Epistemology Anwsers needed asap

Chapter 5: Epistemology It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle

All external links that are not explicitly marked as "Required" are to be considered as "Optional" readings.

Overview

SECTIONS

1 Overview 6 Types of Knowledge

2 Rationalism 7 Truth

3 Empiricism 8 Truth and Science

4 Transcendentalism 9. Conclusion

5 Skepticism

How do we know what we claim to know? How do we find out what we know? How do we judge claims to know? Are our beliefs reasaonable? Are reasonable beliefs the same as rational beliefs? Are our beliefs justified? How much evidence do I need to have before I have a right to believe something?

These are questions covered in this chapter. They are in the field of philosophy known as epistemology (from Greek: episteme - to know, and logos - logic/study).

The issues for epistemology are all, in one way or another, related to knowledge:

how much we know what kinds of claims we know where knowledge comes from how we obtain knowledge what knowledge really is

The sections of this chapter will cover the following:

Theories of Knowledge

1. RATIONALISM 2. EMPIRICISM 3. SKEPTICISM 4. TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM 5. SCIENTIFIC REALISM

Theories of Truth

CORRESPONDENCE THEORY COHERENCE THEORY PRAGMATIC THEORY THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD

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Chapter 5: Epistemology It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle

Overview VIEW (Optional): Types of Claims http://youtu.be/D0tLd_jsiV8

Before we look into the various theories about how we know what we do know and how to determine if claims are true or not, it would be helpful to make a number of important points or distinctions about language and how we use it. Not all uses of language involve a claim that can be described as claims of knowledge. There are a variety of forms of expressions or sentences in any language. Not all sentences are functioning for the speaker in the same way.

Here are four of the different uses for language:

Expressive

"Holy Cow!" "ouch" "Hurray!"

They express the feelings of the speaker/writer.

Directive

"Please close the door."

"What time is it?"

"How much does that cost?"

This use offers instructions or requests information.

Performative

"I bid five dollars."

"I promise that I will do that."

"I now pronounce you ..."

This use actually performs some operation. It presents no information and makes no requests.

Evaluative

"That is a good car."

"She is a good person."

"Chocolate is the best flavor for ice cream."

This use expresses how people think about some object, activity, person, condition, or situation. As the standard for making such evaluations is not such as to be derived from a source that is recognized as existing apart from humans and uninfluenced by culture there is no commonly agreed upon method for determining if such evaluations are true or not true.

Sentences expressing evaluations are not taken as making claims about what is known so much as making claims about how the evaluator thinks.

Cognitive (This use includes sentences that are either true or false, or potentially true or false.)

1. There are three sides to a triangle. The sum of their angles is 180 degrees.

2. There is a computer in front of you right now.

3. 23 + 11 = 34

4. A bachelor is an unmarried male.

5. If a is more than b, and b is more than c, then a is more than c.

6. There are 1.8376 x 10^73rd grains of sand on planet Earth.

It is the cognitive use of language that concerns us with the issue of knowledge. It is the cognitive use that makes claims that should be capable of being determined to be either true or false. Cognitive use of language expressing that which is claimed as knowledge exists in a variety of forms:

logical, semantic, systemic and empirical. We will examine them in a subsequent section. What they have in common is that claims are made that can be determined to be true or false in some manner or other.

For the remainder of this chapter it should be understood that it is the cognitive use of language that is of concern in so far as the issues of knowledge or truth.

Readings (Optional): For a look into What is knowledge?

How do we know? http://www.emporia.edu/socsci/philos_book/chp2.htm What do we know? http://www.emporia.edu/socsci/philos_book/chp3.htm

VIEW (Optional): Epistemology, or the theory of knowledge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12Zzn73v72I

Readings (Optional) : On Knowledge:

WIKIPEDIA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knowledge INTERNET ENCYCLOPEDIA of PHILOSOPHY: http://www.iep.utm.edu/knowledge STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA of PHILOSOPHY: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/knowledge-analysis/

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Chapter 5: Epistemology It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle

Rationalism

Theories of Knowledge

1. RATIONALISM 2. EMPIRICISM 3. SKEPTICISM 4. TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM 5. SCIENTIFIC REALISM

Rationalism in Epistemology

Rationalism is a reliance on reason [Latin: ratio] as the only reliable or primary source of human knowledge. In the most general application, rationalism offers a naturalistic alternative to appeals to religious accounts of human nature and conduct.

A general characterization of rationalism is that it appeals first and foremost to abstract rational considerations, like logic and mathematics, and then incorporates the senses (observation and scientific experiment). They argue that observation is not always reliable (our senses often deceive us) and scientific experiments depend on a certain logic, which we must understand before we start to use science. We need to know when our senses are likely to be reliable and which scientific experiments are "good" or "reliable" instruments for investigating reality (one wouldn't use physics to investigate a biological claim about genetics; one wouldn't use genetics to help us understand motion).

More specifically, rationalism is the epistemological theory that significant knowledge of the world can best be achieved by a priori means (prior to experience or independent of experience); it therefore stands in contrast to empiricism (which states that all knowledge comes from experience; there is no a priori knowledge).

The first philosophers referred to as rationalists include Descartes (1596-1650), Leibniz (1646-1716), and Spinoza (1632-1677). These thinkers thought they were defending a reliable way of gaining knowledge against the older, unreliable school of thought known as Scholasticism. The defense of knowledge offered by Descartes explicitly rejected many of the assumptions of the Scholastics and included a system of reasoning through scientific and philosophical problems that is highly technical, deductive, and abstract. Scholasticism was the dominant school of philosophy in the medieval period. It is based largely in the ideas (physics, metaphysics, ethics, and epistemology) of Aristotle (as opposed to Plato). Scholastics were professors in the medieval "schools," from which the term "Scholastic" is derived. Thomas Aquinas is the archetypal Scholastic thinker.) Spinoza, in his book Ethics, develops a method that is similar to Descartes's but is even more mathematical, modeled on the geometric system of Euclid's Elements. Rationalism is a method of thinking that is marked by its reliance on logic and reason as the primary source of knowledge. According to rationalists, even our very understanding of science must be developed through logic and mathematics before it can be applied to our sense experience.

In ordinary usage, rationalism is a basic sense of respect for reason or to refer to the idea that reason should play a large role in human life (in contrast, say, to mysticism).

READ (Required): http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12652a.htm

So with rationalism it is possible to have knowledge without having sensory experiences. There is knowledge of logic and its laws or rules that are based upon reasoning and not sensory experience. Some rationalists argue that this knowledge is innate or born inside of us, that is to say that there are forms of knowledge that exists within our minds from the time we are born. Other rationalists argue that we have a special faculty of learning that does not include sense experience. This special faculty is called "rational insight" or "rational intuition" (as opposed to "gut-level intuition," which is empirical). Several mathematicians, who also worked in philosophy, held this view, including: Kurt Gödel and Gottlob Frege. It is also a widely held view today among philosophers and mathematicians.

Optional Links to Rationalism sites: http://www.mayfieldpub.com/lawhead/chapter2/rationalism.htm

Reminder: All external links that are not explicitly marked as "Required" are to be considered as "Optional" readings.

Introduction to Philosophy by Philip A. Pecorino is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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Chapter 5: Epistemology It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle

Rationalism

Descartes’S Rationalism

READ (Required): the first five sections: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/descartes-epistemology/

Reading (Optional): Descartes’ Meditations part I

For Descartes, knowledge requires certainty, and certainty exists in the form of clear and distinct ideas, which are ideas that are indubitable (not capable of being doubted). These are innate ideas that all rational beings are born with such as knowledge of self, God, and the world. But all knowledge is the result of reasoning.

Optional Links related to Descartes:

http://www.mayfieldpub.com/lawhead/chapter2/descartes.htm

View (Optional):

Dr. Richard Brown Descartes 1: The Method of Doubt http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncEoWxsnXy Dr. Richard Brown Descartes 2: A Priori Knowledge http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz0lU8kFQxs

Leibniz's Rationalism

G. F. W. Leibniz, a German philosopher, distinguished necessary truths of reasoning from contingent truths of reasoning. Necessary truths of reasoning include the rule of non-contradiction and the law of excluded middle (statements are either true or false, and nothing in between). Contingent truths of reasoning are those that depend on reliable experience and strong inductive reasoning strategies (such as generalization and causal reasoning).

Reading (optional): http://www.mayfieldpub.com/lawhead/chapter2/leibniz.htm

Problems: While the rationalist can explain knowledge of mathematics and logic, how are the rationalists to explain knowledge of the external world?

Suggested Readings On Rationalism see also

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Encyclopedia Brittanica The Ism Book: a Field Guide to Philosophy

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Chapter 5: Epistemology It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle

Empiricism Reliance on experience as the source of ideas and knowledge. More specifically, empiricism is the epistemological theory that genuine information about the world must be acquired by a posteriori means, so that nothing can be thought without first being sensed. Prominent modern empiricists include Bacon, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Mill. In the twentieth century, empiricist principles were used by pragmatists (American philosophers) and the logical positivists (a group of Austrian philosophers committed to science).

READ about empiricism (Required): http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05407a.htm

John Locke: For Locke the mind is a blank slate at birth, tabla rasa, and all knowledge results from experiences that enter the mind from the experiences of the body. Knowledge of ideas is possible because ideas are representations of things experienced. But if representations are copies of our experiences, just how accurate are they?

Locke distinguished the primary and secondary qualities of an object of an experience and opened a door to a major problem in determining just how accurate sense knowledge could ever be. Locke distinguished the properties that where in or with the object (primary qualities) and those that existed within the mind of the subject of the experience (secondary qualities). For example, an object has a "texture" (primary) but the idea of “smoothness” is in the person who perceives it (secondary). An object has a degree of "heat" (molecular motion; primary), but “hot” and “cold” are ideas in the knower (secondary).

Read (Optional) the overview of Locke in a lecture by Dr. Tom Kerns: http://philosophycourse.info/lecsite/lec-locke.html

View (Optional): Locke argument against innate ides http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d0cdR_Fz1Y&feature=related

View (Optional): Dr. Richard Brown on Locke and Berkeley and Empiricism http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9GuSA9HHgA

Reading (Optional): Locke Essay Concerning Human Understanding Bk 1 ch 1

George Berkeley: Berkeley would treat both the primary and the secondary qualities as being the result of the subject, the knower. There would be no proof of the existence of any thing outside of the mind. All evidence and experiences are within the mind. God would be the MIND that thought of all other minds and thought of them in such a way that they think of themselves as being in a world with others at the same time.

Read the overview of Berkeley in a lecture by Dr. Tom Kerns (Optional): http://philosophycourse.info/lecsite/lec-berke.html

David Hume: Hume was a skeptic. He agreed with Locke that we are born with a blank slate, tabla rasa and that all our knowledge comes through the senses (empiricism), but he did not think that we could know all that much for certain. Hume was a skeptic. He held that our perceptions are or make impressions which make up our thoughts; we have no ideas without sense impressions; reasoning a priori does not lead to knowledge; sense impressions are not proof of an external, independent reality.

Read the overview of Hume in a lecture by Dr. Tom Kerns (Optional) http://philosophycourse.info/lecsite/lec-hume.html

VIEW (Optional): Dr. Richard Brown on

Hume: Induction http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiYGSR8xOec

See also (Optional):

Encyclopedia Brittanica Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The Ism Book Catholic Encyclopedia

PROBLEMS: The empiricists could not overcome problems with accounting for forms of knowledge that did not relate to the senses, e.g., in Mathematics and in Logic. And they could not account for how it could be that humans can have knowledge for which there is no direct experience, for example of the universe as a whole or of sub atomic events or quanta of energy, entities for which there can be no direct experience.

Introduction to Philosophy by Philip A. Pecorino is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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Chapter 5: Epistemology It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle

Transcendentalism

Immanuel Kant: TRANSCENDENTAL IDEALISM

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a Prussian philosopher (Prussia no longer exists, but most of it was in what is now called Poland).

Introduction to Kant and his Epistemology by Tom Kerns READ (Required): http://philosophycourse.info/lecsite/lec-kant.html

Detailed overview of Kant READ all sections until you reach Kant’s Ethics (Required): http://www.iep.utm.edu/kantmeta/

For Kant there is:

unity of consciousness

unity of being

unifying act of the mind

To account for this and our relation to being, Kant postulates that there must exist rules for thoughts, which he calls categories that are innate and necessary for understanding anything at all. Without such rules operating, there is no way to account for our knowledge of such ideas as:

substance/space/time/unity/plurality /cause and effect/ possibility/necessity/reality

Knowledge has both form and content.

Form or structure of Knowledge of reality: the categories (the way the mind operates)

Content of the knowledge of reality - the information formed by the categories, provided by the senses

So, there are no pure experiences; all experiences become perceptions by being filtered through the categories, and the result is our ideas about the world.

But, there is a fundamental distinction to be made of two types of knowledge:

KNOWLEDGE of the thing as it appears through our senses as filtered by the brain: phenomena This is possible and what we generally call knowledge of the world KNOWLEDGE of the thing as it is in itself: noumena This is not possible for humans can never get beyond or away from the categories of the understanding, which shape and influence all that the human experiences. Humans can never think without using the categories of the mind. Therefore, there is no direct access to things as they are in themselves.

Introduction to Philosophy by Philip A. Pecorino is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

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Chapter 5: Epistemology It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle

Skepticism

Skepticism is the belief that some or all human knowledge is impossible. Since even our best methods for learning about the world sometimes fall short of perfect certainty, skeptics argue, it is better to suspend belief than to rely on the dubitable products of reason. Classical skeptics include Pyrrho of Elis and Sextus Empiricus. In the modern era, Montaigne, Bayle, and Hume all advocated some form of skeptical philosophy. Fallibilism is a more moderate response to the lack of certainty.

Read (Required): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skepticism

Read (Optional): Hume: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism/

Ancient Skepticism

Read (Required): http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/skepanci.htm and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-ancient/

Contemporary Skepticism

Read (Optional): http://www.iep.utm.edu/s/skepcont.htm

A degree of skepticism is quite healthy. It certainly is not healthy to be too credulous and accepting of any ideas whatsoever. Many people are taken in by poor reasoning and illusions and deliberate attempts to mislead and deceive. They are not skeptical enough. Alternatively, if your view of skepticism is too strong, you run into logical problems. If you say it is not possible to have knowledge, your view is self defeating (do you know that? If so, your claim is false.) Skepticism should be used to caution us against believing to easily and too quickly. There is a sort of positive skepticism that urges caution and all deliberate care and critique before drawing conclusions or setting beliefs but does not reject the possibility of either achieving knowledge or gaining closer proximity to knowledge and truth.

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Chapter 5: Epistemology It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle

Types of Knowledge Although philosophers may differ on how many different types there are, they agree that we know different things in many different ways.

Here is a list of different ways we come to have knowledge:

LOGICAL

SEMANTIC

SYSTEMIC

EMPIRICAL

What are these about ? Why make these distinctions?

Consider that you probably would claim to know the following things.

Examples:

1. There are three sides to a triangle. The sum of their angles is 180 degrees.

2. There is a computer in front of you right now.

3. 23 + 11= 34

4. A bachelor is an unmarried male.

5. If a is more than b, and b is more than c, then a is more than c.

These sentences all make claims that can be determined to be either true or false. They are sentences that express propositions. They are claims about which you can come to a judgment as to whether or not they are true. You probably know that they are true. Now how is it that you come to know these things? Obviously you come by this knowledge in different ways. This relates to the idea of the different types of knowledge.

LOGICAL example 5 There is a knowledge that is the result of the understanding of the relationship of ideas to one another. There are the rules or laws of logic that permit claims to knowledge that are further statements of ideas consistent with the rules and the ideas already accepted.

Here is another example where you do not need to know what I am talking about because you know the relationships involved.

A. All gazintz are gazatz

B. All gazatz are garingers

C. Therfore, all gazintz are garingers.

You can claim to know that: If A and B are true, then C is true as well. This you know by LOGIC.

SEMANTIC example 4 There is knowledge that is the result of learning the meaning of words. Knowledge of words is knowledge of definitions. Such definitions are set in dictionaries. So bachelors are unmarried males. You know this. People acknowledge this. You can look it up.

(Are newborn baby boys Bachelors???????? Do people say to the new mother in the hospital nursery: "Oh what a beautiful bachelor you have there Ms Jones!" ?)

SYSTEMIC examples 1 and 3 There is knowledge of Mathematics and Geometry, which is the result of learning a system of words, or symbols and how they relate to one another and the rules of operating in that system and then any claims made that are consistent with those definitions and rules are called knowledge.

EMPIRICAL example 2 There is a knowledge that comes through our senses. This knowledge is empirical knowledge. Science is the best example of a method for ascertaining the accuracy of such knowledge. Scientific knowledge is a result of the practice of the method: Observation, abduction of a hypothesis, careful observation, refinement of hypothesis, deduction of test for hypothesis, testing and experimentation, confirmation or falsification of the hypothesis.

What do these four types of knowledge have in common? One of the most popular theories of knowledge of the twentieth century holds that

KNOWLEDGE does imply a Belief.

Belief does not Imply Knowledge. Wherever people claim to know that something is true they believe that it is so. When people claim to believe that something is so they don’t always claim to know that it is so.

What kind of a belief is KNOWLEDGE.?

To begin with it must be true. You can not know something that is false, that is not so.

It must be true and you must claim to know it and it be true not by accident or coincidence but because there is evidence to support and enough to warrant or justify the claim to know.

So, KNOWLEDGE = JUSTIFIED TRUE BELIEF

WARRANTED TRUE BELIEF

EVIDENCE is NEEDED for JUSTIFICATION

View (Optional): Knowledge as Justified True Belief http://youtu.be/tg2itM5-cdM

CAUTION!

WARRANTED TRUE BELIEF may not be knowledge if true by ACCIDENT.

January 1, 2001 the claim is made: I know that the GIANTS are going to win the SUPERBOWL in 2001!

It turns out that several weeks later they did win. Can I claim that I knew it on January 1st or was it just a lucky guess or a well informed guess?

How does a person gain the warrant or the justification for the belief?

Well, depending on the type of belief that it is there are different kinds of warrants.

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Chapter 5: Epistemology It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle

Types of Knowledge, continued

SECTIONS

1 Overview 6 Types of Knowledge

2 Rationalism 7 Truth

3 Empiricism 8 Truth and Science

4 Transcendentalism 9 Conclusion

5 Skepticism

LOGICAL

Warrants found in the rules of Logic. Follow them and the claim is warranted.

SEMANTIC

Warrants are found in the dictionaries. Use them, be consistent with them and the claim is warranted.

SYSTEMIC

Warrants are found within the system (Math or Geometry) follow the rules be consistent with the definitions and rules and the claim is warranted.

EMPIRICAL

Warrants are found with evidence. How is the evidence to be gathered, examined and evaluated? There will be more on this under the topic of TRUTH

There are four types of beliefs associated with truth and warrants:

1. warranted true beliefs: This type is called KNOWLEDGE 2. warranted false beliefs: This type cannot exist at all. 3. unwarranted true beliefs: These are lucky guesses or coincidences and not knowledge. 4. unwarranted false belief:s These are just wild unsupported claims or wishes that are not true.

EXAMPLE:

How old is someone? If someone claims to know how old John Smith or Mary Doe is, we probably accept the claim on their word if it is just gossip. However, if there were a $10 bet on it, we would ask for evidence. We might go to the person and ask them to confirm the claim. If it were $100, we might want a driver’s license. If it were $1000, we might want a birth certificate. For $10,000 ,we might want to go to the official registry and check the official documents ourselves. The more that's at stake, the more certain we want to be!

One of the highest consequences on claims to know is human life. At a criminal trial, a capital homicide case, what is the standard of proof? It is evidence that is convincing beyond a reasonable doubt. Not beyond all doubts. But beyond reasonable doubt, meaning beyond all doubting or questioning of the evidence that we have reason to doubt or question.

Scientists have their reputation riding on their claims to know things. The standard for the warrant in Science is that their claims be supported by evidence that other scientists can examine, experiments that others can repeat and get the same result, and equations that others can examine to check against errors.

So, claims to know are accepted on the amounts of support that may vary in the type and amount depending on the type of claim that it is. However, to know something that which you claim to know must be true, and truth does not have degrees: a statement p is either true or it isn't.

TRUTH will be examined in the next section.

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Chapter 5: Epistemology It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. ~ Aristotle

Transcendentalism, continued For Kant, humans will never know things as they are in themselves because humans can never think without their brains, and our brains are so structured as to provide for arrangements and ordering and connecting elements for human thought to occur. It is as if humans must always see things through colored glasses because they cannot remove them. Therefore, the universe will always appear through the tinting of those glasses. Humans will never know how the universe actually looks. Humans may get close, but cannot experience the thing itself directly.

How do we acquire ideas?

Kant combines ideas of the rationalists and the empiricists:

Rationalism Empiricism

innate knowledge (the categories we learn about through the a priori process of transcendental deduction)

experience (the information provided by the senses that is filtered through the categories)

How is knowledge organized in the mind?

Mind introduces new principles of order into experience and arranges, stores, and tests those arrangements for truth.

Read (Optional): Kant: Kritik der reinen Vernunft or the Critique of Pure Reason

View (Optional): Dr. Richard Brown - Kant: Synthetic a priori http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NepDL1h1BS4

View (Optional): Transcendental Idealism noumena and phenomena http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE40mKqUkos

Kant’s contributions of the distinct types of knowledge and of the role played by the order of the brain remain a dominating influence over the field of epistemology to this day.

Immanuel Kant is considered to be one of the world's greatest philosophers. In his account of epistemological theory of knowledge, called transcendental idealism, he claimed that “the mind of the knower makes an active contribution to experience of objects before us”. He meant that whatever we already know through our experience makes it easier for us to acquire new means of knowledge. Accordingly, Kant specified two sources of our knowledge, which are the mind’s receptive capacity (sensibility), and the mind’s conceptual capacity (understanding). He thought that it would be impossible for people to have any experience of objects, which are not placed in space and time. These conditions of sensibility are due to our consciousness, which must “apprehend objects as occupying a region of space and persisting for some duration of time”. However, sensibility by itself doesn’t make judging objects possible. It takes also understanding, which provides the concepts, the rules for determining what is “common or universal in different representations”. He said, “without sensibility no object would be given to us; and without understanding no object would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions without concepts are blind”. He meant that in order to think about some object it takes understanding, which assigns concepts, based on the object’s sensation input, to identify what is common and general about it.

Nevertheless, empirical derivation discussed above is not sufficient to explain all of the concepts that arise in the human life, such as causation, substance, self, identity, space, time, etc. It’s due to the fact that these concepts are products of our experience, which is constituted by ideas. Therefore, “Kant postulates that there must exist rules for thoughts, which he calls Categories that are innate and necessary for understanding” all of the concepts. In addition to mind’s conceptual contribution to experience only that special set of concepts organized into these fundamental categories of thought make empirical concepts and judgments possible. Although these concepts cannot be experienced directly, they are present when particular judgments of objects take place. Plus, “since objects can only be experienced spatio-temporally, the only application of concepts that yields knowledge is to the empirical...world”. Kant rejects any kind of knowledge that goes beyond the bounds of sensation because there can be no objects for the understanding to judge, rightly or wrongly. While Kant is a transcendental idealist he believes the nature of objects as they are in themselves is unknowable to us. However, the knowledge of appearance is...possible. Therefore, knowledge of the things can never get beyond the categories of understanding, which shape and influence all that the human experiences. Accordingly, human will never know how the universe actually looks because they aren’t able to think without any arrangement and order of elements. Kant’s theory of knowledge combines rationalism and the empiricism in his account to distinct types of knowledge and the principles of mind‘s order. Andrzej Lagodzinski (QCC, 2001)

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