Author Question: Hume divided human knowledge into two categories and insisted that every justifiable belief must ... (Read 374 times)

jman1234 · **on:** Jul 14, 2018

Hume divided human knowledge into two categories and insisted that every justifiable belief must meet the standards of one or the other.

This idea has come to be known as Hume's fork (i.e. fork in the road). What are these two categories and why are they important to understanding Hume's philosophy?

Question 2

How did Kant try to synthesize the views of rationalists and empiricists?

Any initial thoughts on this? Thanks in advance.

jackie · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 14, 2018

Answer to Question 1

- Relation of Ideas: The principles of mathematics and logic as well as simple tautologies; discoverable by reason, without reference to experience, and do not permit logical contradictions.
- Matters of Fact: Can be confirmed (or disconfirmed) by appeal to our experience. Necessarily involve sense experience. Permit logical contradictions

Answer to Question 2

- Kant attempted to synthesize the two competing schools of the modern period, rationalism and empiricism, by showing the important role both experience and reason play in constructing our knowledge of the world.
- For Kant, the self is ultimately viewed as the synthesizing activity at the core of each one of us that integrates all of the disparate elements of experience into our experience, our world.
- Rationalists were convinced that genuine knowledge is best achieved through our rational capacities, whereas empiricists were equally certain that all knowledge is derived from sense experience.
- The cognitive processes of perceiving, developing beliefs, and constructing knowledge involve both the data of sense experience and what Kant terms the faculties of the mind. It is through the active interaction of these two elements that we are able to constitute an orderly and intelligible world.