Kant's Effort To Resolve Hume's Epistemological Skepticism

By Odin Roark



Until Kant, philosophical history is dominated by the rationalist and empiricist points of view. Kant believes that neither position defines the key to knowledge and proffers a third point of view arising from Hume’s radical skepticism.In this paper, I will briefly show: How Kant resolves Hume’s radical skepticism concerning epistemology; how he argues for the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge; why his categories of understanding are necessary in achieving knowledge; and the problems he encountered in establishing his system for knowledge.

It is impossible, Kant argues, to extend knowledge to the supersensible realm of speculative metaphysics. The reason that knowledge has these constraints, Kant argues, is that the mind plays an active role in constituting the features of experience and limiting the mind's access to the empirical realm of space and time (I.E.P.).

Kant proposes to reconcile the two disciplines —specifically the tension between experiential knowledge (a posteriori and synthetic judgments) and a priori and analytic judgments, which are independent of experience. Each play an essential role: a receptive faculty of sensibility, which is our way of receiving sense impressions, or what Kant calls "intuitions," and an active faculty of understanding, which forms concepts and makes judgments about things.“Intuitions without concepts are blind, concepts without intuitions are empty" (Kant).

In the process of putting rationalism and empiricism under the microscope, Kant determines that both reason (faculty independent of experience, a priori and analytic) and experience, (sensory, a posteriori and synthetic) must be present in order to achieve knowledge—albeit limited knowledge. (Even though Kant believes knowledge is born out of experience, knowledge is not grounded in experience). It is with experience’s inherent space and time (intuition), that knowledge can begin (Brown).

Whereas Hume sees two sorts of knowledge (relations of ideas / matters of fact), Kant sees a third: synthetic a priori. (A priori is used by Kant in referring to any knowledge which is known to be true , independent of experience, contrasted with the phrase a posteriori, defined as that derived from experience). Hume contends “all giraffes are animals” as analytic, maintaining that statements are a priori, and therefore must be analytic.

Kant allows for the: analytic a priori, the synthetic a posteriori and the synthetic a priori. The analytic allows for statements such as all giraffes are animals, however, it does not give any new knowledge about the world. Kant believes that the idea of being an “animal” is contained in the idea of a giraffe. In contrast, the synthetic a posteriori, is the realm of empirical judgments, e.g., all novelists wear glasses. Such a statement requires observation to verify or falsify it. The synthetic a priori, Kant’s central focus of Critique of Pure Reason, is made up of judgments that are necessarily true and can discerned to be true independent of experience, yet give us genuine knowledge of aspects of the world.Two of Kant’s prime examples of synthetic a priori are 7 + 5 = 12, and “every event must have a cause.” Kant argues that both are necessarily true and informative about the world. Therefore, neither is analytic.

In creating a system to attain limited knowledge, Kant asserts that perception is provided through sensory experience and that the objects of experience, in part, are the result of the rational mind’s construction which is then organized and formulated into concepts (understanding) wherefrom judgments are possible. He proffers that these objects are merely apparent, not independently real, and maintains that we can have no direct knowledge of the material world. Here, he distinguishes between the empirical (our sensory impressions of the natural world) and the TRANSCENDENTAL. “By a transcendental exposition I mean the explication of a concept as a principle that permits insight into the possibility of other synthetic a priori cognitions. Such explication requires (1) that cognitions of that sort do actually flow from the given concept, and (2) that these cognitions are possible only on the presupposition of a given way of explicating that concept” (Kant).

These forces existing outside the natural world permit knowledge by virtue of the rational mind which Kant believes has a particular structure. That which is knowable by such a mind must by necessity be understood and known through this structure. He believes the structure is schematically broken down into twelve conceptual categories we utilize to understand our perceptions. They, together with our innate “intuitions” of space and time, are the preconditions of experience and knowledge believing that without understanding, there is only meaningless sensation. Asserting that we can have no knowledge whatsoever of the noumenal world—the true nature of “things-in-themselves”—his categories only relate to the phenomenal world of the senses. These are subjective in the same sense as space and time are, i.e., our mental constitution is such that they are applicable to whatever we experience, but there is no reason to suppose them applicable to things in themselves.

QUANTITYQUALITY RELATION MODALITY

Unity Reality SubstancePossibility

Plurality Negation CauseExistence

Totality Limitation CommunityNecessity

Axioms of IntuitionAnticipations of PerceptionAnalogies of Experience Postulates of Empirical Thought



Kant believes that we understand phenomena in terms of the QUANTITY, the QUALITY we perceive in them, the RELATION between each, and the MODALITY of logical judgments we make about them. (The third category of each group is intended as the synthesis of the first two.)

With his phenomena and noumenal distinction established, Kant believes that in order for something to be the object of thought at all, it must be thought of in terms of one or more of the categories, thus representing the tools to take us beyond the passive absorption of sensations; once again suggesting sensations without categories are blind , and categories without sensations are empty.Through the use of the twelve categories, the phenomenal world does not reveal itself to us, but is revealed by us. Kant labeled this fundamental reversal of perspective “the second COPERNICAN revolution.”

Some of the problems inherent in Kant’s approach to wisdom are alluded to in Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy. Russell points out that in dealing with Hume’s radical skepticism, Kant devotes substantial thought in Critique of Pure Reason addressing the fallacies that arise from applying space and time or the categories to things that are not experienced. When such an approach is attempted, we find ourselves disturbed by “antinomies,” those mutually contradictory propositions, each of which can apparently be proved, each consisting of thesis and antithesis, e.g., Thesis - “The world has a beginning in time, and is also limited as regards space.” Antithesis – “The world has no beginning in time, and no limits in space: it is infinite as regards both time and space.”

In spite of Kant’s effort, he is himself guilty of the very charges he levels against other metaphysicians. In postulating the existence of noumena, he is as Berkeley had shown, venturing beyond what can reasonably be concluded from our experience, i.e., in asserting that noumena exist behind the veil of appearance, he unwittingly indulges in the sort of speculative metaphysics which he elsewhere makes clear he abhors (Warburton).

Warburton’s criticism notwithstanding, Bertrand Russell points out in Problems of Philosophy that—not unlike Descartes with his “methodical doubt”—Kant pursues whatever seems doubtful, and with each apparent piece of knowledge, asks himself whether, on reflection he can feel certain that he really knows it.

It can be argued that the major epistemological problem for Kant is to justify synthetic a priori statements, particularly the law of causality (for if this law is non-existent, Hume’s attempt to dismiss physics as a possible science would be bolstered further, thus suggesting Newtonian physics false).Consequently, inherent in Kant’s work is a striving to overcome Hume’s contention by justifying contemporary physics on the basis of epistemology, e.g., a focus-turn to the subject in order to verify the existence of synthetic a priori statements, or at least demonstrate reasons for the truth of the propositions. Kant’s “Copernican revolution” is often thought as the beginning turn toward the human subject.

Works cited





Kant. “Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) Metaphysics.” The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008. January 2008 .



Curtis Brown. “Kant: An Overview.” www.trinity.edu. Curtis Brown. 2007. Trinity University. January 2008 .



Nigel Warburton. Philosophy: The Classics. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.



Anthony Kenny. The Rise of Modern Philosophy Volume 3. Oxford: Clarendon Press - Oxford, 2006.



Kant. Wikipedia


Bertrand Russell. History of Western Philosophy. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972.



Norman Melchert. The Great Conversation Volume 2 4th edition: Descartes through Derrida and Quine. New YorkOxford: Osford University Press, 2002



Immanuel Kant. Critique of Pure Reason. Indianapolis/Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1996.



Bertrand Russell, Problems of Philosophy. BiblioBazaar. 2007