Could we be spontaneous?

While the previous two antinomies of reason examined the contradictions in the use of concepts of our basic space-time intuition, such as the idea of a beginning or of basic quanta, Kant’s third antinomy mixes the basic intuition of causality with the moral concept of freedom, two notions of different conceptual order. The result is a rather confusing argument, though the reductio ad absurdum works beautifully simple by the appeal to the epistemological principle of conceivability: an object can only be conceived through a defined and finite sequence of mental processes.

Let us understand by cause a necessary relation between events (objects, relations) which defines a temporal sequence of those events within a particular conceptual frame.

A. Causality according to laws of nature is not the only way to derive the relations and objects of a given scenario: we must include also causality according to freedom.

1. Assume that there is only causality according to the laws of nature (CN).

2. Everything that happens in a given scenario, its objects and relations, the whole scenario itself, implies a previous state of its elements. The regress in the causal chain can be extended ad infinitum.

3. According to the principle of conceivability, such process cannot be conceived, i.e. it does not produce any cognition. But the foundation of CN is that we can conceive nature through it.

4. Thus there must be a form of causality different from CN that accounts for an spontaneous beginning in causality.

∴ A is correct.

B. CN is the only principle at work in nature: There is no freedom or spontaneity of any class.

1. Assume that there is freedom as an especial form of causality (CF).

2. A scenario and its objects could then be just spontaneously produced following CF and not CN.

3. We can conceive such a finite sequence if it is well defined, however, the connection of the events in CF do not follow a necessary connection, for the freedom or spontaneity implies that the action might be initiated or not, i.e. it is contingent and not necessary.

4. Then, a free action cannot be considered a causal action at all.

∴ B is correct.

A and B cannot be both correct.

In terms of physics, any initial movement not defined explicitly within a particular conceptual frame of physics is nothing but a transcendental object which produces antinomies. Human freedom is a moral object defined in psychological and social terms, not translatable to the basic magnitudes of physics.

In terms of morals, the will receives different mythological interpretations according to the exomorphic representations used in the construction of social and individual identity. In morals, it is the contingent character of the action what defines the actor within a particular frame, while in physics it is the necessary character of the action what defines the object within a particular frame.

The question of how much are we conditioned in our actions, has to include the physical (physiological) and the moral conditionings. Neuroscience shows a greater conditioning that we would like to admit in relation to our sacred realm of morals. Freedom is basically a juridical concept. Nonetheless, there is a realm where our actions become like those of the ancient gods: aesthetics, understood as our will to create, to compose, to make variations, to name, to connect the unconnected…

What is to improvise? To let dance life in us. What is to choose? A wonderful belief in our autonomy. For Walt Whitman there was no conflict. An easy equation: Spontaneous me, Nature.