Saturday, January 26, 2013

Technical Reason and Practical Reason

In the Critique of Teleological Judgment, Kant seems to conceive Nature as beneficial to humans in two ways--as promoting scientific knowledge, and as offering raw material for the exercise of free causality, i. e. of skill.  But, these are one and the same, for, skill is applied scientific knowledge.  Now, the term 'Technical Reason' can be used to characterize such implementation of scientific knowledge, one type of objects of which are empirical behavioral patterns.  Thus, Technical Reason is the source of maxims, which formulate, for implementation, possible behavioral patterns, and, so, can be distinguished from Practical Reason, which requires the universalizability of those formulations.  Similarly, while the human exercise of skill is the natural 'Ultimate Purpose' of existence, human obedience to the principle of Pure Practical Reason is the supernatural 'Final Purpose' of existence.  In other words, the subordination of Technical Reason to Practical Reason in his Moral doctrine, and their hierarchical relation in his Teleological system, are congruent.

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