42 The Concept of Method 



Among the later writers to whom Kant owed much, both for 

 his point of view and for his method, were Christian Wolff 

 (Psychologia Empirica, 1732; Psyschologia Rationalis, 1734), 

 Leibnitz, Sulzer, jVIoses Mendelssohn, and Tetens ; but, whatever 

 the philosophical materials which Kant found at his disposal, he 

 made an entirely original use of them, and gave them an inter- 

 pretation which is perhaps the most significant philosophical con- 

 tribution which the eighteenth century has made to epistemology. 



Kant began his critical investigation of the process of experi- 

 ence with the object of finding answers to three questions : 



(i) How can ii<e have knowledge f The answer to this funda- 

 niiental problem of Epistemology he gave at length in " The 

 Critique of Pure Reason" (1781). 



(2) Hoiv is human conduct to he influenced by man's knozvl- 

 edgef This problem, which has been the centre of ethical dis- 

 cussion from the time of the Sophist to that of the Pragmatist, 

 Kant considered in "The Critique of Practical Reason" (1788). 



(3) How are knowledge and conduct to he related in the uni- 

 tary experience of every individual? This aesthetic and teleo- 

 logical problem Kant attempted to solve in the third of his great 

 critical works. "The Critique of Judgment" (1790). 



Kant's main object, throughout his teaching and his writing, 

 was an investigation of the method of knowledge. The particular 

 questions in which the problem presented itself to him for solu- 

 tion were : How far does knowledge depend on the materials 

 of sense experience? How far can reason go toward the dis- 

 covery of truth? What, ultimately, is the range of a priori 

 knowledge? In asking these questions Kant clearly makes the 

 distinction between the genetic and the teleological, between 

 origin and validity, between the fact of experience, which is for- 

 tuitous and conditioned, and the judgment of reason, which is 

 necessary and universal. Previous to Kant, the emphasis in 

 philosophical inquiry had been placed on sense perception as the 

 basis of knowledge. The motto of philosophy had been: Nihil 

 est in intellectu quod non prius fuit in sensu. Philosophy is ex- 

 periential, a posteriori, and must conform to the nature of the 

 objects known. 



From his critical standpoint, which was the necessary develop- 

 ment of the combination of Naturalism and of Rationalism in 

 philosophic thought, Kant gave to the process of experience a 



