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{{Author|First Name=Immanuel |Last Name=Kant |DOB Era=CE|DOB Year=1724|DOB Month=April|DOB Day=22|DOB Approximate=No|DOD Era=CE|DOD Year=1804|DOD Month=February|DOD Day=12|DOD Approximate=No|Brief=a German philosopher who is best remembered for his attempts to combine considered a central figure in modern philosophy|Summary=Kan revolutionized classical apriorism and empiricism during the Age of Enlightenment. His contributions towards metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics inspired much of our contemporary philosophy, and helped guide our epistemological discourse away from classical apriorism empiricism and rationalism.[[CiteRef::Rohlf (2016)]] In his ''Critique of Pure Reason'', Kant makes several key distinctions and introduces new terminology that would ultimately revolutionise the way modern philosophers view the epistemological nature of the world.|Historical Context=Born in 18th century Europe, Kant was thrown into a unified method time where the emergence of Newtonian science sparked a social and cultural revolution – The Enlightenment. With his revolutionary discoveries, Newton inspired the society to challenge the norm of scientific changeRoman Catholicism and evoked an intellectual epiphany where people began to attempt explaining nature without consulting religion. His numerous distinctions[[CiteRef::Bristow (2011)]] As a result, two epistemological schools of thought surfaced: classical rationalism and classical empiricism. The dispute between analytic these two views dominated the 17th century, where rationalists such as René Descartes (1596-1650) and Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) and empiricists such as John Locke (1632-1704) and David Hume (1711-1776) were in a stalemate with regards to the epistemological nature of the world.[[CiteRef::Samet (2008)]] Rationalism, or apriorism, is the view that it is possible to attain knowledge independent of experience, i.e. there exists “a priori” innate knowledge that we know as part of our rational nature or through our intuition.[[CiteRef::Markie (2015)]] It holds that through the attainment of synthetic propositions, between a priori knowledge outside of our sensory experience, we can deduce further theories from those axioms that will allow us to make sense of the world – that is, we are able to rationalise nature without necessarily consulting our senses. Two of its most well known proponents, Gottfried Leibniz and René Descartes, both believed that since: a posteriori knowledge) senses were unable to provide us with the ‘truth’ due to an irreconcilable level of uncertainty with our perceptions, and between noumena b) the world is intelligible and phenomena understandable, innate universal knowledge must exist.[[CiteRef::Samet (i2008)]] Indeed, retrospectively we now know their respective a priori axioms were unsound, but their theories nonetheless provided more insight on the epistemological issues that both empiricism and itself shared, which will soon be explained.e. between Empiricism, on the other hand, holds the opposite view that only our senses provide us with an accurate description of the unknowable state in which things world, and only through sensory experiences are we able to capture the objective world that we live in actuality, make sense of each individual observation and of the observed state world through inductive logic.[[CiteRef::Samet (2008)]] Empiricists such as filtered by the human mindLocke believed that empiricism is superior to rationalism for two distinct reasons. Firstly, Locke argued that classical rationalists often retreated to non-factual (i.e. non-empirical)claims for support: namely intuition and ‘innate’ knowledge. Secondly, would become central points of discussion empiricist arguments were preferred for decadestheir simplicity. However, changing despite this divide, empiricism and rationalism both suffered from the same 2 criticisms that are proposed by skeptics such as David Hume (1711-1776) and Pyrrho (360-270BC) who brought up the understanding problems of scientific change irrevocablyinduction and sensations respectively.

== Historical Context ==<div class="mw-collapsible mw-collapsed"> Before Kant’s ideas would come A brief summary of these problems, which is needed as Kant offers an ingenious solution to the fore criticisms that both the empiricists and rationalists faced, is as follows. The ‘Problem of Sensations’ stems from Pyrrho’s skepticism about the reliability of our senses and whether they are adequate in providing us with the epistemology“truth”, due to the prevailing philosophy possibility that reality is not what it seems. This is important because it implies that we cannot ever make claims of his time was a form of classical apriorism truth (or rationalismlie) about the world solely based on our observations, such as that proposed by Gottfried Leibniz [[CiteRef::Annas and Barnes (Eds.) (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 20061985)|p. 11]] thus directly dismantling classical empiricism. In briefSecondly, the prevailing form Hume’s ‘Problem of rationalism held Induction’ stipulates that reasoning it is impossible to attain a rationally certain synthetic statement from a collection of individual observations through inductive logic, no matter how large the sample size.[[CiteRef::White (2015)|p. 275]] This is because one refuting instance is enough to dismantle the human mind was whole generalisation, and that a refuting instance is always possible with a synthetic statement. Together they imply that it is impossible to make objective statements of the world through empiricism. For example, empiricists have attempted to answer the only source problem of true knowledgeinduction by appealing to past occurrences, but this simply results in opposition a circular argument. Likewise, the rationalist axiomatic system was equally unable to provide an adequate solution to these problems. Leibniz attempted to formulate a principle that aims to show the empirical belief in necessity of the sensory basis “uniformity of knowledgenature”. It was believed Named “The Principle of Sufficient Reason”, Leibniz states that it is irrational for something to happen – and conversely, for something not to happen – without reason and establishes this as an a priori axiom that any rationalisation of nature must be contingent upon.[[CiteRef::Belot (2001)|p. 62]] However, Hume’s problem persists, as this axiom is still inevitably synthetic and simply cannot guarantee the rationalist philosopher could come certainty of inductively obtained conclusions.|Major Contributions=Kant, in his first Critique, responds to proveboth these problems, along with revitalising Leibniz’s Principle of Sufficient Reason (hereafter referred to as PSR) in light of its criticism. He aimed to reconcile rationalism with empiricism by devising a system that validated our sensations as means to rationalise nature, whilst also reformulating the absolute certainty PSR based on his ideas of intellect being the preconditions of our experience, resolving both the aforementioned problems. Kant develops the rationalist stance by asserting that there are fundamental synthetic a priori statements that are not only independent of experience, but actually precedes sensation as a mathematician or logicianprecondition that sensory experience is contingent upon. He coined a few terms, as previously mentioned, that aided the articulation of his overall case.To address Pyrrho’s problem of sensations, Kant developed the existence noumena/phenomena distinction, and nature asserted that our senses only explained the world of phenomena rather than make objective claims about the world around themof noumena. A philosopher could arrive at absolute certainty by starting 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 fundamental analytic propositions that were assumed 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 inherently exist in the human mindsenses, independent [[CiteRef::Kant (1781)|p. 356]] and what we perceive collectively form the world of phenomena.[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)|p. 177]] Since our perceptions pertain only to our subjective world of any experiencephenomena, and then applying rigorous use Pyrrho’s skepticism regarding the certainty of deductive logic until synthetic statements is avoided – or rather, simply tacitly accepted by Kant, as the desired proof was thus elucidatedKantian system now simply states that all observational statements don’t make objective claims. </div>

== Main Contributions to 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 Philosophy transcendental aesthetic,[[CiteRef::Guyer (Ed.) (1992)|p. 13]] and they are a priori as their existences are independent of Scientific Change == any properties, objects or subjective conditions.[[CiteRef::Kant's primary contribution to (1781)|p. 177]] Space is simply the collection of all external appearances; an intuition that rationalises our understanding reception of scientific change the outer world. Time, on the other hand, is his attempt the formal a priori condition that governs all appearances by relating it to merge facets the agents “inner state”.[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)|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 two opposing views validity and success of Newtonian mechanics, Kant aimed to deduce the time - classical empiricism certainty of causality and conservation of substance by postulating that they must be preconditions of experience, and that the then-contemporary rationalism - into a singular theory on 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 nature possibility of knowledge its existence.[[CiteRef::Kant (Stanford Encyclopedia 1781)|p. 212]] All three aspects form the totality of Philosophyan object, 2010and collectively the totality of nature.[[CiteRef::Friedman (1992)|p. In order to do so167]] With these concepts in mind, he had to distinguish key concepts developed what was essentially Leibniz’s PSR as the Principle of Universal Causation – which had necessitates that the principle of universal causality be a priori. If it’s not previously been made explicit. These distinctionsa priori, alongside his efforts to amalgamate rationalism our perceptions will be insignificant and empiricismbaseless in an unorderly world, left lasting impressions and opened new fields of inquiry in epistemology it simply directly contradicts the contemporary successes with rationalising the world through mathematical and mechanistic laws, as well as other branches the notion of philosophytotality within nature.


'''Analytic 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 Synthetic Propositions'''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.

Immanuel Kant was not satisfied with rationalism as the commonly accepted method of justifying human knowledge. In the introduction of his Critique of Pure Reason (1781===Analytic/1929), Kant defines analytic propositions as those which could be arrived at independently from an initial set of definitions; synthetic propositions are those which could not (p. 48). In other words, to Kant, a given proposition is analytic if it does not introduce information beyond that present in its very definition. By contrast, a given proposition is synthetic if it does. To illustrate the analytic-synthetic distinction, Kant makes statements on the physical properties of matter:If I say, for instance, ‘All bodies are extended’, this is an analytic judgment. For I do not require to go beyond the concept which I connect with ‘body’ in order to find extension as bound up with it… But when I say, ‘All bodies are heavy’, the predicate is something quite different from anything that I think in the mere concept of body in general; and the addition of such a predicate therefore yields a synthetic judgment. (p. 48-49)According to Kant's example, it is inherent to the definition of ‘body’ that it be extended, that is, occupy space; likewise, it is not inherent that it should carry considerable mass, as ‘heavy’ implies. Hence the latter statement is synthetic. Kant’s distinction made clear that empiricists up until then had tried, without success, to justify the knowledge of the natural sciences despite the problems of justifying the synthetic propositions of these sciences. There were two problems in particular: one Kant’s contemporary, David Hume, had identified as a fatal flaw to the method of inductive reasoning, known simply as the problem of induction, and the other, the problem of sensation, had been well-known since at least the time of the ancient Greeks. Synthetic propositions, and classical empiricism as a whole, rely upon both the method of inductive reasoning as well as on the senses. Yet Kant found that classical empiricists had regularly employed synthetic propositions without recognizing their errors. Meanwhile, the rationalists had avoided both problems entirely in their belief that justifying scientific knowledge could avoid the use of synthetic propositions altogether. While it may seem as though the analytic-synthetic distinction supports the tenets of rationalism, they are in fact undermined in the Critique of Pure Reason in the following way: since no new knowledge can be encompassed by propositions which are bound strictly to their definitions, there can be no way to demonstrate that one concept can be connected to any other concept that lies outside either concept’s definitions; being unable to connect one concept to another precludes causality (p. 50-51). As such, since rationalism cannot state that one idea can cause another, no purely rational statement can make any specific observations about any specific phenomena. Thus it is reasoned that rationalism on its own is inadequate to providing justification for the knowledge of the natural sciences, as these sciences pertain to making statements with a degree of certainty.
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'''Kant also most notably distinguishes analytic statements and synthetic statements in Critique of Pure Reason . His definition of an analytic statement is as such: in a statement containing subject A Priori and predicate B, if the definition of predicate B belongs to the concept of subject A, such that subject A contains the whole definition of predicate B, then this statement is analytic. A synthetic statement, on the contrary, is when the predicate B is not contained within the concept of subject A Posteriori'''. He realised that for analytic statements, the concept of the subject is further explicated and analysed by the concept of the predicate, but no new concept is added.[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)|p. 141]] On the other hand, synthetic statements are called “judgments of amplification” as the concept of the predicate adds onto the concept of the subject. An example of an analytic statement would be: “All bachelors are single”, where the concept of “being single” is simply a further explication of the concept of a “bachelor”, which is just a single male. An example of a synthetic statement would be: “All flowers are red”. The concept of “flower” does not contain the condition “red”, and thus the predicate “red” adds onto the concept of “flower” to amplify the concept of the subject. All statements regarding experiences are synthetic,[[CiteRef::Kant (1781)|p. 142]] for no analytic statement requires extraneous factors outside of the concepts in its formulation.

Kant continued in Critique of Pure Reason to make another classification of propositions, independent of his distinction between By defining analytic and synthetic knowledge. His distinction between a priori statements and the worlds of noumena and phenomena, Kant has driven epistemological discourse regarding natural sciences into a posteriori knowledge isnew era, simply put, whether or not a proposition can be known independent where the dispute began to circulate around the epistemological nature of any experience (a priori) or synthetic statements in particular and how crucial it is dependent on experience (a posteriori) (Internet Encyclopedia for the notion of Philosophy)testability. Kant crossed the a priori-a posteriori division with the analytic-synthetic classification to produce four possible categories a proposition could belong to[[CiteRef:: a posteriori analytic; a priori analytic; a posteriori synthetic; and a priori synthetic Friedman (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 20132002)|p. Regarding the a posteriori analytic category176]] To this day, Kant had little to say except that it is not possibleKantian influences can be seen in much of modern philosophy of science, such as a posteriori isin the theories of logical empiricism, by definitionKarl Popper, empirical Thomas Kuhn and thus not analyticmore. Of |Criticism=One of the main criticisms Kant received was targeted towards the premises he used for the deduction of the other three categoriesPrinciple. To recall, since synthetic a posteriori propositions are empiricalthe premises were: Absolute certainty exists, and analytic a priori propositions are purely rationalworld with no strict causal relationships is unknowable. For the first premise, Kant regarded proving fallibilists dismantled the view that absolute certainty in science exists after the existence acceptance of Einstein’s theory of synthetic a priori propositions as being vital to his justification general relativity which replaced Newtonian mechanics. Fallibilism was further exemplified with the acceptance of quantum mechanics along with general relativity by the scientific knowledgecommunity despite the irreconcilable contradictions that arise when examining extreme conditions, as it could be the only category left which illustrated that could avoid the problems inherent to both classical empiricism and pure rationalismscientific community itself does not operate by assuming absolute certainty. 


Kant’s attempt to prove the existence of synthetic a priori propositions is manifested in his theory of “transcendental idealism”, whereby he stated that only phenomena can be experienced and not the world as a “thing-inA third criticism was presented by A.J. Ayer (1910-itself” (noumenon1989)  ,[[CiteRef::Ayer (Schopenhauer, 1818/18861952). Following this, ]] where he reasoned in his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783) that experience criticised Kant for conflating the psychological and epistemological criteria of evaluating analytic/synthetic statements. In the outside world through sensations is not possible “after the fact” or a posteriori, thus it must be a priori; yet, considering that the forms these phenomena take cannot be controlled by the observer, example Kant deduced that there must exist some elements gives of perception that are “7+5=12” being a priorisynthetic statement, yet independent of phenomena. 
In essenceand “all bodies are extended” being an analytic statement, Kant argued that there are employs 2 different criterion and equates the two components to one’s ability to perceive phenomenawithout clarification. FirstlyIn the first statement, there exists Kant deems it synthetic as the world as a “thing-in-itself”, which one does not experience definitions of “7” and thus cannot know about, from which phenomena “5” are perceived, and for which no preconceptions existnot contained in “12”. SecondlyOn the other hand, the phenomena Kant evaluates “all bodies are received by one’s senses and made cognizant through a priori concepts. Such a priori concepts can be thought of extended” as empty forms through which phenomena must analytic simply because it would be processed for one to perceive them as they docontradictory if otherwise. That these phenomena are not known beforehandHowever, but rather, must be processed, is the justification for the synthetic nature of “synthetic a priori propositions”. It is through this process that Kant justified the existence of person with knowledge in the natural sciences.
Kant's explanation of the theory of transcendental idealism is not without a degree of vagueness. Later philosophers are divided on their interpretations of his theorysymbol “+” would understand that when put together, especially with regard to “7+5” does indeed share the idea of the world same concept as a “thing-in-itself”. It may “12”, and this statement would be interpreted that there are two distinct forms: of the world analytic if evaluated as a thing-in-itself and of phenomena. Only one of such forms is perceivable, while the other is unknowable to the senses. This is the two-objects interpretation. Alternatively, there may be only one object, with two aspects, for which only one aspect of the same object can be perceived (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2010). Part of the reason for these different interpretations lies in the fact that Kant himself seems to have wavered in his own stance, or at least, was not precise enough in his writing. In any case, either interpretation is not without criticismsecond statement has been.

== Criticisms & New Directions == In the centuries after Kant introduced his ideasFurthermore, there Ayer amongst other philosophers have been shown that Kant was incorrect in assuming Euclidean geometry was a number of notable criticisms of his philosophypriori and held factual content about physical space i.e. is synthetic, such as those of Karl Popper[[CiteRef::Ayer (1952)||pp. Popper and others highlighted some of Kant’s underlying assumptions, such 45-46]] as the ideas discovery of absolute certainty non-Euclidean geometry and infallibility. Criticisms were laid, too, on Kant’s distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions, as well as towards application by Einstein in his two-object interpretation general theory of relativity disproved of transcendental idealismthis entirely.Even regarding these later criticismsConsequently, the analytic-synthetic distinction is just one of those effects that still frequent contemporary dialogue. As one of the earliest philosophers to frame a scientific method now see that addressed the problems presented by both Hume and Pyrrho, as well as one of the prime philosophers behind the movement to end of pure rationalism, the significance axioms of Kant’s work is geometry do not only historically evident“hold factual content”, but also realized in the present: are merely definitions. This criticism directly dismantles Kant’s framework around the problems a priori form of induction and sensation remain workable models space as a necessary precondition for current theories of scientific methods, and his writings provide some of rationalising the arguments against pure rationalism for later philosophers to employworld. Thus it can be said that the effect of the conceptual framework derived from Kant’s work on the epistemology of scientific change can still be felt to the present day.  == |Related Articles == == Notes =Topics= Baehr, J.S. A priori and a posteriori. (n.d.). In Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy online. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/apriori/Immanuel Kant. (2006, June 2). In Encyclopaedia Britannica online. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/biography/Immanuel-KantImmanuel Kant. (2010, May 20). In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/#CriEnlKant, I. (1997). Prolegomena to any future metaphysics. (J. FieserTheory, Trans.). (Original work published in 1783).Kant, I. (1929). Critique of pure reason. (N. Kemp Smith, Trans.). Palgrave Macmillan. (Original work published in 1781).Schopenhauer, A. (1886). The world as will and idea (Vol . 2). (R.B. Haldane & J. Kemp, Trans.). Trübner & Company: London. (Original work published in 1818).The analytic/synthetic distinction. (2013, August 30). In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy online. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/analytic-synthetic/#ProDisTranscedental idealism. (2015). In Encyclopaedia Britannica online. Retrieved from http://www.britannica.com/topic/transcendental-idealism |Page Status== Authors ==Needs EditingDonna Lee, 2015}}