Limits and Scope of Knowledge In the Epistemological Systems of Transcendent Philosophy and Cartesian Philosophers

The scope and limits of human knowledge are important issues with which contemporary theory of knowledge deals. They raise such questions as: what is the realm of human knowledge? Is the human being capable of attaining the truth? And are there facts outside the reach of human knowledge?The authors try to analyze such issues on the basis of epistemological foundations provided by two groups of influential philosophers in the West and in the Islamic World, namely, Sadraian philosophers on the one hand, and Cartesians on the other. These views are compared and their commonalities as well as differences are reviewed. Admitting some limits for each source of knowledge is one of their commonalities, while their different views about the object of knowledge can be considered as major points of divergence.