Do I really need this? What is this even for? These are some of the questions we can ask about anything in terms of their practical application. This is the philosophy of pragmatism (Stickney). A prominent figure within this sphere in philosophy is John Dewey, an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer (John Dewey). As a philosopher, Dewey's beliefs as a pragmatist are similar to that of Immanuel Kant's, a major figure in modern philosophy. Here, Kant's philosophy is identical to Dewey's when looking at the extent of how much we know about anything as well as the purpose of knowledge. Their points are mostly similar as they both state that cannot know essences, though Kant states that knowledge we possess are true for all times and all people (Stickney), while Dewey states that the knowledge we possess can change based on whatever works for us. Overall, much of Dewey's and Kant's philosopher are on similar terms, with just slightly different approaches.
To start off, Kant's theory of knowledge goes as follows: there is the rationalist component of our perception that organizes and structures the sense-data we receive pre-consciously according to time, space, number, and causality. This is known as a posteriori (Stickney). This component follows the empirical part of our senses, which is knowledge that we have already have, void of experience, known as a priori. Due to the fact that we all have a priori knowledge, Kant believed that he had eliminated possible claims that individuals perceive things differently; hence we perceive things the same way. Moving on to Kant's perception of knowledge, where he states that since the mind has innate knowledge of certain concepts, the most reliable sources of ideas would be the ones that had proof. Namely, the sciences and maths, as they rely on pure reasoning and logic as a whole. We can learn or absorb information from the senses, but that is merely the phenomena we see, as in the appearance.