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Kant’s Reaction to Idealism
Immanuel Kant was an idealist who developed the phrase transcendental idealism. His reaction to idealism is seen in one of his three Critiques, Critique of Pure Reason. Here he asserted that ideas beyond human comprehension preceded knowledge. Furthermore, Kant held that the transcendental ego or human-self constructed knowledge out of sensibilities and that these sensibilities determined humans’ cognitive abilities. This position was evident when he stated that space and time were transcendentally ideal and empirically real (Kant pp 7-8). This assertion meant that our sensibilities defined space and time instead of their true nature and that this true nature was one of the realities beyond human comprehension. Consequently, Kant hypothesized that all knowledge was the product of ideas. These ideas resulted from realities that existed independently of the human mind, such as in the case of space and time (Kant 8).
Kant’s reaction to idealism is in contrast to his dogmatist counterparts. Kant posited that the unknown realities were beyond human comprehension; thus, some of the things that dogmatists sought to prove by reason were beyond human capability (Bloom et al. 55). Dogmatists viewed reason and knowledge as a product of deduction. This position was especially true of the German dogmatists that Kant was critical of. Through their understanding of knowledge, reason must consult experience; thus, all is perceptible to humans through rationality and logical deduction, which gave rise to rationalism (Bloom et al. 55). Additionally, Kant credited David Hume with awakening him from his ‘dogmatist slumber’ and propelling him into idealism (Bloom et al. 56). Conclusively, Kant’s reaction to idealism was the development of transcendental idealism, where the root of all ideas that gave way to knowledge was based on realities independent of human reasoning.
Works Cited
Bloom, R. L., Crapster, B. L., Dunkelberger, H. A., Glatfelter, C. H., Mara, R. T., Richardson, N. E., & Schubart, W. R. (1958). 5. Immanuel Kant and Critical Idealism.
Kant, I. (1998). Critique of Pure Reason. Trans. and eds. Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.