2012 Issue №3(41)

Kant insisted on the inherent unity of a priori and empirical elements of cognition. To what extent further progress of philosophy and exact sciences confirmed (or modified) original Kant ideas? I'm inclined to judge that apriorism in its modest version do not contradict to modest type of empiricism. Real practice of logical and mathematical reasoning provides pry conjunctions of a priori and empirical elements of cognitive processes. We can find their harmonic combinations of mentioned standpoints and thus to confirm the validity of Kant idea related to inherent unity of a priori and empirical elements within contemporary philosophy of science. Apriorism along with empiricism contain powerful heuristic potential.

This study attempts to interpret the process of self-knowledge of reason in the transcendental dialectic as a vital phenomena. In the transcendental dialectic, a thesis and antithesis arises from the division of reason, which can not happen in the death of reason. Dogmatism and skepticism, which had been derived from a division of reason, have formed the history of philosophy. The disputes between the thesis and the antithesis, or the dogmatism and skepticism could be regarded as a battlefields or a war in the history of philosophy. Nevertheless, the aims of these disputes or wars is to cultivate the reason, which in other words is the process of self-knowledge of reason.