Rationalism And Epistemology Essay

Epistemology, the question of “how do we know what we know?” that has plagued philosophers since Socrates himself. The problem at hand seems to be that we can not be certain of where our knowledge originates. Over the centuries of human thought, many have tried to tackle such a question. To this day, however, there is no sufficient answer at all. The two major schools of thought I am looking at are empiricism and rationalism, both attempts to answer such a complex question that couldn’t quite reach the goal.
The first look at an answer is rationalism. Rationalism uses a plethora of theses and theories to explore the answer to the question of where our knowledge comes from. In particular, three of these theses make up the backbone of rationalist belief. The first of these is the Intuition/Deduction Thesis. This is the idea that a certain propositions in a particular subject in question, X, are knowable only by intuition. This is followed by the idea that propositions not in this category are only knowable when deduced from intuition. Claims in rationalism can vary in levels of controversy with regards to what is derived from one’s intuition. Furthermore, rationalist agreement on the role of intuition is varied. Some rationalists believe what is intuited without a doubt holds truth. Although there isn’t a completely opposite extreme, …show more content…
Rationalism stakes its claims in A Priori knowledge, a claim empiricism already shows the fallacies of. Empiricism claims experience is the only source of knowledge, a claim that rationalism already shows the fallacies of. Examining what is wrong with rationalism through empiricism, or the other way around, would argue empiricism or rationalism is closer to the truth than the other. I do not think this is the case, but think it is important to view the fallacies both sides accuse the other of in order to fully develop what each school of thought is