One of the greatest philosophers to develop and refine
epistemology, along with other philosophical concepts, is
Immanuel Kant. With careful examination, thought and concern, he
developed a unique philosophy, that of transcendental
philosophy, to extend both the worlds of rationalism and
empiricism. By looking carefully at the former philosophers of
notable importance, namely Descartes and Hume, Kant was able to
a very modern philosophy that lays basis to much thought and
looks upon thought today. Examination of the two mentioned
philosophers will only show their importance in contribution to
Kant’s foundation and therefore the foundation that bonded
empiricism and rationalism.
Let us look at Descartes first. Descartes is a rationalist. He
believes that there is some knowledge attained other than
through or by the senses. For example, the saying “I think
therefore I am” is an important aspect of this concept. This is
knowledge developed on thought alone. More importantly, it is
heavily weighted on the knowledge of God. This is to say that
the idea of God, and God itself, is outside of the realm of the
senses and so therefore exists through thought alone. Descartes
shows through his meditations that by using our mind and thought
that we can make judgments of the world around us. He believes
that there are only two substances in the metaphysical. The
first is thought and the second is matter. He believes, contrary
to ancient philosophy, that there is matter without form. He
also holds that certain ideas, specifically that of the mind and
God, are innate and independent of the senses. This is contrary
to many other philosophers and their beliefs.
The problem with Descartes is that a lot of his work is heavily
based on the existence of God. This is to say that it requires
God to help prove the concept of certain innate ideas outside of
the sensible world. It is a very easy example to use and
requires little to no back up support. This is because since one
can not truly deny or prove the existence of God, one can merely
say that he exists because they believe he does and can twist
this to put as an innate thought. If one has a faith in God,
then you can not deny this faith. Descartes uses this faith to
support his idea of innate ideas. It is easy to say that God
exists and use that as evidence to a philosophical concept of
innate ideas because this requires no other basis. The very
concept of God can be compared to Gaunilo’s Perfect Island
theory. This theory clearly states that there is no need to find
empirical evidence of God’s existence and therefore completely
supports the innate idea concepts. The Perfect Island theory
says that “if one thinks of the most perfect island in their
mind, then it must exist for no other greater island can exist.”
The very definition of God is that which is most perfect, and
since nothing can be more perfect than God it is only proper to
confirm God’s existence. Though debatably flawed, the theory
does show the simple strength that faith holds to Descartes’
philosophy.
On the other hand there is David Hume. Hume is an empiricist.
Key to point out, as its opposite is a strong support basis for
Descartes, is that Hume is a non-believer in God. Right there we
can understand that we are dealing on a more sensory account of
the world and philosophy. We can rules out thoughts existing
simple because there is no greater thought to conceive or that
we have merely thought of them. He also believes in the Copy
Principle. This is to say that ideas are acquired ideas. Hume
states that there are two principal ways to organize beliefs.
One is relations of ideas which requires logical relations
between the beliefs while the other is matters of fact which is
the relation of a belief with the world itself. Furthermore, he
denies that these matters of fact can be known a priori, only
promoting his empiricist views. Hume had a philosophy that was
seen by many as being strongly based in Skepticism. We can
understand this by his belief in all knowledge coming by the
senses. It is because of this that we can only trust these
perceptions and therefore the knowledge that derives from them.
By understanding the basics of the two philosophers before, we
can get a better sense of the philosophy of Kant. Kant takes
what he considers the better of the two worlds of empiricism and
rationalism and develops a philosophy attended to satisfy the
imbalance between the two. Let us start by looking at the very
basics of the two worlds and compare a priori, knowledge before
experience, and a posterior, knowledge after experience. He
holds that both do exist. On one hand, that of a priori, we have
such ideas of logic, math, and other basic concepts that are not
developed by human mind but rather recognized and taken from the
natural world. Contrary is that of a posteriori, which Kant
describes as being such things as science and sensory and
analytical sciences that, though done through the natural world,
are developed or recorded in a human process. Even further we
can break the two in half and use a concept developed by Hume.
We can look at these things as being analytic, the equivalent of
Hume’s relations of ideas, or synthetic, the equivalent of
Hume’s matters of fact. Dividing a priori, we can see Kant
labels logic as analytic while math and other basic concepts are
synthetic. If we are to however examine closer a posteriori
through this, we find that science can only be synthetic and
that there is no analytic a posteriori knowledge. So from
Descartes we see that Kant has taken the logical sense of
thought, the “I think therefore I am” type of reasoning to
support truth from reason alone, and from Hume we see that Kant
has taken the relationship of ideas between ideas and the
relationship of ideas compared to the world.
Kant also takes a good look at such mindful concepts as God,
freedom and immortality. This lays on the side of rationalism
with Descartes. Looking at this, we can see that there is a
break between appearance and reality of the world through
possible experience. Kant puts these concepts into reality, but
even further he breaks reality into what we can know and what we
can think. These concepts are placed in the latter. This puts
emphasis on the logic and reason of his philosophy, holding
weight not just in what can be sensed but more importantly what
can be conjured by rational thought.
Taking the side of Hume though, Kant asks importantly the
development of concepts. He puts emphasis not on the what we
know but also on the how we know what we know. We get a further
understanding beyond Hume’s. It goes past the ideas of judgment
for Kant denies the practicality in doing such as it would be
counterproductive to the cause. Such things belong to a priori,
and therefore have an origin that is at least near conceivable
to the human mind. What Kant is concerned with locating then is
the development of the sensible world through a transcendental
philosophy. This relies not to correct knowledge but rather
extend it and further support the foundations of beliefs. It is
important to note the contradiction of the phrase “everything
which happens has a cause” though, for this will show that
development of concepts is based more heavily not on origin but
on a form of evolution. The phrase shows that the concept of
cause signifies something different from “that which happens”
and so creates this contradiction. Kant is thus focused on a
progress of thought in philosophy.
Through this we can see the impact that Kant has brought to
philosophy. He bonded the empiricist thinking with the
rationalist thinking, and vice-versa. This is sometimes called
the “Copernican Revolution.” He puts more emphasis on the
reality of things and not on the extent to which our senses can
progress knowledge. He also points out that the human mind has
limits to its capabilities, like any container, and therefore
not everything that exists can be known or recognized by
mankind. This is important in that it shows the incompletion of
epistemology and philosophy, yet does not point them out
necessarily as weakness or restraints, but rather as acceptable
truths that can be overcome if balanced between both
epistemological worlds of empiricism and rationalism. Though he
lies more on Descartes’ side, ruling out some of Hume’s
assumptions and judgments of the world, it is a blending between
the two to certain degrees that truly accept knowledge for what
philosophy can understandably label it and not how epistemology
can divide it.
