Abstract

1. Lewis White Beck describes Kant as engaging in a ‘two-front war’ against the rationalists and empiricists in an attempt to solve the problems of epistemology. Both groups, according to Kant, were mistaken in believing that there is but one ultimate source or faculty of knowledge. Discuss critically Kant’s attack on these two positions with particular reference to the distinction between analytic and synthetic judgements and Kant’s notion of synthetic a priori judgements. To what extent do you think that the distinction between these three kinds of judgements is valid? In your response you should refer to the arguments by Quine (‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’) and Strawson/Grice.