Saturday, January 9, 2010

Empiricists or Rationalist?

After studying about different empiricist and rationalist philosophers in our philosophy class. I always asked my self this question, which I am going to put forward to you guys is that, is it possible to live or believe as a hardcore empiricists or a hardcore rationalist?
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11 comments:

  1. Gabriel.G.HouleJanuary 9, 2010 at 5:15 PM

    A good question.
    In my opinion, being either too rational or too empirical isn't really optimal.
    I would prefer to be rational 100% of the time, because then I could really consider problems of knowledge and bring about conclusions based upon my own thinking, but then what use are my senses if I can just reason things out all the time?

    Being 100% empirical all the time also doesn't really satisfy me. Sure, you experience things. So what?

    Of course, like Bertrand Russell says, trying to use philosophy in everyday life consciously doesn't really work. So deciding "Hey, living my life like a rationalist is the way to go, 'cause I can reason things out" isn't really something you can do.

    I don't think we get a choice in being a rationalist or an empiricist.

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  2. Alana SpruntJanuary 10, 2010 at 11:21 AM

    I think it is possible to live your life as either purely an empiricist or a rationalist. It would be difficult, but to be a pure empiricist you would only be able to rely on experience and never explore the rational side of thinking. Or, to be a complete rationalist you would only consider everything deductively and from an intellectual point of view rather then what you actually experience in life. While a combination of the two is probably the best way to live your life, i think it is possible to be either a pure empiricist or a rationalist.

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  3. Capitao_BrianJanuary 10, 2010 at 5:55 PM

    That's an interesting question. A hardcore rationalist in my opinion would be more prone to comitting logical fallacies as they would rationalize everything. This is why Albert Camus' protagonist in "The Outsider" gets in trouble as he rationalizes things the common man wouldn't. On the other hand, someone who would use purely empirical thinking would be presupposed to biases and prejudices as everything they know would be based off only what they experienced.This can be disasterous because if they had a continuously bad experience with regards to, let's say the opposite sex, they will believe that more often than not they will have a bad experience, possibly damaging future relationships.

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  4. KristenJanuary 11, 2010 at 12:05 PM

    I do not think you can be strictly empiricist or rationalist. The two overlap in my opinion. If you use pure reason, like a rationalist, then how is it that you are reasoning? I believe there is a certain amount of experience needed for you to be able to make a judgment on a situation or reason the truth in a situation. However, you cannot live purely through senses or experience as our senses can fool us, and our experience is personal. This is evident in Descartes Meditation II, when he observes the different forms of the wax. Even though he is a rationalist, he is still using his sensual experience to rationalize his own minds existence.
    I think balancing the two is the best way to live and believe.
    However, I do also think we often naturally favour one over the other, as I have noticed this even in class.

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  5. AnnaJanuary 12, 2010 at 6:15 PM

    Like all my fellow students have said, I too belive that for me personally I am not completly empiricists or rationalist. I belive this question has strong relevance to Kants branch of epistemology Transcendental Idealism, which he discusses in His Critque of Pure Reason.

    He argues that he can not be fully one or the other. He believes that to be a rationalist can be challengning as the concept of pure reasoning is flawed when it comes to things we must understand outside of knowledge( Ie god, and free will) He also does not belive fully in the idea of empiricism. He agrees with the idea that we perceive the world through our sense, but also ecknowledges that reason is a normal part of the human thought process. Therefore he concludes that he can not be one or the other, but instaed a heathly mix of the two. An idea that I have, and I belive many of my fellow classmates share.

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  6. fatimaJanuary 15, 2010 at 4:23 PM

    in my opinion, it would be hard to live as a pure rationalist or pure empiricist.because then one cannot achieve rational coherence by denying or ignoring some facts of experience, and one cannot achieve empirical capability by ignoring of thoughts/reason. Being a hardcore rationalists would only hold the belief that thought and action should be governed by reason.and if someone is empiricists,they must base their belief on their experiences and the culmination of uniform experiences creats the laws of nature,as David hume mentioned.while a combination of the two is probably the best way to live your life,i think. as alana said.

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  7. xJanuary 18, 2010 at 12:06 AM

    I'm one of those people who live on an "anything is possible" rationale, so I do believe that it's possible to live entirely based on empiricism or rationalism. With this being said, one's life would be extremely biased and it would be difficult to live "normally" (or to face day to day situations). The individual will most likely be forced to live in isolation, in a controlled environment.

    Nevertheless, being a human, one will only start to wonder about the other side. Is the grass truly greener? Will my life be better if I *maybe* incorporated another way of thinking into my lifestyle? I'm sure even Descartes had doubted himself at some point.

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  8. Pratha SJanuary 18, 2010 at 7:39 PM

    Descartes is a rationalist, he believed that knowledge was attained through reason and Hume is a empiricist, he believed that all certain knowledge came from experience. I feel it is necessary for everyone to possess the concept of self identity without having to experience anything. Not everything can be based on experiences. I don't think it is possible to believe fully as empiricist or rationalist!

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  9. Vasil SSJanuary 18, 2010 at 9:05 PM

    If I had to make the choice whether to be a hardcore rationalist or imperialist I would choose to be imperialist. The main reason for my decision is because live is going to be certainly much easier to live. According to Descartes in order to live like rationalist you need to base all your knowledge on certain foundations and if even one of your beliefs is false you need to doubt all your believes. This means that we need to doubt everything in our live which in my opinion is pointless because there are things that are beyond human mind and we probably will never be certain about them. On the other side I like the idea of Hume about constant conjunction where everything is connected and one thing follows from the appearance of other. This way we are going to be able to enjoy our live much more and just obtain knowledge observing what is going on around us.

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  10. genuinelyJanuary 19, 2010 at 1:38 PM

    Living your life as a "complete rationalist" is a broad concept, don't you agree? It all depends on what you believe to be rational. To me, to be at peace with yourself, you have to give yourself an option to be a little of both. Otherwise, you're just closed minded which never helped anyone

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