Limits of Human Reason

Philosophy 720 [Kant]

5/11/2013

Limits of Human Reason

On the Regulative Employment of Transcendental Ideas

One of the main sources of pride among humanity is the ability to reason. Humans can think critically, solve problems, and use their intellect to gain a better understanding of the world around them. When presented with an experience or set of experiences, humans can use their reason to connect the information, process it, and arrive at a conclusion. However, reason remains reliable only when dealing with ideas that humans have experienced. We humans have an innate curiosity that compels us to come up with an explanation for everything. When we cannot explain something based on what we know from experience, we try to use reason to fill the gaps. This is where the serious problems arise.

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Immanuel Kant explains that when reason deals with ideas that can be experienced, it can lead to truth. However, when reason deals with transcendental ideas, ideas that go beyond the possibility of human understanding, reason can only lead to an illusion. Human reason has a strong propensity to go beyond experience to formulate elaborate but false conclusions based on erroneous attempts to fill the voids left by the lack of direct experience. As a result, most of the conclusions humans deem true are often illusionary. Illusionary conclusions believed to be truths are then used as evidence to support further conclusions leading to the possibility that the majority of human knowledge of the world is merely an illusion.

Human reason is a powerful tool, but it is a tool that must be used with the utmost care so as not to inflict more harm than good. There are an infinite number of examples throughout history in which human reason was used in defense of serious atrocities. Innocent people have been punished due to false conclusions based on inadequate reasoning. Genocide has occurred for the same reason. Racism, sexism, and intolerance...