Conceptual schemes Kant

Created by: josie
Created on: 11-12-12 20:59

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Implications of Conceptual schemes (Kant)
- Content/scheme
  - Duck/rabbit example
    - You see a duck then a rabbit or even a series of lines
      - The only thing that is changing is the idea/scheme not the content.
- Synthetic a priori knowledge
  - Knowledge about the world known prior to experience
  - Space and Time
    - Needed for experience so cannot come from experience
    - Impossible to have an experience that isn't in terms of space and time
      - Needed for experience so cannot come from experience
  - Schemes are universal so we can verify knowledge claims if they are in accordance with this universal conceptual scheme.
- Empiricism and rationalism reconciled
  - Empiricism
    - Right
      - Raw materials for thought cn only come from experience
        Thinking would be impossible without the raw materials
      - Thinking would be impossible without the raw materials
    - Wrong
      - Wrong to think the mind is a Tabula Rasa
  - Rationalism
    - Right
      - There are innate concepts and structures in the mind
    - Wrong
      - rong to think these ideas and structures mirror an bjective reality beyond our minds
  - Aim
    - Embrace the insights of both whilst rejecting the problems in each
  - Kants synthesis
    - "Form without content is empty. Content without form is blind"
    - The raw materials we gaiin through experience need structure and order for us to make sense of them.
      - Intelligible experience
- Knowledge limited to Phenomenal world
  - Cannot have experience without structure
    - Can only know the world as it apears
      - Phenomenal world
  - World beyond our experience is unknowable
    - Noumenal world
      - World independantly of how it appears
  - Can only have intelligible experience if it is filtered through a conceptual scheme
    - Which has a set of necessary a priori structures and concepts built into it
      - Space and time, Casuation, unity, manner and number
Synthetic a priori knowledge
- Knowledge about the world known prior to experience
- Space and Time
  - Impossible to have an experience that isn't in terms of space and time
- Schemes are universal so we can verify knowledge claims if they are in accordance with this universal conceptual scheme.
Empiricism and rationalism reconciled
- Empiricism
  - Right
    - Raw materials for thought cn only come from experience
  - Wrong
    - Wrong to think the mind is a Tabula Rasa
- Rationalism
  - Right
    - There are innate concepts and structures in the mind
  - Wrong
    - rong to think these ideas and structures mirror an bjective reality beyond our minds
- Aim
  - Embrace the insights of both whilst rejecting the problems in each
- Kants synthesis
  - "Form without content is empty. Content without form is blind"
  - The raw materials we gaiin through experience need structure and order for us to make sense of them.
    - Intelligible experience