Critical Theory of Kant

There were two opposite streams of philosophy before Kant. One was rationalism, propounded by Descartes and Leibniz, which considered reason to be the only source of knowledge. The other was empiricism, propounded by Hume and Locke, which considered experience to be the only source of knowledge. But, Kant found faults in both of them. He reached a ‘synthesis’, i.e., criticism, by analyzing the thesis, i.e., rationalism, and the antithesis, i.e., empiricism. According to him, knowledge is neither wholly a priori, as rationalism maintains, nor wholly ‘a posterior’, as empiricism maintains, but it consists of both a priori and a posteriori factors. Kant distinguished between the matter and forms of knowledge – the matter or material knowledge is supplied by experience; the forms of knowledge are supplied by reason. According to Kant, sensation is created from experience. If this sensation is well arranged with reason, then the knowledge is attained. Thus, Kant’s ‘criticism’ or critical theory is a great contribution to epistemology.