represents the active, determining factor in knowledge, while rest represents the passive factor. As a result, (a) would depict the ordinary person's (as such, quite legitimate) Empirical Perspective on the world, while (b) would depict the philosopher's special Transcendental Perspective.The 'change in perspective' [Kt1:xxii] required by the philosopher's switch from (a) to (b) is the revolutionary 'touchstone' of Kant's entire System [see II.1], for it reveals that 'we can know a priori of things only what we ourselves put into them' [xviii]. The philosopher's primary attention, therefore, is directed away from the objects of knowledge and is focused instead on the subject (i.e., on humanity) and our mental activities. On this point, at least, there is widespread agreement among interpreters. Kant's Copernican revolution has been said to consist, for example, in claims such as these:human knowledge can only be understood if we hypothesize the activities of the knower [C3:237];the epistemological conditions for knowing natural entities are at the same time the ontological conditions for their existence as such [i.e., empirically] [Y2:977]; the universality and necessity of synthetic a priori propositions as established by ... critical argumentation are ... specifically relativized to the workings of the human intellect [R4:318; cf. 321];the objects of human knowledge can only be legitimately [described] ... if they are 'considered' in relation to the human mind and its conceptual scheme.1Unfortunately, the agreement among Kant-scholars on general matters such as this does not carry over into matters of detailed interpretation or critical evaluation. Indeed, inasmuch as Kant never provides a thorough and consistent explanation of the logical relationships between the many constitutive 'elements' in his three Critiques--such as those in Kt1 concerning knowledge, which he discusses in the Transcendental Doctrine of Elements,2 there will ...
