Kant’s ‘Copernican’ response to Hume in terms of his theory of mental categories as “….pure concepts of the understanding” and their application to causal situations as well as material phenomena
Immanuel Kant is one of the most influential western philosophers with significant contributions to epistemology, metaphysics, aesthetics, and physics, as well as, impacting the philosophical movement. In The Critique of Pure Reason, which is one of his most important works, he responds to the empiricist and rationalist predecessors such as David Hume, by asking the question of “What can we know?” Kant argued that human knowledge is constrained by the science and mathematics of the natural and empirical world (Brewer, 43). In this regard, the constraints are influenced by the argument that the mind plays a principal role in the selection of features of experience and controlling the access to the empirical realms of time and space. Therefore, Kant responds to Hume’s empiricism and skepticism theory of mental categories, in a Copernican manner as pure concepts of understanding.
David Hume’s empirical theory of mental category was based on George Berkeley’s material idealism theory (1685-1753), which argued that humans could not possess, know, or achieve mind-independent material objects (Brewer, 38). Hume developed Berkeley’s theory by extending the empiricist argument that human minds cannot offer priori or posteriori justifications for our beliefs. In this regard, Hume asserts that empiricism theory cannot grant human brains the epistemological reason for the inevitable and obvious claims, knowledge, or judgment about subjects, objects, and causes. Hume held that our beliefs do not observe the causality or the cause and effect relationship, but the mind has a priori knowledge or habit that two events may be related (Brewer, 76). Therefore, Hume’s theory of mental categories assumes that causality does not influence knowledge and is not real. In other words, Hume holds that the human mind perceives that B comes after A, but not that A causes B.
Kant’s response to Hume is considered Copernican in that he provides a subjective order, whereby by the fact that human minds perceive the existence of an order, is a sufficient proof that there is a causal order (Logan, 75). In this case, Kant recognizes that Hume ignores the fact that every event must have a cause, but claims that priori knowledge or experiences influence judgments. As a result, Kant responds by arguing that priori knowledge or skills do not exist without an underlying cause, which Hume ignores. Further, Kant adds that every experience of the world as the humans have it is only possible when the mind has systematic structuring of the representation, which occurs before the prior knowledge or mental representations stated by empiricists like Hume. He further added that the simple fact that objects exist in space and time, which cannot be proven by posteriori or priori knowledge as stated by Hume; is sufficient proof that the human mind is aware of their existence (Logan, 83). Besides, humans cannot be aware of their existence, without assuming the presence of permanent matter outside the body, which distinguishes humans. In other words, Kant responds by arguing that experiences or the priori knowledge of a human mind have causality, unlike Hume who contends that the experiences are the cause of human ideas.
The response is considered Copernican since it adopts Nicolaus Copernicus’ theory that the sun is at the center of the universe and it is motionless, while the earth and other planets orbit around it in circular paths (Okoro, 2017). Regarding Kant’s response, the mind is similar to the planets as experiences to sun; this implies that it is the representation within the mind (planets rotation) that makes objects, experiences, or knowledge (day and night) possible, and not the experiences, priori knowledge, or objects (sun) that make the representation of the mind (day and night). In other words, Kant responds to Hume that experiences or priori knowledge does not influence the representation in mind, but there exist causality that influences the mind to develop experiences and the priori knowledge. Hume’s theory argued that the content of the mind is derived from the experiences and objects in the world since the occurrences and external objects influence the identification and knowledge on the true nature of the material phenomenon. According to Kant, Hume’s theory assumes that cognition conforms to the objects that influenced the mind; this is false since there must be a cause of how our minds analyze and relate to the materials that affect the cognition (Logan, 77). In this case, it is the mind that gives objects the meaning to their features, which also conforms to the conceptual capabilities and structure of the brain.
Conclusively, Kant responds to Hume’s theory of mental categories as the pure concept of understanding that analyses the causal situation and material phenomenon to derive knowledge. Kant’s empiricist theory asserts that human mind has priori knowledge applied in the analysis of the external environment to gain experiences. In other words, it is the material phenomenon and experiences that influence the representation in the human mind. Kant responds in a Copernican manner, which argues that it is the representation or pure concept of understanding in the mind that causes the perception and knowledge about the external experiences and material phenomenon.
Works cited
Brewer, C. D. "Strategies for Teaching Kant’s Metaphysics and Hume’s Skepticism in Survey Courses." Teaching Philosophy(2018).
Logan, Beryl. Immanuel Kant's Prolegomena to any future metaphysics in focus. Routledge, 2015.
Okoro, Charles. An appraisal of Kant’s perspectives on Human knowledge. Diss. 2017.
