On Similarities And Differences Of Locke's And Kant's Theories Of Knowledge

It is no doubt that John Locke and Immanuel Kant are two bright stars in the history of modern western philosophy .The former is the outstanding representative of British empirical philosophy, and the latter is the founder of classical German philosophy who summarizes empirical and rational philosophies. It is worthy to pay our attention to the fact that the two philosophers lived in different countries, but had similar considerations about philosophy. Their resemblances of considerations on philosophy led to the outcome that they hold the same views in many places, when they establish their own philosophies. However, similarity is not equal to the same, it is worthy to make a comparison between them only for their differences. In short, as the pioneer of epistemology in modern western philosophy Locke gave a lot of emphasis on the matter that we should thoroughly analyze and fully discusses the origin, certainty, limits and reality of human knowledge, and he formed the first system of epistemology in the history of modern western philosophy. Kant developed the research on theory of knowledge into higher stage. In a word, there is a continual relation between Kant's and Locke's theories of knowledge, but are some differences on viewpoints, methods and attitudes in them. So it is helpful to grasp their philosophy and to understand the course of epistemology in the history of modern philosophy by deeply analyzing their theories of knowledge.In this thesis the author attempts to make a more systematic and profound inquiry about Locke's and Kant's theories of knowledge, and the thesis includes a preface and seven parts. This thesis sets forth the current situation and the significance of studying the subject in the preface. In the first part the author gives a brief account of the theories of knowledge from ancient to modern philosophies in order to clarify the two kinds of the meanings of epistemology: the epistemological viewpoint whose object is noumena and the other whose object is human beings themselves .In the second part the author analyzes briefly similarities and differences between Locke's and Kant's philosophies, and introduces their works on the theory of knowledge. In the third part the author compares Locke's to Kant's definitions of knowledge. Locke thinks that knowledge is the perception of the agreement or disagreement among ideas, but Kant thinks that knowledge is the expression of synthetic a priori judgment and the combination of intuition and concept. In the fourth part the author elaborates the two person's resemblances and differences of viewpoints about the origin of knowledge. That is to say, either of them admits the empirical origin of knowledge. However, Kant acknowledges empirical origin of knowledge, at the same time introduces transcendental origin of knowledge. In the fifth part the author compares Kant's viewpoints of kinds and scopes of knowledge with Locke's. In the sixth part the author explains different expression forms of certainty of knowledge between Locke and Kant. That's to say, the former deals with the certainty of knowledge by analyzing language, and the latter solves it by using his transcendental logic. In the part seven the author elaborates two different ways of solving reality of knowledge. Locke's way is one of empirical theory of ideas, but Kant carries out Copernican Revolution in the filed of philosophy and divides objects into noumenon and appearance. At last, the author makes a brief conclusion on differences and resemblances of Kant's and Locke's theories of knowledge.