Theme 1: Theory of knowledge and theory of science: Before

In the preface to the second edition of "Critique of Pure Reason" (page B xvi) Kant says: "Thus far it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to objects. On that presupposition, however, all our attempts to establish something about them a priori, by means of concepts through which our cognition would be expanded, have come to nothing. Let us, therefore, try to find out by experiment whether we shall not make better progress in the problems of metaphysics if we assume that objects must conform to our cognition." How are we to understand this?

To understand this short extract from "Critique of Pure Reason" it is essential to know what Kant refers to. He chooses mathematics & natural science as examples to show how changing your way of thinking can revolutionize the field and open new paths (Kant, BXI). The metaphysics had, by the time Kant wrote this, not found the secure path of science (Kant, BXV). Therefore Kant suggests to try to change the way of thinking in metaphysics as well and to imitate the revolution of mathematics and natural science. This is referred as the Copernican Revolution. Copernicus, who had trouble understanding how the sun revolved around the observer (which was the common belief at that time) tried instead to see what happened if he assumed that the observer was revolving and the stars were left at rest (Rabin, 2015). This made him a revolutionist. The same thing can be applied to Kant. He proposes that objects must conform to our cognition and not the other way around. I believe this means that our cognition is the center of knowledge and all objects revolve around it. We see objects in our daily life, but only our mind can put the pieces together and give us an idea of what we are seeing. If there is no prior experience, it's called  a priori knowledge. Kant emphasizes that "we can cognize of things a priori only what we ourselves have put into them" (Kant, BXVIII). The opposite to this is posteriori knowledge. Here, our minds are depending on our prior experience to make sense out of what we see. This will be discussed further in question 2. 

At the end of the discussion of the definition "Knowledge is perception", Socrates argues that we do not see and hear "with" the eyes and the ears, but "through" the eyes and the ears. How are we to understand this? And in what way is it correct to say that Socrates argument is directed towards what we in modern terms call "empiricism"?

I believe that the difference Socrates is making between the wording  "with" and "through" is a reference to how we come to knowledge. If one would see with eyes and ears, this would make the organs eyes and ears a specific final stop. But as Socrates pointed out, this is not correct. Seeing through the eyes and ears, or basically any other organ, makes these organs a gateway to our mind and soul. Only here one can process objects and truly understand them. This leads me to the second question: How is this argument directed towards empiricism? If we look at the definition of empiricism, it says "Empiricism is the philosophical stance according to which the senses are the ultimate source of human knowledge." (Borghini, 2015). Again, the mind (or as Socrates says, the senses) plays the important role of creating knowledge. These ideas of the mind are based on experiences, or as Kant mentioned based on posteriori knowledge. 

Sources

Kant, I. (1787/1997). Critique of Pure Reason, (P. Guyer and A. Wood, Trans.). Cambridge: Cambridge    University Press.

Rabin, S. (Fall, 2015). "Nicolaus Copernicus", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), 

 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/copernicus/

Borghini, A. (2015). Empiricism. In Defense of the Senses.

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