Many philosophers in the history discussed about the topic”knowledge”. Different philosophers had different view on it. 2000 years ago,Aristotle supposed “all knowledge must begin with information acquired through the senses[1]“ and he had a more precise definition on the knowledge ,which is "we possess scientific knowledge of a thing only when we know its cause[2]."Recently I’ve read the Plato’s Theaetetus and Preface to the second edition of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason.I saw the light of wisdom from their works and noticed the difference between them. In Theaetetus,Socrates imagined himself as a midwifery helping Theaetetus to create a noble thought and he stressed that the soul views some things by itself and lead to Knowledge. Meanwhile, in Kant's works,we noticed that he tried to find a breakthrough to save the metaphysics and tried to put it forward to the secure course of a science.Here are the questions as follows:
1.In the preface to the second edition of "Critique of Pure Reason" (page B xvi) Kant says: "Thus far it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to objects. On that presupposition, however, all our attempts to establish something about them a priori, by means of concepts through which our cognition would be expanded, have come to nothing. Let us, therefore, try to find out by experiment whether we shall not make better progress in the problems of metaphysics if we assume that objects must conform to our cognition." How are we to understand this?
if one subject can go to the secure course of a science ,it should be cognized a priori.even though metepphiscs[3] is oder than other science,it always get stuck and can't move forward. Meanwhile,after long groping time,mathematics and natural science has already moved in the secure course due to some revolutions. Kant tried to find a new way and make a revolution on metaphysics.He assumed we should form a prior before the perception of outside object, and we should form our priori through the experiences. In this way,we can cognize the objects a priori ,and make the objects correspond to our concept a priori later.For example,I can not know outside world totaly because mankind's cognition is limitted. Different people will have different knowledge about the same grass.Let us assume that we form a congnition first. If we supposed their will be a grass,we'll form a pre-cognition of the grass firstly and then will see the grass later. The knowledge of the grass confirm to our a priori, which will help us a lot to know the object.
2.At the end of the discussion of the definition "Knowledge is perception", Socrates argues that we do not see and hear "with" the eyes and the ears, but "through" the eyes and the ears. How are we to understand this? And in what way is it correct to say that Socrates argument is directed towards what we in modern terms call "empiricism"?
In my point of view,there are three levels to understand this. Firstly,If we see and hear “with”the eyes and ears,it means we obtain information from outside object and this things have no relationship with our perception. However,different observer may get different information from the outside because nothing is self-existent[4]and what we get is the combination of object and sense organ. "Through" the eyes and the ears ,we are be able to combine our these outside object with our eyes or ears,and get the exact information. Secondly, our body is like a sort of Trojan horse,and numerous senses perch in it. It is the mind that uses these senses to help us perceive object. So we can not perceive the outside “with” the eyes.Our mind create the information itself for us “through”the eyes.Thirdly, Socrates disagree with the opinion that “knowledge is perception” ,he put forward “with”and “through”in order to help Theaetetus realize that soul view things herself through the organ. Only in this way, can Socrates pull Theaetetus out of his old definition of “knowledge”and deliver a noble and true birth for Theaetetus.
In empiricism,knowledge is a posteriori and based on experience[5]. Since knowledge can be created by sensory experience, empiricism has something in common with what Socrates said. Socrates emphasized human can gain the knowledge by the help of their soul through sensory organs and empiricism also claims knowledge could be gained from perception.Also,there are little differences between what Socrates said and empiricism because Socrates did not mention that knowledge can be continued revision,but empiricism stresses that one’s knowledge can be improved by revision.
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References：
[1]History of Philosophy Aristotle: Forms and Souls(2015.9.5)
[2] Aristotle Posterior Analytics, trans. by Mure, G. R. G. at Logic Museum
[3]Kant Critique of Pure Reason trans.by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood
[4]Plato Theaetetus trans.by Benjamin Jowett
[5]Wikipedia Empiricism (2015.9.5)
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