Rationalism (Rene Descartes) and Empiricism (David Hume) Essay

Rationalism (Rene Descartes) and Empiricism (David Hume) - Essay ExampleAccording to the call fork findings there argon two contrastive schools of thought while virtuoso gives premium to primer, the other gives premium to experience. The first school of thought that gives premium to reason is the rationalist school of thought. The second school of thought is the empiricist school. While the major prop angiotensin converting enzyment for rationalism is Rene Descartes, the major proponent of luridness is David Hume. Lacey states that rationalism is any turn over appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification. Instead of appealing to emotions and their sensory organs, rationalists appeal to the intellect. Like all things, there are extremes in rationalism. While the opinion of some rationalists tends to fall largely in line with empiricism, meaning that they share many links with empiricism the opinion of others collide with no reasons with empiricism at all. The fo rmer category of rationalists is not absolute in the beliefs they hold about the power of reason. The latter category of rationalists is of those that may safely be described as extreme rationalist. They are the ones that see that all things can be resolved through reasoning. Although, empiricism as a doctrine has already been broached in this essay, it is yet important to explain further. Unlike rationalism which states that most truths and ideas can be attained mainly through reason, empiricism states that all ideas, knowledge and truths can be attained through experience and what can be sensed by using human senses. The typical empiricist go away ask How do you believe what youve not experienced? So, for the empiricist, experience is all. It is through experience that one gets evidence to substantiate whatever opinion one clings to. Empiricists believe that there is no just reason to believe a thing or an opinion which one is not able to test. They do not see reasons why anyone would rely solely on abstract reasoning without applying sense-based experiments (Markie 233). To such empiricist who questions why anyone would trust what they stomach not seen, rationalists would argue that before that which is seen and witnessed (experience and experiments) came to being, there was that which was not seen (reasoning). Asides David Hume, other philosophers that can be categorized as empiricists are Francis Bacon, John Stuart Mill and Thomas Hobbes. Before one assumes any stance in philosophy, one must have premises that back up the point one makes. One must also be sure to know that all those who have held one opinion or the other about any issue have reasons, most times cogent, for sticking to their opinion. Yet, based on arguments that have been locomote overtime, it wont be wrong to assume that rationalsim carries the day. In putting up a paper like this together, it is important that one lends credence to objectivity. By some yardsticks, one may say that em piricists are right. This is because when rationalists carry out what they believe is the key thingreasoning, one must note that they do not think in abstract, they almost certainly think about things that have been