Rationalism vs. Empiricism

[GamingWolf]

Interestingly enough, you're asking us the difference in MBTI type between xNxx types and xSxx types.

[Donfuy]

There's one that's on the "middle" of those. At least that was what I learned in Philosophy.

I don't remember the name of that movement though (I learned this stuff 2 years ago, I think).

I think both movements are now generally rejected by mostly everyone in the world.



Let's see a baby. When he comes out to the world, he knows nothing. Well, according to Rationalists, he already knows things and according to Empirists, he knows nothing until he starts feeling something.

The junction of Empiricism and Rationalism results in the actual situation of the man (messed up expression), where that baby needs to experience things (such as learn a language) so that he can then create connections in his mind, while he "knows" things such as the need for food (instincts).



Of course, I wasn't such a good student at Philosophy and probably many of the things above are wrong/partly wrong.



EDIT: but if I had to choose one of the two, I'd choose Empirism. Most of the acknowledgments, I learn through the senses.

[scythe]

Kant is about as easy and fun to read as Joyce, but I'm inclined to agree with him on a number of things, including this debate.

[blue_tetris]

I'm a rationalist at heart.

^ _> ~

[Tanner]

Has Hume been trolling you again, Demonz? I'm a Rationalist.

[otters~1]

Rationalist.

I believe that some ideas--like music--are ingrained in us from birth. Besides, most animals are proof: Baby wolves (for example) are born with instinctive ideas about survival. I think humans are largely the same.

[SlappyMcGee]

Isn't it more likely that we experienced something during conception that we have no memory of that gave us these attributes? Say, perhaps, that there is some sort of superliminal connection between yourself and your mother, and you experience something in that connection that while you can't specifically remember what that is, you can still benefit from it.

I'm an empiricist.

[Tanner]

I think this thread has potential so I'm gonna throw the first stone here.

Empiricism not only wrong, it is dangerous as well. It follows an Ouroborosian logic that threatens not only its own existence but the existence of everything, ever. Let me explain.

Hume had previously submitted a thought experiment wherein we were given a child who was born without touch, smell, taste, sight, hearing, anything and let that child be raised without sensation to the age of 18. Now, asked Hume, is there a thought in this 18 year old head? Hume would have answered no, and as such, would have defined himself as an empiricist.

However, there are two problems with this. The first concerns the nature of "substance." If all of our knowledge comes from sensory data, what exactly is this substance that is supposed to give off the sensory data itself? If you try to imagine what this substance is, apart from what is sensed, you'll find yourself thinking about nothing whatsoever.

Secondly, if one starts with the premise that all knowledge comes to us through our senses, one must then ask, From what sense data is our knowledge of causality received? In other words, what is the scientific empirical basis of causation? Hume's answer is "None." Like substance, causation is something that we imagine when one thing follows another. And you begin to see how the very building blocks of this universe are beginning to be torn asunder. Thankfully, we have a caped avenger on the horizon and he has crafted a work called the Critique of Pure Reason.

"That all our knowledge begins with experience, there is indeed no doubt.... but although our knowledge originates WITH experience, it does not all arise OUT OF experience." - Immanuel Kant

And so we have a priori and a timely escape from the solipsism of Hume. An example of a priori knowledge is time. None of the five senses allow you to feel time and it's not a product of our socialization. It's something more. Time is what Kant calls an "intuition," which the mind must supply as it receives the sense data. And, Demonz, don't let your positivist friends push you around on the matter either? Their answers to a priori are as metaphysical as SlappyMcGee's mother-child womb bond... and who supports the metaphysical end of things? Rationlists.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

I think this thread has potential so I'm gonna throw the first stone here.

Empiricism not only wrong, it is dangerous as well. It follows an Ouroborosian logic that threatens not only its own existence but the existence of everything, ever. Let me explain.

Hume had previously submitted a thought experiment wherein we were given a child who was born without touch, smell, taste, sight, hearing, anything and let that child be raised without sensation to the age of 18. Now, asked Hume, is there a thought in this 18 year old head? Hume would have answered no, and as such, would have defined himself as an empiricist.

However, there are two problems with this. The first concerns the nature of "substance." If all of our knowledge comes from sensory data, what exactly is this substance that is supposed to give off the sensory data itself? If you try to imagine what this substance is, apart from what is sensed, you'll find yourself thinking about nothing whatsoever.

Secondly, if one starts with the premise that all knowledge comes to us through our senses, one must then ask, From what sense data is our knowledge of causality received? In other words, what is the scientific empirical basis of causation? Hume's answer is "None." Like substance, causation is something that we imagine when one thing follows another. And you begin to see how the very building blocks of this universe are beginning to be torn asunder. Thankfully, we have a caped avenger on the horizon and he has crafted a work called the Critique of Pure Reason.

"That all our knowledge begins with experience, there is indeed no doubt.... but although our knowledge originates WITH experience, it does not all arise OUT OF experience." - Immanuel Kant

And so we have a priori and a timely escape from the solipsism of Hume. An example of a priori knowledge is time. None of the five senses allow you to feel time and it's not a product of our socialization. It's something more. Time is what Kant calls an "intuition," which the mind must supply as it receives the sense data. And, Demonz, don't let your positivist friends push you around on the matter either? Their answers to a priori are as metaphysical as SlappyMcGee's mother-child womb bond... and who supports the metaphysical end of things? Rationlists.

tl;dr: You can't accept empiricism because it brings with it the remote possibility that you're just schizophrenic? Far as I know, solipsism isn't any contradiction or impossibility; it's just a trivial, dead-end solution.

Having read extremely little into this particular subject, I can only say that it makes sense to me that sentient things (or humans, at least) have the mechanism for learning, processing the outside world, storing and retrieving memories, aversion to pain, basic emotions, etc., all before they open their eyes and start taking in information about the world outside the womb. I picture it to be something like a self-improving machine being prepared for its first iteration.
I think this would make me a rationalist?

[otters~1]

Both of the above two posts covered my ideas more fluently than I could have. Thank you.

And like Tanner said, I would cordially ask any aspiring Empiricist to explain intuition.

[Tanner]

You can't accept empiricism because it brings with it the remote possibility that you're just schizophrenic? Far as I know, solipsism isn't any contradiction or impossibility; it's just a trivial, dead-end solution.

I can't accept empiricism because it brings with it the insistence that the entire universe is schizophrenic. You may have a stronger stomach than I do, Suki, but that's a can of worms that I don't particularly want to open.

[blue_tetris]

You can't accept empiricism because it brings with it the remote possibility that you're just schizophrenic? Far as I know, solipsism isn't any contradiction or impossibility; it's just a trivial, dead-end solution.

I can't accept empiricism because it brings with it the insistence that the entire universe is schizophrenic. You may have a stronger stomach than I do, Suki, but that's a can of worms that I don't particularly want to open.

The truth isn't the answer that sickens you the least.

Your metaphors are a loser. Make better metaphors.

As for the previous... (tl;dr/indulgent). Let me simplify what Tanner says for the non-pretensious and see if it still makes sense:

Empiricism is wrong and harmful to your health. It has circular logic which makes it false, but also destroys the whole universe.
Hume wondered "Do people without sensory capabilities think?". He said no, so he's an empiricist.
What about substance? We only know things from our senses, so we figure stuff is there. But if you try to imagine stuff without thinking about what it looks like, it's not there.
So why do things happen? Hume says they don't. The universe is now breaking apart.
Intuition must exist, which means the universe doesn't exist just within Hume's mind. Time is only intuitive. You can't see time and you never learned about it.

*returns to TF2*

[Atilla]

Empiricism means the whole world is schizophrenic? Rationalism is just as bad. If I claim to know that the sky is green, and go on to ignore all evidence to the contrary because intuition is better than observation, I think it's fairly clear that something has gone terribly wrong. Rationalism gives you an excuse to believe a delusion, even when there is no evidence to support it.

People are designed to use both intuition and observation, which is why we have both a brain and sensory organs. One is not universally "superior" or more reliable than the other, and indeed they don't even work properly without each other. To make useful deductions, you need some information as a starting point, unless you just make stuff up and claim it's true; to use observations, you need to be able to reason to some extent - otherwise it's just a mass of data without meaning.

[otters~1]

Empiricism means the whole world is schizophrenic? Rationalism is just as bad. If I claim to know that the sky is green, and go on to ignore all evidence to the contrary because intuition is better than observation, I think it's fairly clear that something has gone terribly wrong. Rationalism gives you an excuse to believe a delusion, even when there is no evidence to support it.

People are designed to use both intuition and observation, which is why we have both a brain and sensory organs. One is not universally "superior" or more reliable than the other, and indeed they don't even work properly without each other. To make useful deductions, you need some information as a starting point, unless you just make stuff up and claim it's true; to use observations, you need to be able to reason to some extent - otherwise it's just a mass of data without meaning.

...which is why Demonz said at the beginning that it's an oversimplification. Of course the middle road is correct. I seriously doubt anyone who's posted so far would deny that parts of each theory are true. We're debating which part is more important, not which is completely and finally correct.

[scythe]

I've also been talking to a bunch of positivists lately, and they think I'm completely nuts for even considering rationalism.

That's positively insa-
/me snickers
Anywho, you sound like you might be interested in this, considering you find Kant to be insufferable.

[Atilla]

We're debating which part is more important, not which is completely and finally correct.

Right, and I'm saying "neither", because they're complimentary. It's like asking whether the eye or the part of the brain associated with visual perception is more important to sight - if there is a deficiency in either, you can't see properly, so they're both important. You also can't really compensate for one with the other - if you're short-sighted, you won't be able to focus on distant objects no matter how good your brain is.

[otters~1]

I agree with you that reason and intuition are both equally important towards survival.

[otters~1]

I don't know if the question is even "which is more important: reason or observation?" I think the question is, rather, which is more fundamental? Which do we use to derive the other?

Well, intuition comes first. Babies can intuit, but they cannot use what one would call reason until they're much older. Therefore, reason is intuitional? Hmm. I'm confusing myself.

[jean-luc]

I don't know if the question is even "which is more important: reason or observation?" I think the question is, rather, which is more fundamental? Which do we use to derive the other?

Well, intuition comes first. Babies can intuit, but they cannot use what one would call reason until they're much older. Therefore, reason is intuitional? Hmm. I'm confusing myself.

I'd call intuition the more fundamental of them, as reason seems like intuition extended. I mean, I don't think you really reason about anything until your intuition points you that way. That's why scientists, the masters of reason, sometimes fail to notice things that are placed clearly before them by the data - their intuition does not suggest it, so they do not reason about it.

[scythe]

I don't know if the question is even "which is more important: reason or observation?" I think the question is, rather, which is more fundamental? Which do we use to derive the other?

Well, intuition comes first. Babies can intuit, but they cannot use what one would call reason until they're much older. Therefore, reason is intuitional? Hmm. I'm confusing myself.

I'd call intuition the more fundamental of them, as reason seems like intuition extended. I mean, I don't think you really reason about anything until your intuition points you that way. That's why scientists, the masters of reason, sometimes fail to notice things that are placed clearly before them by the data - their intuition does not suggest it, so they do not reason about it.

Reminds me of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.