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Copernican revolution (in philosophy)
Kant's reversal of perspective: our cognition does not conform to objects — the objects of experience conform to our cognition.
The phrase “Copernican revolution” is not Kant's own. In the preface to the second edition of the “Critique of Pure Reason” (1787) he speaks of a “change in the way of thinking”: mathematics and natural science each owe their secure course to a “revolution in the way of thinking”, and following their example he means to undertake “an entire revolution” in metaphysics. He compares the attempt to “the first thoughts of Copernicus”: as Copernicus explained the motions of the heavens from the motion of the spectator, Kant explains the order of experience from the forms of the knowing subject — space, time and the categories.
Metaphysics had hitherto assumed that all cognition must conform to objects — and had failed. Kant's counter-experiment makes intelligible why necessary a priori knowledge is possible at all: we know a priori of things only what we ourselves put into them.
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Where it appears
- Knowledge — Appearance, thing in itself — the limits of metaphysics
- Critique of Pure Reason — Structure & core ideas
- FAQ
- Home — Kant in five minutes
- Teaching — 4 · Theory of knowledge: rationalism, empiricism, Kant's turn