What are the differences between rationalism and empiricism?

Question

Which theory is more successful in explaining the origins of knowledge?

Answer 1

empiricism is scientific experimentation rationalism is theory .theory offers ideas experimentation offers likely truths ithink ....im just asheet metal worker but i read alot of science stuff ;)-

Answer 2

In short to answer your question you need to ask "What am I trying to Know?"

Both Rationalism and Empiricism are valid though one may be more valid depending on the context of what you are trying to know.

Rationalism claims that we have innate knowledge independent of experience. Descartes is a famous proponent of rationalism.
"Cogito Ergo Sum" is his affirmation that despite all the worst case scenarios that might explain his existence and experience he cannot refute that he exists simply by questioning his existence. "I think; therefore I am." This tautology (necessary truth) proves that he exists. For this he is called the Father of Modern Philosophy.

Empiricism is the view that all knowledge comes from the senses. It claims that no knowledge can come without first experiencing something. From the time of Aristotle; many philosophers have been advocates of empiricism. Through strict use of logic empiricism is difficult to justify, since our experiences are always shifting and seldom match with the words we ascribe to it.

Kant, is famous for synthesizing empiricism with rationalism. He notes that something like math knowledge are true regardless of experience, but it is only through experience that we can derive the principles of the world we experience.

Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore, twentieth century British philosophers support strict empiricism because the method of science explains very well the world we all agree we live in and experience.

Personally I believe if you are looking for a philosopher to read on these deep issues go with Kant. At least read about his philosophy since his own writing is some of the most dense in philosophy. (Reading original Kant is good practice for Heidegger and Sartre.)

Worst case scenario is you learn a utilitarian world view and decide to derive principles of that natural world using "reason and experience" (that's the scientific method and in a nutshell).

Modern empiricists like Russell and Moore, like to point out that too much idealism (usually bound to rationalism) is unjustified and choose the pragmatism of experience to know things by. When you come across the debate between Idealism and Materialism, Russell and Moore will help bring you back to earth.

Read Russell's "Problems in Philosophy" to get at the core of the timeless debates in philosophy. He is always a great and accessible read.


James Rubino
B.S. Philosophy
University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point

Answer 3

They are approaches to acquiring and verifying knowledge, so I'm not sure either one really explains the origins of knowledge. Also, I don't think you can choose between rationalism and empiricism. They are inseparable. Empiricism without rationalism is just data with no theory. Rationalism without empiricism is just theory with no grounding in reality, it's just building castles in the sky. Rationalism and empiricism are the legs of science; without both it can not stand.

Answer 4

There 2 different words

Answer 5

The left lobe of the brain is academic .
The right lobe is spiritual.
The left lobe is where we do our academic learning.

The eyes and the ears are related to the system of perception the ear obtains knowledge through experience.
The eye is connected to empiricism.
Empiricism is a meritorious system of perception requiring human ability.

Answer 6

Where is the error then and in what act: the thinking, seeing or the assumption that all is known for this thing.


"Rationalism

Rationalism emphasises the role of Reason in arriving at true knowledge, as opposed to Empiricism, which emphasises the role of Experience and sense perception in knowledge. There are both idealist and materialist trends in both Rationalism and Empiricism.

Further Reading: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, Kant and Fichte."

http://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/r/a.htm#rationalism


http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/li_terms.htm

§ 8

"In its own field this empirical knowledge may at first give satisfaction; but in two ways it is seen to come short. In the first place there is another circle of objects which it does not embrace. These are Freedom, Spirit, and God. They belong to a different sphere, not because it can be said that they have nothing to do with experience; for though they are certainly not experiences of the senses, it is quite an identical proposition to say that whatever is in consciousness is experienced. The real ground for assigning them to another field of cognition is that in their scope and content these objects evidently show themselves as infinite.

There is an old phrase often wrongly attributed to Aristotle, and supposed to express the general tenor of his philosophy. Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu: there is nothing in thought which has not been in sense and experience. If speculative philosophy refused to admit this maxim, it can only have done so from a misunderstanding. It will, however, on the converse side no less assert: Nihil est in sensu quod! non fuerit in intellectu. And this may be taken in two senses. In the general sense it means that nous or spirit (the more profound idea of nous in modern thought) is the cause of the world. In its special meaning (see § 2) it asserts that the sentiment of right, morals, and religion is a sentiment (and in that way an experience) of such scope and such character that it can spring from and rest upon thought alone. "

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/slintro.htm#SL8

"The rise of Empiricism is due to the need thus stated of concrete contents, and a firm footing — needs which the abstract metaphysic of the understanding failed to satisfy. Now by concreteness of contents it is meant that we must know the objects of consciousness as intrinsically determinate and as the unity of distinct characteristics. But, as we have already seen, this is by no means the case with the metaphysic of understanding, if it conform to its principle. With the mere understanding, thinking is limited to the form of an abstract universal, and can never advance to the particularisation of this universal. Thus we find the metaphysicians engaged in an attempt to elicit by the instrumentality of thought what was the essence or fundamental attribute of the Soul. The Soul, they said, is simple. The simplicity thus ascribed to the Soul meant a mere and utter simplicity, from which difference is excluded: difference, or in other words composition, being made the fundamental attribute of body, or of matter in general. Clearly, in simplicity of this narrow type we have a very shallow category, quite incapable of embracing the wealth of the soul or of the mind. When it thus appeared that abstract metaphysical thinking was inadequate, it was felt that resource must be had to empirical psychology. The same happened in the case of Rational Physics. The current phrases there were, for instance, that space is infinite, that Nature makes no leap, etc. Evidently this phraseology was wholly unsatisfactory in presence of the plenitude and life of nature."

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/sl_ivpi.htm#SL37n

"Besides, this school makes sense-perception the form in which fact is to be apprehended; and in this consists the defect of Empiricism. Sense perception as such is always individual, always transient: not indeed that the process of knowledge stops short at sensation: on the contrary, it proceeds to find out the universal and permanent element in the individual apprehended by sense. This is the process leading from simple perception to experience."

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/sl_ivpi.htm#SL38n

"In order to form experiences, Empiricism makes especial use of the form of Analysis. In the impression of sense we have a concrete of many elements, the several attributes of which we are expected to peel off one by one, like the skins of an onion. In thus dismembering the thing, it is understood that we disintegrate and take to pieces these attributes which have coalesced, and add nothing but our own act of disintegration. Yet analysis is the process from the immediacy of sensation to thought: those attributes, which the object analysed contains in union, acquire the form of universality by being separated. Empiricism therefore labours under a delusion, if it supposes that, while analysing the objects, it leaves them as they were: it really transforms the concrete into an abstract. And as a consequence of this change, the living thing is killed: life can exist only in the concrete and one. Not that we can do without this division, if it be our intention to comprehend. Mind itself is an inherent division. The error lies in forgetting that this is only one half of the process, and that the main point is the reunion of what has been parted. And it is where analysis never gets beyond the stage of partition that the words of the poet are true:"

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/sl_ivpi.htm#SL38n1

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/sl_iii.htm#SL34n

"The name ‘rational’, given to this species of psychology, served to contrast it with empirical modes of observing the phenomena of the soul. Rational psychology viewed the soul in its metaphysical nature, and through the categories supplied by abstract thought. The rationalists endeavoured to ascertain the inner nature of the soul as it is in itself and as it is for thought. In philosophy at present we hear little of the soul: the favourite term is now mind (spirit). The two are distinct, soul being as it were the middle term between body and spirit, or the bond between the two. The mind, as soul, is immersed in corporeity, and the soul is the animating principle of the body."

Answer 7

ddddd

Answer 8

this might help...