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Poetry, Scholarly Writing

WWI: A Catalyst of the Modern Poetic Movement

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WWI: A Catalyst of the Modern Poetic Movement

By 1914, the Victorian era was history for the youth, the industrial revolution was in full swing, and the arts were beginning to reflect the rapidly changing times.  Women’s rights, worker’s rights, and child labor laws were spurring change in the government as well as the population.   The countryside, however, was still tranquil and slow to change in comparison to London.  A poetic revolution was occurring.  There was a push for a freer verse and less obscurity.  The poets and artists of the time wanted clear, concise works that were direct (Greenblatt, 2377). Early modernists such as Joseph Conrad (The Heart of Darkness) and Bernard Shaw (Pygmalion) were paving the way for the future of Modernism.

However, the progression of the Modern movement took a sudden leap forward with the onset of World War I.  Unlike the United States, World War I was fought practically in the backyards of the English—too close to home, one could say.  After Germany declared war on France and Belgium on August 3, 1914, Britain followed with her own declaration of war against Germany the following day.  According to Martin Gilbert’s history of WWI, the majority of the men who fought on foreign soil in that war were from the lower and middle classes and before the war ended, Britain had lost almost an entire generation of men (35, 70).  The modernity of the machines and weapons used in this war were unlike any that had ever been seen before and acted as a catalyst in the Modern poetic movement.

According to the Longman Anthology biography of Rupert Brooke, one of the first of Britain’s “war poets,” he served on a ship outside of Belgium during the war and died of blood poisoning before ever witnessing battle (Damrosch 2183-84). The biography also mentions that before the war, Brooke was quite a patriot, which is why he enlisted soon after Britain declared war (2183).  “The Soldier,” Brooke’s famous war patriot poem was the last one he wrote before his death in 1915.  Brooke and his poem are “immortalized as the symbol(s) of English pride” (Damrosch 2184).

Though Brooke never saw combat, his (and most likely every English soldier’s) longing for and pride in England are evident in “The Soldier.” For example, the first stanza, “If I should die, think only this of me:/That there’s some corner of a foreign field/That is forever England. There shall be/In that rich earth a richer dust concealed” (1-4), exemplifies the speaker’s English pride.  Wherever the soldier shall go, England is with him because he is “A body of England’s” (7).  Even in death, “A pulse in the Eternal mind, no less/Gives somewhere back the thoughts by English given” (10-11).  Brooke deals directly with the issue at hand: a soldier of English pride who will forever remain English and consecrate his burial mound as English soil.  Clearly, the Modern movement is well underway.

The Soldier

Though Brooke’s poem spoke of English pride, Wilfred Owen’s experience in the war contrasted greatly with the idea of dying nobly for one’s country.  The Longman Anthology biography of Owen states that he was deciding whether or not he wished to continue his studies with the clergy, but decided instead to enlist with Britain’s Artists’ Rifles in 1915 (Damrosch 2188). Owen was blown into the air while sleeping in a foxhole in 1914 and spent fourteen months in Craiglockhart War Hospital for treatment of shell shock.  Brooke returned to combat, and was killed in action one week before Armistice Day.

In contrast to Brooke’s Poem, “The Soldier,” Owen argues that there is no sweet patriotic death in his poem, “Dulce Et Decorum Est.”  In this poem, Owen describes the horrors of the war, specifically the mustard gas. In describing the physical condition of the soldiers as they pushed forward he writes, “Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots/But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;/Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots/Or tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind” (5-8).  Suddenly, a soldier yells, “Gas! GAS! Quick boys!” (9). The speaker is able to fit his mask on, but one soldier was not as lucky.  Owen’s describes the scene as “Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a sea, I saw him drowning” (13-14).  After he leaves the war behind, the speaker says “In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,/He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning” (15-16).  In summation the speaker says to his audience, “My friend, you would not tell with such high zest/To children ardent for some desperate glory,/The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est/Pro patria mori” (25-28). Those final lines reflect the attitudes of the past generation of Romantics who glorified and mystified the subjects.  The realism and unmetered verse adds an authoritative voice to the poems—one of the goals of the early Modernists.  In the fall of 1917, Owen’s wrote “Anthem for Doomed Youth,” in which he writes, “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?/—Only the monstrous anger of the guns./Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle/can patter out their hasty orisons” (1-4).  Here, Owen’s relates in a direct manner the events taking place, and the sad fact that these men are sent to die in much the same way that cows are sent to slaughter houses.

Dulce et decorum

“Anthem for Doomed Youth” By Wilfred Owen
“Anthem for Doomed Youth” By Wilfred Owen

Like Owen, Siegfried Sassoon’s poetry was vastly different from Brookes’ gentle patriotic poetry.  Sassoon’s biography in the Longman Anthology states that he was born to a wealthy Jewish family and served with the Royal Welsh Fusiliers in France and was awarded a Military Cross for aiding a wounded soldier (2186).  Like Owen, he was also treated for shell shock and returned to the battlefield.  Though he survived the war, he became a recluse and lived the remainder of his life “in seclusion in the country” (2186) where he continued to write poetry and memoirs.

Sassoon’s 1917 poem, “The Rear Guard,” though not written with the same poetic technique as Owen, is another fine example of the affect that the war had on the Modern movement. The poem, written in the third person omniscient, is about a soldier who finds his way down a tunnel as he pushes toward the front lines “step by step” (1). In the dark he stumbles over a soldier’s corpse whose “livid face” (15) is “Terribly glaring up, whose eyes yet wore/Agony dying hard ten days before;/And fists of fingers clutched a blackening wound” (16-18).  When the soldier reaches the end of the tunnel,  “He climbed through darkness to the twilight air,/Unloading hell behind him step by step” (24-25).  There is a sense of urgency to keep moving forward, lest the soldier become one of the “Rear Guard.”  The rhythm of this poem is unlike that of the Romantics and embeds the realistic urgency felt by the soldier.  Again, facing the terrors such as the ones witnessed in the first World War, there is no other way to describe the events without being direct and changing losing the strict verse styles of the earlier styles of poetry.

sassoon the rear guard

These poets and many English citizens witnessed for the first time a modern world in all of its wretched capabilities.  When facing such surreal reality, it is not possible to talk around the event of massive destruction and horrendous deaths.  Colossal machines, rapid gunfire, and chemical warfare were, up to the First World War, the things of science fiction and fantasy.  The sudden use of such technology at the onset of the Modern Movement was the catalyst that drove these writers to add verisimilitude to their writing, thus setting a standard for Modern poetry.

Works Cited

Damrosch, David, ed. The Longman Anthology of British Literature.Vol 2. 2nd ed. New York: Addison-Wesely, 2003. Print.

Gilbert, Martin. The First World War: A Complete History. New York: Henry Holt, 1994. Print.

Greenblatt, Stephen, ed. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 9th ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2012. E-book.

Brooke, Rupert. “The Soldier.” Greenblatt 2019.

Owen, Wilfred. “Anthem for Doomed Youth.” Greenblatt 2035.

—. “Dulce Et Decorum Est.” Greenblatt 2037.

Sassoon, Siegfried. “The Rear Guard.” Greenblatt 2024.

Scholarly Writing, Writer's Niche

Æthelred the Idiot

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Here is the second blog form the Great King Alfred.

Musings, Scholarly Writing, Writer's Niche

The New King of Wessex

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As an assignment for the final project of my History of English course, I chose to write a blog as King Alfred. I will be “reblogging” them here, or you can just follow King Alfred the Great. I hope you will enjoy!

Scholarly Writing

The Spread of the California Dialect

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The Spread of the California Dialect

Like the English spoken in the United Kingdom, American English has several regional dialects. Most of us have heard the term Standard American English—but what is Standard English? We often think of Standard American English as proper, and used primarily in broadcasting or in professional or academic settings. Natalie Baker-Shirer, an accent coach, claims that “Standard speech is spoken nowhere in America. It is based on British Received Pronunciation, which was adopted by linguist William Tilly. You can hear the ‘Standard’ American English in old black and white movies.” (“Standard American English” 2005). Professor Jeanette Gilsford of California State University at Long Beach also concludes that a standard for spoken American English may never be achieved due to its vast diversity of Englishes and the cultural and ethnic backgrounds of native English speakers (368-71).

However, it is evident that aspects of American English dialects and lexicons spread across the country and globally. Because English is a global business language and is the foremost producer of movies, certain “Americanisms” have spread throughout the world. As the epicenter of film as well as one of the most prominent states, California has become the leading trendsetter in the American English Language. From the gold rush to the days of the Valley Girl, Southern California’s social dialect has found its way across the nation and is beginning to take hold of other English speakers around the world.

California is the most ethnically and linguistically diverse states in the union. According to Bucholtz, Bermudez, Fung, Edwards, and Vargas, California has the largest population of Spanish speakers and Asians in the United States (328). Though the languages of the indigenous natives have nearly died out, California retained much of the influence of the original natives as well (Bucholtz et al. 327). According to the interactive map “Languages of California,” place names such as Encino (from the Inceno tribe), San Louis Obispo (from the Obispeno tribe), Ventura (from the Venturano tribe), and Mojave Desert (from the Mojave tribe) are named after the indigenous people that were eventually wiped out (2010). This pattern of incorporating a native language into the dominant language of settlers can be seen throughout the history of the English language. For example, the word literature is rooted in the Latin word littera, from which we also get the English word letter (“Literature” and “Letter”). Because of the invasion of the Spaniards in California, much of the native words were altered into Spanish, as can be seen in the names of several cities like San Louis Obispo and Ventura.

Though Spanish has been spoken in California for over 250 years, English became the primary language after the Republic of California voted to become the 31st state to join the Union in 1850. Though Spanish is still very prominent and common in the southern portion of California, the English dialect of California evolved due to a vast westward movement during the Gold Rush and the migration of Midwesterners between the 1930s and the 1960s (Bucholtz et al 328). Though English was the official language of California, the Spanish influence on California English remained. Newcomers from the east began to use the word patio in place of porch and the term plaza took hold (Delaney 2010).

Bucholtz et al. also notes that the large Asian population was primarily the result Chinese who arrived too late for the gold rush, though more recently there has been a growing population of Japanese, Filipino, and Vietnamese (328), though their languages have not had a large effect on English. More recently, California dialects have been studied according to region such as Northern California, Southern California dialects. Carmen Fought, argues that because the migration of the Midwesterners were primarily in the northern region of California, the dialects between Northern California and Southern California evolved according to the culture and dialect that they brought with them (Bucholtz et al. 328). In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the black population began to increase, but a significant population of African Americans in Southern California did not begin until the early to mid-twentieth century (Bucholtz 328). This migratory influence on the dialects of Southern California is evident in the growing trend of Ebonics in the Los Angeles area (Bucholtz 329).

As noted in the article “Early Modern English (c. 1500- c. 1800),” the printing press was a primary factor in determining standard spelling and grammar (2011). The advent of common literacy led to a widespread use of words and phrases had not been used in some of the dialects of Britain prior to the printing press. The same can be said today with the commonality of television, movies, and the internet as widespread sources of communication.

Terms such as ‘goner’ and ‘pan out’ stem from the California Gold Rush, but are now commonly used terms not only across the nation, but globally as well. A simple Google search of “he’s a goner” will bring up a plethora of sports commentary and articles from sites such as nypost.com, njpost.com, and footballfancast.com. Surprisingly, the phrase search also brought up an article on malaysia-chronicle.com in reference to political events. This California colloquial term refers to someone whose case is hopeless. According to the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, this term was coined in 1850. Another simple google search of the phrase ‘will pan out’ led to an article titled “Leader: How will new Isa pan out?” published by mortgagestrategy.co.uk on 25 March 2015. This term was coined in 1868 and means to succeed, but was originally used in reference to gold panning. I posit that these terms gained popularity along with the fascination of “the Wild West” and the Western Dime Novels written between the 1870s and the 1920s. Even Berlin, Germany shares a fascination with the Wild West and the California gold rush. Old Texas Town is an amusement park of sorts in the great city of Berlin. Visitors will find three saloons, an Indian campground complete with teepees, a western chapel, a museum, and a blacksmith among a variety of other ‘Western’ goodies such as a gold panning site. According to Joel Stonington, “the obsession comes from the works of Karl May, a German writer who penned dozens of Old West novels in the late 1800s and early 1900s,” which explains why I have seen many “Country Western” bars in Bavaria.

However, idioms and colloquialisms from the gold rush are not the only words and phrases to take over the world. The 1950s brought television sets to nearly every middle class American home. In this era, the surf scene was beginning and was spurred by the obsession of Hawaii and its eventual inclusion as a state in the Union. Television shows such as “Gidget,”—a popular television series about a young surfer girl, played by the beloved Sally Field, and her single father, played by Russell Lawrence,—were gaining in popularity. Soon a plethora of surf and beach themed movies would sweep the nation. By the mid-1960s, surf themed music would be played on nearly every radio station across the U.S. Thus begins the fascination with Southern California.

What began as a dialect (or slang) for the youth of the greater Los Angeles and Orange County areas, Valley Girl speak quickly spread in popularity with the parody song “Valley Girl” written by Frank Zappa and performed by his daughter, Moon Unit Zappa (Bucholtz et al. 326, 339 and Delaney). In Zappa’s parody, a Val—a girl who lives in the Los Angeles Valley—talks to friends about a flirty teacher, her mom, and going to the dentist. She uses phrases such as “Like, Oh my God!/ Like—Totally/Encino is like so Bitchin” and “Anyway, he goes are you into S and M?/ I go, oh Right./I’m sure! Like No way!” (Zappa, 1982). Though many of the terms such as bitchin have fallen out use, the phrase oh my God and the use of like have spread throughout the world. It was not only Zappa’s song that spread Valley Girl Speak across the nation. Movies such as Valley Girl, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and Night of the Comet among others (including any 1980s film with Molly Ringwald) feature prominent use of Valley Girl Speak.

You can see the usage of Oh My God! nearly everywhere on social media today in the revised form of OMG. Though you will not often hear this phrase on the nightly news or see it in a newspaper or journal article, it is definitely present in everyday language, especially among younger English speakers. It is entirely possible that even though the heavy use of this phrase originated in the Valley Girl speak, the popularity across America may be attributed to the popular television show, Friends.  Janice Litman, a recurring character on the show, often said “Oh. My. God!” whenever she got excited or was surprised (1994).

More notable, however, is the use of the word like in American English and among other English speakers worldwide. What was once strictly an annoying and overused word by the youth of Los Angeles Valley and Orange County, like has made its mark on social Englishes.  In 1982, Mary Corey and Victoria Westmark published their book,  “Fer Sure! How to Be a Valley Girl—Totally!” which spurred the growth of the Valley girl lingo. This book instructs the reader how and when to use words, including like. Like was to be used before a preposition or to introduce a thought. For example, one might say “She was like with him at the mall!” or “I was like I can’t believe she did that!” (23).  It can also be used to modify an exclamatory word or phrase, such as “It was like totally rad!” or “Like Wow!” (23). As a combatant to the overuse of this annoying word, Dr. Lillian Glass, a known body language expert, published her book,  How to Deprogram Your Valley Girl in 1982.

Obviously, the 1980s teens were not deprogrammed. What was once deemed a passing fad soon made a vigorous insurgence into dialects across the nation and around the world.  In less than twenty years, the word like can be heard in speech in New York, Canada, and even in Germany (Tagliamonte 2014 and Tagliamonte and D’Arcy 2004). According to Tagliamonte and D’Arcy, “the rise in the [quotative] be like has been considered a case of grammaticalization in progress” (495), primarily due to the multitude of substantive research on the subject over the past twenty years.

Tagliamonte (2004) explains that “grammaticalization is the process by which grammatical morphemes develop out of earlier lexical forms” (496) or in other words, it is the morphing of a sociolinguistic word or phrase that becomes a grammatically functioning word or phrase in language. In this case, she argues that be like can function as a grammatically correct introductions to a quotation (508). For example, it can be used to introduce dialogue in replacement of say or think.  Below is the first example of be like used in placement of say and think.

  1. a. Even though I have the shirt, I’m like, ‘I’m going to blend in today.’

I was like, ‘but I won’t.’

        And we were like,  ‘No, you won’t.’

In the example above, I thought would normally be used in the first and second sentences and said would normally be used in the third sentence.  However, Tagliamonte and D’Arcy argue that the use of say and think are “becoming less frequent” in today’s common speech. Though the use of like is not as frequent as it was in Valley Girl speak, it has managed to spread quickly to Canada, the UK, New Zealand, and Australia (Tagliamonte 225).

Tagliamonte argues, “the impact on language of media is surprisingly difficult to substantiate” (229) and that “a distinction between broadcast and communication media…does not suit the contemporary facts” (223-24) while Sayers argues that research on media and language “should ideally compare spoken language in the world to spoken language in the media” (Tagliamonte 225).  I would have to agree with Sayers’ statement because media extends well beyond the boundaries of standard television.  Media encompasses not only television, but also includes radio, music, movies, the Internet, and books.  According to the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, media is any format or medium used to “cultivate, convey, or express” an idea or rhetoric.

In this case, I posit that the spread of the California dialect is a direct result music, television, and movies. Though it is argued that because English has not been predominant in California “long enough to develop the kind of dialect that is apparent in the East Coast and Midwest” (“American Varieties: California English” 2005), the California dialect certainly has made an impact on both American English and Global Englishes. In fact, Christopher Mulvey stated, “english is biological” and that “a closed and finite rule system is inadequate for the description of natural and cultural language,” furthermore, even though language has, in the past, changed gradually, that is primarily due to the lack of frequent connection outside of one’s own region.  It is therefore plausible to argue that with the globalization of American media sources and videos on You-tube or Facebook that the English language has evolved at a faster rate than ever before.

In summation, we may not know what English will look like in one hundred years, but what we do know about our language is that it is ever-changing and evolving. What began as an Indo-European language has morphed into Old English, Middle English, and finally into Modern English.  But, would Shakespeare say that the language we speak is ‘Modern English’?  Perhaps we ought to start calling it Early Contemporary English as it has evolved quite a bit over the past 300 years. California has lent its golden tongue to the American and global Englishes. What was once considered a fad, use of the word like and the phrase Oh my God! are seemingly here to stay.

Works Cited

“American Varieties: California English.” PBS.Org. National Endowment for Humanties. 2005. Web. 30 March 2015.

Bucholtz, Mary, Bermudez, Nancy, Fung, Victor, Edwards, Lisa, and Vargas, Rosalva. “Hella Nor Cal or Totally So Cal? The Perceptual Dialectology of California.” Journal of English Linguistics 53.4. December 2007. 325-52. Web. 21 March 2015.

Corey, Mary and Westmark, Victoria. Fer Shur! How to Be a Valley Girl—Totally!. Los Angles: Bantam Books, 1982. Print.

Delaney, Robert. “A Dialect Map of American English.” Long Island University. 23 October 2010. Web. 19 March 2015.

“Early Modern English (c. 1500- c. 1800).” The History of English (2011), Web. 16 Mar. 2015.

Gilsdorf, Jeanette. “Standard Englishes And World Englishes: Living With A Polymorph Business Language.” Journal Of Business Communication 39.3 (2002): 364-378. Business Source Complete. Web.  4 Apr. 2015.

Glass, Lillian. How to Deprogram Your Valley Girl. 1982. Abebooks.com.Web. 28 March 2015.

“Goner.” Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 11th ed. Springfield: Merriam-Webster. 2011. 538. Print.

“Languages of California.” Survey of California and Other Indian Languages. Linguistics.Berkley.edu. 2010. Web. 6 April 2015.

“Literature” Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 11th ed. Springfield: Merriam-Webster. 2011.726.  Print.

“Letter”  Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 11th ed. Springfield: Merriam-Webster. 2011. 713.  Print.

“Media2”  Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 11th ed. Springfield: Merriam-Webster. 2011. 770.  Print

Mulvey, Christopher. “The Development of English” An English Project Talk. Winchester: (2010). Web. 15 Mar. 2015.

“Pan Out.” Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 11th ed. Springfield: Merriam-Webster. 2011. 895. Print.

“Janice Litman from Friends: ‘The One With Barry’s Wedding’ 1994.” imdb.com. Internet Movie Database. Web. 8 April 2015.

“Standard American English.” PBS.Org. National Endowment for Humanities. 2005. Web. 30 March 2015.

Stonington, Joel. “Why Are Germans So Obsessed With the American Wild West?” Vocative.com. 3 March 2014. Web. 4 April, 2015.

Tagliamonte, Sali and D’Arcy, Alex. “He’s Like, She’s Like: The Quotative system in Canadian Youth.” Journal of Sociolinguistics. 4 August 2004. 493-514. Web. 21 March 2015.

Tagliamonte, Sali. “Situating Media Influence in Sociolinguistic Context.” Journal of Sociolinguistics  18 February 2014. 223-32. Web. 23 March 2015.

Zappa, Frank. “Valley Girl.” Metrolyrics.com. 1982. Web. 28 March 2015.

Scholarly Writing

Kantian Constructivism Revisited

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Philosopher Immanuel Kant will forever be known as the great thinker who changed the philosophical environment forever, and yet he is often thought to have thrown his towel in with the empiricists because of his statement “All knowledge begins with experience” (Lawhead, 123). Kant’s theory also states that in order for there to be common knowledge, the mind must organize the intuitions (raw sensory data) in a universal manner, which indicates that all people receiving the same intuition will have an identical experience. Through modern technology, we now know that not all brains are identical and that the environment, memories, prior experiences, and era play a large role in our knowledge and our experiences. However, through neuroscience and brain imaging we also know that healthy brains process information or stimulus in the same way to create conscious knowledge or experiences. If Kant had the technology, psychological data, and scientific knowledge that we have today, his theory would be slightly changed and nearly indisputable.
Revising Kant’s entire philosophical theory using current scientific research and technology, though necessary could take philosophers months if not years of research and contemplation. Therefore, only a portion of Kant’s theory will be revised and updated to reflect modern scientific data. The focus of Kant’s theory of how information or intuition is processed can now be recorded via Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) which has provided the scientific community the ability o further the understanding of how the brain works. Portions of Kant’s theory will be revised to reflect cognitive neuroscience as evidence or enhancements.
According to Kant, our a priori knowledge rests in the brain and provides us with the ability or tools to construct an experience which is a posteriori knowledge. Modern psychologists in the field of cognitive neuroscience have spent decades trying to determine the underlying processes within the brain that occur before conscious activity. Psychologists refer to this as the unconscious or subconscious, but it is commonly known in philosophy as the mind. Having determined that the subconscious operates simultaneous to conscious processing, they termed this phenomenon as dual processing. Neuroscientist, Benjamin Libet, conducted an experiment using biofeedback technology which records brain activity of the subject while he or she is performing either a physical or mental task. In this experiment Libet noted that brain activity begins approximately 0.35 seconds before conscious experience of a decision. The action of the decision takes place 0.2 seconds after conscious thought (Meyers, 87-89). In relating these precognitive brain states to theory, Kant’s conviction that we do have synthetic a priori knowledge is true because it is independent of experience and is universal and necessary.
According to Libet’s findings a person’s subconscious mind is working 0.35 seconds before they are aware that they want to move their hand, which is a necessary precognitive state for conscious recognition; therefore he or she does not have conscious thought of this and will not have synthetic a posteriori knowledge until they become aware of wanting to move their hand. For example, a man is sitting on his porch and sees a brown dog across the street. He experiences a brown dog across the street after several neural processes take place. The brown dog is the stimulus or data that Kant refers to as the intuition. Intuition is “the object of the mind’s direct awareness” (Lawhead, 128) which is in fact occurring on an unconscious level. Brain activity begins before conscious awareness of the actual object. Processing the sensory perceptions of the brown dog (intuition) is known in the scientific community as sensory perception. The intuition or sensory perception is processed through neural transactions, or as Kant would say, it is first placed in the proper transcendent aesthetic (spatial temporal grid) and then it is placed into the category of understanding (knowledge or experiences of the item such as dog and brown). After the intuition has been placed in time and space and given labels, the mind then constructs the results into a conscious awareness. This is the phenomena or experience. According to both science and Kant, the data is first recognized on an unconscious level, interpreted and processed to form the experience: I see a brown dog across the street.
Many philosophers may have discarded a portion of Kant’s theory on metaphysics because he states that the noumena, described as things-in-themselves that exist outside our experience, cannot be true. If all we can experience is our mind’s construction of reality as it appears to us, then how can reality exist without our knowledge or experience? How do we know that noumena does exist if we cannot or have not experienced it? Kant’s argument is that we cannot have knowledge of something that we cannot construct into experience. Scientists have made remarkable discoveries in this area through fetal cognitive studies. Recent research of fetal heart rates in relation to cognition (conscious awareness) concludes that when a fetus hears its mother’s voice, the fetal heart rate increases whereas there is no response to a stranger’s voice. The increased heart rate indicates recognition which is only possible through conscious awareness (Kisilevsky, 64). If the mother is the noumena, and she sends out an intuition (the sound of her voice) the fetus has processed the sound of its mother’s voice and the result is the experience of the voice, which appears to the fetus as independent from the mother. The fetus cannot experience the mother in her entirety and is not aware that it resides within her body. Since the fetus does not have an awareness of its mother, but can have knowledge of her voice, then Kant is correct in his statement that we cannot know that which we cannot experience.
Furthermore, Kant states that “perception is empirical consciousness” which is exactly what the fetus experienced. It perceived a familiar sound with which it associates as a constant in its existence. Does this mean that an infant is aware of self? Because Kant’s purpose was to throw away poor philosophy and unite the truths of both the rationalists and the empiricists, he would most likely say yes. Kant did not disagree with the 17th century rationalist, Rene Descartes on the matter of existence of the self. Descartes was eager to rebuild philosophy on an archimedean point that states “I think, therefore I am” which is now a famous quote world-wide (Lawhead, 69). If a being has conscious thought, they must exist. Fetal twins are aware of each other and of their own comfort, so they must be aware of themselves. According to Kisilevsky, when monitoring fetal twins, it was noted that one of the fetuses was typically more assertive and dominant in the womb. At times the dominant or alpha fetus would force the passive or beta twin to move in order to provide more stretching room for the itself. If the alpha twin is not only aware of its own comfort, but also of its relation to spatial existence, then this evidence further supports Kant’s theory that transcendental aesthetics are in fact innate a priori knowledge that is necessary and universal.
Though the empirical evidence supports Kant’s theory on the noumena, conceptual system (Categories of understanding and Transcendental Aesthetics), the processing and existence of intuition into experience, and both synthetic a prior and a posteriori knowledge, one last basic theory remains to be proven as fact: every human mind is constructed the exact same way. Taking into account that not much was scientifically known about neuro-processing, Kant formed his theory about the brain based on what little scientific knowledge was available. Through science and brain imaging, we now know for a fact that most brains are physically constructed the same way. As noted by Christian Baumann, Kant theorized that the magnitude and relation between sensations and stimuli (neurological responses to stimuli) could be measured and recorded for scientific study. Kant’s astounding insight into the applied science of mathematical recording of brain activity is a branch of natural science now known as psychophysics which did not exist during Kant’s life. Kant wanted to measure brain activity, but the scientists and mathematicians of his era discarded Kant’s idea as impossible. His brain construction theory is so close to the truth, that if he had the information of modern science, he may have stated “Most healthy human brains are physically constructed in the same way; however, individuals interpret the intuition at variable rates and their previous synthetic a posteriori knowledge and phenomena may alter or influence new experiences.”
Unfortunately, Kant did not have access to our current scientific knowledge of the brain, biochemistry, or technology; however, his theories should not be discounted entirely or even partially as they were not only philosophically revolutionary for his time, but also because they have revolutionized natural science (Baumann, 2). Psychologists and neuroscientists are discovering more about the human brain every day and also seek to answer the question, how does it work? Kant was ahead of his time in revolutionary thought, and with the proper research, time, and dedication his theory can be given a new life with empirical evidence to prove his theory as truth. Though it may require “his” compromise on some issues, I think he would agree.

 
Works Cited
Baumann, Christian. “Kant And The Magnitude Of Sensation: A Neglected Prologue To Modern Psychophysics.” Journal Of The History Of The Neurosciences 17.1 (2008): 1-7. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 July 2012.
Kisilevsky, Barbara S., and Sylvia M. J. Hains. “Exploring The Relationship Between Fetal Heart Rate And Cognition.” Infant & Child Development 19.1 (2010): 60-75. Academic Search Complete. Web. 27 July 2012.
Lawhead, William F. The Philosophical Journey: An Interactive Approach. 5th ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2011. Print.
Meyers, David G. Psychology 9th ed. New York: Worth Publishers, 2010. Print.