KANT - MIND

<BODY> <CENTER><FONT SIZE=5><B><FONT SIZE=6>KANT</FONT><BR> THE CRITIC</B></FONT></CENTER><P> <FONT SIZE=4><B>Mind over Matter</B></FONT><P> <FONT SIZE=4><B>MIND</B></FONT><BR> To Kant, the mind is not the blank paper or empty cupboard of the <A HREF="../t03/g012.html" TARGET="_top">empiricists</A>, waiting to be filled in by experience. The mind comes furnished with a set of pure <A HREF="../t03/g003.html" TARGET="_top">a priori</A> concepts, Categories, which organize incoming sensory information. The mind actively interprets the incoming information and imposes meaning on the material of experience. This of course infers that the meaning derived from experience is determined by the structure of the mind. This allows for universality. Propositions become necessary and valid because of the way the mind functions.<P> <FONT SIZE=4><B>TABLE OF CATEGORIES</B></FONT><P> <CENTER><IMG SRC="1507a.gif" WIDTH="300" HEIGHT="100" ALT="TABLE OF CATEGORIES"></CENTER><P> <FONT SIZE=4><B>A MIND-CONSTRUCTED WORLD</B></FONT><BR> Kant's synthesis sees knowledge as a complex and composite affair. The sensory element is certainly important, but in sensory reception, the mind is but a passive recipient. Such sensory input must be organized, unified by the mind. This is both an active and a rational process. Kant concludes that we come to understand the world of nature neither through sense impressions nor through the clear and distinct ideas of the rationalist. Indeed, nature does not give the human mind its laws at all. Rather, the mind imposes laws on nature by the way it functions. "Mind is the law-giver to nature." We are no longer dealing with an external world to which the mind responds but a world constructed by the mind.<P> <FONT SIZE=4><B>POWER OF THE MIND</B></FONT><BR> The power of the mind to influence perception is now well accepted and illustrated in a variety optical illusions. In Kant's day, the emphasis on the perceived world as opposed to the "real" world was radical.<P> <CENTER><IMG SRC="1507b.gif" WIDTH="400" HEIGHT="188" ALT="ILLUSION"></CENTER> <BR clear=left><BR> <HR width=100%> <A HREF="http://www.creatorix.com.au"><IMG SRC="../creatorix.gif" WIDTH="85" HEIGHT="40" BORDER="0" ALT="Creatorix" align=right></A> </BODY>