Kant changes the source of certainty from the object (what is known), to the subject (the knower themself)
It is the necessary ways that experience has to be like, and thus the necessary ways that things have to be like to appear to us, that allow us to know what the world is like
instead, ask what is it about experience itself that the world must conform to
“Hence let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the ob j ectsa must conform to our cognition, which would agree better with the requested possibility of an a priori cognition of them, which is to estab lish something about objectsb before they are given to us.”
the historical turn:
the object of study changes over time
as it is brought into being by the unresolved contradictions in a previous form of consciousness
this does not make it mere illusion: it is really the object for that period in the history of consciousness
and moreover, its emergence is dictated by the necessities of a rational development of consciousness
nor is there anything more real to compare it with
absolute consciousness is more ultimate, but it does not include any of the distinctions and differences like subject and object, self and society, you and I, that we are actually concerned with in life and in time
the will to truth
a new question is raised
we do not know passively, our knowing is motivated by will
and with will comes conferring of value
therefore it is worth asking why we have the will to truth, and why truth is valued
and we can reevaluate that value, ask why we value truth, and whether it is as valuable as we take it to be