Immanuel Kant Research Paper

The “German” philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) wrote in one of his major works the Critique of Pure Reason in 1781that, “It always remains a scandal of philosophy”. Want Immanuel Kant meant by this claim was that in the field of metaphysics in the early 17th century to the late 18th century there was a problem with the philosophy of that time. For Immanuel Kant the problem with philosophy is that there is no decisive proof of the existence of the external world. This is a problem that began with René Descartes and would the minds of Englishman John Locke, Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley, Scottish David Hume and Immanuel Kant himself as they all responded to this issue.

Of the previously mentioned philosophers, René Descartes

His method of doubt has lead him to question the existence of the material world of his senses, including his own body, as well as basic concepts that could be the work of an evil deceiver. This doubt causes him to wonder whether anything exists at all. Descartes realizes that threes one thing of which he can be certain. In order for him to doubt, there must be a thing that doubts. Similarly, for him to be deceived by an evil deceiver, there must be a thing that is deceived. This thing is the cogito, the thing that thinks. “I am, I exist; this is certain. But for how long? For as long as I think.” (Descartes, paragraph 27). Since it is something of which Descartes can be absolutely certain, the cogito serves as the groundwork and the first part of his new foundation. Descartes arrives at the idea that he is a thinking thing by using reasoning. One’s mind can serve as the bedrock foundation because no matter what false beliefs one might have, they will know their own mind better than anything else and can trust it more than their senses. Descartes uses example of the wax. Wax in the form of a candle has a completely different set of properties then the same wax in melted form. From the standpoint of the senses alone, there are two different things, yet we know that the wax is the same waxing both cases. This knowledge comes from the mind and not from the outside world. Once

The English philosopher and empiricist John Locke argued that we have knowledge of the external world though our senses. In his book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Locke begins his inquiry with the concept of the “tabula rasa” or the blank slate. Locke believed that in its initial state the human mind contains nothing prior to existence. In other words, according to Locke the human mind does not come already imprinted with ideas. Locke writes, “For to imprint anything on the mind without the mind’s perceiving it seems to me hardly intelligible.” (Locke, 319) The question then is, what do we know and where do all of our ideas originate? According to Locke, knowledge comes from the two-pronged effort that makes up experience, the combination of sensation and reflection from which our ideas formed. When we interact with objects through our senses, we obtain ideas of things we suppose to exist outside us in the physical world, such as hot, soft, blue. These ideas are based on objects outside of the mind. Upon reflection of the ideas we come to have ideas of our own mental operations. Part of the way we understand the external world for Locke is argument of perceptual relativity. Actual qualities which are measurable (primary qualities) really represent the object because they are consistent. Secondary qualities on the other hand are subjective and cannot in any be objectively real and therefore