Immanuel Kant read Humes Enquiry and spent the next ten years in solitude crafting his reply. When he finally published The Critique of Pure Reason in 1781, his work would forever alter the philosophical landscape and reconcile the estrangement of the Mind and the Body. Kant answered Humes so-called skeptical challenge by claiming that all experience is some combination of a priori (before experience, mathematically and logically true), a posteriori (experience-based), analytic (the predicate is only an analysis of the subject) and synthetic (predicate adds information about the subject). All bachelors are unmarried is an example of an a priori analytic statement, while All bachelors are unhappy would be both an a posteriori and synthetic statement. His conclusion was that the structure of the mind is built to create and justify synthetic a priori ideas: it has the ability to conceptualise abstract thoughts (a priori) and develop new knowledge (synthetic) based on these thoughts. Kant, a mathematician, was the first to put into scientific language such an idea, and his detailed methodology of proof remains a vital approach to such theory to this day. By bringing together the Rationalist and Materialist camps with his necessary-for-experience union of the abstract mind and the sensing body, Kant gave theoretical justification for the radical and groundbreaking work of the Enlightenment in areas such as science, politics, and religious thought. Still with us after that, or perhaps you've reconsidered your entire position in the universe? Let us know in the comments!
David Wagner is an author/musician who splits his time between Oakland, CA and Istanbul, Turkey.
David has published two novels, both available on his website, and as a fan of movies, comics, and genre television, he is happy to be working with WhatCulture as a regular contributor.
