Theme 1 Refrection

Theme 1: Theory of knowledge and theory of science

In the first week of the course, we got a nice start to study about philosophy. At first, I think this course is a rather difficult for me to begin with, because I have no experience when reading about philosophy. The first reading is the book created by Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason), this book is hard to understand and takes more time to acknowledge it. The second reading is the dialog between Socrates and Teaetethus, and this is easier to understand, although there are many parts that not necessarily belong there.

Kant lived in the 17^th Century when the scientific revolution begins. In that they divided by an idealist and realist, and Kant try to avoid both of them and propose a transcendental idealism that he describes in his book of Critique of Pure Reason. In this book, Kant distinguishes propositions in 3 types:

1. Analytic Judgment: Do not have investigate the word to seek the truth (A Priori). For example: Body have an extension. (The definition of “body” must have extensions).
2. Synthetic Judgment: Need to investigate to seek the truth (A Posteriori). For example: Somebody is thick. (Thick is not inherent with body, so need to examine further)
3. Synthetic a priori. For example: Geometric, Math, and Metaphysics.

In the point 3, Kant proposes a new thing to philosophy to answer the problem in metaphysics study, because Kant think at that time there is just a lot of opinion regarding the metaphysic study and nobody can prove the truth, and all is just some gibberish facts.

       "How is a synthetic judgment possible a priory?” To answer this question, Kant takes an example about the Copernican Revolution and make a deduction that lets we assumed that all our cognition must not conform to objects, but the objects must conform to our cognition. This is the basic perspective on Kant investigation, to assume that the object must conform our fact of knowledge and must fulfill 2 forms of intuition:

1. Knowledge of the world is structured and organized according to Time and Space.
2. Meet the requirement of 12 different categories of understanding (Unity, Plurality, Totality, Reality, Negation, Limitation, Possibility, Existence, Necessity, Substance, Causality and Community)

These 2 points in the basic of the transcendental condition of knowledge of the word base of Kantian Philosophy. In the different book (Trigonometry of Metaphysic), in the end, Kant says that perception without conception is blind, and conception without perception is empty.

     In the dialog between Socrates and Teaetethus, they said the knowledge is perception, and Socrates argues that we do not see and hear "with" the eyes and the ears, but "through" the eyes and the ears. Within this statement, Kant sees that eyes and ears only see only with certain framework, and we cannot get a whole picture of the object because we ignore all other senses. Therefore, to get the knowledge we must get a whole picture and see it through our soul to get the general truth about the knowledge.

       In the seminar, Mr. Johan Eriksson gives us an excellent example about philosophy in Immanuel Kant perspective. He says “The Matrix” movie have a close relationship with Kant philosophy. It shows us there is certain reality that we can accept as it is (Take It for Granted) or we can criticize this new fact as it is real truth or only an imagination. It is like Neo when decide to take red pill or blue pill.