Kant’s Epistemology as Conclusion of Dispute Between Empiricism and Rationalism

摘要

The article concerns some of the most important elementsof I. Kant’s epistemology and its connections with earlier epistemological ideas, namely rationalism and empiricism. The historyof dispute between rationalism (Descartes, Leibniz) and empiricism (Locke, Berkeley, Hume) is hereby shortly presented whileKant’s own philosophical achievements are suggested to be bothalternative and synthesis of these. The main core of this paper issummary of basis of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason; some mostimportant categories are described: apriorism, synthetic and analytical judgements, knowledge a priori and a posteriori, main ideasof transcendental esthetics (two forms of pure intuition: time andspace), main ideas of transcendental logic (forms of judgement andtwelve categories). Also the meaning of Kant’s „copernican revolution” is presented as a turning point for classical German philosophy as well as for whole modern epistemology.