Rationalism and empiricism are schools of thought that seek to explain how human beings acquire knowledge, but they have fundamentally opposing philosophies.
While rationalism claims that the source of knowledge is reason, empiricism claims that it is sensory experience.
| Rationalism | Empiricism | |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Rationalism is a philosophical theory that is based on the claim that reason is the source of human knowledge. | Empiricism is a philosophical theory based on the idea that experience is the source of knowledge. |
| Intuition | They believe in intuition. | They do not believe. |
| innate ideas | Individuals have innate knowledge. | Individuals do not possess innate knowledge. |
| Where does knowledge come from | Knowledge is based on the use of reason and logic. | Knowledge is based on experience and experimentation. |
| key principles | Deduction, innate knowledge and reason. | Induction and sensorial experiences. |
| Theoretical | Plato, Descartes, Leibniz and Noam Chomsky. |
Locke, Berkeley and Hume. |
The dispute between rationalism and empiricism occurs in epistemology, the branch of philosophy dedicated to the study of the nature, sources and limits of knowledge.
While rationalists claim that our knowledge is acquired by reason and innate knowledge, empiricists claim that the source of all our knowledge is sensory experience.
What is rationalism?
Rationalism believes that there is innate knowledge, and that we can arrive at truth only by exercising our reason, even before sensory experience.
An example of this would be mathematics, where we don't need to rely on our senses to establish that 2 + 2 = 4.
Innate knowledge would be a superior form of knowledge, which gives us access to a more substantial truth, which transcends the everyday world.
Rationalism believes in three paths by which humans can arrive at knowledge:
- Deduction: deduction is the application of concrete principles to draw a conclusion. Mathematical principles are an example of deduction. Example: Finding the square footage of a room is always done the same way, multiplying the width by the length.
- innate ideas: is the concept that we are born with fundamental truths or experiences that we bring from other lives. This thought may explain why some people are more talented at some things than others, even if they received exactly the same teaching on the subject.
- Reason: reason uses logic to determine a conclusion, and may use several methods to do so, as the emphasis is on finding the truth, not the method used.
What is empiricism?
Empiricism is a school of philosophy that asserts that reality and knowledge are derived from sensory experience.
As a philosophy, it is allied to the methodology of the natural sciences, and the only kind of knowledge that matters to the empiricist is that which can be formally measured or verified.
Empiricism works out certain key principles to explain where human knowledge comes from.
sensory experience
Empiricists believe that our ideas come solely from sensory experience. These ideas can be simple or complex, and make use of our five senses: touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight.
Simple ideas are those that use only one of the five senses to establish perception, such as, for example, knowing that sugar is sweet.
Complex ideas, on the other hand, use more than one of the five senses to obtain a more detailed perception, such as knowing that sugar, in addition to being sweet, is white and grainy.
Induction
Induction is the most crucial principle for empiricism, similar to reason for rationalists. Induction is the belief that few objects of study can be conclusive, especially without experience.
If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, will its fall make a sound? This is an example of the empiricist perspective on induction. Since there is no one in the forest to hear the sound of the tree falling, the empiricist would claim that it cannot be determined whether it is true that the fall made any noise.
In turn, the rationalist would say that when the tree falls, it produces sound. After all, from experience, trees when they fall make a noise due to the weight and the impact with other trees and when they fall, with the ground.
See the differences between:
- deduction and induction
- Examples of ethics and morals
