KANT’S MEDIATION: A VERITABLE INSTRUMENT OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION AMONG PEOPLES

Résumé

This study aims at showing that Immanuel Kant’s Mediation, which marked a significant turning point in the philosophical debate of the modern era can be employed as a veritable instrument of conflict resolution among peoples. The rationalists collectively downplayed the role of the senses as the primary source of knowledge. In their response, the empiricists construed that sense experience is the fundamental source of human knowledge. This occasioned a monumental divide between the rationalists and the empiricists. It is this impasse that necessitated the intervention of Kant who played a mediatory role between the opposing epistemological schools of thought. The rationalists have positions common to them like prioritisation of reason, intuition and innatism. The empiricists also have common features that they consider indispensable namely, the preeminence of sense experience over and above reason. It is a common experience among peoples that conflicts often arise as a result of some cultural, religious, and ethic sentiments they hold sacrosanct. The cacophony of voices between the two opposing schools of thought was not only a fertile ground for Kant to break new grounds in epistemology. We also hold that Kant’s harmonisation of the counter views is a manifestation of situational sensitivity and application of common sense and critical thinking in conflict resolution by employing synthetic a priori knowledge which is a synthesis of reason and sense experience.