@article{2017,title={Epistemological Dilemma of Modern Consciousness as Rationalism and Empiricism in the Context of Descartes and Bacon},abstractNode={In classical philosophy, truth is independent from human knowledge and it transcends human mind. Therefore the classical belief of truth has created an organic universe idea. The humanist assumptions that have emerged with the Renaissance have led to questioning the transcendence of truth and the claim of the unity of the universe, and it has caused a search for a new reference point for truth. With modern philosophy, the subject is taken as the new reference point for new cosmos understanding. For this reason, the way to follow the truth has been left to the mental capacities of the subject. However, this confident trust to subject’s reason has also brought skeptical questions about the possibilities of reaching the truth. Modern philosophy has developed two different methods as a response to this epistemological argument that emerged after the Renaissance. These are rationalism and empiricism. Founder of Rationalism Rene Descartes describes the a posteriori knowledge obtained with the senses as misleading. On the other hand Francis Bacon likens the idea of a priori knowledge of abstract reasoning to the theater idols in his idol teachings. For this reason Bacon describes the method of rationalism that Descartes founded with mathematical principles as metaphysical and speculative. For Bacon, knowledge is a power with its a posteriori nature. By means of empiricism, knowledge will move away from its theoretical character and become practical. Subject-based modern epistemology which developed as an attempt to find the truth by two different methods has laid the foundations of the Enlightenment philosophy that questions the possibilities of the knowledge of truth. The epistemological conflict that began between Descartes and Bacon continued as far as Immanuel Kant, and modern consciousness was also the beginning of the epistemological alienation process.},author={Halil İbrahim KARATOPRAK},year={2017},journal={Journal of Turkish Studies}}