Theories and Problems of Knowledge: An Analytical Essay
This eight-page undergraduate essay examines theories and problems of knowledge. The author examines the views of philosophers such as Hume, Kant, Descartes, and others in order to answer the question, if facts by themselves never prove or disprove anything, what else is involved in the proof of a statement? He notes that Hume subscribed to the view that knowledge was based on the experience of the senses, not upon first principles, and that Descartes theorized that the human mind was an immaterial substance responsible for rational thought, imagination, storing knowledge, inducing feelings, and expressing will, while Kant argued that the human mind is an active originator of experience rather than a passive recipient of perception or analyzer of facts.