Rationalism and Empiricism- an overview

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Descartes: Cogito ergo sum, I think, therefore I am

Proponent of rationalism, belief that reason is the most reliable source of knowledge

Believed in deduction and logic

Mostly immaterial world deductions: He exists as a thinking being, God exists

Plato

Empiricism

Belief that sense-experience is the most reliable source of knowledge

Induction and the scientific method: ways of thinking that tell us about the material world

Aristotle, John Locke

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Thinkers of empiricism

John Locke

Tabula rasa; we are born as a blank slate, and all knowledge is gained through experience

Rejected concept of innate ideas

Understood that senses can mislead, but unlike Descartes, does not discredit them entirely

Distinguishes between primary and secondary qualities of all things. Primary qualities are physical attributes, eg solidity, density, weight and mass, shape, mobility etc. Cannot be false. Secondary qualities are not real, but in our minds. Color, taste, texture smell and sound.

Primary qualities are always true, second will be disputable.

George Berkeley

Dismantled whole process of perception. Took apart distinction btw two by arguing that they were inextricably interlinked, impossible to perceive one without the other (how will a colorless and textureless apple exist?)

Esse est percipi: to be is to be perceived. Essentially nothing exists, perceivers are disembodied minds.

God as ultimate perceiver: always watching.