Rationalism vs. Empiricism

[Bored]

Well, I just finished my philosophy exam today, and well I really started thinking on the question of empiricism vs rationalism. For those of you who don't know this is the main question of epistomology, and it is asking how we know. Rationalists say that knowledge is a priori, befor experience. That is we know through rational thought, pure logic, and that which we experience does not lead to knowledge. Empiricism is the beleif that we learn a postori, that is after experience. They beleive that we can only truly know something if we experience it. Finally are the combination theories, most knotably Kant's and Lonergan's. These say that we both experience and rationality alone are useless and that we cannot know without both.

I'm personally a big fan of the combinational theories. For we clearly have the capability to extrapalate knowledge without first expereincing it, for instance I know that 5689 + 67 = 5756 without being previously told or having experience dit before. Why? Because I rationally thought and came up with it. But at the same time I never would have know that without prior mathematical experience and knowledge, and even that knowledge is not from experience alone, but it's from rational interpretation of that experience. For me both is needed, but I would like to see what you think.

[Cervantes]

I'm leaning towards Rationalist, based on what you've said. But I've never thought about this before, so this is a pretty quick decision on my part.

I chose rationalist because I've recently been exposed to a heck of a lot of very abstract mathematics that was built on very few previous ideas and is rigorous. Similarly, but to a lesser extent, for physics. This gives me a bias towards thinking that we can create knowledge without experience.

Saying that last sentence there made me think more about it, and I'd like you to give me a better, deeper description of the question. You said, "how we know". Know what?

[BenLi]

mm, i'm leaning towards Rationalist as well. I don't have to experience falling off a skyscraper to know that I would die if I did so. However, what type of knowledge are you speaking of? If you mean academic knowledge, then yes, rationalist makes more sense. In real life, there are often too many variables for someone to predict what might happen, thus they would learn through experience

[md]

I'd have to say it's a combination.

I mean yes for things like math/logic/etc. you can learn a few fundamental axioms and work from there. However it's impossible to learn how to said for instance without actually trying.

Oh, and I'd argue that no one learns math without studying, and studying is an action from which you gain experience. So even math supports a more empiricist view.

[Clayton]

A combination, leaning towards rationalism.

Sure, you can study until the cows come home, learn all the nitty gritty theory behind the universe, but nothing says that you can do it. Take shooting a rifle for example. You can learn how to lie in the prone position, how to take up slack in the trigger, learn the theory of breathing, figure out how you're supposed to look through the sight, and how quick/slow to pull the trigger. But until you actually experience it, it would be exceptionally difficult to make a perfect shot the first time.

[Bored]

Cervantes wrote:

I'm leaning towards Rationalist, based on what you've said. But I've never thought about this before, so this is a pretty quick decision on my part.

Well then hopefully that will make convincing you of my views easier

Cervantes wrote:

I chose rationalist because I've recently been exposed to a heck of a lot of very abstract mathematics that was built on very few previous ideas and is rigorous. Similarly, but to a lesser extent, for physics. This gives me a bias towards thinking that we can create knowledge without experience.

Yes, but if you did not experience the basics, the very basics such as addition subtraction, etc. Would you then be able to figure all of this out? If you never saw one and one put together would you be able to devise of such a thing? Actually yo be totally rationalist, you would of never of had to off experienced one to know what it is, and that one and one is two. So though yes, most of it is logic, without those very basic experiences how would one not have known these things

Cervantes wrote:

Saying that last sentence there made me think more about it, and I'd like you to give me a better, deeper description of the question. You said, "how we know". Know what?

Know anything, from who we are, to math, to falling, to anything. For me there are different kinds of knowledge, true knowledge be undoubful, undeniable, justifiable (logically stable) and true beleifs. But true knowledge is unatainable unless one spontainiously knows everything, as to know something as in true knowledge one must then know all that relates to it, and since everything relates somehow (though usually not directly) primarily through the laws of physics and science, one must therefore know everything to know anything. But for me the knowledge most important and that of which we are discussing is not the indubitable true knowledge but what I call human knowledge, and that is beleifs that are so certain that we can safely assume them as truth, that such as 1+1=2, I have a father and mother, the force of gravity on earth is approximately 9.8 N/Kg, the white nevelop that the postman left in my mailbox is mail. This human knowledge is more then beleif, it is what statitians call almost sure. Human knowledge must also be justifiable. I also have other definitions of truth such as beleif witch is that that is not almost sure, but still moderately justifiable. Then theres also faith which is barely justifiable or not justifiable and is not almost sure, but is still justifiably possible. And finally utter ignorance which is unjustifiable and almost surely false, but still thought to be true by the person. The knwoledge I refer to is what I call human knowledge.

Ohh God, I have my own thoeries now, I feel so happy

BenLi wrote:

mm, i'm leaning towards Rationalist as well. I don't have to experience falling off a skyscraper to know that I would die if I did so. However, what type of knowledge are you speaking of? If you mean academic knowledge, then yes, rationalist makes more sense. In real life, there are often too many variables for someone to predict what might happen, thus they would learn through experience

You may not have expereince falling off a skyscraper yourself, but you have experienced falling, you have expereinced the stories of deaths from heights, you have expereicned things the force of gravity, etc. So though you did rationally gain this knowledge, you could not have come to this knowledge without your prior expereinces, just as you couldn't without your rationality.

[Cervantes]

It seems like this is a question of "could a boy born in an opaque, soundproof, bubble ever "know"? Tough question.

Bored, you mentioned a few times the idea of 1+1=2. I'd just like to point out that this is not fundamental, but rather derived from the axioms of set theory. At least, that's as I've heard it.

[Naveg]

BenLi @ Wed Jan 31, 2007 9:40 am wrote:

mm, i'm leaning towards Rationalist as well. I don't have to experience falling off a skyscraper to know that I would die if I did so.

Very true, but at some point the knowledge you have now was originally gained by experience. Either someone else fell off a skyscraper and died (ie. they experienced it) and now you know. Or the forces involved in the fall were calculated and it was then known that falling from a skyscraper would put a lethal force on a human being. In that case, how did we know the amount of force needed to be lethal? Well you could know the amount of stress various parts of the body could sustain, but it just goes further and further back. Ultimately, something was experienced. Who ever said the experience had to happen to the person gaining the knowledge?

That said, I'm a fan of the combination arguments. Ultimately, all our knowledge is based on experience. In fact, even our ability to reason and rationalize I would say are based on experience. However, since we now have those skills and can use them, we now have the ability to gain knowledge without experience using only tools of reason. In BenLi's example, he forms a rational conclusion without having to think about the experiences that led to that knowledge. Therefore, it is rationalistic knowledge. However, there certainly are experiences involved in his arrival at that knowledge, so it is also empirical.

[Cervantes]

The topic of someone falling off a skyscraper isn't fundamental. It's a specific application of the laws of physics. I wouldn't consider it to be an important thing to know, then, because it isn't fundamental. I'm thinking of this discussion more in terms of the base knowledge we have about the universe we experience.

This is actually a great discussion in metaphysics. Some of the new physical theories might suggest that the Universe is the way it is because that is the only possible way it could be. They don't use the Anthropic Principle. If that's the case, then it Rationalism has merit. That doesn't mean it's right, though. It's entirely possible that we humans are simply not intelligent enough to ever understand the universe in full depth.

[Bored]

Well Cervantes, you keep mentioning that various points of argument here are not fundamental, but rather built upon previous knowledge. This has great merit as it is only through the fundamental knowledge that we can discover how we origionally learn as all else is built upon that. Therefore we must figure out what knowledge is fundamental, so I would like to ask you what is fundamental knowledge, that is knowledge that cannot be rationally disected into smaller philisophical entities.

[ericfourfour]

I'm thinking a combination.

To speak English you must learn the language. There is no way someone could live in solitude their entire life and then come out one day and speak English.

On the other hand, when it comes to music, we all know what sounds good and what sounds bad, what makes us sad and what makes us angry. When you listen to a song and you connect with it, you did not learn how to connect with it; it just happened; that's all.

[Cervantes]

English isn't fundamental. Something to keep in mind, perhaps.

Bored: I'm not equipped to answer that question. In terms of math, something to do with set theory, and some geometry, I think. In terms of physics, we don't yet know what is fundamental in the universe.

[1of42]

This is a really bad question to ask people on a forum, especially since your summary glosses over many important distinctions.

In any case, currently the overwhelming majority of epistemological philosophers are Empiricists. Personally, combined theories (category theory for example) seem to tally well with what actually happens in life.

Neither pure empiricism nor rationalism can realistically ever fully explain knowing - see Hooke's attack on causation and various mathematical examples, as well as the phenomenon of language, as demonstrations of this fact.

[piggy]

Hi all:

Found your site and I think it's great. I am taking a 1st year philosophy course. We are discussing Can you tell me what synthetic a priori statement is?

[Kharybdis]

I'm more of an empiricist(?), because i think that you can't truly experience something without having gone through it yourself. Yes, you don't need to fall of a skyscraper to know that you would die if you did so, but you still don't have any proof that you would die, because you don't have that experience. You're just laying down a hypothesis. There's always a chance that if you throw an apple, it'll just continue going in a horizontal direction and never stop, albeit a very nonexistant chance.