Tansian University Journal of Arts, Management & Social Sciences

This article focuses on an evaluation of Kant’s critical response to the extreme positions of rationalism and empiricism on the issue of human knowledge. The issues of the source and justification of knowledge are controversial issues among epistemologists. Rationalism upholds the existence of innate ideas and insists that reason alone is the source as well as the justification of human knowledge. On the other hand, empiricism denies the existence of innate ideas and insists that sense perception or experience is the source as well as the justification of human knowledge. This article, employing analytical method, examines Kant’s critical response to the extreme positions of rationalism and empiricism. The researcher agrees with Kant that both sense perception and reason play indispensable as well as complementary roles in the acquisition of knowledge and thus, knowledge is not a product of either experience or reason alone. Kant deserves commendations for responding profitably to the epistemic battle between rationalism and empiricism. However, the researcher is not comfortable with Kant’s partial scepticism by insisting on unknowability of the noumena (things in themselves). Despite the shortcomings of Kant’s ideas, his critical response to the extreme positions of rationalism and empiricism on the issue of knowledge is a landmark in the history of western philosophy. His ideas are epistemologically interesting and very enriching.

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