1. An entry point into Kant's philosophy is his note to the effect that his philosophy depends upon the ideality (or phenomenal character) of experience and the reality of human freedom. Stated slightly differently, Kant's "Copernican Revolution" allows Kant
a) to save the natural sciences from Hume's empiricist critique - and thereby
b) establish a philosophical system which stands as a conjunction of continental idealism and British empiricism.
In doing so, Kant's system further
c) preserves a deterministic account of experience (i.e., the "theoretical" or scientific view of experience qua phenomenal) and
d) "saves" human freedom (in the domain of "things as they are in themselves)
- so as to hold together in a synthesis both
e) the traditional moral conceptions of the West alongside
f) modern reason and science.
Explain with some care how Kant's philosophy accomplishes these resolutions, beginning with
a) a careful discussion of his epistemology and the resulting distinction between appearances and things as they are in themselves: in this discussion, be sure to show how Kant's epistemology changes the meaning of the terms "subjective" and "objective" as they were defined in an empiricist context and the correlative "correspondance theory of truth." That is, in what sense, according to Kant, is our experience both subjective and objective?
b) a brief discussion of how this epistemology allows Kant to resolve the conflict between idealism (traditional dogmatic metaphysics) and realism (modern empiricism and natural science) as discussed in the Antinomies of reason: focus here especially on the third Antinomy as an example of this resolution.
c) a brief discussion of how Kant uses this epistemology in the third Antinomy to make freedom as an absolute spontaneity possible - and then goes on to argue for the reality of freedom in stronger ways in his later works.
If you can, point out as you go along, and/or by way of summary, how the Kant you have outlined thus achieves the resolutions outlined above (a-f).
2. Nietzsche writes in the selection from Schopenhauer as Educator that Schopenhauer "can be the guide to lead us out of the cave of skeptical irritation or critical resignation up to the height of a tragic view, with the starry nocturnal sky stretching endlessly over us...."(Kaufmann 124)
The starry nocturnal sky - in contrast to the world of sunlight and real things outside of Plato's cave - represents the "clear slate" upon which the individual is to create his/her world, including his/her values.
Explain how Nietzsche both accepts and modifies Kant's claims about knowledge and values so as to reiterate the Enlightenment call that individual human beings take responsibility for their beliefs and views.
In doing so, you will need to explain, at least briefly, Nietzsche's views generally refered to under the labels of
perspectivism (here be sure to illustrate Nietzsche's own use of including multiple, oftentimes [apparently] contradictory perspectives - e.g., in the 2nd and 3rd aphorisms of The Gay Science)
the (Humean-Kantian) analysis of not only religious conceptions (e.g., God, soul, afterlife) but also "scientific" conceptions - beginning with logic, mathematical entities, and including "causality," etc. - as born out of error -
such that both "religion" and natural science emerge as human constructions - constructions we now recognize as constructions (hence "the Death of God" and with it, as a "shadow of God," the death of Newtonian/positivistic conceptions of natural science) [as these references suggest, you will want to illustrate your summary of Nietzsche's views with appropriate textual support from especially Book III of the Gay Science])
the resulting problem of nihilism (as the first negative "half-step" out of "pre-Copernican" conceptions of Reality and values [as rooted in ostensibly external, objective, unchanging, universal Reality])
the re-evaluation of all values (as Nietzsche's analysis further points to nihilism as the result of still judging the new "Copernican"/Kantian recognition of the role of the human subject in the construction of our moral and physical experience of the world from the "pre-Copernican" frame which accords value, meaning only to the external/objective/unchanging/universal Reality)
Nietzsche's positive/constructive alternatives to nihilism, including his
artist's metaphysics as a way of re-valuing the subjective contribution to experience as creative, etc.,
the doctrine of eternal return as a way of "saying Yes! to life" by short-circuiting any "mechanics of a second, different existence" (Gay Science, Aphorism 1, p. 75) as "pre-Copernican" efforts to instill meaning/value into existence;
etc.