CHAPTER VII. 

 THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CRITICAL PHILOSOPHY OF KANT. 



The critical investigation which Kant undertook, though it 

 showed the onesidedness of both rationalism and empiricism was 

 based, nevertheless, upon a view of the nature of knowledge which 

 may well be called in question. Kant commenced his first critique 

 with the statement that "there are two stems of human knowledge, 

 which perhaps may spring from a common root unknown to us, 

 viz. sensibility and the understanding, objects being given by the 

 former and thought by the latter". 1 This statement of Kant is 

 very significant. It shows at once the influence of empiricism on 

 the one hand, and of rationalism on the other, and it suggests the 

 means whereby Kant intended to attempt the reconciliation of 

 the two hostile camps. There are two stems of human knowledge, 

 sensibility and understanding. Each of these, Kant goes on to 

 claim, depends upon the other and without both there is no (theo- 

 retical) knowledge at all possible. But, though Kant may be able 

 to show the inadequacy of the two antithetical tendencies, ration- 

 alisfn and empiricism, yet it becomes necessary to ask whether his 

 own view of the nature of knowledge was correct. In order to do 

 that we must inquire whether knowledge actually reveals two such 

 stems as Kant mentions. 



Now such a problem, to be solved adequately, lends itself to 

 but one method, and that is the method of analysis or abstraction. 

 The actual matters-of-fact must be investigated, must be analysed, 

 and if, as a result of analysis, there are revealed two " stems" 

 of knowledge such as Kant emphasized, then the statement above 

 quoted will be proved correct. To follow any other plan will lead 

 only to uncertainty; to begin with presupposition and theory 

 instead of with the actual facts will avail nothing. Commencing 

 then with that which is immediately present in experience, using 

 this word in the broadest sense possible and not in the Kantian 

 sense, analysis may separate out from the complexity of the whole 



1 Op. Cit. P. 12. 



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