Kant's Theory Of Transcendentalism

The journey in answering how one can acquire knowledge and define reality on a philosophical and insightful level has not been an easy one. Descartes being the father of modern philosophy tried to answer this question by introducing representationalism. The empiricists, however, came along and dismantled Descartes’ theory. Hume, an empiricist, went further and concluded that philosophy asked non-sensical questions via his skepticism. It was not until Immanuel Kant, with his work on transcendental idealism in the Critique of Pure Reason that an idea closer to being the answer came to light. Kant’s ideas and theories on reality and acquiring knowledge are probably not the ultimate truth for in philosophy there cannot be a definite answer, at
In the best of my ability to interpret Kant, transcendental idealism aims to establish necessary truths in metaphysics. It becomes clear to Kant that math and science all have basic foundations that everyone agrees upon except for philosophy. In an effort to grant Hume his skepticism and uphold the rationalistic view that gave birth to representationalism, Kant formulates transcendental idealism. A major part of this theory states that a priori knowledge exists, however it does not occur before experience (Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 39 ) In other words, a priori knowledge is the structure that shapes the raw data that is experience. By stating this as a necessary truth, Kant manages to combine two of the major beliefs from rationalism and empiricism. Before Kant, rationalists posited that all knowledge originated from a priori knowledge, while empiricists critiqued this notion by arguing that sense experience was the only way knowledge was acquired. This is evident in Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge when he writes “things are meaningless that one has no sensory perception of” meaning knowledge can only be acquired if perception or experience has taken place. (Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge,
On one hand, there is no way of knowing the ultimate truth of what is outside of our empirical reality using human reason; on the other hand, the structure of the human mind allows us to put reality into perspective. The structure to which this is referring to is the same as the a priori knowledge Kant speaks of when he states that “” (Kant). Without some sort of organization or structure, experience becomes an impossible concept. Everything that is perceived by the human mind would not make sense without a priori