Kant's writings are largely a response to Hume, discuss

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher that sought to reject the epistemology of Hume. He rejected Hume's idea that people were irrational and thought it was essential that humans should be rational, so that they could be moral and free. Hume is a very important philosopher to know in journalism; he's interesting and fearless.

Hume speaks about perceptions which is any content of the mind. Perceptions can be impressions or ideas. They can be anything you see, hear, feel or think. Beliefs can be separated into either relations of ideas or matters of fact. A relation of ideas is a priori bond between ideas. For instance, 5+5=10 or all bachelors are unmarried. Matters of fact are to do with experience, a posteriori. We know these through a process of cause and effect. This does, however, rely on a belief in causation and induction. Hume believes that all matters of fact are fundamentally non-rational.

Kant believe he had a stronger form of Hume's a priori knowledge, named synthetic a priori; knowledge that can be gained independently of experience. For example, if there was 1,000 living people in a football stadium and this is fact, you could also derive from that knowledge the minimum capacity of the stadium must be at least 1,000 people, you would also know the stadium could support human life and that time elapsing.

Through this, Kant has established the existence of both space and time. An object cannot possibly exist outside of time and space, they are the pre-conditions of all experience.

Kant supposedly saves science and metaphysics from scepticism, such as Hume's, in observing that every change has a cause and effect to nature. 

He rejects previous ideas that things exist if they are perceived, claiming they have to exist in order to perceive them; existence is a predicate of perception. Although Kant suggests reality is shaped by our perception, his theory is not solipsist as he believes the universe exists independently of the mind.

Kant believes we perceive the world by processing raw data into 12 innate categories; unity, plurality (or not), totality (or not), reality, negation, extension (substance), cause and effect, community (likeness to other objects), possibility (or impossibility), existence (or non-existence) and necessity (or contingency).

Anything in the world that is observed fits into at least one of the above categories. Kant argues that our perceptions only exist in our minds as phenomena. Phenomena are real objects in the mind as we perceive them whereas noumena is the object itself, rather than as it is perceived.

Any object has a dual nature; the way it is naturally and the way it is when we perceive it. We can never know the noumena as once an object it is perceived by us, it is the phenomena.

Kant's moral philosophy was called the Categorical Imperative. It was a set of maxims that should be lived by, regardless of the situation. Any action could only be justifiable moral if it could be universalised without contradiction. For example, stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving family may seem justifiable, but stealing a car is not. However, as stealing is not acceptable in every situation, you have a contradiction, so in Kant's view, it would never be acceptable to steal.

HCJ: Kant

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher that sought to reject the epistemology of Hume. He rejected Hume's idea that people were irrational and thought it was essential that humans should be rational, so that they could be moral and free.

Kant believe he had a stronger form of Hume's a priori knowledge, named synthetic a priori; knowledge that can be gained independently of experience. For example, if there was 1,000 living people in a football stadium and this is fact, you could also derive from that knowledge the minimum capacity of the stadium must be at least 1,000 people, you would also know the stadium could support human life and that time elapsing.

Through this, Kant has established the existence of both space and time. An object cannot possibly exist outside of time and space, they are the pre-conditions of all experience.

Kant supposedly saves science and metaphysics from scepticism, such as Hume's, in observing that every change has a cause and effect to nature. 

He rejects previous ideas that things exist if they are perceived, claiming they have to exist in order to perceive them; existence is a predicate of perception. Although Kant suggests reality is shaped by our perception, his theory is not solipsist as he believes the universe exists independently of the mind.

Kant believes we perceive the world by processing raw data into 12 innate categories; unity, plurality (or not), totality (or not), reality, negation, extension (substance), cause and effect, community (likeness to other objects), possibility (or impossibility), existence (or non-existence) and necessity (or contingency).

Anything in the world that is observed fits into at least one of the above categories. Kant argues that our perceptions only exist in our minds as phenomena.

Phenomena; real objects in the mind as we perceive them.

Noumena; the object itself, rather than as it is perceived.

Any object has a dual nature; the way it is naturally and the way it is when we perceive it. We can never know the noumena as once an object it is perceived by us, it is the phenomena.

Kant's moral philosophy was called the Categorical Imperative. It was a set of maxims that should be lived by, regardless of the situation. Any action could only be justifiable moral if it could be universalised without contradiction. For example, stealing a loaf of bread to feed your starving family may seem justifiable, but stealing a car is not. However, as stealing is not acceptable in every situation, you have a contradiction, so in Kant's view, it would never be acceptable to steal.

HCJ: Empiricism - Locke to Hume

Hume is a very important philosopher to know in journalism; he's interesting and fearless. Locke fits in nicely with this as Hume based his ideas on those of Locke.

Empiricism is the complete opposite of rationalism. A rationalist believes he can gain knowledge about the world simply by thinking about it, Descartes being an example, whereas an empiricist believes knowledge comes from experience, Locke being an example.

A prior is knowledge from reason, a posteriori is knowledge from experience.

John Locke

He is considered as one of the first Empiricists. He believes knowledge is derived from experience.

Locke is against the concept of innate ideas; he believes that at birth our minds were simply blank slates. The concept of innate ideas wasn't needed anyway, as God gave us the ability to discover knowledge and morality known as "God given faculties". 

David Hume

Hume was known as 'The Great Infidel' due to his attacks on religion.

Although his ideas were based on Locke's, he disagrees with Locke's idea of God given faculties. He believes experience is processed into thoughts naturally.

Hume has been criticised and called an anti-rationalist due to his skepticism about the pretensions of reason, however, he is pro-science and anti-superstition.

Locke mainly speaks about ideas, which is sensory data acted on by reason, and Hume speaks about perceptions, which is any content of the mind. This refines Locke's ideas.

Perceptions can be impressions or ideas. They can be anything you see, hear, feel or think. Beliefs can be separated into either relations of ideas or matters of fact. A relation of ideas is a priori bond between ideas. For instance, 5+5=10 or all bachelors are unmarried. Matters of fact are to do with experience, a posteriori. We know these through a process of cause and effect. This does, however, rely on a belief in causation and induction. Hume believes that all matters of fact are fundamentally non-rational.

Logic

There are two different types of logic.

Deductive; this is when if all the premises are true, it means the conclusion must be true also. For instance; all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal.

Inductive; this is when a conclusion is established which is presumed to be true with some degree of probability.

Induction
As a general, it is considered that what has happened in the past will happen again in the future. For instance, the sun rose yesterday morning, therefore it shall rise again this morning, and tomorrow morning, which is what the whole of science is basically based on.

However, the question is raised of how can we know history will repeat itself... and so begins the search for natural laws.

The scientific method for finding the natural laws is to carry our experiments, make observations and from this information, build up general laws using induction. It is then that induction becomes the demarcation between science and non-science. Hume argued a problem with induction as it is not reliable and cannot be definitively proved but it is human nature to presume what happened in the past with happen again in the future. You can not observe what will happen in the future, as you can not observe the future.

This presumption isn't secure, however it is what we base our entire lives on. It is custom and habit that set out our decisions and ideas for the future. Hume doesn't want us to abandon this but simple states that it is our confidence in the uniformity of nature that might let us down.