Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (Kritik der Reinen Vernunft)
In this work Kant attempts to reconcile the conflict between rationalism (Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz) and empiricism (Hume, Locke, and Berkeley). Rationalism answers the question “What is Truth?” by establishing that it comes from clear and distinct mental concepts. Two such clear and distinct concepts are the self and God which are the basic building blocks of reality. Descartes builds up a coherent system of truth on these foundations. Yet, Descartes left us with problems of dualism (mind and body, but no connection). In the end, he could not assure us that the “real world” of experience has any validity.
On the other hand, the empiricists (Hume, Berkeley, Locke) emphasize experience, and thus leave us with the contingency and probability of raw experience. In turn, this leads to skepticism.
So, over all, we are left with either the uncertainty of experience or the empty sureness of ideas that may or may not fit that that world.
Kant saw these two sides as far apart, and sought to find a middle way that would mediate between them.
He saw that the empiricists tried to trace the history of our knowledge, from objects outside, to the senses, to the reflections of mind, while the rationalists simply stayed within the mind, and could not account for the outside. Both ended up in a kind of twin skepticisms because of the way they asked the questions.
Kant begins by asking a different set of questions.
Kant introduces the “transcendental method”. His approach is not to ask “whether” we have knowledge, but, granted that we have knowledge, the question is “what makes it possible?” In other words, “Given that we have knowledge, what are the conditions which make it possible?” This is a bit like ...