Kant's Critique of Descartes: Redefining the Subject from Cogito to Experimenting Will

Year 2024, , 69 - 91, 31.10.2024

Ömer Ersin Kahraman

https://doi.org/10.20981/kaygi.1503660

Abstract

Descartes' cogito argument constitutes the beginning of the modern Western philosophy with a radical break from the Aristotelian scholastic tradition. With this argument, Descartes not only overcomes the radical skepticism of his time by using doubt itself as a foundation of truth, but also places the thinking subject itself at the center of philosophy as the first problem, even though in the later stages of his philosophy he returns to realism by adopting causality that Aristotle considered the fundamental principle of science. However, Kant finds Descartes’ cogito argument erroneous because it treats the subject as a thinking thing in the pure reason itself, independent of experience; he criticizes cogito fundamentally in his "Critique of Pure Reason". After this criticism, Kant's Copernican Turn, which puts the subject at the center of epistemology, and the ethical principle of free will, to which he links moral judgments, begin to treat the subject not as an abstract faculty like thought, but as a will that can be experienced in phenomena. This article aims to discuss first the philosophical significance of the cogito proposition and then the conception of the subject that Kantian philosophy reveals around Kant's criticism of Descartes' dogmatic idealism.

Keywords

Descartes, Cogito, Skepticism, Kant, Copernican Revolution, Idealism

Kant'ın Descartes Eleştirisi: Cogito’dan Tecrübe Eden İstence Öznenin Yeniden Tanımlanması

Abstract

Descartes’ın cogito önermesi, Aristotelesçi skolastik gelenekten köklü bir kopuş ile çağdaş felsefesinin başlangıç noktasını teşkil eder. Bu önerme ile Descartes, yalnız şüphenin kendisini bir hakikat dayanağı olarak kullanıp döneminin radikal şüpheciliğini aşmanın ötesinde, her ne kadar felsefesinin ileri aşamasında Aristoteles’in bilimin temel ilkesi olarak ele aldığı nedenselliği benimseyerek realizme dönse de felsefenin ilk sorunu olarak düşünen özneyi merkeze yerleştirir. Ancak Kant, Descartes’ın cogito önermesini özneyi yalnız düşünen bir şey olarak arı usun kendisinde, tecrübeden bağımsız ele alması nedeniyle hatalı bulur; “Arı Usun Eleştirisi” çalışmasında temelden eleştirir. Bu eleştiri sonrası, Kant’ın epistemolojinin merkezine özneyi koyan Kopernik Devrimi ve ahlaki yargıları bağladığı özgür irade ilkesi ile özne, düşünce gibi soyut bir beceriden değil, görüngüde tecrübe edilebilen bir istenç olarak ele alınmaya başlar. Bu makale, önce cogito önermesinin felsefi önemini, sonra da Kant’ın Descartes’a getirdiği dogmatik idealizm eleştirisi etrafında Kant felsefesinin ortaya koyduğu özne anlayışını tartışmayı amaçlamaktadır.

Keywords

Descartes, Cogito, Şüphecilik, Kant, Kopernik Devrimi, İdealizm

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