"Experience and Reason: Epistemological Vantage Points"
written by ben bussewitz
The earth contains the means to come to have knowledge of beautiful ideas. Everything is an idea. For instance, the word "cat" is a concept that conjures up an idea, namely a pussy cat who licks your hand and wants you to pet her, some of the time, anyway. Cats also enjoy time spent alone, in their peaceful home. Well, how did we domesticate them so well?
The earth contains lots of ideas. Here is an experiment for you to try out in thought. Think of lots of words and the concepts they conjure up, each word. Check a dictionary, in case you need a reference.
The earth has lots of ideas and in any good idea there is "knowledge." Hence, epistemology is the field of philosophy which is rightly understood as "the study of knowledge."
If you do not know how to apply epistemology to ascertain and store true knowledge, good knowledge in your mind, have no fear, alas, epistemology is here, one of the services provided in epistemology, "the theory of knowledge," is by looking into this philosophical school, one is able to find more ways to obtain truths, or "true knowledge." Knowledge, according to the predominate understanding of epistemology in the cannon, is able to be equated to "true, justified beliefs." In this sense, we can see that we have a true idea that is justified, a true justified belief of what one of these are, when we conjure up the word, that is a concept and an idea, "car." We picture them. We do not have true justified belief that cars are like tanks that miniature army men use while kids play with them, well employed. But we can recall, rather, in the earth we have been astounded by, and remember the way in which cars presented to our person, the way we saw them or understood the way in which they drove the street in nonchalance and peace to bring the driver and the passengers to the place those persons wish to be! So now, thinking of the concept "car" shows us that we know what cars are, what that word means, what that idea means, and as such, "we have the knowledge of what cars are," or, in other words, "we have true justified belief of the meaning of cars."
Where does rationalism and empiricism fall into all this. The truest way to understand these two competing schools of epistemology, "epistemology" being a branch of "philosophy," "the branch of philosophy that studies knowledge," is to see the way in which within this school of philosophy, epistemology, these are historically important two beautiful ways to look at epistemology, and that we can utilize in "the system we construct to understand and ascertain knowledge," our epistemologies, one could add. Empiricism states, on the one hand, "all knowledge is derivative of experience." Rationalism, on the other, argues that "all knowledge comes from reason."
We see here, to extend our understanding of these two schools of "the study of knowledge," we can see by formulating the understanding differently, in a way that is more elucidating: empiricism relies on the senses as the basis of knowledge claims (ears, eyes, nose, mouth, feeling) and rationalism depends on thought based in rationality, or good reason.
So, which do you choose: rationalism, or empiricism?
This was a hotly debated topic during the Enlightenment, which of these epistemologies people ought to choose, with debates from left and right field.
Why not be both a rationalist and an empiricist?
I say, we shall come to knowledge from reason and our senses, both, rather than saying one is not a worthwhile means by which to attain "truths" or pieces of knowledge, or knowledge claims, or propositional truths, or knowledge propositions (these are five synonymous modes by which to refer to "a truth that one knows.")
Alas, I am an empiricist and a rationalist. I see that knowledge comes from the fountain of experience and the fountain of reason, both.
John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rosseau, David Hume, and Aristotle were each empiricists, in that they looked at experience as the fountain of all knowledge.
Rene Descartes and Plato were rationalists, in that they looked at the fountain of all knowledge to be reason.
Why ponder the either or about where we place the derivative fountain of our truths, our knowledge propositions. We can say all is game, empiricism, rationalism, or whatever else helps us come to "knowledge claims," or truths.
[fin]
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- ben bussewitz
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