An explicit assessment of the extent of René Descartes's influence on John Locke's theory of knowledge as presented in his work An Essay Concerning Human understanding calls for a study of their respective philosophical works in some detail. An examination of their individual philosophical standpoints and the objectives behind their projects suggest a striking difference between the spirit and intent of their projects. However, the marked similarities in the contents of Descartes's Rules for the Direction of the Mind and Locke's (...) An Essay Concerning Human understanding and several factors like Locke's own assertion in his first letter to Stillingfleet and Lady Masham's own account of her conversation with Locke indicate that the French philosopher did exert a certain degree of influence on Locke's theory of knowledge as presented in his Essay. An attempt is made in the present work primarily to understand how Descartes's thoughts have influenced the various aspects of Locke's theory of knowledge in his Essay. It appears from this that Locke did not borrow blindly from Descartes and had in fact tried to build a bridge between empiricism and rationalism. (shrink)

Kant, while speaking on his ‘Table of Judgments’ in his Critique of Pure Reason, is concerned with classifying only the forms of judgment and not judgments. Kant says that if we attend only to the forms of judgment without considering their contents, we find that forms can be classified under the four heads of quantity, quality, relation and modality, each with three subdivisions. In this paper our primary objective is to explain Kant’s quantitative and qualitative judgments and examine some related (...) objections put forward by his critics. We also intend to provide an answer to the question as to why Kant has departed from the formal logic of his period while classifying judgments, in the context of objections raised by H.W. Cassirer and P.F. Strawson. Keywords: judgments, form, content, quantitative, qualitative. (shrink)