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Born in Konigsberg, the starting point for Kant's life work in philosophy was the works of [[David Hume]] who awakened Kant from his "dogmatic slumber" and led him to make his "Copernican revolution in philosophy"<ref>The New American Desk Encyclopedia, Penguin Group, 1989</ref>

Born in Konigsberg, the starting point for Kant's life work in philosophy was the works of [[David Hume]] who awakened Kant from his "dogmatic slumber" and led him to make his "Copernican revolution in philosophy"<ref>The New American Desk Encyclopedia, Penguin Group, 1989</ref>

In his ''A Critique of Pure Reason'' Kant examined pure [[reason]] as a basis of knowledge.  The problem Hume had left Kant was a sharp divide between the ''a priori'' (things that can be known without experience) and the ''a posteori'' (things that could only be known with experience) together with a devastating critique of induction.  Hume insisted that ''a priori'' knowledge was entirely ''analytic'' (did not speak of the world) and that the sense data of our experiance could never support a proposition that went beyond that experience. "A Critique of Pure Reason" seeks to establish the existence of ''synthetic a priori'' truths, truths that speak of the world but that are known logically prior to looking at the world.  To establish those truths Kant looked at the way reason picture the world.  No reasoning being can have an experience other than one that involves ''time'' and ''space''.  In common language in order to see something it has to be somewhere (ie. in space) and it has to be there at sometime (ie in time). Time and space are necessary conditions of all experience and, thus, we can know of their existence logically prior to any particular experience.   

In his ''A Critique of Pure Reason'' Kant examined pure [[reason]] as a basis of knowledge.  The problem Hume had left Kant was a sharp divide between the ''a priori'' (things that can be known without experience) and the ''a posteori'' (things that could only be known with experience) together with a devastating critique of induction.  Hume insisted that ''a priori'' knowledge was entirely ''analytic'' (did not speak of the world) and that the sense data of our experiance could never support a proposition that went beyond that experience. Such a position leads to a radical and absolute sketpicism about even the possibility of knowledge. "A Critique of Pure Reason" seeks to counteract that skepticism by establishing the existence of ''synthetic a priori'' truths, truths that speak of the world but that are known logically prior to looking at the world.  To establish those truths Kant looked at the way reason picture the world.  No reasoning being can have an experience other than one that involves ''time'' and ''space''.  In common language in order to see something it has to be somewhere (ie. in space) and it has to be there at sometime (ie in time). Time and space are necessary conditions of all experience and, thus, we can know of their existence logically prior to any particular experience.   

Having established time and space as neccessary preconditions of experience Kant proceeded to question how reason must operate on the experiences presetned to it.  In this part of the work Kant establishes several "categories" through which reason operates, categories that effect the conclusions that reason must come to.   

Having established time and space as neccessary preconditions of experience Kant proceeded to question how reason must operate on the experiences presetned to it.  In this part of the work Kant establishes several "categories" through which reason operates, categories that effect the conclusions that reason must come to.