Descartes ve Kant'ta Apriori Bilgi Problemi
Özet
Descartes stated that he had been mistaken by accepting the knowledge as truth which obtained. He
developed methodological doubt in order to purge himself from his delusions and to access clear and
distinct knowledge. At the end of the methodological doubt he claimed that he find clear and distinct
proposition which is “I think, therefore I am.” Important point is “I” here. “I” refers to the substance of
thought. He sees the substance of extension (belonging to the objects) as the opposite of thought.
Descartes intends to distinguish between thought and object by introducing dualism. There can be no
confidence in the knowledge of the object that is not clear, even if it is distinct. He claims that the innate
ideas remains unchanged in the human mind as the main source of knowledge. He defends the innate
ideas that are clear and distinct to the human mind. The innate ideas found in the human mind have been
put in by a non-deceptive God itself. With the sentence above, Descartes based its philosophy on
metaphysics. On the other hand, Kant criticizes metaphysics of Descartes as an antinomy. According to
Kant, fundamentals of knowledge should not contain metaphysical elements. As Descartes has done, the
source of the knowledge should not be searched. According to Kant, the knowledge that needs to be
investigated is “how”. Kant's idea about the process of obtaining information: intuition forms (space and
time) and categories of understanding (total of twelve in four main headings) work together when human
beings perceive phenomena. Human beings can obtain knowledge is the field of phenomena, the other
side cannot. According to Kant, intuition forms and categories of understanding are found in human
beings as synthetic a priori. The attitude of Descartes is a rationalist attitude, Kant's attitude is a
Transcendental idealist against knowledge. The aim of this study is to clarify these differences in the
approach of knowledge and shows that reason of difference in a priori knowledge.
