too, we do not know the truth of the world or the noumenon; rather, we know the world as it takes form within the framework of our subjectivity. In the study of physics, we give form to the world rather than receiving a form from it.
- Source: Hamid Parsania, The Philosophy and Methodology of Social Sciences
