Kant’s Epistemology

Tonight we discussed a Emanuel Kant’s epistemology and how it relates to that of Hume and other notable philosophers.  As discussed in this class, David Hume believed that there was no law of cause and effect and we could merely understand cause and effect with educated guessing.  In his mind, there is no way to objectively know what will happen from an event and what specifically caused an effect.  Here he uses his now famous example of the cue ball.  Suppose a cue ball is about to be hit by a pool player.  Then the player steps out for a moment.  While he is gone, someone drill a pool ball to the table.  When the man comes back he will hit the ball but it will go nowhere.  According to the law of cause and effect the ball should move.  Hume states that we only think the ball should move because it has moved every other time before.  Therefore, the “law” of cause and effect is a collection of our past experiences and does not formulate from empirical data. 

            Kant must refute this statement as he aims to defend the law of cause and effect. He does so by engaging in a discussion on epistemology.  He Kant uses the example of a candle.  A man sees a candle in a dark room.  But he is truly seeing the sense data the candle gives off, or the stimulation.  Then that stimulation gets sent to the brain and gets understood, or reaches the first perception.  According to Kant what happens next is critical to his category theory.  After the stimulation is sent to the brain it gets organized around space and time within our brains and this is transcendental.  Once perception reaches conception, it turns to knowledge.  After his explaining one must note that the man saw the candle, as it appeared and not the actual candle.

            An underlining question is, “is all knowledge subjective?”  I do believe that our knowledge is about what has been seen by us.  The world is not a definite place but a compilation of our experiences of it.  In this way, knowledge is subjective.  However, the truth, or reality behind the basis of the appearance of a matter, is objective.  Our ability to understand or conceptualize the reality may be forever skewed (ie: what is the candle?) but the reality of what the candle is it unchangeable in its makeup.