The Arguments Of Rationalism: Comparing Descarte And Hume

As time passes, knowledge becomes more complex and philosophers start to develop different theories regarding how people come about this knowledge. There is a distinct difference between both Rationalism and Empiricism and both Descartes and Locke have found ways to discredit and support both views. Descartes argument towards Rationalism is much stronger than Hume's argument towards Empiricism.

There is quite the distinction between both empiricism and rationalism. The major difference between rationalism and empiricism concerns their knowledge basis. rationalism is the belief in innate ideas, reasoning, and deduction, while empiricism is the belief that there is sense perception, inductions, and no innate ideas. To make more clear the rationalist theory says that knowledge is gained through pure thinking and reasoning and that knowledge is gained prior to experience. This a priori knowledge is reached through deduction, which means conclusions are then based on if premises in an argument hold true making the arguments valid. Empiricism on the other hand, claims that our knowledge that we gain comes from experience. Empiricists argue that, to undermine false claims of knowledge, any expectation or belief cannot be classed as knowledge unless tested by experience. This …show more content…
There are three distinct types of knowledge that the rationalist might put forward as supporting his view and undermining that of the empiricist.

First, the rationalist might argue that we possess at least some innate knowledge. We are not born, as the empiricist John Locke thought, with minds like blanks slates onto which experience writes items of knowledge. Rather, even before we experience the world there are some things that we know. We at least possess some basic instincts; arguably, we also possess some innate concepts, such as a faculty for