FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE: THE LEGACY OF KANT’S PHILOSOPHY AND LOGIC TODAY

Abstract

In our examination we are handling Kant’s famous aphorism: «I had to do away with knowledge in order to make room for faith». In the «Critique of Pure Reason» (Section «Opining, Knowing, and Believing») Kant defi nes three grades of our subjective confi dence in trustworthiness of our judgments: opinion, belief (or faith), and knowledge. It seems that the philosopher did not do away with knowledge at all and even raised its status relatively to belief (and faith). Sure, we ought to give Kant’s irony its due. Indeed, there is a signifi cant mention of a «Socratic method» in the same paragraph where the aphorism is found. Th ough we see that forming conjectures over style is counterproductive. It is possible to see that there is quite positive content in the aphorism by Kant, and it concerns grades between opinion, belief, and knowledge. We fi nd some deviation from an erroneous estimation of logic stated by Kant earlier where it allegedly could not take even one step forward since Aristotle and was seemingly quite completed. Namely, Kant writes that we ought not to detach use of the judgments accepted by means of belief which are simply ‘probabilities’ from the analytical part of logic. Today, with the help of relation of inducibility between propositions, it is possible, using the means of symbolic logic and probability theory, to present the Kant’s thoughts more clearly. Refs 8. Figs 2.

Keywords:

acceptance of the truth of judgment, opinion, belief, knowledge, probability, suffi ciency objective, subjective suffi ciency, logic, hypothesis