Rationalism and Empiricism: Differences and Successes - Essay Example

Draft DeSpain2 Imelda M. DeSpain Philosophy 101, Section 2287 S.E.A. Hughes Rationalism and Empiricism: Differences and Successes The debate between rationalism and empiricism is still raging and has not ended. Spanning many centuries, the debate can be found almost everywhere from words and meanings, to history, to computation and information processing (Pinker & Searle, 2002), to the cognitive revolution, to the color story, to art, to artificial intelligence and logic, to Linguistics, and to Psychology (Narayan, 2005). Steven Pinker and John Searle (2002) had an argument on words and rules and had involved rationalism and empiricism. According to Searle, Pinker claims that there are two aspects to the debate between empiricism and rationalism. This are a psychological side (where the rationalists, unlike the empiricists, were "obsessed by combinatorial grammar") and an epistemic side (where the rationalists thought "knowledge comes from making deductions using theories"). It is about the psychological side that Pinker claims, "The past tense is the only case I know in which two great systems of Western thought (rationalism and empiricism) may be tested and compared on a single rich set of data, just like ordinary scientific hypotheses." But Searle argues among other things that the debate about the past tense is not a case in which "two great systems of Western thought (rationalism and empiricism) may be tested and compared on a single rich set of data." Searle argued that the features that make them "great systems of Western thought" are left unaffected by the discussion of the past tense. Their debate also included history, computation and information processing in relation to rationalism and empiricism where both thoughts oppose each other. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy which Searle (in Pinker & Searle, 2002) thinks is standard, defines rationalism as the position that reason presides over other ways of acquiring knowledge, or that it is the unique path to knowledge. It is most often encountered as a view in epistemology, where it is traditionally contrasted with empiricism, the view that the senses are primary with respect to knowledge (Audi, 1999). Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that asks the question "How do we know what we know" (Epistemology n.d.). This is a nature/nurture debate then, with Rationalists going for nature and Empiricists going for nurture. Some scientists think that people behave as they do according to genetic predispositions or even "animal instincts." This is known as the "nature" theory of human behavior. Other scientists believe that people think and behave in certain ways because they are taught to do so. This is known as the "nurture" theory of human behavior (Powell, 2006). Plato and Descartes were famous Rationalists, John Stuart Mill and David Hume were famous Empiricists. The following can be said to be the levels by which rationalism and empiricism may be differentiated. DIFFERENCES Etymology and emphasis. According to Carlo Sini (2004), the name Rationalism obviously derives from the word 'rational' which goes back to the Latin, 'ratio' meaning 'calculation'. This in turn goes back to another Latin word, 'ratus', which is the past participle of 'reor', meaning "think', 'deem', 'judge'. What runs through all of these is the emphasis on mind, an emphasis connected with the word 'rational' as well: rationalise, rationality, and similar terms. 'Empiricism' derives from another English word, 'empiric', meaning, 'derived from experience.' The term "empirical" was originally used to refer to certain ancient Greek practitioners of medicine who rejected adherence to the dogmatic doctrines of the day, preferring instead to rely on the observation of phenomena as perceived in experience (Sini, 2004). The doctrine of empiricism was first made by John Locke in the 17th century. Locke argued that the mind is a tabula rasa ("clean slate" or "blank tablet"or" white paper") on which experiences leave their marks. To Locke, the mind is like blank white paper on which experience writes all the ideas human beings will ever have. He says there are no sources of ideas other than sensation and reflection. For example, he says, man cannot know that fire can produce the sensations of warmth and pain unless he experiences fire. Such empiricism denies that humans have anything knowable without reference to experience. Beliefs. The beliefs of rationalism and empiricism differ. The Rationalist believes that some or all of what is true knowledge is literally inborn with us. This is called innate knowledge. The Empiricist, on the other hand, believes that all of our knowledge arises from our experiences in the world after we are born. This is called acquired or experiential knowledge. In other words, empiricism holds that our knowledge of the world comes first from experience, and rationalism contends that it comes first from reason. An extreme rationalist would believe that we are born with knowledge of all the universal forms already in our minds, and that we only come to know the world according to this knowledge. On the other hand, an extreme empiricist would believe that our minds contain nothing at birth and only acquire knowledge by seeing and experiencing the world. The word "extreme" is used by philosophers like Hjorland (2005) to emphasize that one is purely on either the side of rationalism or empiricism, leaving no room for creative thoughts for the other. Empiricism does not hold that we have empirical knowledge automatically. Rather, according to the empiricist view, for any knowledge to be properly understood, it is to be gained from one's sense-based experience (Markie, 2004). In other words, knowledge comes only from our senses and that our minds have no ideas already there that we can reason from. We get our ideas from experience. Two representative philosophers are presented here to highlight differences between rationalism and empiricism: Descartes for rationalism and Hume for empiricism. Descartes, a rationalism philosopher. Descartes thinks it so important to find a method. He decides to begin with universal doubt. He does not empty his mind. Nor does he acquire the new belief that all his old beliefs are positively false. He knows beforehand that he will (or can) resume believing after the project of universal doubt. Descartes concludes that his essence lies in his thinking rather than, say, perceiving or walking. He argues that there is an external world independent of us. He rejects the possibility that he is the source of all his ideas. Descartes suggests that learning new truths is like remembering what one has previously known. He says that mind and body are fused or blended into something like a single whole. Hume, an empiricism philosopher. Hume holds that all knowledge arises from experience. He believes that objects exist continuously (when we are not perceiving them) and independently of us. Senses and reason support this belief to a certain extent. To him, people should ascribe a continuing identity to objects although we don't experience this identity. The different fields look at rationalism and empiricism differently as in the following. In Art. When applied to aesthetics, rationalism tends towards the view that art should represent the world of the forms, and empiricism to the view that it should represent the world of experience. Rationalist art makes great use of regularity, proportion and mathematics, while empiricist art delights in wildness, irregularity and unexpected details. These two ways of looking of art depend on two views of how man comes to know the 'nature' of the world. To illustrate, John Locke was the most important empiricist philosopher to influence the course of eighteenth century garden design. Locke's views on garden design came about through his patron, the First Earl of Shaftesbury, and through his pupil, the Third Earl of Shaftesbury, a firm supporter of the Neoplatonic theory of art (Gardens Guide, 2007). He believed that the artist should represent the simplest and purest forms because 'the beautiful, the fair, the comely were never in the matter.....but in the form or forming power'. The sphere or globe, the cylinder and obelisk is preferred, while the irregular figures are rejected and despised. Garden designs are, therefore, to be found with the sphere or globe, the cylinder and the obelisk, but not with irregular figures. This is contested, however, by rationalists who think that nature is irregular (Gardens Guide, 2007). In Library and Information Science. Birger Hjorland (2005) in his study found that it is not an easy matter to define the truth of rationalism and empiricism and to describe their influence. Many different interpretations exist and there is no common understanding regarding the present influence of rationalism in Library and Information Science (LIS). Empiricism and rationalism are said to be still important concepts within LIS. Hjorland (2005) concludes that from a specific analysis made of the empiricist view of information seeking, it is shown that empiricism may be regarded as a prescriptive theory of information seeking and knowledge organization. In other words, empiricism is to be preferred in information-seeking. Hjorland's (2005) conclusion may be explained from the basic principles in classical empiricism that he put forward. Among these are: 1) Knowledge of universal and necessary relations are given a priori (meaning, derived by logic); 2) Knowledge of particularities and of contingent relations are only given a posteriori (meaning, derived from observed facts); and 3) Inductive conclusions are allowed under certain conditions. It is, for example, not allowed to operate with invisible or "theoretical quantities," as generalizations are problematic. In Political Science. According to Mark Crovelli (2006), what empiricism can't tell us, rationalism can. "I want to suggest that the empiricist epistemological position is not the one that we ought to accept, and that this epistemological position will make it literally impossible for political science to progress," Crovelli (2006) said. In political science, progress in the discipline means improving our understanding of human action rather than improving our predictive ability as the empiricist claims. The rationalist idea that man's goal in political science, like every science of human action, is to better understand human action thus cannot be proven false. In Medicine. Warren Newton (2001) says there are feelings of hostility between rationalism and empiricism in medicine. In medicine, rationalism is seen as the search for and emphasis on basic mechanisms of disease, which then color all clinical decisions. Empiricism, on the other hand, is defined as the emphasis on the outcomes of individual patients and groups of patients. While these ways of thinking can be complementary, according to Newton (2001), the tension persists, exploding around specific clinical and legal arguments. Newton (2001) claims that this tension in the different ways of thinking between empiricists and rationalists was present in its most severe form in ancient times with the often-bitter clash of rationalists and empiricists. At its founding, modern medicine represented a triumphal return of the rationalists. Their insistence on understanding the mechanisms of disease has been tremendous for modern clinical medicine. Now, Evidence-Based-Medicine represents a counter-revolution of traditional empiricism, helped by their use of statistics and multi-variate analysis. The conflict between rationalism and empiricism still remains and finds its expression in a wide variety of clinical questions, Newton (2001) says. "The war within medicine starts with causation and extends to the other fundamental clinical questions-diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment - which are at the center of clinical disagreements, private injuries, and policy debates," Newton (2001) said. In writing. Writers find that they are 60/40 in Rationalism's favour. Though they believe absolutely in Empiricism and how experience is important in defining and refining one's skills, they also believe that one has to have a pre-disposition towards that skill in the first place - hence the thought in them that certain things have to be already there. Writers are born with some talents already there, they believe. However, they have to learn to hone their skills through experience. In all these disciplines, both rationalism and empiricism have major roles. Recent developments The twenty-first century, according to Chris Jones (2001), pays attention exclusively on the separation of reason and empiricism. It has been customary to "compare Hume's Empiricism and Descartes Rationalism." In history, philosophical empiricism is commonly contrasted with the philosophical school of thought known as "rationalism" which, in very broad terms, asserts that much knowledge is accounted to reason independently of the senses. This is fallacious, according to Charles Birch (1988: 17-18). Birch calls this the "The fallacy of objectivity." Academic investigations are no longer done in isolation, but in consultation with the visions of others. In other words, rationalism is not entirely separate from empiricism. Jones (2001) said - "It is not that there is one reality and therefore only one discipline that is suited for knowing it. Nor is it that there are many realities and many appropriate disciplines. Rather there is one reality of infinite depth, dimension and qualities in which the means for knowing it can never be exhausted in unfolding an apprehension of the unity in diversity of those levels of reality." What this is saying is that reality is not to be seen in chopped parts. Reality is wholeness. Whatever contrast is seen between rationalism and empiricism today is considered to be oversimplified because the main continental rationalists (Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz) were also for the empirical "scientific method" of their day. Furthermore, Locke, for his part, held that some knowledge (e.g. knowledge of God's existence) could be arrived at through intuition and reasoning alone. Moreover, Dudley Shapere (2004) claims that classical and twentieth-century versions of empiricism and rationalism fail in their aims, as does Kant's attempt to find a middle way between these two extremes. Hans Reichenbach (2005) in fact looks at separating Rationalism and Empiricism as philosophical error. There can be no quarrel, therefore between rationalism and empiricism as they were meant to complement each other. There are times, however, where one of these may predominate in one field and that is where it is considered as successful. Works Cited Audi, R. (Ed.). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Second Edition, (Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 771. Birch, C. "Eight Fallacies of the Modern World and Five Axioms for a Postmodern Worldview", Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 32, 1, Autumn 1988. Crovelli, M. R. What Empiricism Can't Tell Us, and Rationalism Can. Mises.org. January 26, 2006. Retrieved January 26, 2007, from http://www.mises.org/story/1999. Epistemology. (n.d.). The American Heritage New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition. Retrieved May 05, 2007, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/epistemology Gardens Guide. Empiricism and garden design. Gardenvisit.com. http://www.gardenvisit.com/t/c1s6.html. May 5, 2007. Hjorland, B. Empiricism, rationalism and positivism in library and information science. Journal of Documentation. ISSN: 0022-0418. Feb 2005 Volume: 61 Issue: 1 Page: 130 - 155. 10.1108/00220410510578050. Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Jones, C. (2001). Examination of the Environmental Crisis. Specific Focus on the Balance between the Instrumental and Intrinsic Value of Nature From a Baha'i Perspective. Thesis. Master of Theology Honors, University of Sydney. Markie, P. (2004), "Rationalism vs. Empiricism" in Edward D. Zalta (ed.), Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Eprint. Narayan, S. 2005. GSI: Zhenya Antic ... Rationalism and Empiricism: the debate. The Cognitive Revolution. July 11, 2005. www.icsi.berkeley.edu/shweta/cogsci1/lecture4.1.notes.pdf Newton, W. Rationalism and empiricism in Modern Medicine. 2001. Retrieved April 17, 2007, from https://www.law.duke.edu/journals/lcp/downloads/LCP64DAutumn2001P299.pdf Pinker, S. and Searle, J.R. 2002. 'Words and Rules:' An Exchange. The New York Review of Books. Volume 49, Number 11 June 27, 2002 Powell, K. Nature vs. Nurture. Genealogy. March 15, 2006. About.com. Retrieved May 3, 2007, from http://genealogy.about.com/cs/geneticgenealogy/a/nature_nurture.htm Reichenbach, H. Rationalism and Empiricism: An Inquiry into the Roots of Philosophical Error Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 21, 1947 - 1948 (1947 - 1948), pp. 330-346. Doi: 10.2307/3129101 Shapere, D. Rationalism and empiricism: A new perspective. Argumentation. ISSN 0920-427X (Print) 1572-8374 (Online). DOI 10.1007/BF00176969. Vol. 2, No. 3. August, 1988. Pp. 299-312. Netherlands: Springer. October 22, 2004. Sini, C. (2004), "Empirismo", in Gianni Vattimo et al. (eds.), Enciclopedia Garzanti della Filosofia. Read More