Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Rationalism vs. Empiricism

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Rationalism vs. Empiricism

Human beings have always marveled at the world around them and different phenomena in it. They, at the same time, have strived to comprehend it and, in this regard, they have been successful to a certain extent; on the other hand, there are many aspects that are still a mystery to them. They have been able to organize the knowledge that they have acquired about the universe and anybody can benefit from it, yet, there are questions on whether the universe is really the way we perceive or understand it or it may be totally different from how we know it.

It is important to know how the human beings understand the world. There are different views in this regard. Different philosophers have different ideas – few think that it is human mind and thinking that basically understands the world and the realities in it; while others believe that it is through senses that human beings are able to comprehend their surroundings and the realities in them.

The philosophers who believe that we can understand the world through our thinking and reasoning are called as rationalists. They consider reason as the primary source of knowledge and on certain occasions believe that human beings have certain innate ideas that exist in mind prior to all experience. One of the greatest proponents of such a view was the famous philosopher Plato. He believed that there is a world of ideas apart from the existing world, and all that exist in our world are the reflections of those ideas. 

The rationalists try to emphasize that human minds and thinking have the capacity to perceive true knowledge and it is only through reason and logic that the truths can be verified. Some rationalists, like Descartes, even used mathematical method for philosophizing. He set out to prove philosophical truths in the way one proves a mathematical theorem. In other words, he wanted to use exactly the same instrument that we use when we work with figures, namely, reason, since only reason can give us certainty. It is far from certain that we can rely on our senses.

Considering thinking as one of the basic characteristics of human being and highlighting its worth in finding out the realities of the world, Descartes had said, “I think, therefore I am”. He perceived not only that he was a thinking being, he realized, at the same time, that this thinking was more real than the material world which we perceive with our senses.

On the other hand there are empiricists, who believe that the real source of knowledge is human senses. Without senses it is not possible to gain any knowledge about the world, even if we get any knowledge that cannot be experienced is an unreliable knowledge. Human mind is empty at birth and there are no thoughts, ideas and knowledge. As the human beings grow they sense the world through their different senses and start developing understanding and knowledge. Without having experienced the world through senses, it is not possible for them to know the world. Is it possible for a person to develop a concept of how a cat looks like if he has never seen a cat?

The classic formulation of an empirical approach came from Aristotle. He said: 'There is nothing in the mind except what was first in the senses.' This view implied a pointed criticism of Plato, who had held that man brought with him a set of innate 'ideas' from the world of ideas.

Empiricists believe that before we sense anything, the mind is as bare and empty as a blackboard before the teacher arrives in the classroom. Locke, the well-known philosopher compared the mind to an unfurnished room. But then we begin to sense things. We see the world around us, we smell, taste, feel, and hear. And nobody does this more intensely than infants. In this way what Locke called simple ideas of sense arise. But the mind does not just passively receive information from outside it. Some activity happens in the mind as well. The single sense ideas are worked on by thinking, reasoning, believing, and doubting, thus giving rise to what he calls reflection. So he distinguished between 'sensation' and 'reflection.' The mind is not merely a passive receiver. It classifies and processes all sensations as they come streaming in. And this is just where one must be.

It can be thus concluded that the rationalists believe that the basis for all human knowledge lay in the mind. And that the empiricists believe that all knowledge of the world proceeds from the senses. However, there are philosophers who believe that there is a middle way between the two. They believe that the source of knowledge is both reason and senses, and among such philosophers Kant is the most renowned one. He thought both views were partly right, but he thought both were partly wrong, too. The question everybody was concerned with was what we can know about the world. This philosophical project had been preoccupying all philosophers since Descartes. Two main possibilities were drawn up: either the world is exactly as we perceive it, or it is the way it appears to our reason. Kant thought that both 'sensing' and 'reason' come into play in our conception of the world. But he thought the rationalists went too far in their claims as to how much reason can contribute, and he also thought the empiricists placed too much emphasis on sensory experience. In his point of departure Kant agrees with the empiricists that all our knowledge of the world comes from our sensations. But--and here Kant stretches his hand out to the rationalists--in our reason there are also decisive factors that determine how we perceive the world around us. In other words, there are certain conditions in the human mind that are contributive to our conception of the world.

Kant’s philosophy is nearer to the truth as it highlights the fact that both human senses and reasoning contribute to understand the world and develop knowledge about it.

Dilawar Sherzai is the permanent writer of the Daily Outlook Afghanistan. He can be reached at Outlookafghanistan@gmail.com

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