PHIL 250 Lecture 4: Kant’s Response to Empiricism Continued
10 Mar 2017
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Doesn"t the very idea of processing the data of sense presuppose all kinds of concepts (i. e. of individuation and sameness, of occurrence and reoccurrence, and so on). And, if so, doesn"t this show that empiricism is simply false: we considered whether this is a doctrine of innate ideas , a bit like descartes (though descartes"s conception of innate ideas follows from a theological conception of. God creating minds and endowing them with innate ideas). It is not clear what kant himself thinks (he is not trying to write a psychological theory), though kantians have taken both positions. One can be a modern kantian who believes that the mind must have an innate structure prior to experience if it is to experience the world at all. Perhaps such a modern kantian would look to neuroscience to explain the nature of this innate structure rather than try to determine it by philosophical argument a priori.
