belief.”
“I’ve heard enough about Berkeley, thanks.”
“Kant was the first of the philosophers we have heard about so far to
have taught philosophy at a university. He was a professor of philosophy.”
“Professor?”
“There are two kinds of philosopher. One is a person who seeks his own
answers to philosophical questions. The other is someone who is an expert
on the history of philosophy but does not necessarily construct his own phi-
losophy.”
“And Kant was that kind?”
“Kant was both. If he had simply been a brilliant professor and an expert
on the ideas of other philosophers, he would never have carved a place for
himself in the history of philosophy. But it is important to note that Kant had a
solid grounding in the philosophic tradition of the past. He was familiar both
with the rationalism of Descartes and Spinoza and the empiricism of Locke,
Berkeley, and Hume.”
“I asked you not to mention Berkeley again.”
“Remember that the rationalists believed that the basis for all human
knowledge lay in the mind. And that the empiricists believed all knowledge of
the world proceeded from the senses. Moreover, Hume had pointed out that
there are clear limits regarding which conclusions we could reach through our
sense perceptions.”
“And who did Kant agree with?”
“He thought both views were partly right, but he thought both were partly
wrong, too. The question everybody was concerned with was what we can
know about the world. This philosophical project had been preoccupying all
philosophers since Descartes.
“Two main possibilities were drawn up: either the world is exactly as we
perceive it, or it is the way it appears to our reason.”
“And what did Kant think?”
“Kant thought that both ‘sensing’ and ‘reason’ come into play in our
conception of the world. But he thought the rationalists went too far in their
claims as to how much reason can contribute, and he also thought the
empiricists placed too much emphasis on sensory experience.”
“If you don’t give me an example soon, it will all be just a bunch of
words.”
“In his point of departure Kant agrees with Hume and the empiricists that
all our knowledge of the world comes from our sensations. But—and here
Kant stretches his hand out to the rationalists—in our reason there are also
decisive factors that determine how we perceive the world around us. In other
words, there are certain conditions in the human mind that are contributive to
our conception of the world.”
“You call that an example?”
“Let us rather do a little experiment. Could you bring those glasses from
the table over there? Thank you. Now, put them on.”
Sophie put the glasses on. Everything around her became red. The pale
colors became pink and the dark colors became crimson.
“What do you see?”
“I see exactly the same as before, except that it’s all red.”
“That’s because the glasses limit the way you perceive reality.