Wrong way round

I'm approaching philosophy from the wrong direction, but I am doing so conciously. I know that the 'usual' form is to establish a basis upon which to build knowledge probably commencing with an arguement about what can be established as basic, undeniable truth. I have started with the premise that human cognition is based on pattern-matching. Obviously this is a mid-tier starting point, based on physical investigations into the structure of the human brain and simplified computer models of such scructures.

Firstly, in my defense: nowhere is it written that you have to start at the bottom and work up or that one method is more valid than the next. Secondly, I'll have a go at a starter on the bottom-up approach. I think I have something to say here today.

Hume seems to hold complete scepticism that our senses give us any real information. Rationalism seems to back this up with knowledge being completely separate from the real world. Kant says that a synthesis of experience and reason (sensual information and conceptualisation of that information) is the root fo knowledge. Thereafter within the history of philosophy, I don't know.

I tend to agree that doubting our senses is an irrelevant line of arguement. I think it is clear that I have a thing called 'my experience'. 'My experience' is based on something. If the seeming of that something is not representitive of 'the thing in itself' then we would not be able to infer any form of continuity within the world. This implies the circular argument that there is something I can call 'my experience'. In 'my experience' there is continuity. Because of continuity, our experience of the 'thing in itself' must at least be representative.