A sense of revision is in the air: Keats and Kant

Question Two: Compare the epistemological stance of Keats in the Ode on a Grecian Urn to that of Kant in The Critique of Pure Reason.

Both of these thinkers consider how we can be sure of what we know. Keats was a romantic poet as were Shelley, Byron and Wordsworth. William Wordsworth wrote the very well known poem entitled 'Daffodils' (one of my mother's favourites). This poem could be classified as a noumenal poem because it is about exquisite daffodils on a high mountain where no one can appreciate their beauty, which leads to question why God took the time to create their intricate beauty in the first place. This was the theme of romanticism, looking at nature to question life's purpose and meaning.

In Keats poem Ode on a Grecian Urn there is a crucial line 'Beauty is truth and truth is beauty' (http://www.bartleby.com/101/625.html), they are one and the same thing, this is all you can know, and it is all you should know, this is all you need to know; a wonderfully simplistic consideration and outlook for life.

Immanuel Kant is famous for his philosophy of the division of worlds, the noumenal and the phenomenal. A thing in itself, when it is not being perceived is noumenal. That same thing, when being perceived becomes phenomenal. This involves thinking beyond normal perception and leads to questions whether things look the same or are even still there when we are not looking at them. The aesthetic epistemology assists in this regard. Aesthetics is literally the study of beauty, obviously finding something beautiful is up to individual opinion and taste, but some things are considered universally beautiful such as a sun set. Kant states that the feeling or emotion experienced when one sees something beautiful is a connection with the noumenal world and a proof that it exists.