THE RATIONALIST QUEST FOR KNOWLEDGE AND THE EMPIRICIST RESPONSE

Abstract

This study critically examines the rationalist quest for knowledge and the empiricist response. When we try to describe how we know something, we discover that we do not really have a clear idea of what it means to know. Hence, philosophers’ attempt to examine the problem of knowledge and to discover the means by which it is acquired, the extent, possibility, and the standards or criteria by which we can reliably judge the truth or falsity of our knowledge brought epistemic impasse that spurred the rationalist on their quest for knowledge; which in-turn occasioned the empiricist response. This is the central problem this work sets out to investigate. The findings in this study reveal that the rationalist basic emphasis is on the concept of ‘innatism’ while the empiricists in response argue that innate ideas cannot adequately account for the origin of certain knowledge. For the empiricists, knowledge is obtained by forming ideas in accordance with observed facts and maintain that we know only what we have found out from our senses. Adopting the method of critical and hermeneutical analysis, this paper is particularly concerned with the questions involved in the problem of knowledge: what does it really mean when we say we know, this or that object? Are the objects really what we take them to be? Are they in existence independent of us? Or, are they products of our minds, as espoused by the rationalist and the empiricist. This study objects to the claim that there is ‘only one way’ in the acquisition of knowledge and recommends that we continue to integrate insights from the rationalist and the empiricist perspectives, and even beyond.