Philosophy Homework Help
Kant uses intuitions to establish metaphysics (means “behind the physical”, like primary qualities and essence). The two intuitions are space and time. His argument is that, in order to understand som
Kant uses intuitions to establish metaphysics (means “behind the physical”, like primary qualities and essence). The two intuitions are space and time. His argument is that, in order to understand something like geometry, we need the ability to conceive of spatial dimensions first. In order to establish something like quantity, we need the ability to form a successive series, like a number line. If we don’t have a number line, we can’t really say 4 is more than 3. If we don’t have a conceptual arena for geometry, we wouldn’t be able to recognize it in the world either. Imagine color: without the ocular cones and optic nerves ready to receive color from the world, we’d never understand it. Kant says it works the same way with everything else. Kant argues that we are prepared to understand the world, and it’s in those things that we can have certainty. These things are “apriori”. However, we’ve already talked about being prepared to understand the world before. Knowledge before experience? Intuitions are just fancy innate ideas!Are innate ideas the best response to Hume? Hume already criticizes Descartes for this. Does Kant’s version add anything beneficial? Or are Hume’s criticism of circular reasoning still strong?Kant would argue that synthetic judgments escape Hume. He know’s Hume well, and he even addresses him in the introduction in the Prolegomena.Please write one original post and then comment on two classmates’ posts.