Knowledge In David Hume's Treatise Of Human Nature

Immanuel Kant (from here on referred to as Kant) raises the claim that without experience one cannot have knowledge as experience is the first manner in which minds are awoken and triggered to begin functioning. Thus it is agreed, at some basic level, that all knowledge initially comes from experience and we can see this explicitly expressed in David Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature when he discusses Impressions and Ideas , saying that all knowledge can be causally traced back to some form of impression or experience.

However, as much as it may seem like Hume and Kant are in total agreement, Kant differs slightly in his belief of what knowledge is by firmly stating that, “though all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that

Space is a necessary a priori representation which underlies all outer intuitions.” (Kant, I. 1781, A 24)

It is not possible to represent the absence of space to ourselves, we can however show a lack of objects in a space, but never a lack of space itself. Kant says then that space should rather be seen as the ‘condition of the possibility of appearances’ of objects and not as a result depending on the object therefore space is a priori necessary. This is best illustrated through Geometry and how the absolute certainty of ‘all geometrical propositions and the possibility of their a priori construction is grounded in this a priori necessity of space.’ (Kant, I. 1781, B 39)

Basically, what he is saying here is that if the representation of space was a concept that was received empirically – so derived from experience – it would mean all the basic principles of mathematics are only based instead on outside experience by means of induction. And this cannot be because the science of mathematics rests on the premise of necessity and universality not the comparative universality derived through experience. Therefore all outer intuitions must have necessary a priori representation within the mind first to form the basis from which we can relate to each

This means that our representation of space which makes having synthetic a priori knowledge possible must be intuition in its origin. Kant says this because for concepts such as geometry, one constantly gets propositions which go beyond what is empirically known of the concept. This reasoning follows from Kant’s belief that “mathematical propositions are always judgements a priori as they carry with them necessity which cannot be derived from experience.” (Kant, I. 1781, pg. 52)

Consider the proposition: ‘all angles in a triangle equal 180˚’. At face value, this proposition seems to be analytic, meaning it looks to be true by definition. However this cannot be analytic because a triangle is not defined the sum of its angles; and analytical proposition of a triangle is more likely to be ‘a three sided shape’ at least. So this proposition is not analytical meaning it is synthetic in that one would have measure the angles and physically add the degrees together to find that all the angles equal 180˚, which supports Kant’s statement of mathematical judgements being