Problems of Epistemology

Introductory Remarks

The questions of epistemology have now taken center stage in philosophical inquiry—or perhaps we may say they recently held that position, for the shift in focus is undoubtedly apparent. These questions have, in many ways, diverted attention entirely from metaphysical concerns; some have argued that philosophy is exhausted by epistemology alone; at the very least (so the reasoning goes), all further discourse ought to be preceded by a thorough examination of the capacities and limits of human cognition.

History has not unfolded in this manner. Philosophy has everywhere begun with metaphysics; inquiries into the nature and origin of the world, the essence and beginning of being, the nature of the soul and its relation to the body have formed the primary subjects of philosophical contemplation. Only after extensive engagement with such questions does the inquiry into the essence of knowledge and its very possibility emerge. This arises from the discord found in the views generated by reflection on physical and metaphysical matters. This discord compels the question: is it even possible for human reason to resolve these issues? The theory of knowledge develops as a critical reflection on metaphysics. This has been the historical trajectory from antiquity, and it recurs in modern times.

Greek philosophy commences with cosmological and natural philosophical speculations. Ionian, Eleatic, and atomistic philosophies primarily represent metaphysical systems. While a perspective on the essence and origin of knowledge exists, it remains contingent upon metaphysical inquiry. The same can be said for the grand, abstract speculative systems of Plato and Aristotle; the theory of knowledge is not absent, yet it is treated from the perspective of metaphysics: knowledge exists in reality, and thus the task arises to determine its place. The question of the possibility and validity of knowledge only comes to the forefront in the later academic and skeptical schools, after it had initially been posed in general form by the Sophists.

Similarly, modern philosophy begins with the construction of metaphysical systems; the seventeenth century, with its great systematizers—Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Leibniz—resembles the fifth century BCE in this regard. Here, the theory of knowledge is likewise present but is framed from a metaphysical standpoint. With Locke's "Essay Concerning Human Understanding," epistemology emerges as an independent field; as indicated in the preface to this work, it arises as a critical reflection on metaphysics, primarily addressing the prevailing scholastic metaphysics that obfuscates understanding with its empty concepts and constrains knowledge, and subsequently, the metaphysics of new systems, particularly that of Descartes. Its aim is to identify the objects of possible knowledge and delineate the boundaries of understanding; it identifies four possible sciences: mathematics and ethics as demonstrative sciences, and physics and psychology as empirical sciences. There is, in fact, no place for metaphysics unless we understand it specifically as an evaluation of knowledge. Following Locke is Hume. In French philosophy, the main representative of this view is Comte; according to his terminology, this perspective is known as positivism. In German philosophy, this perspective is adopted—not without significant transformations—by Kant; he refers to it as critical philosophy. Following the modern metaphysics erected on the foundation of knowledge theory by speculative philosophy, as well as its successor—dogmatic materialism—there follows, in neo-Kantianism, once again a critical reflection on the theory of knowledge.

An introduction to philosophy ought to proceed historically and begin with metaphysics. This is further reinforced by the fact that, for general interest, metaphysics will always occupy the foremost position. However, I maintain that metaphysical questions, in any case, require independent discussion and cannot be replaced by epistemological considerations. Where such attempts are made, these questions return under another title and in an awkward form. Kant has set a poor precedent for German philosophy by stripping metaphysics of its independence and cramming it into the confines of epistemological investigation; in his dialectic, the questions of psychology, cosmology, and theology are more likely evaded and dismissed than discussed and resolved.

In the subsequent exposition, I intend to provide several sketches of epistemological inquiry as seems necessary and sufficient to orient ourselves in the nature of these studies and to offer a necessary supplement to the preceding metaphysical discussion of philosophical problems. Let us first consider the principal problems of the theory of knowledge and their possible resolutions.

Epistemological inquiries can be distilled, as already indicated, into two primary questions: the question of essence and the question of origin: What is knowledge, and how is knowledge acquired? Each of these questions gives rise to significant opposing views; realism and idealism or phenomenalism represent two fundamentally opposing responses to the first question, while sensationalism or empiricism and rationalism address the second.

In response to the question of the essence of knowledge, realism posits: knowledge is the reflection of reality, a representation that corresponds perfectly to the thing itself, albeit an alterum idem of the thing, existing without its thingness or reality. Idealism or phenomenalism, in contrast, asserts: representations and things, thought and being, are entirely distinct from one another and incomparable.

Concerning the question of the origin of knowledge, sensationalism or empiricism claims: all knowledge arises from perception, whether external or internal; through the combination of perceptions, experience emerges; through the accumulation and processing of experience, science arises. Rationalism, on the other hand, asserts: all genuine or scientific knowledge arises from reason, i.e., from the immanent development of conclusions drawn from initially self-evident premises that do not arise from experience.

Since every theory of knowledge must address both questions and thereby take a definitive position concerning both oppositions, we derive a fourfold schema of possible foundational forms of knowledge theory. They are as follows:

1. Realistic Empiricism; it asserts: we know things through perceptions as they exist independently. This is a view that ordinary understanding might align with most closely.
2. Realistic Rationalism; its assertion is this: we know things as they are, but not through the senses, only through reason. This view is characteristic of the great metaphysical systems: Plato, Spinoza, Hegel—all assert that reason provides adequate knowledge of reality.
3. Idealistic Empiricism; its assertion is as follows: we know of things only through perception; indeed, this does not grant us adequate knowledge. This understanding belongs to the epistemological critique of rationalist metaphysical systems; Hume is its most consistent representative.
4. Idealistic Rationalism; its assertion is this: we can know reality a priori through pure reason—though not as it exists in itself, but only as it appears to us, and only in terms of its form. This is the view of Kant.

Philosophy historians commonly introduce another form of epistemology: skepticism; its assertion is: we cannot know anything at all. Occasionally, someone endeavors to refute this position. This seems to me an unnecessary endeavor. If there ever existed genuine skepticism, it has since become extinct in modernity. No philosopher today doubts the existence of genuine knowledge, distinct from ignorance. Hume is often referenced as a representative of skepticism. While Hume plays with this expression, he has sufficiently suffered from misunderstandings regarding his views; yet he never claimed that no science exists. He asserted only that, on one hand, natural theology with its proofs of God’s existence does not constitute science; and on the other, that it is impossible to know of facts otherwise than through experience, and that for this reason, there can be no universal and necessary knowledge of facts. Kant branded Hume as a skeptic, against whom he was to defend the sciences or the possibility of metaphysics, physics, and even mathematics. As for pure mathematics, Kant’s condemnation of Hume rests on a pure misunderstanding; regarding metaphysics, he himself rejects rational theology, cosmology, and psychology just as much as Hume does. This leaves physics; here both acknowledge that such a science exists; only their views regarding the form and nature of its propositions' validity differ: Kant believes that among these propositions there exist absolutely universal and necessary ones (synthetic judgments a priori), whereas Hume regards these foundational propositions as presumptively universal principles based on experience—a divergence of views that ought not to be characterized by stating that Hume outright denies the possibility of physics.

As far as I know, a similar situation applies to the so-called skeptics: they do not deny the possibility or existence of sciences but rather emphasize the limitations and uncertainties of human knowledge in comparison with the possible ideal of knowledge as it might manifest in the divine spirit. In modern philosophy, skepticism is primarily directed against the claims of transcendental reasoning; it assumes a dual form, depending on whether it defends religious faith from speculative encroachments or empirical inquiry.