On the Old Saw. Immanuel Kant

      Introduction

      “On the Old Saw: That may be right in theory but it wont work in practice” was published in 1793 in the Berlinische Monatsschrift.¹ Because of the issues it deals with, its style, and its place of publication, the essay is regarded as one of Kant’s “popular works,” as distinguished from his technical works on epistemology, ethics and aesthetics. This distinction may suggest that the popular essays are only of historical interest, dealing with problems unique to the 18th Century. But if one considers the issues discussed—freedom of the press, the need for world government, the limits of political obedience—the essays are as relevant as today’s headlines. The distinction may also lead one to think that his technical works have little bearing on his views on popular issues, and that Kant’s discussion of general issues sheds no light on his philosophical position. A reading of “On the Old Saw” should correct this misunderstanding, for here Kant attempts to show how his moral and political theories provide useful principles for effecting political reform. In addition, his discussion of issues like the “right to revolution” helps clarify features of his moral theory and his general approach to philosophical problems.

      Kant here discusses the relationship between theory and practice from the standpoints, first, of a person faced with making moral decisions; next, of the statesman who must govern and the citizen concerned about the limits of political obedience; and finally of the individual who desires to know how he ought to act to realize a world government. And he attempts to show that the only course open to rational men is to act on the basis of Kant’s moral and political principles that are valid both in theory and in practice.

      THEORY AND PRACTICE

      To understand Kant’s conception of the relationship between theory and practice, we must clarify his views on the function of philosophy. Kant does not believe that philosophy is a purely theoretical activity whose aim is an intellectual comprehension of reality. While admitting that man is a rational animal who seeks to understand the world, the motivation to understand is, for Kant, rooted in the fact that man has to act. Unlike the other animals who simply respond to their natural desires and follow their natural inclinations, men are conscious of their impulses and aware of their conflicting and changing desires and inclination. This awareness causes a man to ask which inclination he ought to act upon or which desire to pursue, or whether to act on his inclinations or desires at all. Men have to decide how they are going to live their lives; they must make hard choices between alternative courses of action which they believe are open to them. On what basis are they to make these decisions? What sorts of principles or guides to action should they use? As Kant sees it, philosophy is directly relevant to the way in which a man conducts his life, particularly in those situations where the will plays a determining role.

      Men want to know what principles they ought to use in making decisions. They are asking for a theory to guide their action. A theory, according to Kant, is a set of principles which specifies procedures to follow to achieve certain ends. It is, in a significant sense, a guide to action. Practice is the accomplishment of an end which, Kant claims, “is thought to follow certain generally conceived principles of procedure.”² For Kant, practice is rational and purposeful action, involving an awareness of the end one wishes to achieve, and the realization that this end can be accomplished by means of some specified procedure.

      One thing Kant attempts to show in all his writings is the role of theory in all distinctively human activities. To him, the role of theory is not only crucial in understanding moral and political behavior; it is also indispensable if we are to give an adequate account of our attempts to understand the world.

      The natural sciences are those disciplines which provide insight into nature. The success of science is due largely to reliance on the experimental method, which involves the careful observation of nature. While Kant agrees that we must observe nature to gain understanding, observation alone, he insists, is not sufficient to gain understanding. For Kant, the significant discovery made by the proponents of the experimental method is not that we must observe nature to discover its laws; it is that observation is blind unless guided by theory. Accidental or random observations of nature never yield insight. Scientific observation is controlled and selective: it proceeds by means of carefully thought-out experiments designed in conformity with the principles of a theory. Theory tells one what to look for, and experiments are designed to yield observations which confirm a theory or require its modification or rejection. The relationship of the scientist to the natural order is not that of a ‘pupil who listens to everything that the teacher chooses to say”, but that of a “judge who compels the witnesses to answer questions which he has himself formulated.” ³

      Although for Kant a crucial test of any theory is its capacity to guide action in fruitful ways, and, accordingly, any theory is, in an important sense, grounded in experience, it would be wrong to assume that Kant believed the basic principles underlying the scientific investigation of nature to be generalizations from experience. Kant agreed with the empiricists that experience is the proper starting point for the construction of meaningful theories. But he opposed their assumption that if you start from experience, you must interpret the principles by which we render experience intelligible as empirical generalizations which future experience may falsify. Kant has two reasons for rejecting this conception of the basic principles of explanation; first, that it fails to accord with the status we ascribe to them; second, that if we conceive the basic principles as generalizations which may be false, we question the reliability of both our scientific and our ordinary knowledge of the world, and the possibility of any investigation of nature. The sciences, Kant believed, do provide knowledge of the natural order, and he was convinced that there is something wrong with any philosophical position which denies this. To him, one important task of philosophy is to elucidate and justify those principles used by scientists and ordinary men to understand the world.

      The belief that the principles we use to organize our experience are empirical generalizations rests, Kant believed, on the assumption that the real is identical with the observable, that the observable is identical with the phenomenal given, and that the phenomenal given is or reduces to the content of sense perception. These assumptions underlie an empiricism which explains knowledge, moral experience, and other forms of human behavior in terms of the phenomenal given.

      In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant attempts to show the failure of empiricism to explain human knowledge. While the empiricist admits that we use certain principles to organize our experience, he holds that they are principles which future experience may falsify. He assumes that we can render experience intelligible without the use of these principles. Kant attempts to show that what the empiricist conceives as empirical generalizations are necessary conditions for the possibility of any kind of experience which we can render intelligible to ourselves. If Kant is correct, these principles cannot be falsified by future experience, for they must be presupposed as the conditions for having that experience. If we are to explain human knowledge, whether the kind with which science provides us or the basic perceptual knowledge which we all have of the world, then Kant insists we must grant the necessity of principles which cannot be understood as empirical generalizations.

      Kant also claims that in scientific investigation and in our moral thinking we use certain high order theoretical notions which guide and direct our action. He uses the word “Ideas” for these notions, a word borrowed from Plato.⁴ Like Plato’s, Kant’s Ideas are notions for which experience cannot provide an instance. But unlike Plato, Kant ascribes no metaphysical reality to Ideas. He interprets them as conceptions of goals which direct action in systematic ways. The conception of nature as the product of design is an Idea. Although it is not something we can know, either through experience or by logical demonstration, it is conducive to scientific investigation to think