Kant's Thoughts On Knowledge

Kant's theory of knowledge is perhaps the facet of all of his philosophy for which he has been made famous. The finest statement of Kant's Copernican revolution is "Hitherto it has been assumed that all our knowledge must conform to objects. But all attempts to extend our knowledge" on this model have "ended in failure. We must therefore make trial whether we may not have more success…if we suppose that objects must conform to our knowledge." This leads him to the conclusion that knowledge must be limited within the bounds of possible experience and is not available in the area of metaphysical ideas. Nevertheless, he maintains, "even the assumption-as made on behalf of the necessary practical employment of my reason-of God, freedom, and immortality is not permissible unless at the same time speculative reason be deprived of its pretensions to transcendent insight." In a famous sentence he says, "I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith." These three ideas-of "the freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God"-are ultimate objects of speculative reason and function quite well at the level of rational faith.