Immanuel Kant Unconditioned Totality

Kant claims that any attempt to see nature in an objective way (what calls its “unconditioned totality”) inevitably leads to an “antinomy.” Kant does not believe that these “antinomies” are contradictions because they are the sort of fallacy which consists of a false proposition and a false negation of that proposition, which Kant sees are somehow coherent. It is when a person attempts to transcend their own experience and see the “unconditioned totality” that these “antinomies” begin to trouble him. Kant maintains that these are the reason that such inquiry is impossible. It is fairly clear that this viewpoint is in stark contrast to the more popular idea of objectively accessible inquiry into reality. This is especially clear when we think of the sciences and their success in trying to make sense of reality by

These successes have in many ways created a culture which views science with great awe and respect. As such, this claim by Kant that reality cannot be known in an objective and scientific way, and that knowledge of the “unconditioned totality” is impossible seems quite strange. We tend to think that science is a sort of final arbiter of truth about the objective state of the universe. Or at least that people can apply their reasoning abilities and escape their subjective emotional experience and make thoughtful objective claims about the universe (62). Kant, however, had exactly the opposite view from this scientific and objective one we are inclined toward. When the attempt is made to see beyond our own subjective experience of reality, he argues, we begin running into these troublesome “antinomies.” For instance, we can equally prove that the world must extend eternally in time in an infinite regression, and that it must have a beginning in time. Similarly, I can both prove that the universe must have a reason for its existence, and that this is absurd (64).