Immanuel Kant
We should view Kant at the tail end of the enlightenment, but his work should in itself be considered an enlightenment. He takes off where Hume thoughts on perceptions end — that they are never perceived, only events are and cause and effect must be inferred.
Critique of Pure Reason
It is said with humility and surprise that how could such a modest professor in Germany in the 17th Century produce so slowly a work that would shake the earth. He lived in a air tight routine you could not have had stuck a pin through. This rather should be a guidance for all of us wishing to produce great work.
Immanuel Kant sets the ground work and a few extra levels on epistemology in his work Critique of Pure Reason. He inquires about knowledge itself. He is dubious of experience dictating what is knowledge or what can be defined as true — let us remind ourselves that this was a time when science was just getting a foothold in humanity. Experiences can only be gained through our senses. Here, Immanuel Kant comes to the conclusion that the first two steps to work out the raw sensations we have to be translated into thought is the following:
1. Coordinate the sensations by applying forms of perception: space and time
2. Apply forms of conceptions, or classification and categorization of perceptions
To Kant, space and time are not perceptions, but modes of perception. Conceptions are classifications such as relationships, sequences, laws and etc.
Here is the whole of Immanuel Kant’s epistemology summarized by Will Durant:
“sensation is unorganized stimulus, perception is organized sensation, conception is organized perception, science is organized knowledge, wisdom is organized life: each is a greater degree of order, and sequence, and unity. It is ourselves, our personalities and our minds that bring light upon these orders, sequences and unities.”¹
Reference
Durant, Will. Story of Philosophy. 352
