The Controversy Between Rationalism & Empiricism

The Controversy between Rationalism & Empiricism

The dispute between rationalism and empiricism concerns the extent to which we are dependent upon sense experience in our effort to gain knowledge. Rationalists claim that there are significant ways in which our concepts and knowledge are gained independently of sense experience. Empiricists claim that sense experience is the ultimate source of all our concepts and knowledge.

Rationalists generally develop their view in two ways. First, they argue that there are cases where the content of our concepts or knowledge outstrips the information that sense experience can provide. Second, they construct accounts of how reason in some form or other provides that additional information about the world. Empiricists present complementary lines of thought. First, they develop accounts of how experience provides the information that rationalists cite, insofar as we have it in the first place. (Empiricists will at times opt for skepticism as an alternative to rationalism: if experience cannot provide the concepts or knowledge the rationalists cite, then we don't have them.) Second, empiricists attack the rationalists' accounts of how reason is a source of concepts or knowledge.

Rationalists believe that we cannot be sure there is a world out there at all. How would we know if, for example, we're really all wired into the matrix? Or an evil demon is deceiving us? Or, more plausibly, that what I see as blue is what you see as blue? Truth, for a rationalist, is based on what we can be sure about because of the rules of logic. Famously Descartes argued that the only thing we can be sure about is our own existence (the good ol' Cogito: I think therefore I am). Rationalists think we 'know' an awful lot of stuff from the word "go"; for example, we know that all triangles have three sides. This is because triangles have three sides by definition, and definitions are true irrelevant of things in the world, so we can be sure of them (theoretically) before we are born. This is what is called 'innate' ideas. Rationalism is the traditional standpoint of philosophers from all over Europe.

Empiricism is the view that what we can see and hear and touch and taste is what is really there, and that our perceptions are accurate reflections of it. Truth, for an empiricist, is based on evidence. Linked to this is the idea that we come into the world as mental blank slates (philosophers often use the Latin "tabula rasa") with no preconceptions or understandings imbedded in our minds already. This is a less popular add-on to empiricism than it used to be. The chief classical empiricists are Locke and Hume; it's a very British philosophical tradition, less popular in Europe.

Rational knowledge occurs in any situation where we are taught something. Impersonal or propositional knowledge are examples of rational knowledge for the reason that through logic is used to acquire knowledge. Rational knowledge requires the mind to be active in gaining knowledge whereas experience is downplayed. Mathematics is all rational knowledge; we are either taught how to do a problem or through deductive reasoning we are able to find the solution to a problem. There is however a problem of knowledge with rationalism; many people do not learn through being told and therefore they must experience things for themselves.

When it is "claimed that man obtains his knowledge of the world by deducing it exclusively from concepts, which come from inside his head and are not derived from the perception of physical facts", then you are describing Rationalism.

If you say man's mind is created "by direct perception of immediate facts, with no recourse to concepts," that is Empiricism.

These are the extremes. Most empiricism accepts a little rationalism, and vice versa. This is because it seems impossible to most Rationalists who wonder how their senses could NOT produce some effect on the mind; it is impossible for most Empiricists to believe their minds do not produce something within them.

But describing the extremes as the definitions is important because most people who subscribe to one or the other will use that extreme position in one or more of his ideas, in one or more of his beliefs.

To rationalize is to create a reason from facts not in evidence, or to attribute a reason to facts that is not apparent.

Empiricism is to base a conclusion solely on what can be known or directly inferred without adding any guesses.

Two people witness a man steal a loaf of bread.

Person 1: "He must need to feed his family", rationalization of reason.

Person 2: "Look at that evil man!", rationalization of character.

Store manager: "I'm out a loaf of bread", empirical conclusion.

To be more direct:

The Bush\Cheney administration presented lots of what they called evidence to prove to they world that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction, while U.N. weapons inspectors found no such evidence, and have to date found no such weapons.

That was termed evidence was merely the rationalizations of men to achieve their goal of invading Iraq, in the face of empirical evidence that contradicted them.

Consider: weapons of mass destruction were given as the reason for invading Iraq, yet nuclear weapons were known to be possessed by North Korea. Iraq was said to be ripe for regime change because their leader was hurting many of his own population. The Korean leader has been known to starve his own people so major towns could have food, as well as engage in the kidnapping of Japanese nationals to use for his own ends.

The administration chose to use rationalizations rather than empirical evidence to achieve a goal they desired more than another, perhaps more desirable goal.

The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw complicated debate between empiricists and rationalists, in which physics, mathematics, theology and logic were called into discussion. The sources of our knowledge can be divided into two different sources, what enter our mind through the use of senses, and what enters our mind through the use of reasoning. Empiricism is the idea that knowledge comes from the sense, while rationalism is the notion that knowledge is discovered by the reason. In order to gain knowledge, use of sense and reason must coexist together.

In my opinion, one cannot gain any knowledge without sense and reasoning. In every situation, there is demonstration of knowledge. In terms of logic,