For Kant's moral philosophy, this pure reason means that a set of universalisable moral laws can be established, irrespective of individuals or classes. The logic of the categorical imperative, basically to will only those moral laws that you could rationally apply to all, including yourself, as in “do as I would be done by”, is that there is some logic that exists in and of itself, outside the human mind, just as there is some set of abstract universal rights existing outside the human mind.
“What does this mean? Impersonal reason, having outside itself neither a base on which it can pose itself, nor an object to which it can oppose itself, nor a subject with which it can compose itself, is forced to turn head over heels, in posing itself, opposing itself and composing itself – position, opposition, composition. Or, to speak Greek – we have thesis, antithesis and synthesis. For those who do not know the Hegelian language, we shall give the ritual formula: affirmation, negation and negation of the negation.” (p 98)
By this method, the real material world is simply built up, in a series of logical abstractions. Now, it may be true that this is, in fact, the case, if you believe in the mathematical universe hypothesis, as some, like Elon Musk, do, the idea that we are all living in a computer simulation, as with “The Matrix”. Indeed, the more we understand the nature of matter and energy, the more we understand it in terms of information, which is fundamental to understanding things like quantum entanglement, and so on. Some scientists involved in superstring theory have also identified self-correcting code at its heart. It would require a universe built up of mathematical laws, much as would be the case of creating a computer model.
But, even were you to accept this speculative hypothesis, for the human beings acting inside this simulation, it would make no difference to their behaviour, or basis of trying to make sense of this virtual world, in which they lived. Even to arrive at a conclusion that the world is virtual, you have to begin by analysing what is in front of your face, and its laws of motion.
Marx gives the example of a house.
“Is it surprising that, if you let drop little by little all that constitutes the individuality of a house, leaving out first of all the materials of which it is composed, then the form that distinguishes it, you end up with nothing but a body; that, if you leave out of account the limits of this body; you soon have nothing but a space – that if, finally, you leave out of the account the dimensions of this space, there is absolutely nothing left but pure quantity, the logical category?” (p 98-9)
But, man did not first develop the abstract category house, before going on to construct houses. Man, first, sought shelter, in what Nature already provided, which takes a variety of forms. Then, s/he constructed shelters from wood and animal hides, or mud and clay, followed by bricks and so on. The material construction in these multiplicity of forms precedes the development of the abstract category “house”, from all these different forms. The category is a word, an element of language, which is a vocalisation of a label or description of what already exists in the material world.
Locke makes a similar argument in relation to colour. How would you describe “green” to someone who has never seen anything green? The same is true with things such as measurement. The foot, as a unit of length is an abstraction from the large variety of human feet, previously used as a rough unit of length before some standard unit became required.
“If we abstract thus from every subject all the alleged accidents, animate or inanimate, men or things, we are right in saying that in the final abstraction, the only substance left is the logical category. Thus the metaphysicians who, in making these abstractions, think they are making analyses, and who, the more they detach themselves from things, imagine themselves to be getting all the nearer to the point of penetrating to their core – these metaphysicians in turn are right in saying that things here below are embroideries of which the logical categories constitute the canvas.” (p 99)
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