Immanue Kant- Things "In Themselves"

Final Philosophy Paper

Things “in themselves”

Immanuel Kant, prompted by David Hume, attempted to penetrate the nature of pure reason and uncover not only its boundaries but its effect on the truth of our cognition regarding objects in their actuality. Kant merged certain aspects of both rationalism and empiricism to compile a new type of transcendental philosophy that dared to venture where no other philosophers had gone before. He formulated the notion that concepts of our knowledge were derived from pure understanding. In order to arrive at his conclusion on the mind’s boundaries, Kant first had to determine the “whole sphere of pure reason” (Kant, Prolegomena, 9). Kant needed to prove that this type of knowledge was possible in order to explain for how the mind judges objects. This paper will explore Kant’s understanding of metaphysics that led to his conclusion on our inability to know things “in themselves”.

David Hume was the one who awakened Kant from what he referred to as his “dogmatic slumber” (Kant, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, 8). It began with Hume’s argument regarding the connection of cause and effect. Hume denied the possibility of knowledge through a priori cognitions, claiming they were simply common experiences, or habits. This skepticism prompted Kant to challenge Hume’s objection. Although he disagreed with several aspects of Hume’s philosophy, he was intrigued by facets of Hume’s argument and used them to advance the knowledge of our sensibility and understanding in objects. In exploring Hume’s objection against the connection of cause and effect, Kant discovered that not only cause and effect, but all of metaphysics was constructed on a priori concepts.

First, we must explain the meaning of a priori. A priori is a Latin term that literally means, “From the former” or “from before”. This is a type of knowledge that refers to things known prior to experience, or as Kant explains a knowledge “coming from pure...