5. Rationalism and Empiricism

Question 1

Two Rationalists Studied:

Answer 1

Rene Descartes, Spinoza

Question 2

Two Empiricists Studied:

Answer 2

John Locke, David Hume

Question 3

Rationalists believe that: (3)

Answer 3

1. Sense experience does not equal truth
2. Forms + Mathematical/Scientific laws ARE mind independent
3. Reason + Logic = Knowledge

Question 4

Empiricists believe that: (3)

Answer 4

1. Sense experience equals truth
2. Forms + Mathematical/Scientific laws are mind dependent
3. Experience = Knowledge

Question 5

1. Rene Descartes: (The Christian Rationalist) – Father of Philosophical Modernism

Answer 5

Descartes says “the road to knowledge is to doubt the ideas you have inherited!”

“The more I concentrate on the concept of God, the less possible it seems that they could have originated from me alone, so this means God exists.”

Question 6

Two steps for the methodological project (Descartes)

Answer 6

1. Dream Hypothesis: It is possible right now that you’re dreaming. Our sense sometimes deceives us; thus you cannot trust your senses.
2. Evil Demon Hypothesis: I can’t rule out the possibility that I’m being deceived by an evil demon – that my brain is in a jar, and nothing in this physical world that I know is real.

Question 7

I THINK THEREFORE…

Answer 7

I AM

Question 8

2. Baruch/Benedict Spinoza: (The Jewish Rationalist)

Answer 8

Spinoza believed that God if God is truly infinite, limitless, there’s no place that God is not…so God and nature are one.

Pantheism: there is no place God is not. Spinoza broke down Plato’s divided line, so that God is in everything, whereas Plato + Descartes held strong the divided line.

Question 9

3. John Locke (The Christian Empiricist)

Answer 9

• rejected the concept of innate ideas.

Question 10

4. David Hume (The Skeptical Empiricist)

Answer 10

• questioned “perfect forms”
• how do humans innately know that fire consumes and water isn’t breathable? They only know through experience!
• challenged “cause and affect” - we only think something is a cause because we see it consistently
• skeptical of anything that is “mind-independent” to be the truth.

Question 11

Immanuel Kant Quote

“Though all our knowledge begins with experience…

Answer 11

it does not follow that it all arises out of experience.”