“There can be no doubt that all
our knowledge begins with experience. For how should our faculty
of knowledge be awakened into action did not objects affecting our senses
partly of themselves produce representations, partly arouse the activity
of our understanding to compare these representations, and by combining
or separating them, work up the raw material of the sensible impressions
into that knowledge of objects which is entitled experience? In order
of time, therefore, we have no knowledge antecedent to experience, and
with experience all our knowledge begins.
But though all our knowledge
begins with experience, it does not follow that it all arises out of experience.
For it may well be that even our empirical knowledge is made up of what
we receive through impressions and of what our own faculty of knowledge
(sensible impressions serving merely as the occasion) supplies from itself.
If our faculty of knowledge makes any such addition, it may be that we
are not in a position to distinguish it from the raw material, until with
long practice of attention we have become skilled in separating it.”
(CPR, B1-2)
Thus begins Kant’s introduction
to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. It is given
that we have experience and learn from experience. Kant’s project
is to uncover the presuppositions that make experience and the learning
from experience possible.
In this course we shall follow
Kant’s trail through the transcendental terrain that makes experience possible.
We shall find concepts, like causality, that need to be restricted by the
intuitions of space and time. We shall discuss why objects must presuppose
an I, and what kind of I it must presuppose. We shall see how he
thinks that reason, full of its own power, breaks the bounds of sense
and leads us into philosophical battles that no side can win.
Why study Kant? One set of reasons involves his place in the history of modern philosophy. Whether you understand him as a person who tried to synthesize the empirical and rational traditions before him (as many philosophy textbooks present him) or you understand him as a pioneer exploring new territory (as I and some others do), he is a significant figure in the history of modern philosophy. That usually is reason enough.
Today, however, another set of
reasons to study Kant emerges from studies in language and cognitive science.
In this course, we will compare and contrast the Kantian project to the
work of current developmental psychologists who are trying, in a sense,
through ‘careful attention’ and experimentation with infants, to
separate what the ‘faculty of knowledge’ contributes to the ‘raw material’.
This will be a seminar style
class.
Discussion will be expected
Projects and presentations are likely
Books ordered so far:
Kant, Critique of Pure Reason (translated by Smith)
Gopnik et. al., The Scientist in the Crib