Like rationalists, Kant argued that the mind has the innate ability to reason. In many ways, what Kant proposed was a synthesis of the two positions. Yet it was Kant that brought entirely new dimensions to the debate.

The empiricists counted Locke, Berkeley, and Hume among their ranks. Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz were leading rationalists. Rationalism or empiricism? It was a question that occupied some of the greatest minds of the time. The mind is a tabula rasa, a blank tablet, waiting for our senses to write on it. Empiricism, on the other hand, holds that knowledge comes from experience. Philosophical rationalism contends that, yes, there are things we just know. That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights.� Our nation�s founders held as self-evident that �� all men are created equal. People could, and should, seek to critically evaluate their world to weigh evidence, logically piece it together, and arrive at true knowledge. Inspired by works like Descartes� Meditations and Newton�s Principia, the Enlightenment celebrated reason. The Critique was a revolutionary look at an age-old problem that had found new life during the Enlightenment. Yet for his many highly respected works, by far the most influential was the Critique of Pure Reason, published in Kant�s late fifties. His reputation grew, and at age forty-six he was appointed chair of logic and metaphysics. Busy as he was with teaching, Kant wrote prolifically. For fifteen years his main source of income was payment from his students.

Upon graduation, Kant worked as a private tutor, then returned to Albertina as an unsalaried teacher. His early interest in classics gave way to philosophy when he entered the University of K�nigsberg, also known as Albertina. The University of Houston�s College of Engineering presents this series about the machines that make our civilization run, and the people whose ingenuity created them.Īll areas of human endeavor have their short list of luminaries.

Of pure reason