Kant Rationalism
For this lesson, for chapter 6, I will describe philosopher Immanuel Kant’s integration of both philosophical beliefs of rationalism and empiricism, and why both “experience and reason” are important for “…constructing our knowledge of the world” (Chaffee, 6.5, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)). Kant wanted to bring together both the different thought schools of rationalism and empiricism because he believed people could not have one without the other; we can’t have reason without experience and vice versa. Kant wanted to accomplish this because he was “…concerned with constructing a metaphysical framework for the ‘self’ that [would] account for the phenomena of experience, in particular what he describes as ‘the unity of consciousness’” (Chaffee,
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This was called his “Copernican revolution” (qtd. in Chaffee, 6.5, Kant’s Solution: Transcendental Idealism). The reason this name was used is because Kant’s “reversal” of epistemology is just like how the Polish astronomer named Copernicus had reversed the idea of the sun revolving around the Earth. Basically, at the time that Copernicus had “…[declared] that the sun was the center of our solar system…” this was the opposite of the wide belief that everything revolved around the Earth, or “…that the Earth was the center of [the] solar system…” (Chaffee, 6.5, Kant’s Solution: Transcendental Idealism). This is why it was a reversal of the more widely accepted belief of the Earth being “the center of the solar system” rather than the now known truth of the sun being the center. So in essence, just like Copernicus declaring the sun being the center of the solar system rather than the earth being the center, Kant declared that the mind makes sense of the world rather than links with it. The impact of this declaration is, “…the mind [is] an active agent in constructing the world and our knowledge about it,” instead of being a “…passive agent, a ‘blank slate’ on which is recorded the sounds, images, and other sensations of experience” (Chaffee, 6.5, Kant’s Solution: transcendental Idealism). This is why Kant’s theory is called the “Copernican revolution,” because the mind doesn’t just “record the sounds, images and other sensations of experience,” the mind takes all that information and translates it into a world for us to
This was called his “Copernican revolution” (qtd. in Chaffee, 6.5, Kant’s Solution: Transcendental Idealism). The reason this name was used is because Kant’s “reversal” of epistemology is just like how the Polish astronomer named Copernicus had reversed the idea of the sun revolving around the Earth. Basically, at the time that Copernicus had “…[declared] that the sun was the center of our solar system…” this was the opposite of the wide belief that everything revolved around the Earth, or “…that the Earth was the center of [the] solar system…” (Chaffee, 6.5, Kant’s Solution: Transcendental Idealism). This is why it was a reversal of the more widely accepted belief of the Earth being “the center of the solar system” rather than the now known truth of the sun being the center. So in essence, just like Copernicus declaring the sun being the center of the solar system rather than the earth being the center, Kant declared that the mind makes sense of the world rather than links with it. The impact of this declaration is, “…the mind [is] an active agent in constructing the world and our knowledge about it,” instead of being a “…passive agent, a ‘blank slate’ on which is recorded the sounds, images, and other sensations of experience” (Chaffee, 6.5, Kant’s Solution: transcendental Idealism). This is why Kant’s theory is called the “Copernican revolution,” because the mind doesn’t just “record the sounds, images and other sensations of experience,” the mind takes all that information and translates it into a world for us to