Innate Ideas and Mathematical Proof
Philosopher Ian Hacking observes that rationalists were fascinated by the possibility of mathematical proof, while empiricists were not. He notes that there is an enormous difference to this day among philosophers about this same subject. For those ...
Does All Knowledge Come from Experience?: John Locke's Empiricism and Its Troublesome Gap
John Locke and later empiricists dispute the rationalists' claim that pure reason could grasp truths about the world. They argue that all knowledge of the world must come through the senses and experience. Locke compares the mind at birth to a tabul...
Mind and the World (Part One), The
Philosopher Stephen Toulmin talks about Immanuel Kant's views regarding the relationship between the mind and the world. Professor Toulmin explains that it was Kant who originated the idea that our understanding of the world is "...at least as much ...
Is Reason the Source of Knowledge?: Necessary Truths
Descartes argues that the senses can perceive only the changing surfaces of things, but the mind can go deeper to find necessary truths. Empiricist who argue that all knowledge must come from the senses disagree.
Does All Knowledge Come from Experience?: Berkeley's Solution to Locke's Gap
George Berkeley, the next major empiricist after Locke, makes the gap between the external world and our mental images of it central to his philosophy. Berkeley's solution is to say that bodies are simply collections of ideas that exist in the mind....
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?: Hume and Causal Relationships
Consider the motion of billiard balls on a table. Can reason analyze how they will move a priori without previous experience as rationalists contend? Hume insists that the only way we know about patterns like cause and effect is by seeing certain ev...
Does All Knowledge Come from Experience?: Hume and the Necessity of Experience
David Hume, the third major empiricist starts from the premise that all knowledge of the world must come from experience. He underscores this point by emphasizing how much more vivid sense impressions are than the copies we make of them by merely th...
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....