Abstract

In characterizing cognitive activity as a creative synthesis of the imagination, Kant places the epistemological subject at the center of the cognitive process. This is wholly revolutionary in the history of epistemology. Yet, for all its revolutionary character, the concept of the creative synthesis falls short of providing an adequate context for an explication of the ways in which individual human knowers, as organic creatures, create the products we call knowledge. Jean Piaget’s genetic epistemology, on the other hand, with its acknowledged roots in, and avowed allegiance to, Kantian philosophy, goes much further toward a recognition of the importance of the person as knowing subject. For this reason, I shall argue, it offers a route toward a fuller, and better, understanding of the epistemological significance of the knower as person, while retaining and building upon what is best in Kant’s epistemological insights.