Theme 1: Theory of knowledge and theory of science

Question 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?

Kant speaks about finding ”the secure path of science” and gives two sciences as an examples which both have found this path, mathematics and nature science. He explains that the reason why they’ve found this path is because they at some point changed and revolutionized their way of thinking within the science. They forced the questions they had in each of the sciences to be answered.  Kant means that within metaphysics who have not found the secure path of science you might need to change the way of thinking in order to find the secure path of science, like in mathematics and nature science. Because using the old ways of thinking got metaphysics stuck at the beginning of the path you might say, so yet again in other words it was not on the secure path of science, as in the question initially stated: “have come to nothing”.

“Assuming that all our cognition must conform to objects” was the old and unsuccessful way of thinking, where it has been impossible to find out something about the objects a priori. Because within metaphysics we don’t have any experience or knowledge directly related to these objects that would make us able to find anything. In other words our cognition or our mind have boundaries which prevents us from find or establish anything about these objects a priori. Instead Kant wants to try a new way of thinking by “Assuming that objects must conform to our cognition”.  Which would force us to get answers in the form of possible experiences. So instead we should start at the point of view of ourselves and proceed within the boundaries of our cognitions capability. He means that we can use our experiences unrelated to the objects within metaphysics to establish what is possible with the help of our cognition, then if the object we established is true or not in reality, is another question but the possibility of such an object should be exist according to our cognition. At some point in the text he states “That we can cognize of things a priori only what we ourselves put into them”,   this leads us only to an appearance of the object, but as long as this appearance/representation/intuition of the object conforms to our cognition, it is a possibility despite that no perceiving through our senses in relation directly to the object has helped us create this possibility.  And this new way of thinking could help establish and be a principle that leads metaphysics to the secure way of science.

Question 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 Socrates argument is directed towards what we in modern terms call "empiricism"?

Socrates argues that we use our organs or instruments of perceiving, for example eyes and ears, to gain information about an object. We do not hear with the ears as we can compare two objects perceived from two different organs like eyes and ears. For example we can compare a color to a sound, and he argues that this comparison can’t take place in one of the organs used to perceive them but rather that this comparison happens in the mind. So he means that we perceive characteristics/qualities about an object, through our ears for example, and then handle the information gained with our mind. Each mind handle the information differently and associates differently that is if we do not have and used evidence of past experiences in hand, empiricism. The evidence, gained from for example observations, interviews, or any other empirical method, are descriptions of perceived information, hence experiences. If the descriptions of these experiences and evidence are at hand we have knowledge of that specific object. As these experiences has been perceived, in one way or another, you could say, in an empirical perspective, that perception is knowledge and therefor that Socrates argues for empiricism.