Kant’s Philosophy: Key Concepts and Influences
Key Influences on Kant’s Philosophy
Rationalists: Descartes, Spinoza
Empiricists: Locke, Berkeley, Hume
Rationalist Conclusions
Our reason imposes important conditions on how we perceive the world.
Empiricist Conclusions
Our knowledge of the world comes from perceptions.
Kant’s Synthesis of Rationalism and Empiricism
Kant synthesizes rationalist and empiricist ideas. He acknowledges the structure of our reason (Descartes) but argues that we can only know the world as it appears to us, not as it is in itself (Hume).
A Priori Forms of Sensibility
Space and time are a priori forms of sensibility, meaning they are prior to experience but apply to it. They are conditions of possibility for all experience, as experience cannot occur without time and place.
Conception of Knowledge and Consciousness
Human consciousness is not a passive receiver of sensations. It actively shapes our conceptions of the world, adapting our feelings to our forms of sensibility.
Interpretation of Causality
Kant considers causality a quality of human reason. The law governing causality is absolute because human reason perceives everything as a cause-and-effect relationship.
Structure of Knowledge: Matter and Form
Kant posits two moments (matter and form) that enable sensitive knowledge prior to any other kind of knowledge. The effects of objects on our senses are given a posteriori and are the subject of knowing at the level of sensitivity. The ordering of feelings in certain relations is the form, which is not given a posteriori but is a priori in the spirit. The union of sensations (matter and form) is the phenomenon.
Kant’s Philosophical Approach
Kant (1724-1804) believed that both perception and reason play important roles in how we perceive the world, a concept known as transcendental idealism.
Life of Kant
Kant, the son of a saddler, lived most of his life in his hometown of Königsberg (East Prussia), where he also died. He was greatly influenced by religiosity, with saving the Christian faith being of utmost importance to him.
Key Works
- Critique of Pure Reason
- What is Enlightenment?
Philosophical Project
Through criticism, Kant sought to analyze the capacity of human reason, distinguishing between legitimate claims and aspects that can never be known.
Pure Reason
Fundamental Contributions: Copernican Revolution
Kant synthesized contributions from rationalists (the base of all human knowledge is in human consciousness), empiricists (all knowledge of the world comes from perceptions), and Hume (clear limits to the conclusions we can draw from our feelings).
The Copernican Revolution reflects Kant’s rejection of the traditional conception of knowledge, where the subject submits to things to know them. Instead, Kant argues that the subject is active, and things must conform to our knowledge. If we assume that an object must undergo a priori formal conditions of the structure of our cognitive faculties, we can understand that we only know phenomena, not things in themselves (noumena). This shift refers to the fact that we can only understand a priori knowledge if we accept transcendental idealism as a true philosophy.