Universal laws of nature, however, are not the same as a priori conditions of knowledge, for the former are contingent and the latter are necessary for the representation of an object. As we have said, it is Kant s argument that empirical idealism always leads to transcendental realism. We have already seen this to be the case with Descartes. If I say that all I can truly know are my representations of things in my mind, then I am claiming that reality of objects is independent of my consciousness and I cannot know them. This further entails, as we have already recognised, that only God can know the reality of things.
Transcendental realism is therefore theocentric.
We might, therefore, characterise Kant s Copernican revolution as anthropocentric. All we can know is that which remains within the limits of human knowledge, what is given to us in experience, and what is ideal is merely the form of this experience whose source is the structure of human subjectivity in general. He is wrong, however, to suggest that Kant has advanced no further than Hume in this problem.