Final answer:
Kant's philosophy introduces crucial distinctions in the acquisition of knowledge, differentiating between the passive reception of empirical data and the active intellectual organization through a priori categories. These epistemic tools shape our understanding of the world as phenomena, not noumena, and extend into ethical considerations.
Step-by-step explanation:
In Immanuel Kant's epistemology, key terminologies like representation, perception, sensation, cognition, intuition, and conception establish distinctions in understanding knowledge. Kant posits that through our senses, we experience phenomena, or things as they appear, not noumena, the things in themselves. His epistemology underlines that while sensibility gives us the raw data of experience, the understanding, through categories, organizes this data, thereby actively shaping our knowledge.
Conception and intuition are faculties of the mind that play roles in the active/passive distinction of a priori judgments and empirical experiences. Empirical knowledge is passive and received through sensation, while a priori knowledge arises from active mental faculties, pre-structured by categories that order experiences, such as causation and substance. This ordering presupposes that humans interpret the universe through a structured framework, akin to viewing through colored glasses, always tainting the pure reality of noumena. Kant's epistemic distinction is not only relevant to theoretical knowledge but also intersects with moral philosophy, where the application of categories influences ethical judgments and the comprehension of the moral law.