BLOWIN MY MIND UP
The two men who have most influenced modern thought are Hume and Kant.
Hume was really the first person to ever consistently apply empiricism to his philosophy, and came very close to destroying it as a result. Were it not for Kant and his synthetic a priori knowledge, we’d all have given up by now. They way Hume revolutionized thinking was through both his separation of knowledge into synthetic and analytic and by disproving the theory of induction. He reasoned that analytic knowledge, or things that are necessarily true such as 2+2=4, tells you nothing about the world. Synthetic knowledge, or observable things within the world such as saying that the sun will rise, is based on the principle of induction and therefore invalid. The principle of induction states that something will occur in a certain way because it has occurred that way every time before. Not only is this argument considered logically bankrupt, but also the justification for the principle of induction is the principle of induction, meaning that we believe in the principle of induction because it has always been right. What he is essentially saying with this is that there’s no way to prove anything meaningful about the world, and that anything that doesn’t fall into the spectrum of analytic or synthetic knowledge is completely outside the capability of humans to know. In regards to dealing with ethics, metaphysics, aesthetics, or anything else not quantifiable by the above standards, Hume said to “commit it to flames”, as he felt it was unknowable and therefore worthless to think about. Another important aspect of Hume’s philosophy was the idea that concepts such as time, space and causality were imposed upon the universe by the human mind, and did not actually exist as external forces.
It is from here that Kant’s philosophy begins. Kant stated that reading Hume awakened him from his “dogmatic slumber”, catalyzing his thought and making possible the Copernican revolution Kant initiated in philosophy. In response to Hume’s assertion that spatial concepts are imposed upon the world by the human mind, Kant states that all knowledge attainable by humanity in fact revolves around the existence of space and time as external and constant forces. Space and time do not spring from experience; we are instead born with an innate sensibility to spatial relationships and the flow of time. Kant proved through this logic that there are factors outside of the human consciousness, that are real, and that we can have true knowledge of. Kant solidified synthetic a priori knowledge, or synthetic knowledge existing prior to experience. This is not to say that Kant did not know the limits of human knowledge as well, he realized that we are limited to the realm of the empirical in our knowledge. But, he kept philosophy alive, and that’s what is important.
Hume and Kant blow me away.
Hume was really the first person to ever consistently apply empiricism to his philosophy, and came very close to destroying it as a result. Were it not for Kant and his synthetic a priori knowledge, we’d all have given up by now. They way Hume revolutionized thinking was through both his separation of knowledge into synthetic and analytic and by disproving the theory of induction. He reasoned that analytic knowledge, or things that are necessarily true such as 2+2=4, tells you nothing about the world. Synthetic knowledge, or observable things within the world such as saying that the sun will rise, is based on the principle of induction and therefore invalid. The principle of induction states that something will occur in a certain way because it has occurred that way every time before. Not only is this argument considered logically bankrupt, but also the justification for the principle of induction is the principle of induction, meaning that we believe in the principle of induction because it has always been right. What he is essentially saying with this is that there’s no way to prove anything meaningful about the world, and that anything that doesn’t fall into the spectrum of analytic or synthetic knowledge is completely outside the capability of humans to know. In regards to dealing with ethics, metaphysics, aesthetics, or anything else not quantifiable by the above standards, Hume said to “commit it to flames”, as he felt it was unknowable and therefore worthless to think about. Another important aspect of Hume’s philosophy was the idea that concepts such as time, space and causality were imposed upon the universe by the human mind, and did not actually exist as external forces.
It is from here that Kant’s philosophy begins. Kant stated that reading Hume awakened him from his “dogmatic slumber”, catalyzing his thought and making possible the Copernican revolution Kant initiated in philosophy. In response to Hume’s assertion that spatial concepts are imposed upon the world by the human mind, Kant states that all knowledge attainable by humanity in fact revolves around the existence of space and time as external and constant forces. Space and time do not spring from experience; we are instead born with an innate sensibility to spatial relationships and the flow of time. Kant proved through this logic that there are factors outside of the human consciousness, that are real, and that we can have true knowledge of. Kant solidified synthetic a priori knowledge, or synthetic knowledge existing prior to experience. This is not to say that Kant did not know the limits of human knowledge as well, he realized that we are limited to the realm of the empirical in our knowledge. But, he kept philosophy alive, and that’s what is important.
Hume and Kant blow me away.