empiricists vs rationalists critical thinking communication brainly

Empiricists vs. Rationalists (Critical Thinking. Communication) Directions: Using the Venn diagram below, write the differences and similarities between how empiricists and rationalists acquired knowledge.

critical thinking. communication

New questions in English

• Corrections

Rationalism Vs. Empiricism 101: Which One is Right?

The debate between rationalists and empiricists is one of the fiercest and longest in the history of philosophy.

In the history of philosophy, and especially in the field of epistemology, there has never been a fiercer debate than the one between rationalists and empiricists. Rationalists argued that the ultimate source of our knowledge is human reason. On the other hand, empirically oriented thinkers thought that it is through our experience that we gain knowledge of the world, and it is the experience that determines and limits of our knowledge. But what did their arguments and objections against one another really consist of?

The Basics of Rationalism

First, let’s examine the philosophy of rationalism, and then move onto empiricism. We can define rationalism as a philosophical teaching about the relationship between man and the world, based on the conviction that reason (ratio) or intellect (intellectus) is the basic source of knowledge, the criterion of the truth of knowledge, and the means we use to gain knowledge about the world. Reason is also that which determines the possibilities and limits of human knowledge and the most significant feature of man as a moral and practical being. Rationalism has a rich tradition in the history of European philosophical schools. That’s why it’s important to examine its history throughout the centuries.

1. Rationalism in the Ancient Period

In the ancient period, rationalism was represented in the philosophical teachings of the Pythagorean, Elean, and atomistic schools. Their ontologies are built on the rationalist methodology represented in mathematical, logical, or theoretical speculative thought.

Get the latest articles delivered to your inbox

Please check your inbox to activate your subscription.

However, the full flowering of rationalism in antiquity coincides with the teachings of the leading philosophers of this era: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Socrates’ enlightened rationalism, created at the height of the struggle with the sophists, manifests itself in the well-known dialogic skill of arriving at clear definitions of terms. This goal is inspired by Socrates’ conviction that virtues are obtainable only through knowledge. From there, he emphasizes the well-known imperative as the guiding principle of all his thinking and action: Know thyself .

However, Plato can be considered the true founder of ancient rationalism. With Plato, for the first time in ancient philosophy, we encounter a fully developed system of rationalism as a study of knowledge, its sources, objects, criteria, possibilities, and scope. In his teaching about ideas, Plato established a rationalist-founded objective idealism, and in its scope, he created his metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and so on.

Aristotle highly valued experience and its methods. However, he is nevertheless one of the most significant rationalists. As proof of that, we have his foundational works dedicated to logic. Thus, we can say that ancient rationalism reaches its peak in Aristotle’s Metaphysics .

2. Rationalism in the Modern Period (and Beyond)

European rationalism reaches its true flowering in the period known as modern philosophy. Three of the foremost luminaries of modern philosophical thought—Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz—are rationalists in the full sense of the word. Therefore, rationalism as a philosophical direction is mostly associated with the names of these philosophers.

Descartes is considered the founder of the rationalist theory of knowledge. Descartes established the position Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am). He considered reason to be endowed with innate ideas and principles and as such, established it as the most important instrument of knowledge and the guarantor of truth. He advocated for the critical examination of reason and formulated its rules. Descartes also sought to raise the basic method of knowledge to the level of a universal scientific method according to the model of mathematics ( mathesis universalis ).

The second most significant rationalist is Spinoza . He’s important in the history of rationalism because of the systematic and consistent implementation of the deductive method following the pattern of geometry in his Ethics . The main point of his system is the demonstration of the inseparable connection of reason as the most significant cognitive power with the highest and most sublime goals of moral action.

Leibniz is considered the first real representative of the systematic application of rationalism in the sphere of knowledge. He discusses almost all the questions of the theory of knowledge that were discussed by his famous predecessors. Leibniz gave systematic rationalistic grounded answers to all questions about the origin, object, possibilities, limits, logical basis, and value ​​of human knowledge.

The speculative philosophy of the two eminent representatives of German classical idealist philosophy— Hegel and Schelling—can be considered a special form of rationalism. Their philosophical systems are evidence of an encyclopedic approach to all spheres of existence.

Following the historical timeline further, one can also talk about the rationalism of Karl Marx and his numerous followers—Marxists, as a separate type of rationalism: dialectical rationality.

Today there are also contemporary variants of rationalism, and among them, a special place belongs to the critical rationalism of Karl Popper.

3. The Philosophical Principles of Rationalism

It is important to analyze the postulates and arguments that rationalist thinkers provide in favor of their view.

1. Reason is the only source of all true knowledge

According to the rationalists, reason represents the only source or our only power for acquiring real knowledge: general and necessary truths. Although with certain differences, this thesis is accepted by all followers of rationalism.

For example, for Plato, the source of knowledge is in the “remembering of the soul” of its original residence in the “kingdom of ideas.” The power of reason, according to Plato, is the power of the soul to recall ideas and recognize them as such. Ideas are nothing but general and necessary truths. Thus, with the theory of the remembering of the soul (anamnesis), Plato laid the foundations of the Western rationalist theory of the origin of knowledge: the theory of innate ideas and principles of reason.

According to Descartes, reason is a natural light ( lumen naturale) made possible by innate ideas ( idee inatae ). Thus, both Descartes and Plato advocate the view of innate ideas and principles in man. However, not all ideas are innate, says Descartes, but only a special kind of ideas, such as the idea of ​​God, the ideas that express the general mathematical attitudes of arithmetic and geometry, and the laws and principles of logic. These ideas enable us to acquire knowledge of general and necessary truths. All attitudes derived from these ideas, which are general and necessary are themselves necessarily true because their truth is guaranteed by God himself.

For Leibniz, also, only reason can be the source of this knowledge, which is necessarily true.

2. The basic means of knowledge are intellectual intuition and abstract-logical thought operations

The object of knowledge, according to the rationalists, can only be grasped through the powers of immediate intellectual perception and through intellectual thought operations.

3. The truth of our knowledge is determined by the accordance of our thinking with logical rules and laws, or with general principles established by science

For rationalists, truth can only be determined through the correspondence of expressed views with the laws and principles of reason itself because that is where the rules and regularities of logic come from.

For Descartes, the criterion of the truth of our statements is the clarity and distinctness as a feature of a certain type of statement. Only those statements that impose themselves as self-evident truths, so that we do not allow the slightest possibility of doubting them, are acceptable to science and philosophy.

The Basics of Empiricism

Empiricism is a philosophical teaching based on the belief that all human practical and theoretical activity is based on experience. As opposed to rationalism, empiricism claims that the source of our knowledge and the criterion of truth is not reason but experience. Experience is the means we use to gain knowledge, and it is also what determines truth in the world.

Instead of rationalism, which claims that reason is endowed with an apparatus that enables us to acquire knowledge as well as innate ideas, empiricism claims that there is nothing in reason that has not previously passed through the senses. So, according to the empiricists, the senses are the first stage of acquiring knowledge, and all knowledge must pass through the senses.

1. Empiricism in the Ancient Period

Both empiricism and rationalism have their own rich history in the Western philosophical tradition. We find the empiricist approach to solving philosophical problems even among ancient thinkers. These include the sophists Protagoras and Antiphon, as well as the Cyrene Aristippus. Empiricist views were also advocated by the ancient skeptics, especially Sextus Empiricus.

Two fundamental philosophical positions are attributed to the sophist Protagoras: 1.) Man is the measure of all things, and 2.) As something appears to someone, that is exactly what it is. With these two points, Protagoras stands out as the first thinker in the Western tradition who gives complete legitimacy to the subjectivity of human knowledge. In fact, such subjectivity comes from the sphere of experience, which is necessary and inevitable in the creation of all our knowledge.

According to Antiphon, things can be truly known only through the senses, because our opinions (reason) are much more distant from nature.

Ancient empiricism is also characterized by the skepticism of academics, primarily that of Carneades and Sextus Empiricus. What they were trying to do was figure out ways that would go against the rationalist foundation of certain mathematical and metaphysical statements.

2. Empiricism in the Modern Period (and Beyond)

Empiricism experienced its true flourishing in the philosophy of the modern period. Its homeland is Britain, although it quickly spread to the European continent, to France and Germany specifically. The ground for the establishment of empiricism was laid by English thinkers from the scholastic period: Duns Scott, William Ockham, Roger Bacon, and others.

However, Francis Bacon can rightfully be considered the true founder of British modern-day empiricism. He is a significant empiricist because he presents the inductive method as a method of inference, as the true method of acquiring knowledge about nature and establishing truth. The method of induction would later be adopted by all empiricist philosophers. In addition to Bacon, great credit for the establishment of British empiricism also goes to Thomas Hobbes.

However, empiricism as one of the leading directions in the theory of knowledge is associated with the names of the famous trio of British philosophers: John Locke , George Berkeley, and David Hume . The three thinkers gave empiricism the true meaning and made it the leading school of thought of the period.

In the early nineteenth century, an important British empiricist was John Stuart Mill. In France, empiricism is represented by Helvetius and Kondiak, and in Germany, somewhat later, by Feuerbach and the Marxist Dietzgen.

Beginning in the second half of the nineteenth century and throughout the twentieth century, empiricism is prominent in the teachings of neopositivism, pragmatism, and some variants of analytic philosophy.

3. The Philosophical Principles of Empiricism

What is the philosophy of empiricism? What are the main arguments for supporting the claim that experience is the ultimate source of our knowledge? What follows is a brief analysis of some of the most basic empiricist principles.

1. All our knowledge begins with the experiences that are acquired through the activity of the senses

Locke elaborates on this view best. It actually contains his critique of the teaching of innate ideas and principles. Only ideas can be true objects of our opinion for Locke. Our spirit operates with ideas and only with ideas when acquiring any knowledge. There are only two ways we can acquire ideas: through the experiences that our senses give us (sensation) or through the experience that results from the activities of our spirit on these ideas (reflection). So all our knowledge originates either from external experience (sensation) or from internal experience (reflection). But it is by no means possible, Locke proves, for us to have in our minds any innate idea, principle, or knowledge, which has not been produced in some of these two ways. That is why he says of man that he is born as a tabula rasa —a clean unwritten sheet of paper.

David Hume also elaborates on this view. There is no doubt, says Hume, that the real initiator of knowledge can only be experiential contents—the impressions that are acquired by sensory activity. From impressions as a starting point, one comes to representations, and from them to more complex cognitive content. Impressions, says Hume, are direct causes of representations, and not the other way around.

2. Basic means of knowledge are sensory factors: sensations and perceptions

All the “material” of knowledge, according to empiricists, is created through these two factors: sensation and perception. Thinking factors such as judgment and inference also play a role. But, empiricists say, they arise only on the basis of perception. In this way, the role of reason (intellect) begins from the experiential material acquired through sensations and perceptions. The creation of complex ideas, they say, is possible thanks to the fundamental and primary role of sensations and perceptions.

3. The truth of our knowledge is determined by our correspondence with things in everyday experience 

The validity of our knowledge, empiricists say, can only be determined by seeing whether our knowledge corresponds to the actual state of the world.

Criticisms of Rationalism and Empiricism

It’s almost inevitable not to think critically and wonder who is in the right and who is in the wrong, rationalists or empiricists. As most things in philosophy go, it turns out things are not so simple, and a definite answer isn’t readily available. However, we can point out some of the weak points and limitations of each of these teachings. In this final part of the article, we’ll take a brief look at some of the limitations of rationalism, as well as of empiricism.

When it comes to rationalism, one could argue that there is no adequate justification for the rationalistic teaching of the existence of innate ideas and principles. Starting from Plato’s world of ideas up to Descartes’ and Leibniz’s theories about the ideas and principles inherent in reason or the soul, rationalists base their teaching on the origin of knowledge on a kind of absolutization of the intellect. However, until today, there are no serious indications that a valid scientific basis can be found for such a thesis.

Empiricism, on the other hand, limits knowledge to what is available through sensory experience. From the position of empiricism, it is very difficult to understand the operations of thought, which is an enormously complex process. Without thought, synthesis, abstraction, generalization, specification, deduction, and induction, it is very difficult to explain how knowledge via the abstract concepts of mathematics, the basic principles of natural sciences, as well as the categories of social and philosophical disciplines, is possible. However, it is very plausible that we, in fact, possess this knowledge. It seems as if experience alone is not enough to grasp this kind of knowledge, especially sensory-perceptive experience. Empiricism, however, is unable to accept sources of knowledge that are independent of experience.

An alternative to the teachings of rationalism and empiricism is Immanuel Kant’s theory of knowledge . His theory is an attempt to overcome the weak points and limitations of both sides; he merges their strengths into one coherent whole. Kant says that knowledge begins with experience (sensibility), then through reason (categories), it ends in the mind (principles). Our knowledge, says Kant, comes from two basic sources of the spirit: the reception of representations (perceptions) and the ability to know an object with the help of these representations (thinking and understanding). Through the first source, the object is given to us, and through the second, it is imagined, says Kant. Accordingly, perceiving (sensibility) and understanding (reasoning) are the two essential powers of human cognition. Thus, Kant concludes that knowledge is impossible without both faculties.

What did Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle Think About Wisdom?

By Antonio Panovski BA Philosophy Antonio holds a BA in Philosophy from SS. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, North Macedonia. His main areas of interest are contemporary, as well as analytic philosophy, with a special focus on the epistemological aspect of them, although he’s currently thoroughly examining the philosophy of science. Besides writing, he loves cinema, music, and traveling.

Frequently Read Together

Plato’s Theaetetus: How Do We Know What We Know?

Aristotle’s Philosophy: Eudaimonia and Virtue Ethics

Descartes’ Skepticism: A Journey from Doubt to Existence

Rationalism vs. 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 constuct 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.

1.1 Rationalism

1.2 empiricism, 2. the intuition/deduction thesis, 3. the innate knowledge thesis, 4. the innate concept thesis, bibliography, other internet resources, related entries, 1. introduction.

The dispute between rationalism and empiricism takes places within epistemology, the branch of philosophy devoted to studying the nature, sources and limits of knowledge. The defining questions of epistemology include the following.

What is the nature of propositional knowledge, knowledge that a particular proposition about the world is true?

Knowing a particular proposition requires both that we believe it and that it be true, but it also clearly requires something more, something that distinguishes knowledge from a lucky guess. Let's call this additional element ‘warrant’. A good deal of philosophical work has been invested in trying to determine the nature of this additional element.

How can we gain knowledge?

We can form true beliefs just by making some lucky guesses. How we can gain warranted beliefs is unclear. Moreover, to know the world, we must think about it, and it is not clear how we gain the concepts we use in thought or what assurance, if any, we have that the ways in which we divide up the world using our concepts correspond to divisions that actually exist.

What are the limits of our knowledge?

Some aspects of the world may be within the limits of our thought but beyond the limits of our knowledge; faced with competing descriptions of them, we cannot know which description is true. Some aspects of the world may even be beyond the limits of our thought, so that we cannot form intelligible descriptions of them, let alone know that a particular description is true.

The disagreement between rationalists and empiricists primarily concerns the second question, regarding the sources of our concepts and knowledge. In some instances, their disagreement on this topic leads them to give conflicting responses to the other questions as well. They may disagree over the nature of warrant or about the limits of our thought and knowledge. Our focus here will be on the competing rationalist and empiricist responses to the second question.

To be a rationalist is to adopt at least one of three claims. The Intuition/Deduction thesis concerns how we become warranted in believing propositions in a particular subject area.

The Intuition/Deduction Thesis : Some propositions in a particular subject area, S, are knowable by us by intuition alone; still others are knowable by being deduced from intuited propositions.

Intuition is a form of rational insight. Intellectually grasping a proposition, we just "see" it to be true in such a way as to form a true, warranted belief in it. Deduction is a process in which we derive conclusions from intuited premises through valid arguments, ones in which the conclusion must be true if the premises are true. We intuit, for example, that the number three is prime and that it is greater than two. We then deduce from this knowledge that there is a prime number greater than two. Intuition and deduction thus provide us with knowledge a priori , which is to say knowledge gained independently of sense experience.

We can generate different versions of the Intuition/Deduction thesis by substituting different subject areas for the variable ‘S’. Some rationalists take mathematics to be knowable by intuition and deduction. Some place ethical truths in this category. Some include metaphysical claims, such as that God exists, we have free will, and our mind and body are distinct substances. The more propositions rationalists include within the range of intuition and deduction, and the more controversial the truth of those propositions, the more radical their rationalism.

Rationalists also vary the strength of their view by adjusting their understanding of warrant. Some take warranted beliefs to be beyond even the slightest doubt and claim that intuition and deduction provide beliefs of this high epistemic status. Others interpret warrant more conservatively, say as belief beyond a reasonable doubt, and claim that intuition and deduction provide beliefs of that caliber.

Still another dimension of rationalism depends on how its proponents understand the connection between intuition, on the one hand, and truth, on the other. Some take intuition to be infallible, claiming that whatever we intuit must be true. Others allow for the possibility of false intuited propositions.

The second thesis associated with rationalism is the Innate Knowledge thesis.

The Innate Knowledge Thesis : We have knowledge of some truths in a particular subject area, S, as part of our rational nature.

Like the Intuition/Deduction thesis, the Innate Knowledge thesis asserts the existence of knowledge gained a priori , independently of experience. The difference between them rests in the accompanying understanding of how this a priori knowledge is gained. The Intuition/Deduction thesis cites intuition and subsequent deductive reasoning. The Innate Knowledge thesis offers our rational nature. Our innate knowledge is not learned through either sense experience or intuition and deduction. It is just part of our nature. Experiences may trigger a process by which we bring this knowledge to consciousness, but the experiences do not provide us with the knowledge itself. It has in some way been with us all along. According to some rationalists, we gained the knowledge in an earlier existence. According to others, God provided us with it at creation. Still others say it is part of our nature through natural selection.

We get different versions of the Innate Knowledge thesis by substituting different subject areas for the variable ‘S'. Once again, the more subjects included within the range of the thesis or the more controversial the claim to have knowledge in them, the more radical the form of rationalism. Stronger and weaker understandings of warrant yield stronger and weaker versions of the thesis as well..

The third important thesis of rationalism is the Innate Concept thesis.

The Innate Concept Thesis : We have some of the concepts we employ in a particular subject area, S, as part of our rational nature.

According to the Innate Concept thesis, some of our concepts are not gained from experience. They are part of our rational nature in such a way that, while sense experiences may trigger a process by which they are brought to consciousness, experience does not provide the concepts or determine the information they contain. Some claim that the Innate Concept thesis is entailed by the Innate Knowledge Thesis; a particular instance of knowledge can only be innate if the concepts that are contained in the known proposition are also innate. This is Locke's position ( Essay Concerning Human Understanding , Book I, Chapter IV, Section 1, p. 91). Others, such as Carruthers, argue against this connection ( Human Knowledge and Human Nature , pp. 53-54). The content and strength of the Innate Concept thesis varies with the concepts claimed to be innate. The more a concept seems removed from experience and the mental operations we can perform on what experience provides the more plausibly it may be claimed to be innate. Since we do not experience perfect triangles but do experience pains, our concept of the former is a more promising candidate than our concept of the latter for being innate.

The Intuition/Deduction thesis, the Innate Knowledge thesis, and the Innate Concept thesis are essential to rationalism: to be a rationalist is to adopt at least one of them. Two other closely related theses are generally adopted by rationalists, although one can certainly be a rationalist without adopting either of them. The first is that experience cannot provide what we gain from reason.

The Indispensability of Reason Thesis : The knowledge we gain in subject area, S, by intuition and deduction, as well as the ideas and instances of knowledge in S that are innate to us, could not have been gained by us through sense experience.

The second is that reason is superior to experience as a source of knowledge.

The Superiority of Reason Thesis : The knowledge we gain in subject area S by intuition and deduction or have innately is superior to any knowledge gained by sense experience.

How reason is superior needs explanation, and rationalists have offered different accounts. One view, generally associated with Descartes ( Rules for the Direction of our Native Intelligence , Rules II and III, pp.1-4), is that what we know a priori is certain, beyond even the slightest doubt, while what we believe, or even know, on the basis of sense experience is at least somewhat uncertain. Another view, generally associated with Plato ( Republic 479e-484c), locates the superiority of a priori knowledge in the objects known. What we know by reason alone, a Platonic form, say, is superior in an important metaphysical way, e.g. unchanging, eternal, perfect, a higher degree of being, to what are aware of through sense experience.

Most forms of rationalism involve notable commitments to other philosophical positions. One is a commitment to the denial of scepticism for at least some area of knowledge. If we claim to know some truths by intuition or deduction or to have some innate knowledge, we obviously reject scepticism with regard to those truths. Rationalism in the form of the Intuition/Deduction thesis is also committed to epistemic foundationalism, the view that we know some truths without basing our belief in them on any others and that we then use this foundational knowledge to know more truths.

Empiricists endorse the following claim for some subject area.

The Empiricism Thesis : We have no source of knowledge in S or for the concepts we use in S other than sense experience.

Empiricism about a particular subject rejects the corresponding version of the Intuition/Deduction thesis and Innate Knowledge thesis. Insofar as we have knowledge in the subject, our knowledge is a posteriori , dependent upon sense experience. Empiricists also deny the implication of the corresponding Innate Concept thesis that we have innate ideas in the subject area. Sense experience is our only source of ideas. They reject the corresponding version of the Superiority of Reason thesis. Since reason alone does not give us any knowledge, it certainly does not give us superior knowledge. Empiricists generally reject the Indispensability of Reason thesis, though they need not. The Empiricism thesis does not entail that we have empirical knowledge. It entails that knowledge can only be gained, if at all , by experience. Empiricists may assert, as some do for certain subjects, that the rationalists are correct to claim that experience cannot give us knowledge. The conclusion they draw from this rationalist lesson is not that we gain knowledge by indispensable reason, but that we do not know at all.

I have stated the basic claims of rationalism and empiricism so that each is relative to a particular subject area. Rationalism and empiricism, so relativized, need not conflict. We can be rationalists in mathematics or a particular area of mathematics and empiricists in all or some of the physical sciences. Rationalism and empiricism only conflict when formulated to cover the same subject. Then the debate, Rationalism vs. Empiricism, is joined. The fact that philosophers can be both rationalists and empiricists has implications for the classification schemes often employed in the history of philosophy, especially the one traditionally used to describe the Early Modern Period of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries leading up to Kant. It is standard practice to group the major philosophers of this period as either rationalists or empiricists and to suggest that those under one heading share a common agenda in opposition to those under the other. Thus, Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz are the Continental Rationalists in opposition to Locke, Berkeley and Hume, the British Empiricists. Such general classification schemes must be viewed with caution. The views of the individual philosophers are more subtle and complex than the simple-minded classification suggests. (See Loeb (1981) and Kenny (1986) for important discussions of this point.) Locke rejects rationalism in the form of any version of the Innate Knowledge or Innate Concept theses, but he nonetheless adopts the Intuition/Deduction thesis with regard to our knowledge of God's existence. Descartes and Locke have remarkably similar views on the nature of our ideas, even though Descartes takes many to be innate, while Locke ties them all to experience. The rationalist/empiricist classification also encourages us to expect the philosophers on each side of the divide to have common research programs in areas beyond epistemology. Thus, Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz are mistakenly seen as applying a reason-centered epistemology to a common metaphysical agenda, with each trying to improve on the efforts of the one before, while Locke, Berkeley and Hume are mistakenly seen as gradually rejecting those metaphysical claims, with each consciously trying to improve on the efforts of his predecessors. In short, the labels ‘rationalist’ and ‘empiricist,’ as well as the slogan that is the title of this essay, ‘Rationalism vs. Empiricism,’ used carelessly can retard rather than advance our understanding.

Nonetheless, an important debate properly described as ‘Rationalism vs. Empiricism’ is joined whenever the claims for each view are formulated to cover the same subject. What is perhaps the most interesting form of the debate occurs when we take the relevant subject to be truths about the external world. A full-fledged rationalist with regard to our knowledge of the external world holds that some external world truths can and must be known a priori , that some of the ideas required for that knowledge are and must be innate, and that this knowledge is superior to any that experience could ever provide. The full-fledged empiricist about our knowledge of the external world replies that, when it comes to the nature of the world beyond our own minds, experience is our sole source of information. Reason might inform us of the relations among our ideas, but those ideas themselves can only be gained, and any truths about the external reality they represent can only be known, on the basis of sense experience. This debate concerning our knowledge of the external world will generally be our main focus in what follows.

The Intuition/Deduction thesis claims that we can know some propositions by intuition and still more by deduction. Many empiricists have been willing to accept the thesis so long as it is restricted to propositions solely about the relations between our own concepts. We can, they agree, know by intuition that our concept of God includes our concept of eternal existence. Just by examining the concepts, we can intellectually grasp that the one includes the other. The debate between rationalists and empiricists is joined when the former assert, and the latter deny, the Intuition/Deduction Thesis with regard to propositions that contain substantive information about the external world. Rationalists, such as Descartes, have claimed that we can know by intuition and deduction that God exists and created the world, that our mind and body are distinct substances, and that the angles of a triangle equal two right angles, where all of these claims are truths about an external reality independent of our thought. Such substantive versions of the Intuition/Deduction thesis are our concern in this section.

One defense of the Intuition/Deduction thesis assumes that we know some substantive external world truths, adds an analysis of what knowledge requires, and concludes that our knowledge must result from intuition and deduction. Descartes claims that knowledge requires certainty and that certainty about the external world is beyond what empirical evidence can provide. We can never be sure our sensory impressions are not part of a dream or a massive, demon orchestrated, deception. Only intuition and deduction can provide the certainty needed for knowledge, and, given that we have some substantive knowledge of the external world, the Intuition/Deduction thesis is true. As Descartes tells us in his Rules for the Direction of our Native Intelligence , "all knowledge is certain and evident cognition" (Rule II, p. 1) and when we "review all the actions of the intellect by means of which we are able to arrive at a knowledge of things with no fear of being mistaken," we "recognize only two: intuition and deduction" (Rule III, p. 3).

This line of argument is one of the least compelling in the rationalist arsenal. First, the assumption that knowledge requires certainty comes at a heavy cost, as it rules out so much of what we commonly take ourselves to know in the regular course of events. Second, as many contemporary rationalists accept, intuition is not always a source of certain knowledge. The possibility of a deceiver gives us a reason to doubt our intuitions as well as our empirical beliefs. For all we know, a deceiver might cause us to intuit false propositions, just as he might cause us to have perceptions of nonexistent objects. Descartes's classic way of meeting this challenge in the Meditations is to argue that we can know with certainty that no such deceiver interferes with our intuitions and deductions. They are infallible, as God guarantees their truth. The problem, known as the Cartesian Circle, is that Descartes's account of how we gain this knowledge begs the question, by attempting to deduce the conclusion that all our intuitions are true from intuited premises. Moreover, his account does not touch a remaining problem that he himself notes in the Rules (Rule VII, p. 7): Deductions of any appreciable length rely on our fallible memory.

A more plausible argument for the Intuition/Deduction thesis again assumes that we know some particular, external world truths, and then appeals to the nature of what we know, rather than to the nature of knowledge itself, to argue that our knowledge must result from intuition and deduction. Leibniz in the New Essays on Human Understanding tells us the following.

The senses, although they are necessary for all our actual knowledge, are not sufficient to give us the whole of it, since the senses never give anything but instances, that is to say particular or individual truths. Now all the instances which confirm a general truth, however numerous they may be, are not sufficient to establish the universal necessity of this same truth, for it does not follow that what happened before will happen in the same way again. … From which it appears that necessary truths, such as we find in pure mathematics, and particularly in arithmetic and geometry, must have principles whose proof does not depend on instances, nor consequently on the testimony of the senses, although without the senses it would never have occurred to us to think of them… (Preface, pp. 150-151)

Leibniz goes on to describe our mathematical knowledge as "innate," and his argument may be directed to support the Innate Knowledge Thesis rather than the Intuition/Deduction Thesis. For our purposes here, we can relate it to the latter, however: We have substantive knowledge about the external world in mathematics, and what we know in that area, we know to be necessarily true. Experience cannot warrant beliefs about what is necessarily the case. Hence, experience cannot be the source of our knowledge. The best explanation of our knowledge is that we gain it by intuition and deduction. Leibniz mentions logic, metaphysics and morals as other areas in which our knowledge similarly outstrips what experience can provide, providing the basis for an appeal to intuition and deduction. Judgments in logic and metaphysics involve forms of necessity beyond what experience can support. Judgments in morals involve a form of obligation or value that lies beyond experience, which only informs us about what is the case rather than about what ought to be.

The strength of this argument varies with its examples of purported knowledge. Insofar as we focus on controversial claims in metaphysics, e.g. that God exists, that our mind is a distinct substance from our body, the initial premise that we know the claims is less than compelling. Taken with regard to other areas, however, the argument clearly has legs. We know a great deal of mathematics, and what we know, we know to be necessarily true. None of our experiences warrants a belief in such necessity, and we do not seem to base our knowledge on any experiences. The warrant that provides us with knowledge arises from an intellectual grasp of the propositions which is clearly part of our learning. Similarly, we seem to have such moral knowledge as that, all other things being equal, it is wrong to break a promise and that pleasure is intrinsically good. No empirical lesson about how things are can warrant such knowledge of how they ought to be.

This argument for the Intuition/Deduction Thesis raises additional questions which rationalists must answer. Insofar as they maintain that our knowledge of necessary truths in mathematics or elsewhere by intuition and deduction is substantive knowledge of the external world, they owe us an account of this form of necessity. Many empiricists stand ready to argue that "necessity resides in the way we talk about things, not in the things we talk about" (Willard van Orman Quine, Ways of Paradox and Other Essays , p. 174). Similarly, if rationalists claim that our knowledge in morals is knowledge of an objective form of obligation, they owe us an account of how objective values are part of a world of apparently valueless facts.

Perhaps most of all, rationalist defenders of the Intuition/Deduction thesis owe us an account of what intuition is and how it provides warranted true beliefs about the external world. What is it to intuit a proposition and how does that act of intuition support a warranted belief? Any intellectual faculty, whether it be sense perception or intuition, provides us with warranted beliefs and so knowledge only if it is generally reliable. The reliability of sense perception stems from the causal connection between how external objects are and how we experience them. What accounts for the reliability of our intuitions regarding the external world? Is our intuition of a particular true proposition the outcome of some causal interaction between ourselves and some aspect of the world? What aspect? What is the nature of this causal interaction? That the number three is prime does not appear to cause anything, let alone our intuition that it is prime.

These issues are made all the more pressing by the classic empiricist response to the argument. The reply is generally credited to Hume and begins with a division of all true propositions into two categories.

All the objects of human reason or inquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, "Relations of Ideas," and "Matters of Fact." Of the first are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic, and, in short, every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the square of the two sides is a proposition which expresses a relation between these figures. That three times five is equal to half of thirty expresses a relation between these numbers. Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths demonstrated by Euclid would forever retain their certainty and evidence. Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner, nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible, because it can never imply a contradiction and is conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness as if ever so conformable to reality. ( Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding , Section IV, Part 1, p. 40)

Intuition and deduction can provide us with knowledge of necessary truths such as those found in mathematics, but such knowledge is not substantive knowledge of the external world. It is only knowledge of the relations of our own ideas. So too for our knowledge in logic. If the rationalist shifts the argument so it appeals to knowledge in morals, Hume's reply is to offer an analysis of our moral concepts by which such knowledge is empirically gained knowledge of matters of fact.

Morals and criticism are not so properly objects of the understanding as of taste and sentiment. Beauty, whether moral or natural, is felt more properly than perceived. Or if we reason concerning it and endeavor to fix the standard, we regard a new fact, to wit, the general taste of mankind, or some other fact which may be the object of reasoning and inquiry. ( Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding , Section XII, Part 3, p. 173)

If the rationalist appeals to our knowledge in metaphysics to support the argument, Hume denies that we have such knowledge.

If we take in our hand any volume--of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance--let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. ( Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding , Section XII, Part 3, p. 173)

An updated version of this general empiricist reply, with an increased emphasis on language and the nature of meaning, is given in the twentieth-century by A. J. Ayer's version of Logical Positivism. Adopting Positivism's Verification Theory of Meaning, Ayer assigns every cognitively meaningful sentence to one of two categories: either it is a tautology, and so true solely by virtue of the meaning of its terms and provides no substantive information about the world, or it is open to empirical verification. There is, then, no room for knowledge about the external world by intuition or deduction.

There can be no a priori knowledge of reality. For … the truths of pure reason, the propositions which we know to be valid independently of all experience, are so only in virtue of their lack of factual content … [By contrast] empirical propositions are one and all hypotheses which may be confirmed or discredited in actual sense experience. [ Language, Truth and Logic , pp. 86; 93-94]

The rationalists' argument for the Intuition/Deduction Thesis goes wrong at the start, according to empiricists, by assuming that we can have substantive knowledge of the external world that outstrips what experience can warrant. We cannot.

This empiricist reply faces challenges of its own. Our knowledge of mathematics seems to be about something more than our own concepts. Our knowledge of moral judgments seems to concern not just how we feel or act but how we ought to behave. The general principles that provide a basis for the empiricist view, e.g. Hume's overall account of our ideas, the Verification Principle of Meaning, are problematic in their own right. In various formulations, the Verification Principle fails its own test for having cognitive meaning. A careful analysis of Hume's Inquiry, relative to its own principles, may require us to consign large sections of it to the flames.

In all, rationalists have a strong argument for the Intuition/Deduction thesis relative to our substantive knowledge of the external world, but its success rests on how well they can answer questions made all the more pressing by the classic empiricist reply.

The Innate Knowledge thesis joins the Intuition/Deduction thesis in asserting that we have a priori knowledge, but it does not offer intuition and deduction as the source of that knowledge. It takes our a priori knowledge to be part of our rational nature. Experience may trigger our awareness of this knowledge, but it does not provide us with it. The knowledge is already there.

Plato presents an early version of the Innate Knowledge thesis in the Meno as the doctrine of knowledge by recollection. The doctrine is motivated in part by a paradox that arises when we attempt to explain the nature of inquiry. How do we gain knowledge of a theorem in geometry? We inquire into the matter. Yet, knowledge by inquiry seems impossible ( Meno , 80d-e). We either already know the theorem at the start of our investigation or we do not. If we already have the knowledge, there is no place for inquiry. If we lack the knowledge, we don't know what we are seeking and cannot recognize it when we find it. Either way we cannot gain knowledge of the theorem by inquiry. Yet, we do know some theorems.

The doctrine of knowledge by recollection offers a solution. When we inquire into the truth of a theorem, we both do and do not already know it. We have knowledge in the form of a memory gained from our soul's knowledge of the theorem prior to its union with our body. We lack knowledge in that, in our soul's unification with the body, it has forgotten the knowledge and now needs to recollect it. In learning the theorem, we are, in effect, recalling what we already know.

Plato famously illustrates the doctrine with an exchange between Socrates and a young slave, in which Socrates guides the slave from ignorance to mathematical knowledge. The slave's experiences, in the form of Socrates' questions and illustrations, are the occasion for his recollection of what he learned previously. Plato's metaphysics provides additional support for the Innate Knowledge Thesis. Since our knowledge is of abstract, eternal Forms which clearly lie beyond our sensory experience, it is a priori .

Contemporary supporters of Plato's position are scarce. The initial paradox, which Plato describes as a "trick argument" ( Meno , 80e), rings sophistical. The metaphysical assumptions in the solution need justification. The solution does not answer the basic question: Just how did the slave's soul learn the theorem? The Intuition/Deduction thesis offers an equally, if not more, plausible account of how the slave gains knowledge a priori . Nonetheless, Plato's position illustrates the kind of reasoning that has caused many philosophers to adopt some form of the Innate Knowledge thesis. We are confident that we know certain propositions about the external world, but there seems to be no adequate explanation of how we gained this knowledge short of saying that it is innate. Its content is beyond what we directly gain in experience, as well as what we can gain by performing mental operations on what experience provides. It does not seem to be based on an intuition or deduction. That it is innate to us appears to be the best explanation.

Noam Chomsky argues along similar lines in presenting what he describes as a "rationalist conception of the nature of language" ("Recent Contributions to the Theory of Innate Ideas," p. 129). Chomsky argues that the experiences available to language learners are far too sparse to account for their knowledge of their language. To explain language acquisition, we must assume that learners have an innate knowledge of a universal grammar capturing the common deep structure of natural languages. It is important to note that Chomsky's language learners do not know particular propositions describing a universal grammar. They have a set of innate capacities or dispositions which enable and determine their language development. Chomsky gives us a theory of innate learning capacities or structures rather than a theory of innate knowledge. His view does not support the Innate Knowledge thesis as rationalists have traditionally understood it. As one commentator puts it, "Chomsky's principles … are innate neither in the sense that we are explicitly aware of them, nor in the sense that we have a disposition to recognize their truth as obvious under appropriate circumstances. And hence it is by no means clear that Chomsky is correct in seeing his theory as following the traditional rationalist account of the acquisition of knowledge" (Cottingham, Rationalism , p. 124).

Peter Carruthers ( Human Knowledge and Human Nature ) argues that we have innate knowledge of the principles of folk-psychology. Folk-psychology is a network of common-sense generalizations that hold independently of context or culture and concern the relationships of mental states to one another, to the environment and states of the body and to behavior ( Human Knowledge and Human Nature , p.115). It includes such beliefs as that pains tend to be caused by injury, that pains tend to prevent us from concentrating on tasks, and that perceptions are generally caused by the appropriate state of the environment. Carruthers notes the complexity of folk-psychology, along with its success in explaining our behavior and the fact that its explanations appeal to such unobservables as beliefs, desires, feelings and thoughts. He argues that the complexity, universality, and depth of folk-psychological principles outstrips what experience can provide, especially to young children who by their fifth year already know a great deal of it. This knowledge is also not the result of intuition or deduction; folk-psychological generalizations are not seen to be true in an act of intellectual insight. Carruthers concludes, "[The problem] concerning the child's acquisition of psychological generalizations cannot be solved, unless we suppose that much of folk-psychology is already innate, triggered locally by the child's experience of itself and others, rather than learned" ( Human Knowledge and Human Nature , p. 121).

Empiricists, and some rationalists, attack the Innate Knowledge thesis in two main ways. First, they offer accounts of how sense experience or intuition and deduction provide the knowledge that is claimed to be innate. Second, they directly criticize the Innate Knowledge thesis itself. The classic statement of this second line of attack is presented by Locke in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding . Locke raises the issue of just what innate knowledge is. Particular instances of knowledge are supposed to be in our minds as part of our rational make-up, but how are they "in our minds"? If the implication is that we all consciously have this knowledge, it is plainly false. Propositions often given as examples of innate knowledge, even such plausible candidates as the principle that the same thing cannot both be and not be, are not consciously accepted by children and idiots. If the point of calling such principles "innate" is not to imply that they are or have been consciously accepted by all rational beings, then it is hard to see what the point is. "No proposition can be said to be in the mind, which it never yet knew, which it never yet was conscious of" ( Essay Concerning Human Understanding , Book I, Chapter II, Section 5, p. 61). Proponents of innate knowledge might respond that some knowledge is innate in that we have the capacity to have it. That claim, while true, is of little interest, however. "If the capacity of knowing, be the natural impression contended for, all the truths a man ever comes to know, will, by this account, be every one of them, innate; and this great point will amount to no more, but only an improper way of speaking; which whilst it pretends to assert the contrary, says nothing different from those, who deny innate principles. For nobody, I think, ever denied, that the mind was capable of knowing several truths" ( Essay Concerning Human Understanding , Book I, Chapter II, Section 5, p. 61). Locke thus challenges defenders of the Innate Knowledge thesis to present an account of innate knowledge that allows their position to be both true and interesting. A narrow interpretation of innateness faces counterexamples of rational individuals who do not meet its conditions. A generous interpretation implies that all our knowledge, even that clearly provided by experience, is innate.

Defenders of innate knowledge have taken up Locke's challenge. Consider Peter Carruthers' reply.

We have noted that while one form of nativism claims (somewhat implausibly) that knowledge is innate in the sense of being present as such (or at least in propositional form) from birth, it might also be maintained that knowledge is innate in the sense of being innately determined to make its appearance at some stage in childhood. This latter thesis is surely the most plausible version of nativism. ( Human Knowledge and Human Understanding , p. 51)

Carruthers claims that our innate knowledge is determined through evolutionary selection (p. 111). Evolution has resulted in our being determined to know certain things (e.g. principles of folk-psychology) at particular stages of our life, as part of our natural development. Experiences provide the occasion for our consciously believing the known propositions but not the basis for our knowledge of them (p. 52). Carruthers thus has a ready reply to Locke's counterexamples of children and idiots who do not believe propositions claimed to be instances of innate knowledge. The children have not yet reached the proper stage of development; the idiots are persons in whom natural development has broken down (pp. 49-50).

A serious problem for the Innate Knowledge thesis remains, however. We know a proposition only if it is true, we believe it and our belief is warranted. Rationalists who assert the existence of innate knowledge are not just claiming that, as a matter of human evolution, God's design or some other factor, at a particular point in our development, certain sorts of experiences trigger our belief in particular propositions in a way that does not involve our learning them from the experiences. Their claim is even bolder: In at least some of these cases, our empirically triggered, but not empirically warranted, belief is nonetheless warranted and so known. How can these beliefs be warranted if they do not gain their warrant from the experiences that cause us to have them or from intuition and deduction?

Some rationalists think that a reliabilist account of warrant provides the answer. According to Reliabilism, beliefs are warranted if they are formed by a process that generally produces true beliefs rather than false ones. The true beliefs that constitute our innate knowledge are warranted, then, because they are formed as the result of a reliable belief-forming process. Carruthers maintains that "Innate beliefs will count as known provided that the process through which they come to be innate is a reliable one (provided, that is, that the process tends to generate beliefs that are true)" ( Human Nature and Human Knowledge , p. 77). He argues that natural selection results in the formation of some beliefs and is a truth-reliable process.

The appeal to Reliabilism, or a similar causal theory of warrant, may well be the best way for rationalists to develop the Innate Knowledge thesis. They have a difficult row to hoe, however. First, such accounts of warrant are themselves quite controversial. Second, rationalists must give an account of innate knowledge that maintains and explains the distinction between innate knowledge and a posteriori knowledge, and it is not clear that they will be able to do so within such an account of warrant. Suppose for the sake of argument that we have innate knowledge of some proposition, P. What makes our knowledge that P innate? To sharpen the question, what difference between our knowledge that P and a clear case of a posteriori knowledge, say our knowledge that something is red based on our current visual experience of a red table, makes the former innate and the latter not innate? In each case, we have a true, warranted belief. In each case, presumably, our belief gains its warrant from the fact that it meets a particular causal condition, e.g., it is produced by a reliable process. In each case, the causal process is one in which an experience causes us to believe the proposition at hand (that P; that something is red), for, as defenders of innate knowledge admit, our belief that P is "triggered" by an experience, as is our belief that something is red. The insight behind the Innate Knowledge thesis seems to be that the difference between our innate and a posteriori knowledge lies in the relation between our experience and our belief in each case. The experience that causes our belief that P does not "contain" the information that P, while our visual experience of a red table does "contain" the information that something is red. Yet, exactly what is the nature of this containment relation between experiences and belief contents that is missing in the one case but present in the other? The nature of the experience-belief relation seems quite similar in each. The causal relation between the experience that triggers our belief that P and our belief that P is contingent, as is the fact that the belief-forming process involved is reliable. The same is true of our experience of a red table and our belief that something is red. The causal relation between the experience and our belief is again contingent. We might have been so constructed that the experience we describe as "being appeared to redly" caused us to believe, not that something is red, but that something is hot. The process that takes us from the experince to our belief is also only contingently reliable. Moreover, if our experience of a red table "contains" the information that something is red, then that fact, not the existence of a reliable belief-forming process between the two, should be the reason why the experience warrants our belief. By appealing to Reliablism, or some other causal theory of warrant, rationalists may obtain a way to explain how innate knowledge can be warranted. They still need to show how their explanation supports an account of the difference between innate knowledge and a posteriori knowledge.

According to the Innate Concept thesis, some of our concepts have not been gained from experience. They are instead part of our rational make-up, and experience simply triggers a process by which we consciously grasp them. The main concern motivating the rationalist should be familiar by now: the content of some concepts seems to outstrip anything we could have gained from experience. An example of this reasoning is presented by Descartes in the Meditations . Descartes classifies our ideas as adventitious, fictitious, and innate. Adventitious ideas, such as a sensation of heat, are gained directly through sense experience. Fictitious ideas, such as our idea of a hippogriff, are created by us from other ideas we possess. Innate ideas, such as our ideas of God, of extended matter, of substance and of a perfect triangle, are placed in our minds by God at creation. Consider Descartes's argument that our concept of God, as an infinitely perfect being, is innate. Our concept of God is not directly gained in experience, as particular tastes, sensations and mental images might be. Its content is beyond what we could ever construct by applying available mental operations to what experience directly provides. From experience, we can gain the concept of a being with finite amounts of various perfections, one, for example, that is finitely knowledgeable, powerful and good. We cannot however move from these empirical concepts to the concept of a being of infinite perfection. ("I must not think that, just as my conceptions of rest and darkness are arrived at by negating movement and light, so my perception of the infinite is arrived at not by means of a true idea but by merely negating the finite," Descartes, Third Meditation, p. 94.) Descartes supplements this argument by another. Not only is the content of our concept of God beyond what experience can provide, the concept is a prerequisite for our employment of the concept of finite perfection gained from experience. ("My perception of the infinite, that is God, is in some way prior to my perception of the finite, that is myself. For how could I understand that I doubted or desired--that is lacked something--and that I was not wholly perfect, unless there were in me some idea of a more perfect being which enabled me to recognize my own defects by comparison," Descartes, Third Meditation, p. 94).

An empiricist response to this general line of argument is given by Locke ( Essay Concerning Human Understanding , Book I, Chapter IV, Sections 1-25, pp. 91-107). First, there is the problem of explaining what it is for someone to have an innate concept. If having an innate concept entails consciously entertaining it at present or in the past, then Descartes's position is open to obvious counterexamples. Young children and people from other cultures do not consciously entertain the concept of God and have not done so. Second, there is the objection that we have no need to appeal to innate concepts in the first place. Contrary to Descartes' argument, we can explain how experience provides all our ideas, including those the rationalists take to be innate, and with just the content that the rationalists attribute to them.

Leibniz offers a rationalist reply to the first concern in his New Essays on Human Understanding . Where Locke puts forth the image of the mind as a blank tablet on which experience writes, Leibniz offers us the image of a block of marble, the veins of which determine what sculpted figures it will accept.

This is why I have taken as an illustration a block of veined marble, rather than a wholly uniform block or blank tablets, that is to say what is called tabula rasa in the language of the philosophers. For if the soul were like those blank tablets, truths would be in us in the same way as the figure of Hercules is in a block of marble, when the marble is completely indifferent whether it receives this or some other figure. But if there were veins in the stone which marked out the figure of Hercules rather than other figures, this stone would be more determined thereto, and Hercules would be as it were in some manner innate in it, although labour would be needed to uncover the veins, and to clear them by polishing, and by cutting away what prevents them from appearing. It is in this way that ideas and truths are innate in us, like natural inclinations and dispositions, natural habits or potentialities, and not like activities, although these potentialities are always accompanied by some activities which correspond to them, though they are often imperceptible. ( New Essays on Human Understanding , Preface, p. 153)

Leibniz's metaphor contains an insight that Locke misses. The mind plays a role in determining the nature of its contents. This point does not, however, require the adoption of the Innate Concept thesis.

Rationalists have responded to the second part of the empiricist attack on the Innate Concept thesis--the empricists' claim that the thesis is without basis, as all our ideas can be explained as derived from experience--by focusing on difficulties in the empiricists' attempts to give such an explanation. The difficulties are illustrated by Locke's account. According to Locke, experience consists in external sensation and reflection. All our ideas are either simple or complex, with the former being received by us passively in sensation or reflection and the latter being built by the mind from simple materials through various mental operations. Right at the start, the account of how simple ideas are gained is open to an obvious counterexample acknowledged, but then set aside, by Hume in presenting his own empiricist theory. Consider the mental image of a particular shade of blue. If Locke is right, the idea is a simple one and should be passively received by the mind through experience. Hume points out otherwise.

Suppose therefore a person to have enjoyed his sight for thirty years and to have become perfectly acquainted with colors of all kinds, except one particular shade of blue, for instance, which it never has been his fortune to meet with; let all the different shades of that color, except that single one, be placed before him, descending gradually from the deepest to the lightest, it is plain that he will perceive a blank where that shade is wanting and will be sensible that there is a greater distance in that place between the contiguous colors than in any other. Now I ask whether it be possible for him, from his own imagination, to supply this deficiency and raise up to himself the idea of that particular shade, though it had never been conveyed to him by his senses? I believe there are but few will be of the opinion that he can… ( Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding , Section II, pp. 29-30)

Even when it comes to such simple ideas as the image of a particular shade of blue, the mind is more than a blank slate on which experience writes.

Consider too our concept of a particular color, say red. Critics of Locke's account have pointed out the weaknesses in his explanation of how we gain such a concept by the mental operation of abstraction on individual cases. For one thing, it makes the incorrect assumption that various instances of a particular concept share a common feature. Carruthers puts the objection as follows.

In fact problems arise for empiricists even in connection with the very simplest concepts, such as those of colour. For it is false that all instances of a given colour share some common feature. In which case we cannot acquire the concept of that colour by abstracting the common feature of our experience. Thus consider the concept red . Do all shades of red have something in common? If so, what? It is surely false that individual shades of red consist, as it were, of two distinguishable elements a general redness together with a particular shade. Rather, redness consists in a continuous range of shades, each of which is only just distinguishable from its neighbors. Acquiring the concept red is a matter of learning the extent of the range. ( Human Nature and Human Knowledge , p. 59)

For another thing, Locke's account of concept acquisition from particular experiences seems circular.

As it stands, however, Locke's account of concept acquisition appears viciously circular. For noticing or attending to a common feature of various things presupposes that you already possess the concept of the feature in question. (Carruthers, Human Nature and Human Knowledge , p. 55)

Consider in this regard Locke's account of how we gain our concept of causation.

In the notice that our senses take of the constant vicissitude of things, we cannot but observe, that several particulars, both qualities and substances; begin to exist; and that they receive this their existence from the due application and operation of some other being. From this observation, we get our ideas of cause and effect. ( Essay Concerning Human Understanding , Book II, Chapter 26, Section 1, pp. 292-293)

We get our concept of causation from our observation that some things receive their existence from the application and operation of some other things. Yet, we cannot make this observation unless we already have the concept of causation. Locke's account of how we gain our idea of power displays a similar circularity.

The mind being every day informed, by the senses, of the alteration of those simple ideas, it observes in things without; and taking notice how one comes to an end, and ceases to be, and another begins to exist which was not before; reflecting also on what passes within itself, and observing a constant change of its ideas, sometimes by the impression of outward objects on the senses, and sometimes by the determination of its own choice; and concluding from what it has so constantly observed to have been, that the like changes will for the future be made in the same things, by like agents, and by the like ways, considers in one thing the possibility of having any of its simple ideas changed, and in another the possibility of making that change; and so comes by that idea which we call power. ( Essay Concerning Human Understanding , Chapter XXI, Section 1, pp. 219-220)

We come by the idea of power though considering the possibility of changes in our ideas made by experiences and our own choices. Yet, to consider this possibility—of some things making a change in others—we must already have a concept of power.

One way to meet at least some of these challenges to an empiricist account of the origin of our concepts is to revise our understanding of the content of our concepts so as to bring them more in line with what experience will clearly provide. Hume famously takes this approach. Beginning in a way reminiscent of Locke, he distinguishes between two forms of mental contents or "perceptions," as he calls them: impressions and ideas. Impressions are the contents of our current experiences: our sensations, feelings, emotions, desires, and so on. Ideas are mental contents derived from impressions. Simple ideas are copies of impressions; complex ideas are derived from impressions by "compounding, transposing, augmenting or diminishing" them. Given that all our ideas are thus gained from experience, Hume offers us the following method for determining the content of any idea and thereby the meaning of any term taken to express it.

When we entertain, therefore, any suspicion that a philosophical term is employed without any meaning or idea (as is but too frequent), we need but inquire from what impression is that supposed idea derived ? And if it be impossible to assign any, this will confirm our suspicion. ( Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding , Section II, p. 30)

Using this test, Hume draws out one of the most important implications of the empiricists' denial of the Innate Concept thesis. If experience is indeed the source of all ideas, then our experiences also determine the content of our ideas. Our ideas of causation, of substance, of right and wrong have their content determined by the experiences that provide them. Those experiences, Hume argues, are unable to support the content that many rationalists and some empiricists, such as Locke, attribute to the corresponding ideas. Our inability to explain how some concepts, with the contents the rationalists attribute to them, are gained from experience should not lead us to adopt the Innate Concept thesis. It should lead us to accept a more limited view of the contents for those concepts, and thereby a more limited view of our ability to describe and understand the world.

Consider, for example, our idea of causation. Descartes takes it to be innate. Locke offers an apparently circular account of how it is gained from experience. Hume's empiricist account severely limits its content. Our idea of causation is derived from a feeling of expectation rooted in our experiences of the constant conjunction of similar causes and effects.

It appears, then, that this idea of a necessary connection among events arises from a number of similar instances which occur, of the constant conjunction of these events; nor can that idea ever be suggested by any one of these instances surveyed in all possible lights and positions. But there is nothing in a number of instances, different from every single instance, which is supposed to be exactly similar, except only that after a repetition of similar instances the mind is carried by habit, upon the appearance of one event, to expect its usual attendant and to believe that it will exist. This connection, therefore, which we feel in the mind, this customary transition of the imagination from one object to its usual attendant, is the sentiment or impression from which we form the idea of power or necessary connection. ( Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding , Section VII, Part 2, p. 86)

The source of our idea in experience determines its content.

Suitably to this experience, therefore, we may define a cause to be an object followed by another, and where all the objects, similar to the first are followed by objects similar to the second… We may, therefore, suitably to this experience, form another definition of cause and call it an object followed by another, and whose appearance always conveys the thought of the other . ( Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding , Section VII, Part 2, p. 87)

Our claims, and any knowledge we may have, about causal connections in the world turn out, given the limited content of our empirically based concept of causation, to be claims and knowledge about the constant conjunction of events and our own feelings of expectation. Thus, the initial disagreement between rationalists and empiricists about the source of our ideas leads to one about their content and thereby the content of our descriptions and knowledge of the world.

Works Cited

• Ayer, A. J., 1952, Language, Truth and Logic , New York: Dover Publications.
• Carruthers, P., 1992, Human Knowledge and Human Nature , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Descartes, R., 1628, Rules for the Direction of our Native Intelligence , in Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings , transl. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
• Descartes, R., 1641, Meditations , in Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings , transl. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
• Descartes, R. 1644, Principles of Philosophy , in Descartes: Selected Philosophical Writings , transl. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff and Dugald Murdoch, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
• Hume, D., 1748, An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding , Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs- Merrill, 1955.
• Kenny, A., 1986, Rationalism, Empiricism and Idealism , Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Leinbiz, G., c1704, New Essays on Human Understanding , in Leinbiz: Philosophical Writings , ed. G.H.R. Parkinson, transl. Mary Morris and G.H.R. Parkinson, London: J.M. Dent & Sons, 1973.
• Locke, J., 1690, An Essay on Human Understanding , ed. Woolhouse, Roger, London: Peguin Books, 1997.
• Loeb, L., 1981, From Descartes to Hume: Continental Metaphysics and the Development of Modern Philosophy , Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
• Plato, Meno , transl. W. K. C. Guthrie, Plato: Collected Dialogues , edited by Edith Hamilton and Huntington Cairns, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973.

Related Works

• Adams, R., 1975, "Where Do Our Ideas Come From? Descartes vs Locke", reprinted in Stitch S. (ed.) Innate Ideas , Berkeley, CA: California University Press.
• Aune, B., 1970, Rationalism, Empiricism and Pragmatism: An Introduction , New York: Random House.
• Block, N., 1981, Essays in Philosophy of Psychology II , London: Methuen, Part Four.
• Bonjour, L., 1998, In Defense of Pure Reason , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Cottingham, J., 1984, Rationalism , London: Paladin Books.
• Chomsky, N., 1975, "Recent Contributions to the Theory of Innate Ideas", reprinted in Stitch, S. (ed.) Innate Ideas , Berkeley, CA: California University Press.
• Chomsky, N., 1988, Language and Problems of Knowledge , Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• Fodor, J., 1975, The Language of Thought , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Fodor, J., 1981, Representations , Brighton: Harvester.
• Kripke, S., 1980, Naming and Necessity , Oxford: Blackwell.
• Quine, W. V. O., 1951, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism," in W.V.O. Quine, From a Logical Point of View , Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951.
• Stitch, S., 1975, Innate Ideas , Berkeley, CA: California University Press.

[Please contact the author with suggestions.]

-->analytic-synthetic distinction --> | a priori justification and knowledge | Ayer, Alfred Jules | Berkeley, George | concepts | Descartes, René | -->Descartes's theory of ideas --> | epistemology | -->historical controversies surrounding innateness --> | Hume, David | innate/acquired distinction | -->innateness and language --> | justification, epistemic: foundationalist theories of | -->Kant, Immanuel --> | knowledge: analysis of | Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm | Locke, John | Plato | -->Quine, Willard van Orman --> | reliabilism | skepticism | Spinoza, Baruch

Rationalism Vs. Empiricism: A Comparative Analysis

Understanding the key differences.

Home » Education » Difference Between Rationalism and Empiricism

Difference Between Rationalism and Empiricism

Main difference – rationalism vs  empiricism.

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that deals with the theory of knowledge. It studies the nature of knowledge, the rationality of belief, and justification. Rationalism and empiricism are two schools of thought in epistemology. Both these schools of thought are concerned with the source of knowledge and justification. The main difference between rationalism and empiricism is that rationalism considers reason as the source of knowledge whereas empiricism considers experience as the source of knowledge.

This article covers,

1. What is Rationalism? – Definition and Characteristics

2. What is Empiricism?  – Definition and Characteristics

What is Empiricism

Empiricism is a theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience. This theory emphasizes the role of the five senses in obtaining knowledge. Empiricism rejects innate concepts or inborn knowledge. John Locke, one of the most famous empiricist stated that mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) when we enter the world. According to this theory, it is only later, through the acquisition of experience that we gain knowledge and information.

However, if knowledge comes only through experience, it is impossible for us to talk about something that we have not experienced. This claim questions the validity of religious and ethical concepts; since these concepts cannot be observed or experienced, they were considered to be meaningless. Nevertheless, moderate empiricists accept that there are some phenomenon that cannot be explained through senses.

John Lock was an eminent empiricist.

What is Rationalism

Rationalism is a theory that states knowledge comes through reason, i.e., reason is the source of knowledge and justification. There are three basic claims in rationalism and rationalists must adopt at least one of these three claims. These claims are known as the intuition/deduction thesis, the innate knowledge thesis, or the innate concept thesis.

Innate knowledge – Rationalists argue that we are not born with minds like blind slates, but we have some innate knowledge.  That is, even before we experience the world we know some things.

Intuition/deduction – Rationalists can also argue that there are some truths that can be worked out independent of experience of the world, though not known innately. Examples of such truths include logic, mathematics, or ethical truths.

Innate concept – Some philosophers argue that innate knowledge and innate concept are the same whereas some other philosophers are of the view that they are different. Innate concept these people claim as that some concepts are a part of our rational nature and are not based on our experience. The way two children view the same object as ugly and beautiful can be an example of innate concepts.

Although these two theories, rationalism and empiricism, are often contrasted with each other, both reason and experience can be sources of knowledge. Language acquisition can be taken as an example of this. Although experience is needed to perfect a language, a certain amount of, intuition, deduction, and innate knowledge are also required to acquire a language.

Immanuel Kant was a noted rationalist.

Definition 

Rationalism: Rationalism is a theory based on the claim that reason is the source of knowledge.

Empiricism: Empiricism is a theory based on the claim that experience is the source of knowledge.

Rationalism: Rationalists believe in intuition.

Empiricism: Empiricists do not believe in intuition.

Rationalism: Rationalists believe that individuals have innate knowledge or concepts.

Empiricism: Empiricists believe that individuals have no innate knowledge.

Rationalism: Immanuel Kant, Plato, Rene Descartes, and Aristotle are some examples of prominent rationalists.

Empiricism: John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and George Berkeley are some examples of prominent empiricists.

Image Courtesy:

“Immanuel Kant (painted portrait)”  By Anonymous – (Public Domain) via Commons Wikimedia

“JohnLock”By Sir Godfrey Kneller – State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia.( Public Domain) via Commons Wikimedia

About the Author: Hasa

Hasanthi is a seasoned content writer and editor with over 8 years of experience. Armed with a BA degree in English and a knack for digital marketing, she explores her passions for literature, history, culture, and food through her engaging and informative writing.

​You May Also Like These

Newest Articles

• Exploring Deductive Reasoning
• Exploring Pre-Socratic Philosophy: An Overview
• Exploring Moral Relativism: A Comprehensive Overview
• Aristotle: A Comprehensive Overview
• Metaphysics
• Theory of Forms
• Epistemology
• Materialism
• Moral relativism
• Utilitarianism
• Virtue ethics
• Normative ethics
• Applied ethics
• Moral Psychology
• Philosophy of art
• Philosophy of language
• Philosophy of beauty
• Nature of Art
• Philosophy of Film
• Philosophy of Music
• Deductive reasoning
• Inductive reasoning
• Justification
• Perception and Knowledge
• Beliefs and Truth
• Modern philosophy
• Romanticism
• Analytic philosophy
• Enlightenment philosophy
• Existentialism
• Enlightenment
• Ancient philosophy
• Classical Greek philosophy
• Renaissance philosophy
• Medieval philosophy
• Pre-Socratic philosophy
• Hellenistic philosophy
• Presocratic philosophy
• Rationalism
• Scholasticism
• Jewish philosophy
• Early Islamic philosophy
• Reasoning and Argumentation
• Seeking Justice After a Tractor-Trailer Accident: Why You Need an Experienced Lawyer
• Critical Thinking
• Fallacies and logical errors
• Skepticism and doubt
• Creative Thinking
• Lateral thinking
• Thought experiments
• Argumentation and Logic
• Syllogisms and Deductive Reasoning
• Fallacies and Rebuttals
• Inductive Reasoning and Analogy
• Reasoning and Problem-Solving
• Critical Thinking and Decision Making
• Creative Thinking and Problem Solving
• Analytical Thinking and Reasoning
• Philosophical Writing and Analysis
• Argumentative Writing and Analysis
• Interpreting Philosophical Texts

Writing Essays and Articles on Philosophy

• Philosophical Research Methods
• Qualitative Research Methods in Philosophy
• Quantitative Research Methods in Philosophy
• Research Design and Methodology
• Ethics and Morality
• Aesthetics and Beauty
• Metaphysical terms
• Ontological argument
• Ethical terms
• Aesthetic terms
• Metaphysical theories
• Kant's Categorical Imperative
• Aristotle's Four Causes
• Plato's Theory of Forms
• Hegel's Dialectic
• Ethical theories
• Aesthetic theories
• John Dewey's aesthetic theory
• Immanuel Kant's aesthetic theory
• Modern philosophical texts
• Foucault's The Order of Things
• Descartes' Meditations
• Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil
• Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
• Ancient philosophical texts
• Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
• Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit
• Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
• Plato's Republic
• Ancient philosophers
• Modern philosophers
• Modern philosophical schools
• German Idealism
• British Empiricism
• Ancient philosophical schools
• The Skeptic school
• The Cynic school
• The Stoic school
• The Epicurean school
• The Socratic school
• Philosophy of Language
• Semantics and Pragmatics of Language Usage
• Analytic-Synthetic Distinction
• Meaning of Words and Phrases
• Philosophy of Science
• Scientific Realism and Rationalism
• Induction and the Hypothetico-Deductive Model
• Theory-Ladenness and Underdetermination
• Philosophy of Mind
• Mind-Body Dualism and Emergentism
• Materialism and Physicalism
• Identity Theory and Personal Identity
• Philosophy of Religion
• Religious Pluralism and Exclusivism
• The Problem of Evil and Suffering
• Religious Experience and Faith
• Metaphysical Theories
• Idealism and Realism
• Determinism, Fatalism, and Libertarianism
• Phenomenalism and Nominalism
• Epistemological Theories
• Intuitionism, Skepticism, and Agnosticism
• Rationalism and Empiricism
• Foundationalism and Coherentism
• Aesthetic Theories
• Formalist Aesthetics, Emotional Aesthetics, Experiential Aesthetics
• Relational Aesthetics, Sociological Aesthetics, Historical Aesthetics
• Naturalistic Aesthetics, Immanent Aesthetics, Transcendental Aesthetics
• Ethical Theories
• Virtue Ethics, Utilitarianism, Deontology
• Subjectivism, Egoism, Hedonism
• Social Contract Theory, Natural Law Theory, Care Ethics
• Metaphysical Terms
• Cause, Necessity, Possibility, Impossibility
• Identity, Persistence, Time, Space
• Substance, Attribute, Essence, Accident
• Logic and Argumentation Terms
• Analogy, Syllogism, Deduction, Induction
• Inference, Validity, Soundness, Refutation
• Premise, Conclusion, Entailment, Contradiction
• Epistemological Terms
• Perception and Knowledge Claims
• Infallibility, Verifiability, Coherence Theory of Truth
• Justification, Beliefs and Truths
• Ethical Terms
• Modern Texts
• A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
• Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche
• The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
• Medieval Texts
• The Guide for the Perplexed by Moses Maimonides
• The Summa Theologiae by Thomas Aquinas
• The Incoherence of the Incoherence by Averroes
• Ancient Texts
• The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
• The Art of Rhetoric by Cicero
• The Republic by Plato
• Exploring Rationalism and Empiricism
• Philosophical Theories

The theories of rationalism and empiricism have been a source of fascination and debate among philosophers for centuries. The two sides of the debate can be seen as complementary, each holding its own truths, and both offering insight into the nature of knowledge. On one side, rationalism is the belief that reason is the primary source of knowledge, and on the other, empiricism is the belief that experience and observation are the main sources of knowledge. In this article, we will explore both theories in greater depth, discussing their merits, demerits, and applications in our modern world. The main difference between rationalism and empiricism lies in their respective approaches to epistemology.

Rationalists believe that knowledge can be obtained through reasoning, while empiricists believe that knowledge is derived from experience. The proponents of each theory differ in how they view the source of knowledge; for instance, rationalists may focus on logic and abstract concepts, while empiricists may focus on sensory experiences or observation. To better understand these differences, let's look at some examples. According to rationalism, knowledge can be gained by understanding the basic principles of mathematics, such as geometry or algebra.

This type of knowledge relies heavily on logical reasoning and deduction. On the other hand, empirical evidence is based on observation and experience. An example would be scientific experimentation; by observing the results of an experiment, scientists can draw conclusions about a given phenomenon. It is important to note that there are overlaps between the two theories; for instance, both approaches can be used to gain knowledge about the natural world.

However, it is important to note that rationalists tend to rely more heavily on logic, while empiricists tend to rely more heavily on observation. The implications of these two theories are far-reaching; they have shaped our understanding of knowledge and influenced how we approach the acquisition of new information. For instance, the scientific method is based on an empirical approach; scientists use observation and experimentation to test hypotheses and draw conclusions. Similarly, philosophy has been shaped by rationalist thought; philosophers use logical reasoning to explore difficult questions about life and existence.

Examples of Rationalism and Empiricism

Rationalism vs empiricism.

Rationalism is a theory that emphasizes the power of reason as the primary source of knowledge, whereas empiricism emphasizes the role of experience and observation as the primary source of knowledge. Rationalists believe that certain truths exist independently of experience and can be discovered through pure reason. They assert that knowledge can be gained through the use of deductive reasoning, allowing one to draw conclusions from general principles that are accepted as true. On the other hand, empiricists believe that all knowledge is derived from experience and observation.

They argue that all knowledge must be gained through direct observation or experimentation. Rationalists tend to focus on abstract concepts and ideas, while empiricists are more likely to focus on concrete facts and observations. Rationalists also emphasize the importance of logic and argumentation, while empiricists are more likely to rely on trial and error. Additionally, rationalists believe that certain truths are innate and can be discovered through logical reasoning, while empiricists believe that all knowledge is acquired through experience.

Implications of Rationalism and Empiricism

While Rationalism and Empiricism have many differences, both theories have had a significant impact on our understanding of knowledge. Rationalism, as proposed by René Descartes, holds that knowledge can be acquired through logical reasoning and deduction. This is in contrast to Empiricism, which holds that knowledge is derived from experience and observation. The implications of Rationalism and Empiricism can be seen in many aspects of modern life.

For instance, when it comes to scientific research, the two theories have different implications. In the case of Rationalism, scientists may focus on creating hypotheses based on logical deductions, while Empiricists may focus on collecting data and analyzing empirical evidence. In addition, the implications of Rationalism and Empiricism can also be seen in the way we approach problem solving. In particular, Rationalists tend to be more analytical and logical, while Empiricists tend to be more creative and open-minded.

Finally, the implications of Rationalism and Empiricism can also be seen in our educational system. For example, students are often taught to think critically and analytically, which reflects the influence of Rationalism. On the other hand, students are also taught to observe and analyze evidence, which reflects the influence of Empiricism. Overall, Rationalism and Empiricism are two of the most influential philosophical theories in the area of epistemology, or the study of knowledge.

Both theories have had a significant impact on our understanding of knowledge, with each theory having its own implications for modern life. In conclusion, rationalism and empiricism are two influential philosophical theories in the area of epistemology. They offer different perspectives on how we can acquire knowledge, with each approach having its own advantages and disadvantages. Rationalism emphasizes the use of reason and deduction to arrive at certain truths, while empiricism relies on observation and experience to understand the world.

Ultimately, both theories have shaped our understanding of knowledge and have had a profound impact on how we approach the acquisition of new information.

Top Articles

• Philosophy of Art: Exploring Aesthetics and Beauty

• The Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant: A Comprehensive Overview

• Altruism: Exploring the Power of Selflessness

• German Idealism: A Comprehensive Overview
• Exploring Infallibility, Verifiability, and the Coherence Theory of Truth
• Exploring the Concepts of Cause, Necessity, Possibility, and Impossibility
• Epistemology: Understanding the Nature of Knowledge
• Exploring the Socratic School: An Overview
• Existentialism: An Introduction
• Exploring Justification, Beliefs and Truths
• Exploring Romanticism: A Comprehensive Overview
• Perception and Knowledge Claims: Understanding Epistemological Terms
• Analytic Philosophy: A Comprehensive Overview
• Materialism and Physicalism: Exploring the Philosophical Concepts
• Foundationalism and Coherentism: An Overview
• Exploring Phenomenalism and Nominalism
• Exploring Subjectivism, Egoism, and Hedonism
• Exploring the Phenomenon: A Philosophical and Metaphysical Investigation
• Exploring Humanism: A Comprehensive Overview
• Understanding Social Contract Theory, Natural Law Theory, and Care Ethics
• Exploring Identity, Persistence, Time, and Space
• Exploring Pragmatism: A Modern Philosophy
• A Comprehensive Overview of Kant's Categorical Imperative
• Exploring Aristotle's Four Causes

Philosophy of Language: Exploring the Ways We Communicate

• Exploring the Rationalism of Renaissance Philosophy

Exploring Identity Theory and Personal Identity

• Explore The Epicurean School of Ancient Philosophy
• Exploring Quantitative Research Methods in Philosophy
• Understanding Utilitarianism
• Materialism: A Comprehensive Overview
• Exploring the Life and Legacy of Cicero: An Introduction
• Exploring Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
• The Art of Rhetoric by Cicero: A Comprehensive Overview
• Comparing Analogy, Syllogism, Deduction and Induction
• Exploring Subjectivism, Egoism and Hedonism
• Renaissance Philosophy: An Overview
• Exploring the Theory of Forms: A Comprehensive Overview
• An Overview of Friedrich Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra
• Exploring Ontology: A Comprehensive Overview
• Exploring Inference: A Philosophical Thinking Primer
• Exploring Syllogisms and Deductive Reasoning
• Exploring 'The Summa Theologiae' by Thomas Aquinas
• Exploring the Analytic-Synthetic Distinction in Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Music: Exploring the Aesthetics of Sound
• Understanding Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed
• Exploring Virtue: A Philosophical and Ethical Perspective
• Exploring Egoism: What It Is and What It Means
• Exploring Taste: A Philosophical and Aesthetic Guide
• Exploring the Life and Works of David Hume
• Understanding Utilitarianism: An Overview
• An Introduction to Scholasticism and its Role in Medieval Philosophy
• Understanding Virtue Ethics, Utilitarianism and Deontology
• Exploring the Role of Research Design and Methodology
• Understanding Existentialism: A Brief Introduction
• The Cynic School: An In-depth Look
• Exploring Applied Ethics
• Exploring Relational Aesthetics, Sociological Aesthetics, and Historical Aesthetics
• Exploring Theology: A Comprehensive Overview
• Exploring British Empiricism
• Exploring the History and Impact of Empiricism
• Exploring Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
• Exploring Skepticism and Doubt: A Philosophical and Critical Thinking Perspective
• Idealism and Realism: A Philosophical Comparison
• Exploring Moral Psychology: A Closer Look
• Exploring Critical Thinking and Decision Making
• Justification: A Comprehensive Overview
• Exploring the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant
• Exploring the Skeptic School of Ancient Philosophy
• The Stoic School: An Overview
• Exploring the Life and Work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
• Exploring Hellenistic Philosophy: An Introduction
• Exploring Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil
• Medieval Philosophy: An Overview
• Ethical Theories: Virtue Ethics, Utilitarianism, and Deontology
• Understanding the Meaning of Words and Phrases
• Understanding Fallacies and Rebuttals
• Understanding Inductive Reasoning
• Exploring Kant's Critique of Pure Reason
• Induction and the Hypothetico-Deductive Model: A Comprehensive Overview
• Hegel's Dialectic: A Comprehensive Overview
• Exploring Immanuel Kant's Aesthetic Theory
• Early Islamic Philosophy
• Analytic Philosophy: A Primer
• Exploring Virtue Ethics: The Philosophical Theory
• Exploring Beliefs and Truth: A Philosophical Guide
• Exploring the Concept of Beauty
• Understanding Inference, Validity, Soundness, and Refutation
• Exploring Pragmatism: A Modern Philosophical School

New Articles

Which cookies do you want to accept?

Mental Health

Table of Contents

Rationalism vs. Empiricism: Which is the Better Path to Knowledge?

In the vast landscape of philosophical debate, few topics are as enduring and contentious as the discourse surrounding rationalism and empiricism. These two theories of knowledge, or epistemologies, offer contrasting pathways to understanding the world and acquiring knowledge. While rationalism champions the role of reason and innate ideas, empiricism emphasizes sensory experience and observation.

This article will explore the historical perspectives, key arguments, strengths, and criticisms of both rationalism and empiricism, ultimately aiming to discern which path might be more effective in the pursuit of knowledge acquisition.

Historical Perspectives

1. rationalism.

Rationalism posits that reason and innate knowledge are the primary sources of human understanding. This view asserts that certain concepts and truths exist independently of sensory experience and can be accessed through intellectual inquiry and critical thinking. Key figures in the development of rationalism include René Descartes and Gottfried Leibniz.

2. René Descartes

René Descartes, often regarded as the father of modern philosophy, is a quintessential rationalist. His famous dictum, “Cogito, ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”), underscores his belief in the primacy of reason. Descartes argued that the mind possesses innate ideas, such as the concept of God and mathematical truths, which are not derived from sensory experience but from pure reason.

3. Gottfried Leibniz

Gottfried Leibniz, another prominent rationalist, expanded on Descartes’ ideas. He proposed that the mind contains innate predispositions that guide our understanding of the world. Leibniz’s theory of “pre-established harmony” suggested that the mind and body operate in a harmonious relationship, preordained by God, which allows for the acquisition of knowledge without direct sensory input.

4. Empiricism

Empiricism, in contrast, asserts that sensory experience is the foundation of all knowledge. According to this view, knowledge is acquired a posteriori—through observation and experimentation. John Locke and David Hume are two of the most influential empiricists.

5. John Locke

John Locke, a pioneering figure in empiricism, famously argued that the mind at birth is a “tabula rasa” or blank slate. According to Locke, all knowledge is derived from sensory experience, and there are no innate ideas. He emphasized the importance of empirical evidence and the scientific method in the pursuit of knowledge.

6. David Hume

David Hume further developed the empirical approach, emphasizing the role of experience and observation in shaping our understanding of the world. Hume argued that human knowledge is based on patterns of sensory impressions and that reason alone cannot provide certain knowledge.

Key Arguments for Rationalism

1. a priori knowledge.

One of the central tenets of rationalism is the existence of a priori knowledge—knowledge that is independent of sensory experience. Rationalists argue that certain concepts, such as mathematical truths and logical principles, are innate and can be accessed through reason alone. For example, the statement “2 + 2 = 4” is universally true and does not require empirical verification.

2. Reason and Intellectual Inquiry

Rationalism places a strong emphasis on the power of reason and intellectual inquiry. Rationalists believe that the mind has the capacity to uncover fundamental truths about the world through logical analysis and deduction. This approach allows for the development of complex theories and abstract concepts that are not directly observable.

3. Consistency and Universality

Rationalists argue that reason provides a consistent and universal framework for understanding the world. Unlike sensory experience, which can be subjective and variable, reason offers a stable foundation for knowledge. This consistency is particularly evident in the fields of mathematics and logic, where rational principles are universally applicable.

See Related Information

Art and Cultural Identity

Logic in Philosophical Reasoning

Hume’s Skepticism on Philosophical Thought

Key arguments for empiricism, 1. sensory experience and empirical evidence.

Empiricism asserts that sensory experience is the bedrock of all knowledge. Empiricists argue that the only way to acquire reliable knowledge about the world is through direct observation and empirical evidence. This approach is exemplified by the scientific method, which relies on experimentation and data collection to test hypotheses and theories.

2. A Posteriori Knowledge

Empiricists emphasize the importance of a posteriori knowledge—knowledge that is derived from sensory experience. They argue that all meaningful concepts and ideas are rooted in empirical observation. For example, our understanding of natural phenomena, such as gravity and evolution, is based on empirical evidence and scientific investigation.

3. Adaptability and Practicality

Empiricism is often praised for its adaptability and practicality. Because it is grounded in observation and experimentation, empiricism allows for the continual refinement and revision of knowledge based on new evidence. This flexibility is particularly valuable in scientific research, where theories are constantly tested and updated in light of new findings.

Comparing Rationalism and Empiricism

1. reason vs. experience.

At the heart of the debate between rationalism and empiricism lies the distinction between reason and experience as sources of knowledge. Rationalists argue that reason provides a direct pathway to fundamental truths, while empiricists contend that experience is the only reliable means of acquiring knowledge.

2. Cognitive Development

Both rationalism and empiricism offer insights into cognitive development. Rationalists emphasize the role of innate ideas and logical reasoning in the development of knowledge, while empiricists focus on the importance of sensory experience and empirical evidence in shaping our understanding of the world.

3. Theories of Knowledge

The debate between rationalism and empiricism has significant implications for theories of knowledge. Rationalists advocate for a top-down approach, where knowledge is derived from abstract principles and logical deduction. Empiricists, on the other hand, support a bottom-up approach, where knowledge is built from sensory observations and empirical data.

4. Truth and Belief

The concepts of truth and belief are central to the rationalism vs. empiricism debate. Rationalists argue that reason provides access to objective truths that are independent of sensory experience. Empiricists, however, contend that beliefs must be grounded in empirical evidence to be considered true.

5. Epistemology Exploration

The exploration of epistemology, or the study of knowledge, is enriched by the contributions of both rationalism and empiricism. Rationalists and empiricists offer complementary perspectives on how knowledge is acquired, organized, and validated.

Practical Applications of Rationalism and Empiricism

1. scientific method.

The scientific method, which is grounded in empirical observation and experimentation, is a key application of empiricism. Scientists rely on empirical evidence to test hypotheses, develop theories, and advance knowledge in various fields.

2. Critical Thinking

Both rationalism and empiricism promote critical thinking and intellectual inquiry. Rationalists encourage the use of reason and logical analysis, while empiricists emphasize the importance of questioning assumptions and seeking empirical evidence.

3. Mind-Body Problem

The mind-body problem, which explores the relationship between the mind and the body, is a topic of interest for both rationalists and empiricists. Rationalists, such as Descartes, argue for the separation of mind and body, while empiricists emphasize the interconnectedness of mental and physical experiences.

In conclusion, the debate between rationalism and empiricism is a rich and enduring discourse that has shaped the field of epistemology for centuries. Both approaches offer valuable insights into the nature of knowledge acquisition and have their respective strengths and limitations. Ultimately, the choice between rationalism and empiricism may depend on the specific context and goals of the intellectual inquiry. For those interested in a deeper exploration of these philosophical perspectives, signing up for a course or engaging with experts in the field can provide a more comprehensive understanding.

Q. Why is rationalism better?

Rationalism is often considered superior because it provides a consistent and universal framework for understanding the world. By relying on reason and innate knowledge, rationalists can uncover fundamental truths that are not dependent on sensory experience. This approach is particularly valuable in fields like mathematics and logic, where abstract principles play a crucial role.

Q. Why is empiricism better?

Empiricism is frequently seen as the better option because it is grounded in sensory experience and empirical evidence. This approach ensures that knowledge is based on observable and testable phenomena, making it adaptable and practical. The empirical method is essential in scientific research, allowing for the continual refinement and revision of theories based on new data.

Q. How then is reason (rationalism) different from experience (empiricism) as a source of knowledge?

Reason (rationalism) and experience (empiricism) differ fundamentally in their approach to knowledge acquisition. Rationalism relies on a priori knowledge—truths that exist independently of sensory experience and can be accessed through intellectual inquiry and logical deduction. Empiricism, on the other hand, emphasizes a posteriori knowledge, which is derived from sensory observations and empirical evidence. While rationalism values consistency and universality, empiricism prioritizes adaptability and practical applicability.

Q. What are the strengths of rationalism?

The strengths of rationalism include its emphasis on consistent and universal principles, its reliance on reason and intellectual inquiry, and its ability to uncover fundamental truths that are not dependent on sensory experience. Rationalism provides a stable foundation for knowledge in fields like mathematics and logic, where abstract concepts play a crucial role.

What is Meaning of Philosophy?

Join Social media for more learning about Rationalism Vs Empiricism

Join Face Book Group for More Updates at Ahmadpoint Join Facebook Group of Mental Health

You May Like More Information other than Rationalism in Philosophy

Genetic Factors in Autism

What is Connection between Environmental Factors and Autism?

What is Workplace anxiety and their strategies?

How anxiety affects men and women?

Similar posts.

Goodness in Ethical Philosophy

Exploring the Essence of Goodness in Ethical Philosophy What is Goodness? In a world filled with moral challenges and ethical dilemmas, the…

Mysteries of the Mind with Logic in Philosophical Reasoning In a world filled with information overload and conflicting viewpoints, the ability to…

Foundations of Ethics in Moral Philosophy

Exploring the Foundations of Ethics in Moral Philosophy Introduction Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is an integral part of human life,…

Authority and Its Limits in a Democratic Society

Navigating Authority in a Democratic Society Without Overstepping Bounds Understanding Authority in a Democratic Society In a democratic society, authority is a…

Understanding Consequentialism and Deontology

Understanding Consequentialism and Deontology In a world full of complex choices, understanding different ethical frameworks can be a guiding star. Ethics scholars,…

Duty in Ethical Theory

Duty in Moral Philosophy: Navigating Ethical Theories Introduction What drives us to do what we believe is right? At the heart of…

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

3 Sources of Knowledge: Rationalism, Empiricism, and the Kantian Synthesis

K. S. Sangeetha

Chapter Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of this chapter, readers will be able to:

• Identify the main theories of the sources of knowledge, including rationalism, empiricism, and the Kantian synthesis.
• Employ each theory to reconstruct the origins of a given instance of knowledge.
• Differentiate the categories of knowledge that arise from the a priori / a posteriori , necessary/contingent, and analytic/synthetic distinctions.
• Evaluate the merits of each theory.

Introduction

We all have many things going on in our minds, such as beliefs, desires, hopes, dreams, imaginary figures, knowledge, love, and hatred—to name a handful. Have you ever considered their source? How do they come to be part of the thinking process? How do they become ideas in our minds? Some philosophers attribute the source of our ideas to the senses, including the inward senses (such as emotions) and the five outward senses (sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch). We might sense the world directly or indirectly through the thoughts of others. Some philosophers even claim that all our ideas must come from our senses. This claim holds that each of us is born with a mind that is like a tabula rasa (Latin for a “blank slate” or “blank tablet”) on which nothing is written and to which we add contents through experience as we become exposed to the world. Knowledge that is dependent on experience, or which arises after experience, is called a posteriori (Latin for “from the latter”). Since a posteriori knowledge is empirical (based on observation or experience), this view is called empiricism .

Opposed to empiricism is rationalism , the view that reason is the primary source of knowledge. Rationalists promote mathematical or logical knowledge as paradigm examples. Such knowledge can be grasped, they claim, through reason alone, without involving the senses directly. They argue that knowledge accessed through reasoning is eternal (i.e., it exists unchanged throughout the past, present, and future). For instance, two plus three remains five. Rationalists are impressed by the certainty and clarity of knowledge that reasoning provides, and they argue that this method should be applied to gaining knowledge of the world also. The evidence of the senses should be in conformity with the truths of reason, but it is not a prerequisite for the acquisition of these truths.

Knowledge that is independent of (or prior to) observation and experience is called a priori (Latin for “from the former”). Rationalists maintain that reason is the basis of a priori knowledge . But where do we ultimately get the ideas on which reason is based, if not from observation or experience? Rationalists tend to favor innatism , the belief that we are born with certain ideas already in our minds. That is, they are “innate” in us. Potential examples include mathematical or logical principles, moral sense, and the concept of God. While innatists claim that such ideas are present in us from birth, this does not guarantee our immediate awareness of their presence. Reason is the faculty that enables us to realize or access them. In what follows, innate ideas thus serve as the foundation of a model for rationalism. [1]

Rationalism’s Emphasis on A Priori Knowledge

French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) and German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), two important rationalist thinkers, support the existence of innate ideas and their realization through reason. They argue that the truths revealed by such ideas are eternal, necessary, and universal.

For Descartes, there are different modes through which we acquire knowledge: some ideas are innate, some are externally sourced, and others are constructed by us. Descartes gives the example of the idea of God as innate in us, as well as the idea of one’s own existence ([1641] 1985, Third Meditation). According to Descartes, innate ideas like truths of geometry and laws of logic are known through reason independently of experience, because experience gives us only particular instances from which the mind discovers the universal ideas contained in them. Therefore, they are a priori . Descartes’s innate ideas have been compared to the stored information in a book. The ideas are in us, though not always present to the mind. Once we start reading the book, the contents reveal themselves to us, just as reasoning reveals our innate ideas to us. In other words, it is only through careful “reading” (thinking) that we come to understand which ideas are innate and which come to us from elsewhere.

Leibniz  calls innate ideas “principles.” Like Descartes, Leibniz maintains that principles are accessed by reason. The universal nature of mathematical truths, for example, is not revealed by the senses. It is the faculty of reason that acquires universal truths from individual instances. Leibniz argues that a collection of instances based on the senses cannot lead us to necessary truths. At the same time, it is also clear that we can grasp many necessary truths, such as mathematics. Therefore, the mind is the source, which means these truths are there innately. However, innate ideas are not full-fledged thoughts for Leibniz: he holds that our minds are structured so that certain ideas or principles will occur to us once prompted by the senses, although they are not derived from the senses. Ideas and truths are innate in us initially as dispositions or tendencies rather than as actual conscious thoughts ([1705] 2017, Preface).

Opposing A Priori Knowledge by Rejecting Innate Ideas

The empiricist claim that all our knowledge comes from experience is in stark contrast to the concept of innate ideas. For empiricists, all knowledge is a posteriori , meaning acquired through or after experience. John Locke (1632–1704), a British empiricist philosopher, adopts two approaches to question innate ideas as the basis of a priori knowledge. Firstly, he shows that innate ideas are based on dubious claims; secondly, along with Scottish empiricist David Hume (1711–1776), Locke shows how empiricism is able to offer a better theory of knowledge through the a posteriori .

Locke starts by questioning the “universal nature” of innate ideas. He opposes the claim that innate ideas are present in all of us by noting that sufficiently young children, and adults without the requisite education, lack a concept of God or knowledge of logical or mathematical principles. Therefore, it is baseless to say that innate ideas are universal. It is through experience and observation that we acquire such ideas. That is, they are a posteriori ([1690] 2017, Book I).

Here Leibniz defends the innatist view from Locke’s objection by showing how children and those without the requisite education are capable of employing logical and mathematical principles in their everyday lives without understanding what they are or being able to articulate them in words ([1705] 2017, Book I). A child, to use an example of my own, knows without any confusion that she cannot be sitting in both parents’ laps at the same time. Similarly, those without formal mathematical training could still know that two adjacent triangular cornfields separated by a fence on their longest side can make a square cornfield by removing the fence that divides them. Evidently, as Leibniz argues, general principles of logic and mathematics are innate. But this does not mean that all innate ideas are universally held. It is possible that we all have innate ideas yet some of us are unaware of them.

Locke further argues, however, that there can be nothing in the mind of which it is unaware ([1690] 2017, Book II). Having innate ideas without being aware of them is not a viable position for Locke. An idea first has to be experienced or thought. How else could it be “in” the mind? On this point Leibniz disagrees with Locke: it is possible to have a plethora of ideas in our minds without being aware of them ([1705] 2017, Preface). For instance, suppose you absorb a “tune” playing in the marketplace without being consciously aware of it. The tune is not readily accessible or transparent to your mind, in that you cannot recall it; however, it may be recognizable upon hearing it again. So, it must have been “in” you somewhere in some sense. Similarly, an innate idea could be in your mind, without you yet being aware of it. We are born with the facility to realize innate ideas when favorable conditions obtain later in life, such as the ideas of beauty, justice, and mathematical truths.

Locke’s reply is that the realization of ideas or capacities in the right circumstances is applicable to all ideas—not just those which are purportedly innate ([1690] 2017, Book I). He challenges innatists to produce a criterion to distinguish innate from non-innate ideas. Leibniz responds with such a criterion: innate ideas are necessary (they must be true, cannot be false), whereas non-innate ideas are merely contingent (possibly true, possibly false). We can distinguish truths that are necessary (and therefore eternal on Leibniz’s view) from contingent truths dependent on varying matters of fact ([1705] 2017, Preface).

Empiricism’s Emphasis on A Posteriori Knowledge

Locke claims to show how the mind, which is like a tabula rasa at birth, acquires knowledge. For empiricists, experience alone furnishes our mind with simple ideas , which are the basic elements of knowledge. Once shown that all ideas can come from experience, it would be redundant to additionally posit innate ideas. So, does a posteriori knowledge lead us to reject a priori knowledge? Let us find out.

For Locke, knowledge based on experience is easy to understand. He asks us to suppose that we have innate ideas of colors and that we can also see colors with our eyes. In this case, since we don’t need to rely upon both, we go with our senses, because it is easier and simpler to understand knowledge derived from sense experience than from knowledge derived from some source of which we are unaware ([1690] 2017, Book I, Chapter ii, Para. 1). Here Locke applies the principle of Ockham’s razor , which suggests that as far as possible we should adopt simple explanations rather than complicated ones. [2] Simple explanations have the advantage of being less prone to error and more friendly to testing than complicated ones that do not add explanatory value.

The next question is whether a posteriori knowledge alone gives us adequate knowledge of the world. Let us take an instance of experiencing and thereby knowing a flower, such as a rose. As we experience the rose, its particular color, texture, and fragrance are the ideas through which we become aware of the object. But when we are not experiencing or sensing the rose, we can still think about it. We can also recognize it the next time we see the flower and retain the belief that it is sweet smelling, beautiful to look at, and soft to the touch. This shows that, in addition to sensing, the ability to form concepts about the objects we encounter is crucial for knowing the world. Experience also makes it possible for us to imagine what we have not directly experienced, such as a mermaid ([1690] 2017, Book III, Chapter iii, Para. 19). Such imaginings are made possible because we have directly experienced different parts of this imagined object separately. Conjoining these experiences in the mind in an ordered manner yields the imagined object ([1690] 2017, Book II, Chapter iii, Para. 5). Had we not experienced and thereby formed the concepts of a fish and a woman separately before, we would not be able to imagine a mermaid at present.

These considerations lead Locke to categorize all our sense experiences into simple and complex ideas. Simple ideas are basic and indivisible, such as the idea of red. Complex ideas are formed by the mind, either from more than one simple idea or from complex impressions ([1690] 2017, Book II, Chapters ii & xii). Complex ideas are divisible because they have parts. Examples include golden streets, an army, and the universe. My idea or concept of an object, whether simple or complex, can be ultimately traced back to its corresponding sense impressions.

Hume, another important empiricist philosopher, writes of ideas as the “copies” of “impressions.” Impressions are “vivid” and “lively” as received directly from sense experience. Hume also allows inward impressions, including jealousy, indignation, and so on. Ideas are mental copies of inward or outward impressions, rendering them “faint” or “feeble” (try comparing a perceptual experience with recalling it from memory) ([1748] 2017, Sections 1 & 2). Hume argues that where there are no impressions, there can be no ideas. A blind man can have no notion of color, according to Hume. One cannot be born with ideas that are not derived from any impressions. So, there are no innate ideas for Hume. However, he agrees that our tendencies to avoid pain, or to seek many of our passions and desires, are innate. Here I would argue that even these tendencies are based on our sense impressions and the corresponding ideas we form from those impressions. The mental inclination to repeatedly seek pleasure or avoid pain comes to us only after the first incident of exposure to either sensation.

In contrast to Descartes, even the idea of God falls under the a posteriori for Hume. Since none of us has experienced God directly, Hume argues, there is no impression of God available to us from which to form the corresponding idea. In Hume’s view, our imagination forms this idea by lavishly extending our experience of the good qualities possessed by people around us ([1748] 2017, Sections 1 & 11). Given that even the idea of God can be derived from sense impressions, this lends further support to the empiricist claim that all our ideas are a posteriori . Therefore, according to Hume, the rationalist claims for the existence of innate ideas and a priori knowledge are mistaken.

The Inadequacy of the Tabula Rasa Theory

A weakness of the empiricist’s tabula rasa theory can be exposed if we can show that not all our ideas are derived from corresponding impressions. However, this would not mean we must return to the rationalist’s theory of innate ideas, as we shall see. The plan is to explore a third alternative.

The presence of general concepts in our minds shows there is not always a one-to-one relation between ideas and corresponding sense impressions. For example, we see different instances of the color blue around us, and from these instances we form a general concept of blue. This general concept is not copied from one particular impression of blue, nor even from a particular shade of blue. We also have abstract concepts (such as justice, kindness, and courage), which are not traceable to corresponding sense impressions. In such cases, we experience different acts or instances of justice, kindness, and courage. But if these abstract concepts are copied from their particular impressions, then only these instances—and not the concepts themselves—would be in our minds. It follows that concepts are formed or understood rather than copied . Similarly, relational concepts (such as “on”-ness, betweenness, sameness, and the like) are realized not by copying the impressions involved. In fact, there are no impressions at all corresponding to these relational concepts. We instead receive impressions of particulars standing in such relations—the cat sitting on the mat, the English Channel flowing between the United Kingdom and Europe, one minus one equaling zero, and so forth.

In sum, the formation of general, abstract, and relational concepts in our minds shows that an uninterrupted flow of impressions would not constitute all the ideas we have. Instead, it requires that from birth the mind is at least partially equipped with a structure or architecture that enables it to make sense of the raw impressions it receives and to form concepts where there is no one-to-one correspondence between impressions and ideas. It challenges the authenticity of a tabula rasa . This takes us to a stage where we need to figure out the indispensable third alternative, which can facilitate a more complete knowledge of the world. This necessitates a crossover between the a priori and the a posteriori , or a reconciliation of the two.

Percepts-Concepts Combination

The immediacy and direct nature of sensations, impressions, and perceptions make them certain. [3] Let us briefly unpack this idea. Consider whether we can ever be wrong about our sensations. It is commonly thought that while we can be wrong about what the world is like, we cannot be wrong about the fact that we are having particular sensations. Even if you are dreaming this very second, and there is no actual book before your eyes, you cannot deny that you are having certain sensations resembling a white page and black font in the shape of words. Therefore, our sensations are certain and we cannot doubt that they exist. However, it is possible that sometimes we are unsure how to characterize a particular sensation. For instance, you may see a flashy car and be unsure whether the color is metallic green or gray. So, you might get into confusion in describing your sensation, but that does not affect the certainty and indubitability of the sensation itself, of what is here and now for you.

German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) argues that for our perceptions to make sense to us, they should be received into concepts that exist within our minds.These structures of understanding allow our minds to process the impressions that we experience. Unless the manifold raw sensations we receive from experience are classified into different categories of understanding, we cannot make sense of them.

For instance, the mind should have the ability to recognize whether two sensations are similar or different, to say the least. Without this ability, we cannot make sense of experience. Or consider that we also perceive that objects are in space and time, stand in cause-effect relations, and belong to the categories of unity-plurality, assertion-negation, particular-universal, and the like. Here again, we are incapable of understanding any experience that is not processed through these categories. Kant argues, therefore, that space, time, causation, quantity, quality, and the like are represented to us in innate structures or concepts that our minds are fitted with prior to experience.

According to Kant, these categories are transcendental in the sense that they bridge the gap between mind and world. They are hidden structures, bridges, or concepts that occupy the otherwise blank slate and mold our way of thinking and experiencing the world. Of course, these concepts also require inputs, or percepts (the immediate objects of awareness delivered directly to us in perceptual experience through the senses). As Kant’s view is famously expressed, “Percepts without concepts are blind and concepts without percepts are empty” ([1781] 1998, 209).

So far, we have seen through various stages that rationalism and empiricism are incomplete. Kant’s transcendental idealism (as his view is called) strikes a balance, reconciling the two accounts. He combines sensory input and inborn concepts into a unified account of how we understand the world. Before we conclude the chapter with the final step in Kant’s approach, let us return to Descartes and Hume once again, the two philosophers who most influenced Kant.

Synthetic A Priori Knowledge

Descartes thinks that reason alone can provide certainty to all human knowledge. Intuition and deduction are tools through which the faculty of reason operates. Intuition is the capacity to look inward and comprehend intellectual objects and basic truths. Being a geometrician, Descartes thinks that deduction (the type of reasoning whereby the truth of the conclusion is guaranteed by the truth of the premises) should be used for gaining knowledge of the world, starting with the input of “clear and distinct” ideas. [4] Since intuition is dissociated from the evidence of the senses, the truths it unfurls can be known a priori . The result is that substantial knowledge of the world can be acquired a priori ([1701] 1985).

According to Hume, there are two ways in which reasoning aims to gain knowledge of the world: through “relations of ideas” and through “matters of fact” ([1748] 2017, Section 4). Hume thinks that the method of deduction establishes relations between the ideas we have already acquired through experience (e.g., that a mother is a woman parent). These relations of ideas are the kind of truths that we find in logic and mathematics (for instance, the proposition that a circle is round). They are true by definition. Such truths are necessary or certain (their denials lead to contradiction). They are also known a priori , since they do not rely on how the world is. For this reason, relations of ideas and deduction do not yield substantive new knowledge of the world; the knowledge they impart is already understood by us (as the above examples show), even if our understanding is merely implicit within the premises of a deductive argument whose conclusion makes it explicit.

Matters of fact , for Hume, are based on observation and experience. Some of them are generalizations arrived at by induction from particular instances. Inductive truths are uncertain. They are at best probable , since they are dependent on how the world is. For instance, we have the experience of heat from fire so far; but we cannot be certain that this will be the case tomorrow also (maybe we will unexpectedly feel some other sensation like cold from fire). We expect that the future will resemble the past, but we cannot be certain about it. [5] Matters of fact provide us with a posteriori truths, which are contingently true (their denials can be conceived without contradiction). Since matters of fact are not true by definition, they add substantive new information to our existing knowledge, unlike relations of ideas ([1748] 2017, Section 4).

A rationalist initially, Kant was influenced by the division in knowledge made by Hume. Only a combination of reason and experience can give us adequate knowledge, according to Kant. He begins by providing an account of relations of ideas, which he terms analytic truths . In sentences that express analytic truths, the predicate term is already “contained” in, or is the meaning of, the subject term. For example, in the sentence, “a circle is round,” the predicate “round” is contained in the subject, “circle.” To take another standard example, in “a bachelor is an unmarried man,” the predicate “unmarried man” is the meaning of the subject term, “bachelor.” We cannot deny such truths without contradiction. They are necessarily true, which means that they’re true regardless of how the world is. Since we do no need to examine the world to tell whether they’re true, analytic truths are knowable a priori ([1781] 1998, 146, 157). [6]

Kant terms matters of fact synthetic truths : the predicate term is neither contained within nor is the meaning of the subject term. Synthetic truths are not true by definition. As such, it stands to reason that they are based on observation, and therefore must be a posteriori (although, as we will soon see, Kant argues that this is not the case for all synthetic truths). For instance, consider the proposition, “George the bachelor is a writer.” We have new information here about a particular person named “George” being a bachelor and writer, and experience is required to find this out. Since the opposites of synthetic truths are not contradictory, they are contingent ([1781] 1998, 147, 157). [7]

Kant maintains that only synthetic truths are capable of providing substantive new information about the world. That said, our sense experiences do not passively enter our minds, but do conform to our innate mental structures to facilitate knowledge. Since these structures work independently of experience, they are a priori . These innate a priori structures of our minds—our concepts—are actively engaged in making sense of our experiences ([1781] 1998). They do so by discriminating and organizing the information received in experience. But again, the ability to perform this activity presupposes that the world which furnishes both the information and our concepts is itself structured in a way that enables intelligibility. The particular ways in which the world must be structured—its space-time and cause-effect relations, for example—yield substantive truths about reality. These truths hold not merely because of the meanings of words or the logical forms of sentences. They are synthetic. And since we arrived at this result by way of a priori reflection, Kant argues that we possess “synthetic a priori ” knowledge of the world—a previously unrecognized category of knowledge, now to be added to the standard categories of synthetic a posteriori and analytic a priori knowledge. (See Table 1 below for a summary of these categories.)

There remains the question of how our concepts discriminate and organize the information received from the senses. These goals are achieved through acts of synthesis. By “synthesis,” Kant means “the act of putting different representations [elements of cognition] together, and grasping what is manifold in them in one cognition” ([1781] 1998, 77).

Kant explains three types of synthesis: the process starts with “synthesis of apprehension in perception,” passes through “synthesis of reproduction in imagination,” and ends with “synthesis of recognition in a concept” ([1781] 1998, 228–34). For Kant, apprehension in perception involves locating an object in space and time. The synthesis of reproduction in imagination consists in connecting different elements in our minds to form an image. And synthesis of recognition in a concept requires memory of a past experience as well as recognizing its relation to present experience. By recognizing that the past and present experience both refer to the same object, we form a concept of it. To recognize something as a unified object under a concept is to attach meaning to percepts. This attachment of meaning is what Kant calls apperception (Guyer 1987).

Apperception is the point where the self and the world come together. For Kant, the possibility of apperception requires two kinds of unity. First, the various data received in experience must themselves represent a common subject, allowing the data to be combined and held together. Second, the data must be combined and held together by a unified self or what Kant calls a “unity of consciousness” or “unity of apperception.” Kant concludes that because of such unity, all of us are equally capable of making sense of the same public object in a uniform manner based on our individual, private experiences. That is, we are in an unspoken agreement regarding the mind-independent world in which we live, facilitated by our subjective experiences but regulated by the innate mental structures given to us by the world. In sum, Kant’s theory makes possible shared synthetic knowledge of objective reality. [8] In conclusion, by considering the debate between rationalists and empiricists culminating in Kant’s synthesis, this chapter has shed light on the issue of how we achieve substantive knowledge.

Box 1 – Kant’s Copernican Revolution in Epistemology

In his Critique of Pure Reason , Kant sums up his epistemology by drawing an analogy to the Copernican Revolution (the shift in astronomy from a geocentric to a heliocentric model of the universe, named after Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543), the sixteenth-century Polish mathematician and astronomer):

Up to now it has been assumed that all our cognition must conform to the objects; but all attempts to find out something about them a priori through concepts that would extend our cognition have, on this presupposition, come to nothing. Hence let us once try whether we do not get farther with the problems of metaphysics by assuming that the objects must conform to our cognition, which would agree better with the requested possibility of an a priori cognition of them, which is to establish something about objects before they are given to us. This would be just like the first thoughts of Copernicus, who, when he did not make good progress in the explanation of the celestial motions if he assumed that the entire celestial host revolves around the observer, tried to see if he might not have greater success if he made the observer revolve and left the stars at rest. Now in metaphysics we can try in a similar way regarding the intuition of objects. If intuition has to conform to the constitution of the objects, then I do not see how we can know anything of them a priori; but if the object (as an object of the senses) conforms to the constitution of our faculty of intuition, then I can very well represent this possibility to myself. Yet because I cannot stop with these intuitions, if they are to become cognitions, but must refer them as representations to something as their object and determine this object through them, I can assume either that the concepts through which I bring about this determination also conform to the objects, and then I am once again in the same difficulty about how I could know anything about them a priori, or else I assume that the objects, or what is the same thing, the experience in which alone they can be cognized (as given objects) conforms to those concepts, in which case I immediately see an easier way out of the difficulty, since experience itself is a kind of cognition requiring the understanding, whose rule I have to presuppose in myself before any object is given to me, hence a priori, which rule is expressed in concepts a priori, to which all objects of experience must therefore necessarily conform, and with which they must agree. ([1781] 1998, B xvi–B xviii)

Questions for Reflection

• Given the assumption that the propositions below are known to be true, label each one as (i) analytic or synthetic, (ii) necessary or contingent, and (iii) a priori or a posteriori . If any are debatable, state your opinion and explain your reasons.
• All triangles have three sides.
• The figure drawn on the board is a triangle.
• If the figure drawn on the board is a triangle, the figure has three sides.
• It is not the case that [latex]1+2 = 5[/latex].
• Some birds can fly.
• All flying birds can fly.
• The sun will rise tomorrow.
• It is morally wrong to harm innocent people for personal gain.
• The average apple is larger than the average grape.
• “Mark Twain” and “Samuel Clemens” are different names for the same person.
• Mark Twain is Samuel Clemens.
• Water is H 2 0.
• Water is more abundant on Earth than on other planets in our solar system.
• God either exists or does not exist.
• Choose your own example of a posteriori knowledge. Then write a mini-essay that carefully traces its origins in a plausible manner. Use as many of the terms in the word bank below as possible (but feel free to also use other terms that appear in the chapter, especially those in bold). For definitions, you may wish to consult the glossary.

• Explain, in your own words, the main arguments for and against innatism.
• Explain, in your own words, the main arguments for and against the tabula rasa theory.
• How is it possible to avoid both innatism and the tabula rasa ? What is the third alternative?
• Many philosophers view synthetic a priori knowledge in a skeptical light. Why might this be a difficult category to make sense of? How did Kant explain and defend it? Summarize his view in your own words.
• Consider the claim that “There is no synthetic a priori knowledge.” If this claim were true, could it be analytic? If it were true, could it be known a posteriori ? If the claim is true but cannot be analytic or a posteriori , would it have to be synthetic a priori ? If so, is it possible to consistently hold this claim?
• Which do you find most plausible—rationalism, empiricism, or the Kantian synthesis? Summarize your main reasons for thinking so.

Further Reading

Blackburn, Simon. 1999. Truth : A Compelling Introduction to Philosophy . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Critchley, Simon. 2001. Continental Philosophy: A Very Short Introduction . Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ellis, Addison. 2014a. “Idealism Pt. 1: Berkeley’s Subjective Idealism.” In 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology . https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2014/07/07/berkeley/ .

———. 2014b. “Idealism Pt. 2: Kant’s Transcendental Idealism.” In 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology . https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2014/08/11/idealism-pt-2-kants-transcendental-idealism .

Plato. (ca. 380 BCE) 2009. Meno . Translated by Benjamin Jowett. The Internet Classics Archive. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/meno.html .

Russell, Bertrand. (1912) 2013. The Problems of Philosophy . Project Gutenberg. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5827/5827-h/5827-h.htm .

Vernon, Kenneth Blake. 2014. “The Problem of Induction.” 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology . https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2014/05/26/the-problem-of-induction/ .

Chomsky, Noam. 1975. Reflections on Language . New York: Random House.

Descartes, René. (1641) 1985. “Meditations on First Philosophy.” In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes , translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, 1–62. Volume 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

———. (1701) 1985. “Rules for the Direction of the Mind.” In The Philosophical Writings of Descartes , translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch, 7–77. Volume 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Guyer, Paul. 1987. Kant and the Claims of Knowledge . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hume, David. (1748) 2017. Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Edited by Jonathan Bennett. https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/hume1748.pdf .

Kant, Immanuel. (1781) 1998. Critique of Pure Reason . Translated by Paul Guyer and Allen Wood. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Leibniz, G. W. (1705) 2017. New Essays on Human Understanding. Edited by Jonathan Bennett. http://earlymoderntexts.com/authors/leibniz .

Locke, John. (1690) 2017. An Essay Concerning Human Understanding . Edited by Jonathan Bennett. https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/authors/locke .

Quine, W. V. 1951. “Main Trends in Recent Philosophy: Two Dogmas of Empiricism.” Philosophical Review 60 (1): 20–43.

Vernon, Kenneth Blake. 2014. “The Problem of Induction.” In 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology . https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2014/05/26/the-problem-of-induction/ .

• Plato (ca. 428–347 BCE) can be treated as a predecessor of rationalism. In his dialogue Meno , Plato shows how innate ideas can be realized through reason ([ca. 380 BCE] 2009). In this dialogue, the main character Socrates (based on Plato’s real-life teacher), engages a slave boy in discussion. Through a series of questions and answers—an approach known as the Socratic Method—Socrates draws out of the boy a proof about squares. Plato argues that the boy did not learn anything new; rather, the questions merely prompted the boy to recollect knowledge he possessed prior to birth as an unembodied soul. Therefore, innate ideas are like forgotten memories; we might not be aware of them. This is Plato’s “doctrine of recollection” (as scholars have called it). In recent years, some linguists consider Noam Chomsky’s theory of language to be a modern scientific version of rationalism (though perhaps it is more accurately described as Kantian). Chomsky (1975) argues that human minds contain innate structures responsible for our capacities to process language. This is because our exposure to language itself is inadequate to account for our ability to speak and understand others. He claims that this innate ability is universal across all cultures, which reiterates the claim of the early innatists that universality is an indicator of innateness. ↵
• See Chapter 2 of this volume by Todd R. Long for a discussion of the explanationist theory of epistemic justification, and Chapter 6 by Jonathan Lopez (especially Box 1) on probabilistic considerations in epistemology—both of which are closely related to Ockham’s razor. ↵
• We find an endorsement of this view in the Anglo-Irish empiricist philosopher George Berkeley (1685–1753). His view of idealism is that only minds and their ideas (where sensations are counted as ideas) exist. We are only immediately aware of ideas, and so the physical world of objects does not exist independently of mind—only as a representation of a mind, finite or infinite. Therefore, Berkeley recommended “To be is to be perceived” (in Latin, “ Esse est percipi ”). However, we will not explore this view here, as we are focused on the more influential view that there is a mind-independent reality. For discussion of Berkeley, see Ellis (2014a). ↵
• See Chapter 2 of this volume by Long for further discussion of Cartesian foundationalism. ↵
• This is an aspect of “the problem of induction” that Hume is famous for. For an overview of the problem, see Vernon (2014). ↵
• See Chapter 6 of this volume by Lopez for a discussion of analytic/necessary truths in relation to probability theory. ↵
• Some philosophers, following Quine (1951), object to the analytic-synthetic distinction altogether. ↵
• Kant’s theory and its consequences were interpreted differently by post-Kantian philosophers, leading to the famous analytic-continental divide in philosophy. On the continental side, some philosophers interpret Kant as saying that we cannot know things as they are in themselves (the noumena). We can know only how they appear to us (the phenomena), resulting in a form of external-world skepticism (the view that we lack knowledge of the external world), Husserl’s phenomenology (philosophical description of inner mental life free from the traditional distinction between it and external reality), or a constructivist view (the idea that we construct reality). For a brief overview of these issues, see Ellis (2014b). For a more thorough discussion, see Critchley (2001). ↵

A mental representation, including individual concepts (such as the concepts “fire” and “hot”) and the thoughts constructed therefrom (such as “the fire is hot”).

A Latin term meaning “blank tablet” or “blank slate.” Empiricists like John Locke argue that the human mind is like a tabula rasa at the time of birth, and that the mind acquires knowledge through sense experience and from its ability to reflect upon its own internal operations.

Knowledge that is dependent on, or gained through, sense experience. A posteriori truths are truths known after experience.

Based on observation or experience.

The philosophical position according to which all our beliefs and knowledge are based on experience. Empiricism is opposed to rationalism.

The philosophical position that regards reason, as opposed to sense experience, as the primary source of knowledge. Rationalism is opposed to empiricism.

Knowledge gained without sense experience. A priori truths are truths known prior to experience.

The philosophical position, held by many rationalists, according to which we have certain ideas in our minds from birth, ideas which can be realized through reason.

When applied to claims, statements, or propositions, the term “necessary” refers to that which must be true. In other words, it is impossible for a necessary truth to be false. For example, it is a necessary truth that a triangle has three sides, which means that it is impossible for a triangle to have any other number of sides. The opposite of necessity is contingency.

When applied to claims, statements, or propositions, the term “contingent” refers to that which is possibly true and possibly false, not necessary. For example, it is a contingent truth that crows are black, since they are black but could have been white. The claim that crows are white is a contingent falsehood, since it happens to be false but could have been true.

Ideas that contain a single element, such as a patch of brown or the idea of red. Simple ideas are basic and indivisible as opposed to complex ideas.

The methodological principle which maintains that given two competing hypotheses, the simpler hypothesis is the more probable (all else being equal). As the “razor” suggests, we should “shave off” any unnecessary elements in an explanation (“Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity”). The principle is named after the medieval Christian philosopher/theologian William of Ockham (ca. 1285–1347). Other names for the principle include “the principle of simplicity,” “the principle of parsimony,” and “the principle of lightness” (as it is known in Indian philosophy).

An idea formed by combining multiple simple ideas or impressions. For example, the complex idea “diamond street” is formed by putting simpler ideas into relation: a street made of diamonds.

A general idea of something which allows us to recognize it as belonging to a category, distinguish it from other things, and think about it. For example, to have the concept “table” is to be able to think about tables, distinguish them from other types of furniture, and recognize tables upon encountering them.

Kant’s term for that which is presupposed in, and is necessary for, experience; something a priori that makes experience possible.

That which is immediately or directly presented to one’s awareness in perceptual experience (prior to attaching meaning or applying a concept in apperception).

Kant’s synthesis of rationalism and empiricism utilizing a transcendental bridge between the mind and the world, making possible synthetic a priori knowledge. The term “idealism,” when not preceded by “transcendental,” may refer to the theories of Berkeley or Hegel, both of which should be distinguished from Kant’s view.

The capacity to look inward to directly comprehend intellectual objects and recognize certain truths.

A form of reasoning in which the truth of the premises logically guarantees the truth of the conclusion.

One of the two divisions of human understanding made by David Hume. Relations of ideas concern matters like logic and mathematics. Relations of ideas do not depend on how the world actually is. They are known a priori . Truths generated by relations of ideas are certain (not merely probable), true by definition, and therefore impossible to contradict.

One of the two divisions of human understanding made by David Hume. Our knowledge of matters of fact comes from observation or generalization from experiences. In other words, it is a posteriori . Because such truths are contingent, they are merely probable rather than certain.

A form of reasoning in which the truth of the premises makes probable the truth of the conclusion.

A truth that holds in virtue of the meanings of the words in a sentence (and the sentence’s logical form). In an analytic sentence, the predicate term is contained in, or is the meaning of, the subject term. Therefore, analytic truths are true by definition.

A truth expressed by a sentence in which the predicate term is neither contained in, nor is the meaning of, the subject term; the predicate adds some new information about the subject. That is, synthetic truths are not true by definition; therefore, they can be denied without contradiction.

The attachment of meaning to a perceptual input based on our past and present experiences and concepts.

Sources of Knowledge: Rationalism, Empiricism, and the Kantian Synthesis Copyright © 2021 by K. S. Sangeetha is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book

Stack Exchange Network

Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow , the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.

Q&A for work

Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search.

What is common between the rationalists and empiricists?

Philosophy counsels us to begin with the most certain of definitions. In that spirit, returning to a question I've often avoided, what is the common definition of knowledge between the rationalists and empiricists? Their work concerns how we accumulate knowledge, but what is it that we accumulate? Justified true belief, in the classical mold? Is there a common definition between the two traditions at all?

Generally, what is the common ground between the rationalist thinker and his empiricist counterpart--but to be more precise, how can we define or recognize knowledge, the accumulation of which is in dispute? One side says that it is innate; the other that it is derived from experience--but what is it?

• epistemology
• rationalism

• 1 Don't have time to answer in sufficient detail but the core answer is that each is committed to the idea there is a sure foundation for knowledge in a particular source ... ergo they are both foundationalist epistemologies even if they disagree about whether reason or the senses supplies the foundation. –  virmaior Commented Mar 8, 2018 at 23:56
• But what is their criteria for knowledge? Using empiricism as an example: the senses can provide various data: what an object looks like, what a texture feels like... how particles interact, how weather occurs. The idea of knowledge isn't exhausted by any of these determinations; nor is it necessarily limited to them. We don't know an object in the same way we do a person, or a scientific law. –  WolandBarthes Commented Mar 9, 2018 at 2:05
• Knowledge for these foundationalists is unassailable access to reality as it is. –  virmaior Commented Mar 9, 2018 at 7:04

Where there is disagreement, as there is between rationalists and empiricists, there is always a background of agreement : there can only be disagreement if you at least agree on what there is to disagree about. So much by way of sage introduction !

▻ RATIONALISM

I'd offer a provisional characteristisation of rationalism as a philosophy for which reason is a source of knowledge of the physical world independent of and superior to empirical observation in the form of sense perception or introspection. 'Superior to' indicates that reason can supply beliefs which are immune from error. A rationalist accepts the possibility and fact of a priori knowledge, knowledge derived by reason independently of (prior to) experience. Reason may operate independently of experience by virtue of innate ideas but a rationalist is not as such committed to the existence or reliability of innate ideas.

There has historically been an assumption, or tendency to suppose, that knowledge of physical world takes a mathematical form.

▻ EMPIRICISM

For empiricism there is no knowledge independently of experience. The closest we can come to a priori knowledge is a knowledge of analytic truths - knowledge for instance of tautologies. This tells us nothing about reality, only at most some truths about language or concepts. All knowledge of the physical world derives from empirical observation in the form of sense perception or introspection.

Empiricism is not closely associated with the view that a knowledge of the physical world takes a mathematical form.

▻ GENERALISATION

I have only been able to offer a wide and approximate contrast between rationalism and empiricism. There is really not way round looking at individual thinkers and seeing what they agreed and differed on.

▻ COMMONALITIES

☛ Direct perception and certainty

The 'reason' on which rationalism relies is not necessarily or even usually deductive, inferential, 'discursive' reasoning - the deduction of a conclusion from premises. It is often, as we see clearly in Descartes, rational intuition or insight. Rationalists use deduction but Descartes' 'Meditations' and to an extent his 'Rules for the Direction of the Mind' run on intuitions - the products of mental acts by which we perceive directly and with absolute objective certainty*, without the aid of empirical observation, some particular truth.

[* Certainty is ambiguous between (psychological) 'absolute conviction' and (epistemological)'immunity from error'. I use the term in the second sense.]

Direct perception also plays its part in empiricism but not perception of the intuitive kind. If, for instance, it appears to me that I am looking at a tree, then it is certain that that is how things appear to me. Even if I am hallucinating, it is still certain that it appears to me that I am looking at a tree. Without further analysis, Descartes regarded such empirical certainty as too thin to support the edifice of knowledge; Meditation I shows how sense-based certainty can go along with epistemological unreliability. How things appear, whatever the fact of our experience, is no sure guide to how they really are.

☛ Individualism

In Descartes on the one hand on the rationalist side, and on the other Locke and Hume on the empiricist, there is a kind of epistemological individualism. Locke is careful, or tries to be, to admit no truth which does not recommend itself to his own mind. Descartes, equally, commits himself to not accepting as true anything which he does not clearly apprehend to be such. Hume keeps closely to beliefs which he can justify in terms of his own 'impressions and ideas'.

☛ Rationalism does not exclude the empirical totally

Observation, sensation, and experiment - which clearly belong to the world of experience - are by no means excluded from the Cartesian search for knowledge. Descartes never says that we or he can build an adequate body of knowledge without any reference to the senses. It is just that the contribution of the senses is either unnecessary or highly unreliable at the deepest, foundational level of knowledge. The foundations of knowledge are supplied by clear and distinct ideas derived from intuition working in the 'natural light' (lumen naturale) of reason. There is plenty of room for observation, sensation, and experiment but only insofar as their results can be justified by derivation from or consistency with foundational clear and distinct ideas.

• But is there a common definition, in the same sense that antiquity could say that knowledge is justified true belief? The knowledge of the statement "I think" present in the texts of Descartes is distinct from the basic sense-impressions of Hume. –  WolandBarthes Commented Mar 10, 2018 at 2:08
• The idea that knowledge is justified true belief is a gloss on a passage in Plato's Theatetus. It was not the view of Antiquity but of one thinker, Plato. Aristotle does not offer this definition of knowledge. Also I accept that there is a contrast - there are many contrasts - between Descartes and Hume but you asked specifically not for differences or distinctions but for points in common. I indicated a number of such commonalities, which is what you asked for. You might consider framing another question if you want to draw out the differences. You put a good question. I tried to answer it. –  Geoffrey Thomas ♦ Commented Mar 10, 2018 at 3:59

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for browse other questions tagged epistemology empiricism rationalism ..

• Upcoming Events
• 2024 Community Moderator Election ends in 3 days
• Featured on Meta
• Announcing a change to the data-dump process
• Bringing clarity to status tag usage on meta sites
• 2024 Community Moderator Election

Hot Network Questions

• When has the SR-71 been used for civilian purposes?
• Generate all the free polyominoes who's width and height is no larger than 8
• Do US universities invite faculty applicants from outside the US for an interview?
• Questions about LWE in NIST standards
• Background package relying on obsolete everypage package
• Are others allowed to use my copyrighted figures in theses, without asking?
• Is "She played good" a grammatically correct sentence?
• Direction of centripetal acceleration
• What was IBM VS/PC?
• How can I play MechWarrior 2?
• Topos notions coming from topology and uniqueness of generalizations
• What's the purpose of scanning the area before opening the portal?
• Generating function for A261041
• Romeo & Juliet laws and age of consent laws
• The question about the existence of an infinite non-trivial controversy
• Real Estate near High Tech companies could fetch 25% annual compound rate?
• Is there a way to prove ownership of church land?
• Is it helpful to use a thicker gauge wire for only part of a long circuit run that could have higher loads?
• Does a party have to wait 1d4 hours to start a Short Rest if no healing is available and an ally is only stabilized?
• Filtering polygons by name in one column of QGIS Attribute Table
• Investigate why packages are held back, and stop release upgrade
• How would you read this time change with the given note equivalence?
• A seven letter *
• Integrity concerns

• Search Menu

Sign in through your institution

• Browse content in Arts and Humanities
• Browse content in Archaeology
• Anglo-Saxon and Medieval Archaeology
• Archaeological Methodology and Techniques
• Archaeology by Region
• Archaeology of Religion
• Archaeology of Trade and Exchange
• Biblical Archaeology
• Contemporary and Public Archaeology
• Environmental Archaeology
• Historical Archaeology
• History and Theory of Archaeology
• Industrial Archaeology
• Landscape Archaeology
• Mortuary Archaeology
• Prehistoric Archaeology
• Underwater Archaeology
• Zooarchaeology
• Browse content in Architecture
• Architectural Structure and Design
• History of Architecture
• Residential and Domestic Buildings
• Theory of Architecture
• Browse content in Art
• Art Subjects and Themes
• History of Art
• Industrial and Commercial Art
• Theory of Art
• Biographical Studies
• Byzantine Studies
• Browse content in Classical Studies
• Classical History
• Classical Philosophy
• Classical Mythology
• Classical Numismatics
• Classical Literature
• Classical Reception
• Classical Art and Architecture
• Classical Oratory and Rhetoric
• Greek and Roman Papyrology
• Greek and Roman Epigraphy
• Greek and Roman Law
• Greek and Roman Archaeology
• Late Antiquity
• Religion in the Ancient World
• Social History
• Digital Humanities
• Browse content in History
• Colonialism and Imperialism
• Diplomatic History
• Environmental History
• Genealogy, Heraldry, Names, and Honours
• Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing
• Historical Geography
• History by Period
• History of Emotions
• History of Agriculture
• History of Education
• History of Gender and Sexuality
• Industrial History
• Intellectual History
• International History
• Labour History
• Legal and Constitutional History
• Local and Family History
• Maritime History
• Military History
• National Liberation and Post-Colonialism
• Oral History
• Political History
• Public History
• Regional and National History
• Revolutions and Rebellions
• Slavery and Abolition of Slavery
• Social and Cultural History
• Theory, Methods, and Historiography
• Urban History
• World History
• Browse content in Language Teaching and Learning
• Language Learning (Specific Skills)
• Language Teaching Theory and Methods
• Browse content in Linguistics
• Applied Linguistics
• Cognitive Linguistics
• Computational Linguistics
• Forensic Linguistics
• Grammar, Syntax and Morphology
• Historical and Diachronic Linguistics
• History of English
• Language Evolution
• Language Reference
• Language Acquisition
• Language Variation
• Language Families
• Lexicography
• Linguistic Anthropology
• Linguistic Theories
• Linguistic Typology
• Phonetics and Phonology
• Psycholinguistics
• Sociolinguistics
• Translation and Interpretation
• Writing Systems
• Browse content in Literature
• Bibliography
• Children's Literature Studies
• Literary Studies (Romanticism)
• Literary Studies (American)
• Literary Studies (Asian)
• Literary Studies (European)
• Literary Studies (Eco-criticism)
• Literary Studies (Modernism)
• Literary Studies - World
• Literary Studies (1500 to 1800)
• Literary Studies (19th Century)
• Literary Studies (20th Century onwards)
• Literary Studies (African American Literature)
• Literary Studies (British and Irish)
• Literary Studies (Early and Medieval)
• Literary Studies (Fiction, Novelists, and Prose Writers)
• Literary Studies (Gender Studies)
• Literary Studies (Graphic Novels)
• Literary Studies (History of the Book)
• Literary Studies (Plays and Playwrights)
• Literary Studies (Poetry and Poets)
• Literary Studies (Postcolonial Literature)
• Literary Studies (Queer Studies)
• Literary Studies (Science Fiction)
• Literary Studies (Travel Literature)
• Literary Studies (War Literature)
• Literary Studies (Women's Writing)
• Literary Theory and Cultural Studies
• Mythology and Folklore
• Shakespeare Studies and Criticism
• Browse content in Media Studies
• Browse content in Music
• Applied Music
• Dance and Music
• Ethics in Music
• Ethnomusicology
• Gender and Sexuality in Music
• Medicine and Music
• Music Cultures
• Music and Media
• Music and Religion
• Music and Culture
• Music Education and Pedagogy
• Music Theory and Analysis
• Musical Scores, Lyrics, and Libretti
• Musical Structures, Styles, and Techniques
• Musicology and Music History
• Performance Practice and Studies
• Race and Ethnicity in Music
• Sound Studies
• Browse content in Performing Arts
• Browse content in Philosophy
• Aesthetics and Philosophy of Art
• Epistemology
• Feminist Philosophy
• History of Western Philosophy
• Metaphysics
• Moral Philosophy
• Non-Western Philosophy
• Philosophy of Language
• Philosophy of Mind
• Philosophy of Perception
• Philosophy of Science
• Philosophy of Action
• Philosophy of Law
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Mathematics and Logic
• Practical Ethics
• Social and Political Philosophy
• Browse content in Religion
• Biblical Studies
• Christianity
• East Asian Religions
• History of Religion
• Judaism and Jewish Studies
• Qumran Studies
• Religion and Education
• Religion and Health
• Religion and Politics
• Religion and Science
• Religion and Law
• Religion and Art, Literature, and Music
• Religious Studies
• Browse content in Society and Culture
• Cookery, Food, and Drink
• Cultural Studies
• Customs and Traditions
• Ethical Issues and Debates
• Hobbies, Games, Arts and Crafts
• Natural world, Country Life, and Pets
• Popular Beliefs and Controversial Knowledge
• Sports and Outdoor Recreation
• Technology and Society
• Travel and Holiday
• Visual Culture
• Browse content in Law
• Arbitration
• Browse content in Company and Commercial Law
• Commercial Law
• Company Law
• Browse content in Comparative Law
• Systems of Law
• Competition Law
• Browse content in Constitutional and Administrative Law
• Government Powers
• Judicial Review
• Local Government Law
• Military and Defence Law
• Parliamentary and Legislative Practice
• Construction Law
• Contract Law
• Browse content in Criminal Law
• Criminal Procedure
• Criminal Evidence Law
• Sentencing and Punishment
• Employment and Labour Law
• Environment and Energy Law
• Browse content in Financial Law
• Banking Law
• Insolvency Law
• History of Law
• Human Rights and Immigration
• Intellectual Property Law
• Browse content in International Law
• Private International Law and Conflict of Laws
• Public International Law
• IT and Communications Law
• Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law
• Law and Politics
• Law and Society
• Browse content in Legal System and Practice
• Courts and Procedure
• Legal Skills and Practice
• Legal System - Costs and Funding
• Primary Sources of Law
• Regulation of Legal Profession
• Medical and Healthcare Law
• Browse content in Policing
• Criminal Investigation and Detection
• Police and Security Services
• Police Procedure and Law
• Police Regional Planning
• Browse content in Property Law
• Personal Property Law
• Restitution
• Study and Revision
• Terrorism and National Security Law
• Browse content in Trusts Law
• Wills and Probate or Succession
• Browse content in Medicine and Health
• Browse content in Allied Health Professions
• Arts Therapies
• Clinical Science
• Dietetics and Nutrition
• Occupational Therapy
• Operating Department Practice
• Physiotherapy
• Radiography
• Speech and Language Therapy
• Browse content in Anaesthetics
• General Anaesthesia
• Clinical Neuroscience
• Browse content in Clinical Medicine
• Acute Medicine
• Cardiovascular Medicine
• Clinical Genetics
• Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics
• Dermatology
• Endocrinology and Diabetes
• Gastroenterology
• Genito-urinary Medicine
• Geriatric Medicine
• Infectious Diseases
• Medical Toxicology
• Medical Oncology
• Pain Medicine
• Palliative Medicine
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Respiratory Medicine and Pulmonology
• Rheumatology
• Sleep Medicine
• Sports and Exercise Medicine
• Community Medical Services
• Critical Care
• Emergency Medicine
• Forensic Medicine
• Haematology
• History of Medicine
• Browse content in Medical Skills
• Clinical Skills
• Communication Skills
• Nursing Skills
• Surgical Skills
• Browse content in Medical Dentistry
• Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
• Paediatric Dentistry
• Restorative Dentistry and Orthodontics
• Surgical Dentistry
• Medical Ethics
• Medical Statistics and Methodology
• Browse content in Neurology
• Clinical Neurophysiology
• Neuropathology
• Nursing Studies
• Browse content in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
• Gynaecology
• Occupational Medicine
• Ophthalmology
• Otolaryngology (ENT)
• Browse content in Paediatrics
• Neonatology
• Browse content in Pathology
• Chemical Pathology
• Clinical Cytogenetics and Molecular Genetics
• Histopathology
• Medical Microbiology and Virology
• Patient Education and Information
• Browse content in Pharmacology
• Psychopharmacology
• Browse content in Popular Health
• Caring for Others
• Complementary and Alternative Medicine
• Self-help and Personal Development
• Browse content in Preclinical Medicine
• Cell Biology
• Molecular Biology and Genetics
• Reproduction, Growth and Development
• Primary Care
• Professional Development in Medicine
• Browse content in Psychiatry
• Addiction Medicine
• Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
• Forensic Psychiatry
• Learning Disabilities
• Old Age Psychiatry
• Psychotherapy
• Browse content in Public Health and Epidemiology
• Epidemiology
• Public Health
• Browse content in Radiology
• Clinical Radiology
• Interventional Radiology
• Nuclear Medicine
• Radiation Oncology
• Reproductive Medicine
• Browse content in Surgery
• Cardiothoracic Surgery
• Gastro-intestinal and Colorectal Surgery
• General Surgery
• Neurosurgery
• Paediatric Surgery
• Peri-operative Care
• Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
• Surgical Oncology
• Transplant Surgery
• Trauma and Orthopaedic Surgery
• Vascular Surgery
• Browse content in Science and Mathematics
• Browse content in Biological Sciences
• Aquatic Biology
• Biochemistry
• Bioinformatics and Computational Biology
• Developmental Biology
• Ecology and Conservation
• Evolutionary Biology
• Genetics and Genomics
• Microbiology
• Molecular and Cell Biology
• Natural History
• Plant Sciences and Forestry
• Research Methods in Life Sciences
• Structural Biology
• Systems Biology
• Zoology and Animal Sciences
• Browse content in Chemistry
• Analytical Chemistry
• Computational Chemistry
• Crystallography
• Environmental Chemistry
• Industrial Chemistry
• Inorganic Chemistry
• Materials Chemistry
• Medicinal Chemistry
• Mineralogy and Gems
• Organic Chemistry
• Physical Chemistry
• Polymer Chemistry
• Study and Communication Skills in Chemistry
• Theoretical Chemistry
• Browse content in Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Computer Architecture and Logic Design
• Game Studies
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Mathematical Theory of Computation
• Programming Languages
• Software Engineering
• Systems Analysis and Design
• Virtual Reality
• Browse content in Computing
• Business Applications
• Computer Security
• Computer Games
• Computer Networking and Communications
• Digital Lifestyle
• Graphical and Digital Media Applications
• Operating Systems
• Browse content in Earth Sciences and Geography
• Atmospheric Sciences
• Environmental Geography
• Geology and the Lithosphere
• Maps and Map-making
• Meteorology and Climatology
• Oceanography and Hydrology
• Palaeontology
• Physical Geography and Topography
• Regional Geography
• Soil Science
• Urban Geography
• Browse content in Engineering and Technology
• Agriculture and Farming
• Biological Engineering
• Civil Engineering, Surveying, and Building
• Electronics and Communications Engineering
• Energy Technology
• Engineering (General)
• Environmental Science, Engineering, and Technology
• History of Engineering and Technology
• Mechanical Engineering and Materials
• Technology of Industrial Chemistry
• Transport Technology and Trades
• Browse content in Environmental Science
• Applied Ecology (Environmental Science)
• Conservation of the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Environmental Sustainability
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Environmental Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Environmental Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environmental Science)
• Nuclear Issues (Environmental Science)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Environmental Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Environmental Science)
• History of Science and Technology
• Browse content in Materials Science
• Ceramics and Glasses
• Composite Materials
• Metals, Alloying, and Corrosion
• Nanotechnology
• Browse content in Mathematics
• Applied Mathematics
• Biomathematics and Statistics
• History of Mathematics
• Mathematical Education
• Mathematical Finance
• Mathematical Analysis
• Numerical and Computational Mathematics
• Probability and Statistics
• Pure Mathematics
• Browse content in Neuroscience
• Cognition and Behavioural Neuroscience
• Development of the Nervous System
• Disorders of the Nervous System
• History of Neuroscience
• Invertebrate Neurobiology
• Molecular and Cellular Systems
• Neuroendocrinology and Autonomic Nervous System
• Neuroscientific Techniques
• Sensory and Motor Systems
• Browse content in Physics
• Astronomy and Astrophysics
• Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Biological and Medical Physics
• Classical Mechanics
• Computational Physics
• Condensed Matter Physics
• Electromagnetism, Optics, and Acoustics
• History of Physics
• Mathematical and Statistical Physics
• Measurement Science
• Nuclear Physics
• Particles and Fields
• Plasma Physics
• Quantum Physics
• Relativity and Gravitation
• Semiconductor and Mesoscopic Physics
• Browse content in Psychology
• Affective Sciences
• Clinical Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Cognitive Neuroscience
• Criminal and Forensic Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational Psychology
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems in Psychology
• Music Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational Psychology
• Psychological Assessment and Testing
• Psychology of Human-Technology Interaction
• Psychology Professional Development and Training
• Research Methods in Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Browse content in Social Sciences
• Browse content in Anthropology
• Anthropology of Religion
• Human Evolution
• Medical Anthropology
• Physical Anthropology
• Regional Anthropology
• Social and Cultural Anthropology
• Theory and Practice of Anthropology
• Browse content in Business and Management
• Business Ethics
• Business Strategy
• Business History
• Business and Technology
• Business and Government
• Business and the Environment
• Comparative Management
• Corporate Governance
• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Entrepreneurship
• Health Management
• Human Resource Management
• Industrial and Employment Relations
• Industry Studies
• Information and Communication Technologies
• International Business
• Knowledge Management
• Management and Management Techniques
• Operations Management
• Organizational Theory and Behaviour
• Pensions and Pension Management
• Public and Nonprofit Management
• Social Issues in Business and Management
• Strategic Management
• Supply Chain Management
• Browse content in Criminology and Criminal Justice
• Criminal Justice
• Criminology
• Forms of Crime
• International and Comparative Criminology
• Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
• Development Studies
• Browse content in Economics
• Agricultural, Environmental, and Natural Resource Economics
• Asian Economics
• Behavioural Finance
• Behavioural Economics and Neuroeconomics
• Econometrics and Mathematical Economics
• Economic History
• Economic Systems
• Economic Methodology
• Economic Development and Growth
• Financial Markets
• Financial Institutions and Services
• General Economics and Teaching
• Health, Education, and Welfare
• History of Economic Thought
• International Economics
• Labour and Demographic Economics
• Law and Economics
• Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics
• Microeconomics
• Public Economics
• Urban, Rural, and Regional Economics
• Welfare Economics
• Browse content in Education
• Adult Education and Continuous Learning
• Care and Counselling of Students
• Early Childhood and Elementary Education
• Educational Equipment and Technology
• Educational Strategies and Policy
• Higher and Further Education
• Organization and Management of Education
• Philosophy and Theory of Education
• Schools Studies
• Secondary Education
• Teaching of a Specific Subject
• Teaching of Specific Groups and Special Educational Needs
• Teaching Skills and Techniques
• Browse content in Environment
• Applied Ecology (Social Science)
• Climate Change
• Conservation of the Environment (Social Science)
• Environmentalist Thought and Ideology (Social Science)
• Management of Land and Natural Resources (Social Science)
• Natural Disasters (Environment)
• Pollution and Threats to the Environment (Social Science)
• Social Impact of Environmental Issues (Social Science)
• Sustainability
• Browse content in Human Geography
• Cultural Geography
• Economic Geography
• Political Geography
• Browse content in Interdisciplinary Studies
• Communication Studies
• Museums, Libraries, and Information Sciences
• Browse content in Politics
• African Politics
• Asian Politics
• Chinese Politics
• Comparative Politics
• Conflict Politics
• Elections and Electoral Studies
• Environmental Politics
• Ethnic Politics
• European Union
• Foreign Policy
• Gender and Politics
• Human Rights and Politics
• Indian Politics
• International Relations
• International Organization (Politics)
• Irish Politics
• Latin American Politics
• Middle Eastern Politics
• Political Behaviour
• Political Economy
• Political Institutions
• Political Methodology
• Political Communication
• Political Philosophy
• Political Sociology
• Political Theory
• Politics and Law
• Politics of Development
• Public Policy
• Public Administration
• Qualitative Political Methodology
• Quantitative Political Methodology
• Regional Political Studies
• Russian Politics
• Security Studies
• State and Local Government
• UK Politics
• US Politics
• Browse content in Regional and Area Studies
• African Studies
• Asian Studies
• East Asian Studies
• Japanese Studies
• Latin American Studies
• Middle Eastern Studies
• Native American Studies
• Scottish Studies
• Browse content in Research and Information
• Research Methods
• Browse content in Social Work
• Addictions and Substance Misuse
• Adoption and Fostering
• Care of the Elderly
• Child and Adolescent Social Work
• Couple and Family Social Work
• Direct Practice and Clinical Social Work
• Emergency Services
• Human Behaviour and the Social Environment
• International and Global Issues in Social Work
• Mental and Behavioural Health
• Social Justice and Human Rights
• Social Policy and Advocacy
• Social Work and Crime and Justice
• Social Work Macro Practice
• Social Work Practice Settings
• Social Work Research and Evidence-based Practice
• Welfare and Benefit Systems
• Browse content in Sociology
• Childhood Studies
• Community Development
• Comparative and Historical Sociology
• Disability Studies
• Economic Sociology
• Gender and Sexuality
• Gerontology and Ageing
• Health, Illness, and Medicine
• Marriage and the Family
• Migration Studies
• Occupations, Professions, and Work
• Organizations
• Population and Demography
• Race and Ethnicity
• Social Theory
• Social Movements and Social Change
• Social Research and Statistics
• Social Stratification, Inequality, and Mobility
• Sociology of Religion
• Sociology of Education
• Sport and Leisure
• Urban and Rural Studies
• Browse content in Warfare and Defence
• Defence Strategy, Planning, and Research
• Land Forces and Warfare
• Military Administration
• Military Life and Institutions
• Naval Forces and Warfare
• Other Warfare and Defence Issues
• Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution
• Weapons and Equipment

• < Previous chapter
• Next chapter >

3 (page 30) p. 30 Rationalism and empiricism

• Published: September 2014
• Cite Icon Cite
• Permissions Icon Permissions

‘Rationalism and empiricism’ considers the different ways of thinking about nature that emerged in the Early Modern period, illustrated by René Descartes' rationalism and John Locke's empiricism. How did they come to produce such different theories of knowledge? In the Meditations , Descartes takes a first-person approach: his guiding question is ‘What can I know for certain?’. Locke adopts a third-person approach, drawing on his observations of others alongside himself. The question Locke aims to answer is ‘What do human beings know?’. In modern terminology, the choice between taking a first-person or a third-person approach is the choice between ‘internalism’ and ‘externalism’.

Personal account

• Sign in with email/username & password
• Get email alerts
• Save searches
• Purchase content
• Activate your purchase/trial code
• Add your ORCID iD

Institutional access

Sign in with a library card.

• Sign in with username/password
• Recommend to your librarian
• Institutional account management
• Get help with access

Access to content on Oxford Academic is often provided through institutional subscriptions and purchases. If you are a member of an institution with an active account, you may be able to access content in one of the following ways:

IP based access

Typically, access is provided across an institutional network to a range of IP addresses. This authentication occurs automatically, and it is not possible to sign out of an IP authenticated account.

Choose this option to get remote access when outside your institution. Shibboleth/Open Athens technology is used to provide single sign-on between your institution’s website and Oxford Academic.

• Click Sign in through your institution.
• Select your institution from the list provided, which will take you to your institution's website to sign in.
• When on the institution site, please use the credentials provided by your institution. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.
• Following successful sign in, you will be returned to Oxford Academic.

If your institution is not listed or you cannot sign in to your institution’s website, please contact your librarian or administrator.

Enter your library card number to sign in. If you cannot sign in, please contact your librarian.

Society Members

Society member access to a journal is achieved in one of the following ways:

Sign in through society site

Many societies offer single sign-on between the society website and Oxford Academic. If you see ‘Sign in through society site’ in the sign in pane within a journal:

• Click Sign in through society site.
• When on the society site, please use the credentials provided by that society. Do not use an Oxford Academic personal account.

If you do not have a society account or have forgotten your username or password, please contact your society.

Sign in using a personal account

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members. See below.

A personal account can be used to get email alerts, save searches, purchase content, and activate subscriptions.

Some societies use Oxford Academic personal accounts to provide access to their members.

Viewing your signed in accounts

Click the account icon in the top right to:

• View your signed in personal account and access account management features.
• View the institutional accounts that are providing access.

Signed in but can't access content

Oxford Academic is home to a wide variety of products. The institutional subscription may not cover the content that you are trying to access. If you believe you should have access to that content, please contact your librarian.

For librarians and administrators, your personal account also provides access to institutional account management. Here you will find options to view and activate subscriptions, manage institutional settings and access options, access usage statistics, and more.

Our books are available by subscription or purchase to libraries and institutions.

• About Oxford Academic
• Publish journals with us
• University press partners
• What we publish
• New features  
• Open access
• Rights and permissions
• Accessibility
• Advertising
• Media enquiries
• Oxford University Press
• Oxford Languages
• University of Oxford

Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide

• Copyright © 2024 Oxford University Press
• Cookie settings
• Cookie policy
• Privacy policy
• Legal notice

This Feature Is Available To Subscribers Only

Sign In or Create an Account

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

For full access to this pdf, sign in to an existing account, or purchase an annual subscription.

Empiricism, Early Modern

• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 20 May 2020
• Cite this living reference work entry

• Sofía Calvente 3 &
• Silvia Manzo 3  

125 Accesses

2 Citations

Introduction

Broadly speaking, “empiricism” is a label that usually denotes an epistemological view that emphasizes the role that experience plays in forming concepts and acquiring and justifying knowledge. In contemporary philosophy, there are some authors who call themselves as empiricists, although there are differences in the way they define what experience consists in, how it is related to theory, and the role experience plays in discovering and justifying knowledge, etc. (e.g., Ayer 1936 ; Van Fraassen 2002 ). In contrast, in the early modern period, empiricism was not a label that philosophers traditionally characterized until nowadays as empiricists (most famously, John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume) used to describe their doctrines. Indeed, as attributed to early modern philosophical authors, empiricism is not an actor’s category, but an analytic historiographical category retrospectively applied to them and confronted to rationalism, whose main representatives were...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

Anstey PR (2005) Experimental versus speculative natural philosophy. In: Anstey PR, Schuster JA (eds) Science of nature in the seventeenth century: patterns of change in early modern natural philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 215–241

Chapter   Google Scholar  

Antoine-Mahut D, Manzo S (2019) Introduction. special issue Debates on experience and empiricism in nineteenth-century France. Perspect Sci 27:1–12

Google Scholar  

Ayer AJ (1936) Language, truth and logic. Victor Gollancz, London

Ayers M (1998) Theories of knowledge and belief. In: Garber D, Ayers M (eds) The Cambridge history of seventeenth-century philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge/New York, pp 1003–1061

Ayers M (2005) Was Berkeley an empiricist or a rationalist? In: Winkler KP (ed) The Cambridge companion to Berkeley. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 34–62

Ayers M (2007) Rationalism, platonism, and God. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Bacon F (1857–1874) Works, (eds: Spedding J, Ellis RL, Heath DD), 14 vols. Longman, London

Bacon, F (1996) Philosophical studies c.1611–c.1619, (eds: Rees G, Edwards M). The Oxford Francis Bacon, vol VI. Clarendon, Oxford

Bacon F (2004) Instauratio magna part II: Novum organum and associated texts, (eds: Rees G, Wakely M). The Oxford Francis Bacon, vol XI. Oxford: Clarendon

Bennett J (2001) Learning from six philosophers: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, vol 2 vols. Clarendon Press, Oxford

Book   Google Scholar  

Berkeley G (1948–57) The works of George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne (eds: Luce AA, Jessop TE), 9 vols. Thomas Nelson, London

Biener Z, Schliesser E (eds) (2014) Newton and empiricism. Oxford University Press, New York

Biro J (2009) Hume’s new science of the mind. In: Norton DF, Taylor J (eds) The Cambridge companion to Hume, 2nd edn. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 40–69

Bodenmann S, Rey AL (eds) (2018) Introduction. In: id. (eds) What does it mean to be an empiricist? Empiricisms in eighteenth century sciences, Springer, New York, pp 1–11

Bracken HM (1974) Berkeley. Macmillan, New York

Cottingham J (1988) The rationalists. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Cranefield PF (1970) On the origin of the phrase nihil est in intellectu . J Hist Med Allied Sci 25:77–80

Crignon C, Zelle C, Alloca N (eds) (2013) Medical empiricism and philosophy of human nature in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Brill, Leiden

Dicker G (2002) Hume’s epistemology and metaphysics: an introduction. Routledge, London and New York

Feingold M (2016) Experimental philosophy: invention and rebirth of a seventeenth-century concept. Early Sci Med 21:1–28

Article   Google Scholar  

Fisher S (2005) Pierre Gassendi’s philosophy and science. Atomism for empiricists. Brill, Leiden

Garrett D (1997) Cognition and commitment in Hume’s philosophy. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Gaukroger S (2014) Empiricism as a development of experimental natural philosophy. In: Biener Z, Schliesser E (eds) Newton and empiricism. Oxford University Press, New York, pp 15–38

Glenney B, Silva JF (2019) Genereal introduction. Problems of perception in early modern philosophy. In: Glenney B, Silva JF (eds) The senses and the history of philosophy. Routledge, New York

Haakonssen K (2006) The history of eighteenth-century philosophy: history or philosophy? In: Haakonssen K (ed) The Cambridge history of eighteenth-century philosophy. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 3–25

Hatfield H (2014) Activity and passivity in theories of perception: Descartes to Kant. In: Silva JF and Yrjonsuri M (eds) Active perception in the history of philosophy: From Plato to modern philosophy, Springer, Cham, pp. 275-89

Hobbes T (1561/1996) Leviathan, revised ed., (ed: Tuck R). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Hume, D (1748/1999) An enquiry concerning human understanding (ed: Beauchamp TL). Oxford University Press, Oxford (EHU)

Hume D (1739–40/2007a) A treatise of human nature (eds: Norton DF, Norton MJ). Oxford University Press, Oxford. (1st ed., 2000) (T)

Hume D (1740/2007b) An abstract of a book lately published: entitled, A treatise of human nature, etc. (eds: Norton DF and Norton MJ). Oxford University Press, Oxford. (1st ed., 2000) (ABS)

Kant I (1900) Gesammelte Schriften. Edited by the Königlich Preußische Akademie der Wissenschaften. Reimer - de Gruyter, Berlin

Lennon T (1993) The battle of the gods and giants. The legacies of Descartes and Gassendi, 1655–1715. Princeton University Pres, Princeton

Locke J (1975) An essay concerning human understanding. Clarendon Press, Oxford

Loeb L (1981) From Descartes to Hume. Cornell University Press, Ithaca

Losonsky M (2001) Enlightenment and action from Descartes to Kant: passionate thought. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Lowe JE (2013) Routledge philosophy guidebook to Locke’s Essay concerning human understanding. Routledge, London and New York. First ed. 1995

Mackie JL (1976) Problems from Locke. Clarendon Press, Oxford

Micheli G (2015) Wilhelm Gottlieb Tennemann. In: Piaia G, Santinello G et al (eds) Models of the history of philosophy, The second enlightenment and the Kantian age, vol III. Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp 826–936

Mounce HO (1999) Hume’s naturalism. Routledge, London and New York

Norton DF (1981) The myth of ‘British empiricism’. Hist Eur Ideas 4:331–344

Nyden T, Dobre M (2013) Introduction. In: Nyden T, Dobre M (eds) Cartesian empiricisms. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 1–21

Priest S (2007) The British empiricists, 2nd edn. Routledge, London

Reid T (2010) An inquiry into the human mind on the principles of common sense (ed: Brookes D). Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh

Rutherford D (2006) Introduction. In: Rutherford D (ed) The Cambridge companion to early modern philosophy. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 1–9

Sorell T (1986) Hobbes. Routledge & Kegan Paul, London

Stroud B (1977) Hume. Routledge, London and New York

Taylor C (1964) The explanation of behavior. Routledge Kegan Paul, London

Tennemann WG (1798–1819) Geschichte der Philosophie, 12 vols. Barth, Leipzig

Van Fraassen B (2002) The empirical stance. Yale University Press, New Haven

Vanzo A (2013) Kant on empiricism and rationalism. Hist Philos Q 30:53–74

Vanzo A (2014) From empirics to empiricists. Int Hist Rev 24:517–538

Vanzo A (2016) Empiricism and rationalism in nineteenth-century histories of philosophy. J Hist Ideas 77:253–282

Waldow A (2010) Empiricism and its roots in the ancient medical tradition. In: Wolfe CT, Ofer G (eds) The body as object and instrument of knowledge. Embodied empiricism in early modern science. Springer, Dordrecht, pp 287–308

Wolfe, CT (2010) Empiricist heresies in early modern medical thought. In: Wolfe, CT and Ofer G (eds) The body as object and instrument of knowledge. Embodied empiricism in early modern science. Studies in history and philosophy of science N° 25, Springer, Dordrecht, pp 333-344.

Wolfe, CT (2018) From locke to materialism: empiricism, the brain and the stirrings of ontology. In: Bodenmann S, Rey A-L (eds) What does it mean to be an empiricist?: empiricisms in eighteenth century sciences. Springer, op. cit., New York, pp 335–364

Woolhouse RS (1988) The empiricists. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Yolton JW (1963) The concept of experience in locke and hume. J Hist Philos 1:53–71

Yolton JW (1983) Thinking matter: materialism in eighteenth-century Britain. Basil Blackwell, Oxford

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (IdIHCS) (UNLP-CONICET), Argentina, La Plata, Argentina

Sofía Calvente & Silvia Manzo

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Silvia Manzo .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Faculty of Philosophy, University of Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania

Dana Jalobeanu

Dept. of Philosophy and Moral Sciences, Ghent University Dept. Philosophy & Moral Sci, Ghent, Oost-Vlaanderen, Belgium

Charles T. Wolfe

Section Editor information

ERC EarlyModernCosmology and Cá Foscari University, Venice, Italy

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Calvente, S., Manzo, S. (2020). Empiricism, Early Modern. In: Jalobeanu, D., Wolfe, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Early Modern Philosophy and the Sciences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_588-1

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20791-9_588-1

Received : 20 February 2020

Accepted : 29 April 2020

Published : 20 May 2020

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-319-20791-9

Online ISBN : 978-3-319-20791-9

eBook Packages : Springer Reference Religion and Philosophy Reference Module Humanities and Social Sciences Reference Module Humanities

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research