Kant's Antinomies. For full video, click link in description.

To develop transcendental idealism, the a priori conditions of conscious experience, he puts forward four antinomies, of infinity vs. finitude of space and time, of atomism or not, of free will vs. determinism, and of God or not. Nothing but the hardest intellectual challenges will suffice. Antinomies are positions diametrically opposed to each other which can be equally validly argued for, making reason seem “divided against itself” and leaving the question it attempts to answer seem irresolvable. Kant may technically have answered the question of the antinomies but his solution is dissolution. He tells us that we simply have to set limits to our understanding since we are unable to look beyond the horizon of our consciousness. According to Kant, we cannot know the noumena since all we can cognise is phenomena, but humankind is not about to go gentle into that good night of solipsistic sceptical ignorance. Instead they rage against the dying of the light. “Wir müssen wissen, wir werden wissen.” “We must know, we will know,” they seem to cry.