Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher, is well-known for his work in epistemology and metaphysics. The question, “What can we know?” is central to much of his work. The short answer is that human understanding is limited to mathematics and the natural and empirical sciences. Kant argues that it is impossible to extrapolate knowledge to the speculative metaphysical realm of the supersensible. His argument of pure reason proposes that the universe is impartial to people’s preconceptions of it and that thinking embraces the structure of human experience. Kant’s work, The Critique of Pure Reason, helped to reconcile between rationalism and empiricism.
In epistemology, there was a wide gap between rationalists and empiricists. Rationalists believe that knowledge can only be obtained through people’s mental faculties. They argue that “reason is the source of knowledge and justification” (Wiyanarti, 2022, p. 150). Descartes, Leibniz, and Spinoza are examples of philosophers who took a rationalist perspective of knowledge. They hoped to break free from the mind’s inherent epistemological constraints. These philosophers wanted to build an understanding of the natural reality, the self, the soul, God, ethics, and science by starting with the most fundamental, inarguable ideas.
In particular, Leibniz believed that the world could be known a priori via the rational reasoning of ideas and deductions (McCormick, n.d.). In contrast, empiricism postulates that knowledge can only be obtained through human senses. Empiricists maintain that knowledge is not innate, but it can be gained through experimentation or experience (Markie & Folescu (2021). Empiricists regard the mind as a passive receiver of perceptions and experiences, whereas rationalists consider it an agent capable of acting through reflection, analysis, and deduction.
Kant claimed that both rationalism and empiricism were inherently flawed. As a result, he wrote the Critique of Pure Reason to address classical philosophy’s flaws and explain the relationship between human encounters and abstract ideas. He famously wrote, “Categories do not, even by means of pure intuition, afford us any cognition of things; they can only do so in so far as they can be applied to empirical intuition” (Kant & Meiklejohn, 1787, p.140).
This demonstrates how he brought empiricism and rationalism together by arguing that making sense of the world requires both reason and evidence. Kant set out to unify rationalism and empiricism to demonstrate the possibilities of knowledge and how both rationale and experiences could add to knowledge. His second goal was to refute Hume’s skeptical view that there are limits to how much one can learn through experience and reason. According to Kant, the future of epistemology as a scientific discipline hangs in the balance of this issue.
Kant uses scientific evidence to demonstrate how the mind constructs reality as a living, dynamic process. Perception refers to the mind’s ability to select, organize, and interpret experiences to form a coherent worldview. He disagreed with the empiricist viewpoint because he did not believe that experience was the foundation for all learning. He believes there are a priori elements in the fabricated reasoning process that aid in constructing an interpretable picture of reality from experience evidence. He considers a priori knowledge, like mathematics, tautologies, and inference from pure reason, completely independent of one’s personal experiences (McCormick, n.d.). Besides, Kant contends that post-hoc knowledge is based on experience and can be found in hard data.
Kant essentially contends that human beings are not passive observers of reality but active participants in the understanding of it. He contends that it is critical to make both a priori and posteriori considerations. Nothing would be perceptible if the senses were not functioning. Without insight, it is impossible to comprehend or accept anything. His critique of pure reason unified rationalist and empiricist approaches to epistemology.
References
Kant I. & Meiklejohn J. M. D. (1787). Critique of Pure Reason. P.F Collier and Son.
Markie, P., & Folescu, M. (2021). Rationalism vs. Empiricism. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Web.
McCormick, M. (n.d.). Immanuel Kant: Metaphysics. Internet encyclopedia of philosophy. Web.
Wiyanarti, E., Abbas, E. W., Hadi, S., Subiyakto, B., Disman, & Mutiani. (2022). Overview of rationalism and empiricism philosophy in social studies education. The Innovation of Social Studies Journal, 3(2), 148–156. Web.