ABSTRACT
The problem of the role of sensory experience and its rational processing in gaining knowledge about the world has been one of the main philosophical problems. For Kant, knowledge can be viewed from two angles. Knowledge can be considered a priori or a posteriori: the a priori knowledge does not depend on experience; the a posteriori or empirical knowledge stems from experience. Knowledge can also be considered analytical or synthetic. Analytical knowledge is just information derived from existing information, while synthetic knowledge means learning something new. Kant explains that empirical data coming from objects are received as impressions by intuition, and the intuition is always sensory in nature. Information gained by sensory intuition is organized to some extent through the forms of space and time but is largely chaotic. While knowledge generated by intellect is unified, it is still based on people's incomplete experience of the world.
