Intro to Philosophy — RA1

Read Lae Langton’s “Ignorance of Things in Themselves”

According to Langton: "It looks like Kant is saying just what the skeptic says—doesn’t it?" (p.
293). In your assignment, briefly explain why it seems like what Kant is saying is the same as
what the skeptic is saying, and why according to Langton, what Kant is saying is after all
different from what the skeptic says.
About 250-300 words.

It seems like Kant is saying the same as what the skeptic is saying because the wording of his
argument is vague and therefore left up to interpretation. His definition of “phenomena” can
be understood in a similar way to the skeptic’s definition of “appearances” — as in, we can only
perceive and therefore have knowledge of things by virtue of their presence in relation to our
own existence. We can only know insofar as our brains can process the sensory information
being delivered to them, so we are entirely dependent on the mind’s understanding for our
knowledge. If this interpretation is correct, we have an ignorance of things beyond ourselves
and our senses in either case, seemingly equating Kant’s conclusions to those of the skeptic.
According to Langton, however, this is not the case. She believes there is a second possible
interpretation that instead proves Kant’s argument is different than what the skeptic says, one
where “phenomena” instead includes knowledge of an object in relation to another. This is
contrasted against knowledge of an object entirely independent of anything else, knowledge of
its true intrinsic properties. If this second interpretation is correct, we can conclude that this
understanding of the innate is what Kant believes we lack. The idea that we know not only of
how objects relate to us but also to the surrounding reality — to use one of her own examples,
that we know of Jane not only as she relates to us but as she relates to her cousin Jim and
grandmother Joan — is independent of our own minds, which does not concur with the
skeptics’ proposal.