Abstract
The objective of this study is to review some of the claims to knowledge against the challenges of scepticism from the pre-Socratic era when a theory known as sophistry disclaimed any possibility of objective knowledge as it canvassed for subjectivity as the basis of the knowledge. Thus, according to the sophists, what is real is what is perceived and as conceived by subjective percipient. Knowledge of reality cannot therefore be determined independently of subjective percipient.[1] Two major schools of thought traditionally canvassed for attention: Rationalism and Empiricism. While the respective thesis of these two theories are clear and delineable from each other, there are other metaphysical and epistemological theories that are ancillary to them and this is without prejudice to the fact that each of these theories does enjoy epistemological or metaphysical status in their own right. Among such theories are idealism, materialismand personalism. To the extent that each of the aforementioned metaphysical or epistemological theories are ancillary to empiricism and rationalism as extant epistemological theories against which scepticism has often directed attention, this paper shall do a brief exposition of each of them by way of introductory efforts to enable the reader to follow the arguments of the two traditional positions of empiricism and rationalism.
