Questions on Philosophy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3000 words

Questions on Philosophy - Essay ExampleWhat problem did Kant find with traditional metaphysics and how does he subscribe to solve it? (Think Descartes on this also) He thinks he is writing for metaphysicians and Hume because Hume is skeptic about the surmisal of metaphysics (SparkNotes Editors). 3. How is it that Hume awoke Kant from his dogmatic tranquillity? What was it about Humes philosophy that was so awakening to Kant? What were the reasons Humes observations were so unsettling to Kant? Kant said that Humes skeptical gainsay is what first spurred him toward his critical philosophy. Hume asks how we depose make inferences regarding experience how can I predict what will decease in the future based on what has happened in the past? In ready to do so, Hume suggests, I must know some sort of uniformity article of faith that says that events in the future will fare the same sorts of general laws that they have followed in the past. But how can I know this uniformity princip le? It isnt logically or necessarily true, so I cant simply infer it prior to experience kindred I can with mathematical cognition. However, I fall into a vicious circle if I lead that I know it from experience, since I need to already have the uniformity principle in order to infer thatthe uniformity principle has been true in the past, and it will continue to be true in the future. Thus, Hume concludes that we cannot know that future events will follow the same laws as past events we just get into the riding habit of expecting it (SparkNotes Editors). 4. What questions are the ones that Kant thinks need to be answered first if metaphysics as a perception is to be assertable at all? Which is the question at the foundation of all knowledge? Metaphysics is unlike math or science in that its reach exceeds its grasp. It aspires to know what it cannot know. In finding itself bounded, however, reason also explores the full extent and possibility of human knowledge. While reason cann ot tell us anything about things in themselves, it can be employ to examine our own faculties. Kant redefines metaphysics as a critique, an attempt to examine how knowledge is structured and justified (SparkNotes Editors). 5. What does Kant base by all of our judgments being either a priori or a posteriori and either analytic or synthetic? What are examples of each of them? How do these 4 designations of our objects of knowledge differ from the two that Hume argued there were? Kant distinguishes among a priori and a posteriori cognitions and between analytic and synthetic judgments. Knowledge we gain from experience is a posteriori, and what we can know independent of experience is a priori. A synthetic judgment is one whose predicate contains info not contained in the subject, and an analytic judgment is one whose predicate is a mere analysis of the subject. Kant claims that mathematics, cancel science, and metaphysics all lay claim to synthetic a priori propositionsproposition s that are necessarily but not trivially true, and can be known prior to experience. Since mathematics and pure natural science are well-establi take fields, he proposes to examine how their synthetic truths are possible a priori in the hope that this examination will shed light on the possibility of metaphysics as a science (SparkNotes Editors). 6. What is so peculiar about knowledge that is both synthetic and a priori? Be able to give examples of these and be able to describe how this is possible according to Kant. Kant