The Enlightenment was the philosophical movement that dominated in Europe in the 18th century. One of the core ideas of the movement was that reason should be the source of legitimacy and authority rather than faith and the Catholic doctrine (we'll talk more about catholicism vs. secularism in next week's newsletter).
The Rationalism vs. Empiricism debate emerged out of these ideas during the Enlightenment period and became critical to the branch of modern philosophy called epistemology (the study of the nature, sources, and limits of knowledge) throughout the 18th century.
Rationalism is the idea that reason is the chief source of knowledge (ie. there are certain innate truths about the world that can be deduced from intellect alone).
Whereas,
Empiricism is the theory that knowledge comes from sensory experience (ie. that when we are born we have a "blank slate" and thoughts arise from our experiences).
Two of the core thinkers who influenced the philosophical movement of the Enlightenment were René Descartes (1596-1650) and John Locke (1632-1704). These two are often viewed as the original 'rationalist' and 'empiricist' thinkers, respectively. Although, scholars have picked up on the fact that neither are strictly 'rationalist' or 'empiricist' and hold some beliefs that align with the other.
Nowadays, most scholars agree that there are three main theses that are essential to the debate between rationalists and empiricists (from 'Rationalism vs Empiricism', the second link below):
(1) The Intuition/Deduction Thesis: Some propositions in a particular subject area, S, are knowable by us by intuition alone; still others are knowable by being deduced from intuited propositions.
(2) The Innate Knowledge Thesis: We have knowledge of some truths in a particular subject area, S, as part of our nature.
(3) The Innate Concept Thesis: We have some of the concepts we employ in a particular subject area, S, as part of our rational nature.
There is so much more to say about Rationalism vs. Empiricism, much of which I am barely yet to understand myself, let alone of which I'd be able to summarise here.
So, use the links below to dive deeper into the topic, if you're interested. This is our first week of diving into Philosophy, so don't worry if you find it confusing and like a total mindf**k. That's the point. Philosophy is meant to make you question the meaning of life.
Embrace it and try to figure out what you think. Do you think that there are certain truths about the world that we are able to derive from thought alone or do we only think about things because of our experiences in the world?
You might want to use these trains of thought as ways to analyse your ideas in your essay. E.g. does your thesis rely heavily on rationalism or empiricism? What would Descartes or Locke think about your idea?
