Empiricism Rationalism And Pragmatism Essay
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Empiricism, Rationalism, and Pragmatism, as theories of knowledge, attempt to prove the nature of reality and what can be considered true or real. All three of these philosophies, however, encounter problems when attempting to prove the nature of reality. How these different philosophies overcome obstacles in their attempt to prove the nature of reality is a factor in discriminating between the three. In the end, however, in all three, a leap of faith must be taken in order to completely accept all that these respective philosophies teach.
David Hume, considered the founder of Empiricism, began by classifying all perceptions into raw impressions which is said to be data and information received through the senses, and ideas which are composites or “bundles” of impressions which lead to or trigger thoughts. These impressions trigger ideas that can be either simple or complex. Hume attempts to descriminate between the two by providing an example of a complex idea, in this case a golden mountain. Hume explains that in thinking of a golden mountain, two ideas of which we had been formerly aquainted with become linked. “Golden” becomes joined with mountain, and one is capable of understanding that the thought of object is both “golden” and “mountain”. One is capable of comprehending this due to past experiences direct or otherwise, with both the idea of “golden” and the idea of “mountain”.
Because of this dependence upon past experiences, a priori reasoning can only be used to relate ideas, such as geometry, arithmetic, or algebra, in which the affirmation of propositions are intuitively certain. However, a priori can not be used to explain or show worldly phenomena. In order to gain an understanding of the world that one lives in, it is necessary to rely upon past experiences and experimental inference, which according to Hume, is based upon a linkage of two events: a cause and an effect. He states that “By means of a revelation alone we can go beyond the evidence of our memory and senses.” (page 49, Rationalism, Empiricism, and Pragmatism) Experimental reasoning can be used to examine the distant past with which one has had no experience and predict remote future occurrences which one is unable to observe.
Experimental reasoning as well as past experiences and observations are the sources of knowledge for Empiricism. However, the experimental reasoning, which is based upon cause and effect reasoning, is not absolutely and concretely true. All can be subject to revision, just as all is subject to some doubt when predicting what would happen in an experiment. Hume states “That the sun will not rise tomorrow is no less intelligible a proposition, and implies no more contradiction, than the affirmation that it will rise tomorrow” (page 43 Rationalism, Empiricism, and Pragmatism) for the past is not necessarily a direct causation of a future event. Because of this, science, an empirical tool used by mankind to explore the world around himself and to learn more about himself, is merely work in probability. It is safe, based upon a posteriori knowledge, that the sun will rise tomorrow, for it has for millennia upon millennia, and there has been no event to show that it might not rise tomorrow. Without this experimental reasoning however, Empiricism is reduced to past experiences, and yet with it, one is able to make statements such as “The sun will rise tomorrow” with a great degree of certainty.
Where Empiricism bases its theory of knowledge upon a posteriori knowledge, Rationalism, founded by Rene Descartes, bases its principles upon the theory of a priori knowledge.
Descartes, when attempting to prove his own existence, stated, “I think therefore I am.” He explains this by saying that he might be a mere figment of the imagination of an omnipotent god. Mere acceptance of fact, therefore can not prove his existence for this could have been implanted in his mind by the a fore mentioned god. However, in doubting propositions placed before him, he himself is thinking, not the god that he states might be in existence. Therefore, in his doubt, lies the certainty that he exists.
By proving he exists, he then goes on to explain what can be considered real. He disregards any information which he has received through the senses for the senses often have often deceived him, and he states that it would be foolhardy to place certainty on any faculty that had once deceived him in the past. Therefore, a posteriori, is thus excluded from what he determines to be real. He believed that intuition was the basis of all certain knowledge which could then be supported by deduction.
In this lies one of the great differences between rationalism and empiricism. In empiricism, an a priori statement is considered analytic; that is, a statement that is irrefutable. However, these statements hardly reveal much, for “the predicate is contained in its subject” (page 46). What one learns in the predicate, was already known in the subject, and therefore, the idea presented is hardly a revelation of any kind. In stating “barking dogs bark” as in Rationalism Empiricism, and Pragmatism, nothing is learned or gained...
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