HKB
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Often appears with: reason and the intellect · logic, method, and demonstration · doubt, skepticism, and certainty · world beginning vs no beginning · want of ideas · unity of experience · undiscoverable connections · unconditioned vs conditioned · triangle equality · transcendental ideas · transcendental dialectic · three kinds of dialectical arguments
Usually: argument (4) · detachment (4) · skepticism (4) · reflection (2) · crisis of belief (2) · list or catalogue (1) · censure (1) · curiosity (1)
“He that knows anything, knows this, in the first place, that he need not seek long for instances of his ignorance.” John Locke, An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 2 · insight
Kant states that understanding’s supreme principle is the originally synthetic unity of apperception, which conditions whether the manifold of intuition can be connected into a thought and thus cognized.
more than the faculty of conjoining à priori and of bringing the variety of given representations under the unity of apperception. This principle is the highest in all human cognition. [16] All general conceptions—as such—depend, for their existence, on the analytical unity of consciousness. For example, when I think of red in general, I thereby think to myself a property which (as a characteristic mark) can be d…
Kant argues that the understanding cannot decide whether possibility exceeds reality or whether multiple possible experiences exist, since “absolute possibility” belongs to reason beyond empirical use.
that is, the unity of the conceptions of the understanding. For in the understanding alone is the unity of experience, in which all perceptions must have their assigned place, possible. Whether the field of possibility be greater than that of reality, and whether the field of the latter be itself greater than that of necessity, are interesting enough questions, and quite capable of synthetic solution, questions, how…
Kant distinguishes transcendental dialectic from logical dialectic and argues that pure reason yields three kinds of dialectical arguments leading reason beyond the conditioned toward the unconditioned it cannot reach.
We are not at present engaged with a logical dialectic, which makes complete abstraction of the content of cognition and aims only at unveiling the illusory appearance in the form of syllogisms. Our subject is transcendental dialectic, which must contain, completely à priori, the origin of certain cognitions drawn from pure reason, and the origin of certain deduced conceptions, the object of which cannot be given emp…
He describes how skeptical critique helps avoid dogmatism when cosmological ideas lead to antinomies, then outlines pairs of contradictions about beginning or infinity of the world and spatial extent.
We should be quite willing to desist from the demand of a dogmatical answer to our questions, if we understood beforehand that, be the answer what it may, it would only serve to increase our ignorance, to throw us from one incomprehensibility into another, from one obscurity into another still greater, and perhaps lead us into irreconcilable contradictions. If a dogmatical affirmative or negative answer is demanded, …
He claims Hume’s skepticism stems from not systematically reviewing kinds of a priori synthesis; Kant argues skepticism misfires because it judges contingent claims of reason rather than necessary principles.
in the understanding and indicates a necessary connection, as a mere rule of association, lying in the imitative faculty of imagination, which can present only contingent, and not objective connections. The sceptical errors of this remarkably acute thinker arose principally from a defect, which was common to him with the dogmatists, namely, that he had never made a systematic review of all the different kinds of à p…
He claims knowledge’s clarity depends on the clarity of our perception of agreement or disagreement between ideas, not on whether the ideas themselves are clear or obscure, illustrated with triangle-equality.
OF THE EXTENT OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE. 1. Extent of our Knowledge. Knowledge, as has been said, lying in the perception of the agreement or disagreement of any of our ideas, it follows from hence, That, First, it extends no further than we have Ideas. First, we can have knowledge no further than we have IDEAS. 2. Secondly, It extends no further than we can perceive their Agreement or Disagreement. Secondly, That we …
Locke gives three causes of ignorance: lack of ideas, lack of a discoverable connection between ideas, and failure to trace and examine one’s ideas thoroughly.
Egyptian darkness, were not the candle of the Lord set up by himself in men's minds, which it is impossible for the breath or power of man wholly to extinguish. 21. Fourthly, Of the three real Existences of which we have certain knowledge. FOURTHLY, As to the fourth sort of our knowledge, viz. of the REAL ACTUAL EXISTENCE OF THINGS, we have an intuitive knowledge of OUR OWN EXISTENCE, and a demonstrative knowledge …