Since the dawn of time, man has continually attempted to further his understanding of how he attains knowledge. There has always been a thirst for knowledge inside of every human being ever since we were even in our most primitive states. After that, philosophers emerged and with them came new ideas. These ideas came into existence because of man's hunger for knowledge and for greater understanding of himself. However, one major question has been asked since then; What does man rely on most for knowing what is true? There is definitely an answer to this question. However, we must understand that there are two sides to this argument: The Empiricist side and the Rationalist side.
Empiricism is defined as the theory that states that knowledge appears from evidence gathered from experiencing something. This theory emphasizes the role of experience and evidence forming our perception of what is and what is not real. On the other side is Rationalism. This is a philosophical theory which states that what we perceive as real is not drawn from experience and evidence but rather from intellect and deduction. Rationalism bases its theories on the assertion that reason has the upper hand on other ways of understanding and believing knowledge such such as experiencing it first hand. Thereby splitting this argument into two sides.
Before debating which side is the right side, we must understand that both sides are extremely valid. I will state that I believe that I am much more of an Empiricist than a Rationalist. Usually, I grasp knowledge when I have done something myself rather than think about a certain thing. For example, one can read hours on how to drive a car. However, will they really be able to conduct the vehicle with ease and precision? I seriously doubt this. If one believes in god or a form of god simply through thinking of a god rather than witnessing or observing it, do we really know that it is real? Does believing and conjuring an idea of a higher power make it true? In my opinion, No. This idea makes us wonder what we are perceiving is real, whether it’s what we see and experience or what we believe and ponder is true. However, I will always know what I am going through is real due to the fact that I am the one experiencing this, which is why I am on the Empiricist side of this argument.
In conclusion, although both sides have their own positives and negatives, my allegiance is pledged towards Empiricism due to the fact that through evidence and experience there is no doubt in my mind that something is tangible and real, not to deny that using reason and deduction will allow us to perceive that something is real. In fact, Plato’s allegory of The Cave can be used in this situation as just because you have not seen or experienced something, does not make it any less real. However, to reiterate, the fact something is real is implanted in your head once you have experienced it.
More to come,
-Mason
Sir Moose, although i'm not in Philosophy, im following your blog and reading all your posts haha :p I found this to be a pretty cool topic to be writing about and i think you stated your points quite well, especially with the example of conducting a car. Although you might call urself an Empirialist,i actually see you as quite the Rationalist haha. You could have gone maybe a little more in depth about it all but all in all i think this was a great post.
ReplyDeleteyes a very interesting subject. althou i never tought about it, the answer to this question can say a little something about your personality or so i think.
ReplyDeleteall life forms from bacterias to animals even humans when they are born, they have this set of instructions implanted in themselfs. you can think of it as flash or ROM read only memory. it's not something you learn, you simply know this from birth. for example if a loud sudden noise happens in your vicinity, you'll get alerted. you don't ask yourself "should i be alerted?". you do it by instinct. or the way a spider makes his web - the spider didn't learn from its parents. or a wild monitor lizard who's afraid of humans at first, but it can be tamed to live peacefully in your house. when the animal is tamed, it understands that you don't represent a danger so it learned something important. and it seems like the more evolved a specie is, the ratio between the things you know at birth, and those you have to learn, this ratio continually decreases. a newborn human has to spend 18 years until he can be considered an adult and maybe has all the necesary knowledge in order to survive on his own. but newborns from other species sometimes live on their own since birth - because they already know all they need.
it's easy to associate the empiric knowledge with that ROM which you know from birth and the rationality with what you learn on the course of your life.
a little child is not instinctively afraid of pitbulls unless he had a bad experience probably because his grand-grand-..-grand-parents weren't afraid either. but he'd better be afraid because those animals can maul him. but when he grows up? if he's still afraid of dogs, he'd be a coward. so you need this balance between instinct and rationality. when i was 11 i gave food to a community dog and i was petting it while it was eating. i thought the dog would be nice to me if i gave it food so i used my rationality. but i didn't use my instinct to see that it's just a filthy re7arded dog so the facking animal barked at me and scratched me on the nose with its claw!