Dr Tom Kerns
North Seattle Community College

 

A Too-short outline of
Kant's Epistemology

Immanuel Kant
(1724-1804)

(See this introductory lecture on Kant's epistemology)


Kant's books on metaphysics

  • Critique of Pure Reason (1781)
  • Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic (1785)

I. Kant's metaphysical question: "Are Synthetic, a priori judgments about Noumena possible?"

Some terms

 Aspects of the Real

Phenomenon (a)  Noumenon (a)

Ways of Knowing

a posteriori a priori

Kinds of propositions

synthetic analytic

 

II. The Categories of Perception:

The transcendental forms of perception are: Space and Time

The Categories of Perception

 Of Quantity

 Of Quality

 Of Modality

 Of Relation

 Unity
 Reality
 Possibility - Impossibility
 Inherence - Subsistence
 Plurality
 Negation
 Existence - Non-existence
 Causality - Dependence (cause & effect)
 Totality
 Limitation
 Necessity - Contingence
 Community (reciprocity between agent & patient)

 

Thus, the phenomenal world is:
"The temporal, spatial, causal manifold."