RATIONALISTS AND EMPIRICISTS By Dr Peter Critchley 2011

Critchley, P., 2011. Rationalists and Empiricits. [e-book] Available through: Academia website <http://independent.academia. Edu/PeterCritchley/Papers

Epistemology is the branch of philosophy which concerns what is known and how is it known. The rationalists argue that the acquisition of knowledge comes primarily through the use of reason. The empiricists argue knowledge is acquired mainly as a result of experience gained through the senses. It would be no exaggeration to claim that the history of Western philosophy is characterised by this dualism of reason and experience, deciding whether one or the other is the foundational principle of knowledge. This has been the principal controversy between two extremely influential philosophical schools - rationalism and empiricism. There are three key distinctions which elucidate just what is at stake in this clash between rationalist and empiricist theories of knowledge.

1) a priori vs a posteriori A priori knowledge refers to something that is knowable without reference to experience, that is, without the need for any empirical investigation of the world. '10 - 6 = 4' is known a priori there is no need to investigate the world to establish its truth. A posteriori knowledge requires empirical investigation. The statement 'grass is green' is an a posteriori truth that needs to be verified by finding a patch of grass and determining its colour.

2) analytic vs synthetic An analytic proposition does not require any more information than is contained in the meanings of the terms involved. The truth of the statement 'My brothers wife is my sister-in-law is self-evidently true on account of understanding the meaning and relation of the words used. A synthetic statement requires more information than is contained in the statement. 'My sister-in-law has pink hair brings together (synthesizes) different concepts and thus provides significant information. To determine whether the statement is true or not requires empirical observation of my sister-in-laws hair to establish its colour. 3)necessary vs contingent A necessary truth is one that could not be otherwise - it must be true in any circumstances and in all possible worlds. A contingent truth is true but might not have been true if circumstances had been different. Thus, the statement 'Most Welsh men sing well' is contingent. Whether it is true or not depend on how well most Welsh men sing. By contrast, if it is true that all Welsh men sing well and that Bryn is a Welsh man, then it is necessarily true (a matter of logic, in this instance) that Bryn sings well. The analytic/synthetic distinction originates in the work of Immanuel Kant. In the Critique of Pure Reason Kant is concerned to demonstrate that there are certain concepts or categories of thought - substance and causation, for instance - which cannot be discovered empirically from the world but which are required in order to make sense of the world. Kant proceeds to delineate the nature and justification of these categories or concepts and of the synthetic a priori knowledge that stems from them. The tripartite theory of knowledge

These dualisms should not be taken as an either/or opposition between rationalism and empiricism. There would appear to be a clear congruity between the terms. If true, an analytic statement is necessarily true and therefore is known a priori; if true, a synthetic proposition is contingently true and is therefore known a posteriori. However, this alignment is too tidy. The principal difference between rationalists and empiricists lies in the way that they line up their terms. Thus rationalists set out to demonstrate the truth of synthetic a priori statements that significant or meaningful facts about the world can be discovered by rational means without empirical observation. In contrast, empiricists set out to demonstrate that apparently a priori facts are in fact analytic statements. As in mathematics, 1 + 7 = 8. The field of mathematics has been the battleground where empiricists and rationalists have most often come to blows. Going back to Plato, mathematics is the paradigm of knowledge within the rationalist tradition, presenting an abstract realm of objects which are capable of being known by the use of reason alone. Empiricists hit back, either demonstrating that mathematical facts are essentially analytic or trivial or denying that such facts can be known in this manner. The former route typically takes the form of arguing that what are purported to be the abstract facts of mathematics are actually human constructs and that therefore mathematical reasoning is ultimately a matter of convention. This is not discovery and truth but consensus and proof. Mathematics has not a foot to stand upon which is not purely metaphysical (Thomas de Quincey 1830). European rivalries The British empiricists of the 17th and 18th centuries - Locke, Berkeley and Hume - are typically ranged against their Continental 'rivals', the rationalists Descartes, Leibniz and Spinoza. There is value in this division, but the substance of the points at issue cannot be apprehended in outline, only in the detailed investigation of the philosophers involved. An outline is a handy peg on which to hang complex arguments. Serious treatment means going beyond

simple divisions and categorizations. The philosopher considered to be the founder of rationalism, Descartes, is not at all averse to empirical inquiry. Locke, who considered experience to be the basis of knowledge, makes many rationalist arguments concerning intellectual insight or intuition.

Alternatives to foundationalism For all of these differences, rationalists and empiricists are in agreement that there is some basis on which our knowledge is founded. For rationalists it is reason, for empiricists it is experience. The empiricist Scottish philosopher David Hume can criticize Descartes for his attempt to find a foundation for rational certainty on the basis of which all our knowledge could be corroborated, including the truthfulness of our senses. However, in making this criticism, Hume does not deny that the possibility of finding any basis, simply Descartes view that this foundation can exclude the common experience and the natural systems of belief of human beings. Both rationalism and empiricism are essentially foundationalist. Other approaches discard this basic assumption. Coherentism conceives knowledge to be an interlocking mesh of beliefs, the strands of which support each other to form a coherent body or structure. This body or structure lacks a single foundation, hence the coherentist slogan: 'every argument needs premises, but there is nothing that is the premise of every argument.'