display all the ideas for this combination of texts
11 ideas
| 16916 | A priori synthetic knowledge is only of appearances, not of things in themselves [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Through intuition we can only know objects as they appear to us (to our senses), not as they may be in themselves; and this presupposition is absolutely necessary if synthetic propositions a priori are to be granted as possible. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 283) | |
| A reaction: This idea is basic to understanding Kant, and especially his claim that arithmetic is a priori synthetic. |
| 16915 | A priori intuitions can only concern the objects of our senses [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Intuitions which are possible a priori can never concern any other things than objects of our senses. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 283) | |
| A reaction: Given the Kantian idea that what is known a priori will also be necessary, we might have had great hopes for big-time metaphysics, but this idea cuts it down to size. Personally, I don't think we are totally imprisoned in the phenomena. |
| 16914 | A priori intuition of objects is only possible by containing the form of my sensibility [Kant] |
| Full Idea: The only way for my intuition to precede the reality of the object and take place as knowledge a priori is if it contains nothing else than the form of sensibility which in me as subject precedes all real impressions through which I'm affected by objects. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 283) | |
| A reaction: This may be the single most famous idea in Kant. I'm not really a Kantian, but this is a powerful idea, the culmination of Descartes' proposal to start philosophy by looking at ourselves. No subsequent thinking can ignore the idea. |
| 21447 | I can make no sense of the red experience being similar to the quality in the object [Kant] |
| Full Idea: I can make little sense of the assertion that the sensation of red is similar to the property of the vermilion [cinnabar] which excites this sensation in me. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 290) | |
| A reaction: A sensible remark. In Kant's case it is probably a part of his scepticism that his intuitions reveal anything directly about reality. Locke seems to have thought (reasonably enough) that the experience contains some sort of valid information. |
| 16924 | I count the primary features of things (as well as the secondary ones) as mere appearances [Kant] |
| Full Idea: I also count as mere appearances, in addition to [heat, colour, taste], the remaining qualities of bodies which are called primariae, extension, place, and space in general, with all that depends on it (impenetrability or materiality, shape etc.). | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 289 n.II) | |
| A reaction: He sides with Berkeley and Hume against Locke and Boyle. He denies being an idealist (Idea 16923), so it seems to me that Kant might be described as a 'phenomenalist'. |
| 16913 | I can't intuit a present thing in itself, because the properties can't enter my representations [Kant] |
| Full Idea: It seems inconceivable how the intuition of a thing that is present should make me know it as it is in itself, for its properties cannot migrate into my faculty of representation. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 282) | |
| A reaction: One might compare this with Locke's distinction of primary and secondary, where the primary properties seem to 'migrate into my faculty of representation', but the secondary ones fail to do so. I think I prefer Locke. This idea threatens idealism. |
| 4831 | If the body is affected by an external object, the mind can't help believing that the object exists [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: If the human body is affected in a manner which involves the nature of any external body, the human mind will regard the said external body as actually existing. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], II Pr 17) | |
| A reaction: This is like one of Hume's 'natural beliefs', and seems to me a powerful idea. One of the basic questions of epistemology is, apart from the question 'which beliefs can I justify?', also 'which beliefs can I never abandon?' Skip the scepticism? |
| 4865 | The eyes of the mind are proofs [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: The eyes of the mind … are none other than proofs. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], V Pr 23) | |
| A reaction: A wonderful slogan for rationalists! Technically it sounds a bit dodgy, as steps seem to be required for a proof, whereas the eyes of the mind presumably offer a priori intuitions, or clear and distinct conceptions. In essence, he is right. |
| 20306 | Once we have experienced two feelings together, one will always give rise to the other [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: If the mind has once been affected by two affects at once, then afterwards, when it is affected by one of them, it will also be affected by the other. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], III Pr14) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as better expressed than Hume's version, which relies on examples. It is more generalised than Hume, since it will cover contiguity and resemblance and causation, all under the heading of the arising affects. |
| 16925 | Appearance gives truth, as long as it is only used within experience [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Appearance brings forth truth so long as it is used in experience, but as soon as it goes beyond the boundary of experience and becomes transcendent, it brings forth nothing but illusion. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 292 n.III) | |
| A reaction: This is the nearest I have found to Kant declaring for empiricism. It sounds something like direct realism, if experience itself can bring forth truth. |
| 16911 | Intuition is a representation that depends on the presence of the object [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Intuition is a representation, such as would depend on the presence of the object. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysic [1781], 282) | |
| A reaction: This is a distinctively Kantian view of intuition, which arises through particulars, rather than the direct apprehension of generalities. |