Philosophers believe that, in his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant achieves some measure of synthesis between rationalism and empiricism. From rationalism, he borrows the view that the mind (reason) can help us to attain knowledge, even though he denies that reason can lead us to knowledge of things in themselves. (Recall in this regard in any case that Heidegger in his Metaphysics makes significant mention of things in themselves.) From empiricism, he borrows the view that knowledge is primarily from experience, but he allows, unlike Hume does, that we can make inferences about universals. For Kant in other words, metaphysical situations are located not in Plato’s form heaven or in Aquinas’ mind of God, but in a critique of pure reason. And in so doing, he gives definitive boundary to metaphysical speculation and approaches science or knowledge with reasonable empiricism.
What is more important than things for Kant is the nature of the perceiving mind. Again, compare this view with that of Berkeley. So for Kant, even though reality is an intercourse between reality and the perceiving mind, knowledge is better had of the latter. In so doing, Kant challenges Locke’s blank-slate theory. For Kant, the mind is not the passive receptor of stimuli from the external environment. Rather, it is active in shaping the reality external to it. Through our mental faculties, for Kant, the mind shapes and molds knowledge actively and perceptively. Kant achieves some level of genius wiggle room in this: He is able to show that apriori knowledge (the basis by which we know universal truths, and not the facts that are obtainable merely from observation of particulars) is also synthetic, because Hume would allow that all synthetic knowledge must be aposteriori and on this ground Hume would deny that we can know any universals. Kant on the other hand is of the view that math and scientific principles, like Euclidian geometry for example, are synthetic apriori kinds of knowledge and so can afford us significant knowledge of universals.
In any case, unlike rationalists, Kant does not believe that space, time, causation and other metaphysical constructs can be known. They are not extra-mental realities to be known as such, but only forms that the mind gives to reality. And so, we must not look outside the mind for knowledge to these things. At least not for Kant. And so, we must look at the mind. And so where Plato would look at form heaven, and Aristotle would look at things in themselves in their exercise of metaphysics, Kant would look at the mind, and its intellectual operatives.
It bears repeating, in order to reiterate how awesome was Kant’s discovery, that before Kant all apriori knowledge was thought to be analytic. The fact that Kant was able to argue for the existence of synthetic apriori knowledge was a huge breakthrough in our allowing for our knowledge of universals through math, scientific principles and geometry. Kant was responsible in other words for devising a means to tame Hume’s empiricism.
What is more important than things for Kant is the nature of the perceiving mind. Again, compare this view with that of Berkeley. So for Kant, even though reality is an intercourse between reality and the perceiving mind, knowledge is better had of the latter. In so doing, Kant challenges Locke’s blank-slate theory. For Kant, the mind is not the passive receptor of stimuli from the external environment. Rather, it is active in shaping the reality external to it. Through our mental faculties, for Kant, the mind shapes and molds knowledge actively and perceptively. Kant achieves some level of genius wiggle room in this: He is able to show that apriori knowledge (the basis by which we know universal truths, and not the facts that are obtainable merely from observation of particulars) is also synthetic, because Hume would allow that all synthetic knowledge must be aposteriori and on this ground Hume would deny that we can know any universals. Kant on the other hand is of the view that math and scientific principles, like Euclidian geometry for example, are synthetic apriori kinds of knowledge and so can afford us significant knowledge of universals.
In any case, unlike rationalists, Kant does not believe that space, time, causation and other metaphysical constructs can be known. They are not extra-mental realities to be known as such, but only forms that the mind gives to reality. And so, we must not look outside the mind for knowledge to these things. At least not for Kant. And so, we must look at the mind. And so where Plato would look at form heaven, and Aristotle would look at things in themselves in their exercise of metaphysics, Kant would look at the mind, and its intellectual operatives.
It bears repeating, in order to reiterate how awesome was Kant’s discovery, that before Kant all apriori knowledge was thought to be analytic. The fact that Kant was able to argue for the existence of synthetic apriori knowledge was a huge breakthrough in our allowing for our knowledge of universals through math, scientific principles and geometry. Kant was responsible in other words for devising a means to tame Hume’s empiricism.
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