Rationalism vs. Empiricism

1
Rationalism vs. Empiricism

• This unit introduces a debate in epistemology
  concerning the grounds or justification for
  knowledge.

2
Epistemology

• The study of what we know and how we know it
• Knowledge justified true belief
• Beliefs are sentences that we hold to be true
• Justification requires some account or reason for
  holding beliefs.

3
Rationalism holds

• Some, all or the most important beliefs are known
  without the need for experience
• The usual ways of knowing these beliefs are
  either intuition or logical deduction
• Some of these beliefs simply come with being
  rational
• Reason is both necessary for and superior to all
  other forms of justification.

4

• Descartes is the perfect example of a
  rationalist.
• Descartes believes that we have knowledge of our
  existence, the existence of God, mathematics, and
  the nature of the material world without
  experience.
• Rationalism is also characterized by Kants idea
  of the a priori.

5
Empiricism holds

• All knowledge comes through experience
• Empiricism about some things is not incompatible
  with rationalism
• People are often rationalists about, e.g.,
  mathematics and logic, and empiricists about,
  e.g., science.

6

• John Locke is an empiricist he said that the
  mind is a blank slate (tabula rosa) and, through
  experience, nature writes upon it.
• David Hume is also an empiricist he promises to
  draw no conclusions but where he is authorized by
  experience (Abstract of Treatise, 127).