Is Reason the Source of Knowledge?: Descartes' Corpuscular Theory
Descartes wants to prove that knowledge of the physical world can be acquired through reason, an explanation that eventually relies on the corpuscular or atomistic theory. In this theory, all matter is made of corpuscles, far too small to see, with ...
Is Reason the Source of Knowledge?: Reason, the Source of Knowledge
Seventeenth century rationalists like Descartes and Leibniz believe that knowledge comes from reason alone. It is not necessary to see examples in the physical world;truth can be grasped entirely in the mind. This is a period in which science is mak...
Is Reason the Source of Knowledge?: Theory of Innate Ideas, The
Rationalists believe in innate ideas, ideas that are present in the mind from birth. The concept had a long history beginning with Plato in the 4th century B.C.E. The difficulties and discoveries characteristic of Athens during this period are simil...
Is Time Real?: Scientific Theories of Time: Albert Einstein
In his first theory of relativity developed in 1905 Einstein came up with the idea that both space and time are relative to the state of motion of the observer. Time is not as absolute and universal as we thought;it can be changed by motion. Each ob...
Is Time Real?: Scientific Theories of Time: Isaac Newton
Until the 20th century the dominant view of time was embedded in the mechanics of Isaac Newton. Newton viewed absolute time as an endless line stretching from the infinite past to the infinite future. Events happen according to whatever standard of ...
Does All Knowledge Come from Experience?: W.V.O. Quine and Contemporary Empiricism
W.V.O. Quine, one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, is a naturalist and an empiricist. Quine views science as a vast web of interconnected beliefs which is related to the sensory experience only "along the periphery." Vital c...
Does All Knowledge Come from Experience?: Empiricism's Alliance with the Natural Sciences
Empiricists from Locke to the present feel a close alliance with the natural sciences, inspired by Newton's theories of science "inferred from the phenomena." One of the things that distinguishes empiricists from rationalists is that they tend to ad...
Does the Mind Shape the World?: Does the Mind Shape the World?
Immanuel Kant, born in 1724 sought to resolve a controversy that had been brewing for over a century. Rationalists argued that knowledge is based on reasoning inside our minds. Empirists disagreed saying that all knowledge must come from the senses....