Theme: Knowledge

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing" 

- Socrates

1. In the preface to the second edition of "Critique of Pure Reason" (page B xvi) Kant says: "Thus far it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to objects. On that presupposition, however, all our attempts to establish something about them a priori, by means of concepts through which our cognition would be expanded, have come to nothing. Let us, therefore, try to find out by experiment whether we shall not make better progress in the problems of metaphysics if we assume that objects must conform to our cognition." How are we to understand this?

According to Kant, there are two ways of knowledge. On the one hand, we can look at a priori knowledge which is only necessarily, universal knowledge we have about things basically without any experience. For example is mathematical knowledge typical a priori knowledge. On the other hand, Kant writes about a posteriori knowledge where the approach is all based upon experiences. Furthermore, we can look at the example “a pregnant woman” which says that the a priori knowledge is a woman carrying a child. If we instead look at the example “all pregnant women are hungry all the time”, with the perspective of a posteriori knowledge, we need to meet (experience) all pregnant women in order to determine that all of them actually are hungry all the time.

Kant says that our cognition must conform to objects, however he also discusses the importance of objects conforming to our cognition. As an example Kant describes the view of the solar system, in which we thought the sun was spinning around the earth. It wasn’t until Copernicus thought “outside the box” (and found out that the earth actually is doing all the spinning) our view of the solar system changed. I interpret this as Copernicus thus made the object conform to the cognition in order to solve the problem.

My general thoughts on this subject is that in order to gain knowledge we need to combine both the a priori knowledge and the a posteriori knowledge. Also, empiricism (as mentioned in the question below) could be compared to a posteriori knowledge in the same way as rationalism could be discussed to be a sort of a priori knowledge.

2. At the end of the discussion of the definition "Knowledge is perception", Socrates argues that we do not see and hear "with" the eyes and the ears, but "through" the eyes and the ears. How are we to understand this? And in what way is it correct to say that Soctrates argument is directed towards what we in modern terms call "empiricism"?

In this part of the text, the discussion between Socrates and Theaetetus goes back and forth whether knowledge can be described as perceiving. Socrates argues that we rather see and hear “through” our eyes and ears than “with” them. I understand this as it is not enough to only hear and see things with separate senses to have knowledge about them. For example, as Socrates and Theaetetus also discuss, we need to combine all senses to be able to know what colour is showing or if the music playing is loud. You could also put it as we need to reflect on the impressions we perceive in order to gain knowledge about them. Socrates also exemplifies this with the Trojan horse which unlike human beings does have unconnected senses;.

“/../ no one can suppose that in each of us, as in a sort of Trojan horse, there are perched a number of unconnected senses, which do not all meet in some one nature, the mind, or whatever we please to call it, of which they are the instruments, and with which through them we perceive objects of sense.”

According to the Swedish National Encyclopedia, “empiricism” is emphasizing experience rather than wisdom as base for our knowledge. I interpret this, as written above, that we need to connect the senses in order to gain knowledge. Therefore I think Socrates’ argumentation and the definition of “empiricism” are equal in this aspect. We need to reflect on what we see and hear and not just use the senses separately, in other words we need to see through our eyes and not with them. Thus, I don’t think you could say Socrates only discusses empiricism in the text. I would rather put it as empiricism being a part of his discussion with Theaetetus.

In addition to this, I have also thought about the distinction between “hearing” and “listening”. We can hear what people are saying but it isn’t until we listen to them that we actually understand what they’re saying. This agrees with Socrates argumentation; we see and hear through our eyes and ears. However, I would like to express it as “we hear with our ears, but we listen through our ears”.