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To address Pyrrho’s problem of sensations, Kant developed the noumena/phenomena distinction, and asserted that our senses only explained the world of phenomena rather than make objective claims about the world of noumena. Thus, Pyrrho’s problem is irrelevant because Kant simply doesn’t assert that our empirical statements refer to the objective ‘truth’. This distinction divides the world of forms (the “intelligible world”) with the world of appearances (the “sensible world”).[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)]] The former, which he calls the noumena, is the objective reality: a reality representing objects “in themselves” behind our perceptions. To Kant, the world of noumena merely puts up a façade of appearances to the senses (p.356), and what we perceive collectively form the world of phenomena (p.177). Since our perceptions pertain only to our subjective world of phenomena, Pyrrho’s skepticism regarding the certainty of synthetic statements is avoided – or rather, simply tacitly accepted by Kant, as the Kantian system now simply states that all observational statements don’t make objective claims.
To tackle Hume’s problem of induction, Kant first asserted that there were synthetic a priori forms that preceded experience. Those are: space, time, conservation of substance, and causality. Kant believed he deduced those 4 forms based on 3 premises: Classical empiricism/rationalism does not guarantee absolute certainty, and absolute certainty does exist in the form of Newtonian physics. The former 2 are the forms of sensibility – the transcendental aesthetic,[[CiteRef::Guyer (Ed.) (1992)|p. 13]] and they are a priori as their existences are independent of any properties, objects or subjective conditions.[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)|p. 177]] Space is simply the collection of all external appearances; an intuition that rationalises our reception of the outer world. Time, on the other hand, is the formal a priori condition that governs all appearances by relating it to the agents “inner state” (p.180). The latter 2 are forms of pure reason – the transcendental dialectic.[[CiteRef::Guyer (Ed.) (1992)|p. 15]] Wanting to confirm and extend the validity and success of Newtonian mechanics, Kant aimed to deduce the certainty of causality and conservation of substance by postulating that they must be preconditions of experience, and that the world must follow strict causality, or else the world wouldn’t be knowable.[[CiteRef::Friedman (1992)|p.180]] The “totality” of objects is the unity of the limitations the object has in reality, the causal relationships it participates in with other objects, and its necessary existence implied simply by the possibility of its existence.[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)|p. 212]] All three aspects form the totality of an object, and collectively the totality of nature.[[CiteRef::Friedman (1992)|p.167]] With these concepts in mind, he developed what was essentially Leibniz’s PSR as the Principle of Universal Causation – which necessitates that the principle of universal causality be a priori. If it’s not a priori, our perceptions will be insignificant and baseless in an unorderly world, and it simply directly contradicts the contemporary successes with rationalising the world through mathematical and mechanistic laws, as well as the notion of totality within nature.
Furthermore, with these 4 a priori forms of experience Kant restored the belief that valid synthetic a priori statements may exist, after the setbacks of Descartes and Leibniz. None of these a priori forms are analytic intuitions, as they are not simply a clarification of definitions. Nor are these forms a posteriori, as they precondition experience. Kant provided an incredibly complex yet ingenious way of viewing reality, and his epistemological distinctions of statements as well as the metaphysical distinction of objective and subjective realities has influenced discussions up until the 20th century.
Furthermore, Ayer amongst other philosophers have shown that Kant was incorrect in assuming Euclidean geometry was a priori and held factual content about physical space i.e. is synthetic,[[CiteRef::Ayer (1952)||pp.45-46]] as the discovery of non-Euclidean geometry and application by Einstein in his general theory of relativity disproved of this entirely. Consequently, philosophers now see that axioms of geometry do not “hold factual content”, but are merely definitions. This criticism directly dismantles Kant’s a priori form of space as a necessary precondition for rationalising the world.
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