Ren?� Descartes And Immanuel Kant's Theory Of Knowledge

Between the two schools of epistemology, rationalism and empiricism, I am inclined towards the philosophies of rationalism. I am persuaded towards philosophical approaches which are superior at attaining truth. Empiricism relies on observation using the five senses in reasoning to achieve truth. However, in Plato’s Thaetetus, Socrates gives strong arguments for the limitations of human perception. The Canadian legal system, also, recognizes flaws in human observation, which increases my skepticism of empiricism. Conversely, rationalism relies solely on the use of logic and deduction in reasoning. Both, Plato and Socrates stressed the value of rationalism through the ability to know and express combinations of elements through mathematics. Large

Empiricist philosophers such as John Locke believe that knowledge must come from experience. Others philosophers such as Descartes believe that knowledge is innate; this way of thinking is used by rationalist. In this paper I will discuss the difference between Descartes rationalism in his essays "The Meditations" and Locke's empiricism in his essays "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding". I will then lend my understanding as to what I believe as the ultimate source of knowledge.

Kant believed that there are different concepts and intuitions in which intuitions are put under concepts. Kant refers these intuitions into what he calls the three-fold synthesis. Kant describes the three fold synthesis as “the capacities in the understanding to compare, connect, and unify the fragmentary manifold items in intuition” (A97). To put it in different terms, the three fold synthesis describes the necessary components for intuition of what is happening in the outside world. It allows us to Kant believed that the three fold synthesis is divided into three different types of synthesis. According to Kant, it is required that all of the synthesis work in unison in order for experience to happen. Experience is what makes possible the synthesis of apprehension, in return makes the possibility of the synthesis of reproduction, which creates the possibility of the synthesis of recondition. Therefore, Kant argues, the synthesis of recondition is contingent on experience. Kant also stated that for each of the three fold synthesis, there are both empirical and pure levels. In other words, each of the three fold synthesis have two ways of being interpreted in the mind, one based on our intellects because it is gathered through experience, and another based upon the fact that the manifold works in unison with the others and are dependent on each other for experience to happen.

Kant credited both empiricism and rationalism movements. He believes that they both contributed to human’s knowledge and should not reject neither one of them. So, he keeps some parts of those principles and defines empiricism a posteriori knowledge and rationalism as a priori knowledge. His goal is to explain and then justify the possibility of scientific knowledge.

René Descartes and William James take two opposing views in an attempt to answer the question of what true knowledge is. Descartes takes the perspective of a foundationalist, and James takes a coherentist approach when trying to answer this question. A foundationalist is someone who believes that there is an indubitable proposition in which all other knowledge receives justification from. This method of thought is often referred to as The Pyramid, because the tip of the pyramid represents a belief that an agent knows with no possibility of doubt, and all other beliefs expand from that indubitable claim, similar to how a pyramid expands from the smallest point. On the other hand, a coherentist believes that pieces of knowledge are justified on such a basis that they cohere with a comprehensive system of beliefs that mutually support each other. Coherentism can be referred to as The Raft, because it represents our body of knowledge as a raft that is floating free from any anchor. When replacing a piece of the raft, you stand on one side and fix the other, similarly, when replacing a piece of knowledge, you work from the other claims you have in order to fix the claim being doubted. Both Descartes and James use their respective approaches in order to answer the question of what humans can be said to know.

By the 18th century in Great Britain a new philosophical movement was growing. The observational and experimental was coming into focus. The interest of philosophers in the 18th century shifted from rationalism and deductive, to Empirical and inductive. A philosophy was sought that could conclude knowledge through since experience alone. The philosophers to do this were Rationalist Locke, Berkeley and Hume.

What does a light bulb and Immanuel Kant have in common? They both have to do with light—Kant moreso with Enlightenment, the era where reason and logic took place of tradition and religion. In his essay entitled “What is Enlightenment?” he drew a distinction of reason, splitting it into a binary of public and private. How this philosophical view impacts humanity, as well as relates to my own personal life, is ever more abundant as time goes on.

Galileo and Bacon both illustrate the importance of prioritizing sensory experience over reason in one’s path to knowledge and both criticize traditional forms of philosophical reasoning as insufficient means of reaching scientific conclusions.(Thesis) Bacon states that the best path to gaining accurate and helpful knowledge is to “open up a new and certain path for the mind to follow, starting from sense-perception...the human senses and intellect should not be deprived of their authority but given help” (pages 2, 17). Bacon describes the importance of beginning one’s thought processes through their sensory experiences allows the mind to better analyze and open up your common perceptions. Galileo’s has similar views and demonstrates the importance of obtaining knowledge through one’s senses through his three characters that partake in

Empiricism, in contrast, argue that the rationalists' idea that all knowledge is present at birth, from such an innate source, is invalid . Instead, they argue that knowledge is attained through sensory experience. Empiricists also find problems with the rationalists' mathematical and logical model of knowledge. They argue that these claims, as well as their stand-point on absolute truths, do not provide us with any new, viable, information alone. The problem with this is that rationalism can only provide us with information that is already known. Unlike rationalists, empiricists rely on synthetic statements. A synthetic statement

Immanuel Kant was a philosopher who took ideas from the empiricists and rationalists to create is own view of how humans come to knowledge. Essentially updating and blending science and logic based knowledge. Kant was a rationalist, yet had empirical views much like John Locke and David Hume. Kant agreed with Hume and Locke on experience. Yet, Kant developed a priori idea of how humans learn to learn that was very different from Locke and Hume.

The 18th century is referred to as the ‘Age of Enlightenment’. The trends in thought and letters from Europe to the American colonies brought a new light and attention upon mankind. This new movement described a time in Western philosophy and cultural life in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority. ‘To understand the natural world and humankinds place in it solely on the basis of reason and without turning to religious belief was the goal of the wide-ranging intellectual movement’ (Hackett). At the heart o this age, a conflict began between religion and the inquiring mind that wanted to know and understand through reason based on evidence and proof rather than belief on faith alone.

This may seem peculiar at first, as Kant previously defines intuition as sense-perception. How, one may ask, could one perceive without sensation? Kant explains that sensory intuition helps us visualise physical objects, while pure intuition helps us visualise abstractions— this means we are capable of visualisation objects before their actual experience. Although this may seem peculiar, this, Kant explains, is because when we intuit something, we only intuit our own perceptions: we cannot comprehend things in themselves, or what he called in Critique of Pure Reason “noumena”. Otherwise, all our intuitions would be empirical, and such pure mathematics would not be possible: we could simply see things as they really are, and we would not resort to abstracting relationships between concepts as we do in mathematics. What we perceive are our own understandings and ideas of objects; to understand them as they really are is not just impossible, but we could not even comprehend what it would be

Descartes’s theory of knowledge is essentially based in skepticism. He argued that in order to understand the world, first a person has to completely suspend their judgements of the world around them. This is the impression that the world makes on their mind. In this way, the physical world is not what leads to knowledge. Instead, the mind finds rationally seeks knowledge. The question is, essentially, “should we believe beyond the evidence?” (Kessler, 2013, p. 332). In this way, the ideas are rooted in the nature of doubt. This is an inherent nature of the mind, which is the result of the nature of man as made by God. In this way, the mind is guided by god towards knowledge in its infallible ability to reason about reality. In this way, the mind’s reasoning ability, even in the absence of physical reality, can ultimately lead to knowledge. I don’t fully agree with Descartes’ proposition that only the mind can produce certain knowledge and that our senses are constantly under the attack and being deceive by some evil deceiver. In order to go against Descartes propositions concerning about doubt I will use Locke to oppose it.

Kant’s intuitions are representations given by sensation that provide the beginning for all cognition. Essentially, it is the way in which we receive representations which relate immediately to the object. The distinctions between intuitions and pure intuitions lies in the method of affection. Intuitions spur from the input of sensation whereas with pure intuitions there is no mingling of sensation. Pure sensations are transcendentally ideal meaning they are necessary forms of cognition. In virtue of reason, a transcendental truth cannot be denied and it is not necessary to test since it must be real. Pure intuitions determine exactly how we receive sensory input; they are not empirical and can be viewed more as a process where intuitions are passive experiences that happen to a person.

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is much concerned about the operations of the mind. Though he believed in the existence of the mind, he held a different view from the empiricists when it comes to the nature and function of the mind. He set out to prove that Hume was wrong by claiming that some truths were certain and were not based on subjective experience alone. Kant argued that the very ingredients which are necessary for even thinking in terms of a causal relationship could not be derived from experience and therefore must exist a priori, or independent of experience. Though he did not deny the importance of sensory data, he thought that the mind must add something to that data before knowledge could be attained; that something was provided by a priori (innate) categories of thought (unity, totality, time, space, cause and effect, reality, quantity, quality, negation, possibility-impossibility, and existence-nonexistence). Kant claimed that the subjective experiences of human has been modified by the pure concepts of the mind and is therefore more meaningful than it would otherwise have been.