Theme 1 - Theory of knowledge and theory of science (1/2)

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? 

My understanding of what Kant says is that though objects may help us in our daily life, they do not in themselves provide us with knowledge. If objects do not provide us with knowledge then knowledge must be attained or accumulated in other ways. Kant argues that knowledge and understanding is formed and structured in the mind, through our cognition. For something to be understood in our minds, Kant means that it must be experienced and therefore we cannot gain knowledge solely by looking at an object without having any information about it. Instead we should rather focus on adapting the object to our own knowledge and use the object in order to try and understand the world around us. In other words, we need to look at an object from a bigger perspective, in it's surrounding environment and can in this way, with help from intuition and preconceptions make sense of that object. Kant argues that this principle should be adapted to solve for example the problem of metaphysics and in doing so, we will make better progress when understanding said problem. 

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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"?

My understanding of Socrates argument is that eyes and ears are instruments that are used by the body in order to gather data about sight and sound. However, it is the mind that understands and makes sense of the data and adds value to it. It is in the mind that data is transformed into information and with our preconceptions and through analysis we understand the world around us. In other words, our understanding and our perception is not created simply by using our eyes to see, but our minds are an integral part of the process. We see "through" our eyes and not "with" them because our body's senses and organs are tools with which our mind can interpret the world. This means that two different people who see, smell and taste the same thing can have different perceptions as their minds take preconceptions into consideration when experiencing that thing.

Empiricism is a theory which states that knowledge derives from experience and observation where real world observations are the foundation with which to test a hypothesis (Thurén (2007)). Socrates arguments that the mind is where knowledge and perception is formed and that these perceptions are created by using senses such as sight, sound and smell in order to make sense of the world. When the mind interprets the data it receives it, in a way, gains experience. The mind can make observations and test a hypothesis which can be related to how empiricism uses observations and experience to gain knowledge.