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Key Concepts: Clearly and Distinctly Perceived by The Mind Alone

The document outlines the key concepts of rationalism and empiricism. Rationalists believe that reason and innate ideas allow us to know reality, while empiricists believe that knowledge comes from sense experience and observation. Some key rationalist concepts are a priori knowledge, innate ideas, and necessity, while key empiricist concepts include a posteriori reasoning, sensation/reflection, and contingent truths based on correspondence with experience.

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Cris Carry-on
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59 views1 page

Key Concepts: Clearly and Distinctly Perceived by The Mind Alone

The document outlines the key concepts of rationalism and empiricism. Rationalists believe that reason and innate ideas allow us to know reality, while empiricists believe that knowledge comes from sense experience and observation. Some key rationalist concepts are a priori knowledge, innate ideas, and necessity, while key empiricist concepts include a posteriori reasoning, sensation/reflection, and contingent truths based on correspondence with experience.

Uploaded by

Cris Carry-on
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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KEY CONCEPTS

THE RATIONALIST TRADITIONS (Plato-Anselm-Descartes)

Rationalist - They trust ideas, reason and intuitive (immediate knowledge). It is reason applied
to our ideas that allows us to know the nature of reality. Rationalists tend to be concerned with
certainty and are suspicious of experience.

Apriori - That which is ʻbeforeʼ. A statement or proposition whose truth is self-evident.


Knowledge that is independent of any sense experience.

Innate Ideas - Certain or true Ideas the mind is born with. A certain predisposition or capacity
that is developed later with reason. In Descartes the discovery of such ideas are said to be
clearly and distinctly perceived by the mind alone.

Coherence Theory of Truth - A test of truth in which new ideas are evaluated in terms of
rational or logical consistency with already established truths or a system of beliefs.
Contradiction often serves as a check for the falsity of a presumed truth.

Necessity - In our narrow use, it refers to the way language works following the rules of logic.
That which is necessarily true cannot be denied without contradiction. The most common type
of statements associated with necessity are analytic statements involving the principle of identity
or tautologies like ʻitʼs raining or itʼs not rainingʼ, Definitions like ʻA bachelor is an unmarried
manʼ, and enumerations like ʻ today is MTWTHFS or Sundayʼ. Their truth is a function of the
way language works.

THE EMPIRICISTS TRADITIONS (Aristotle, Aquinas, Locke)

Empirical - Knowledge begins with or is built up from sense experience, and observation. In
contrast to the rationalists, empiricists trust the senses and are suspicious of rational truths
established independently of any experience. Since logical (analytic) truths are independent of
our experience, we cannot know what they have to do with the world.

Aposteriori - That which comes ʻafterʼ. Reasoning from effects to their cause. I come home
and find my house trashed, a window broken, and the electronic equipment missing. I conclude
from the evidence that my house was broken into.

Sensation/Reflection - In Locke, These provide the source for our ideas. Sensation is a
passive activity where the mind receives impressions (sense data) from a source outside itself.
Reflection is an active state of the mind working on its own ideas by comparing, contrasting,
and reasoning. Without sensation, the mind would have no ideas to reflect upon.

Correspondence Theory of Truth - A test of truth in which our ideas must correspond to an
actual state of affairs or events in the world of our experience to be meaningful. What I say
must correspond to what there is, if it is to be meaningful.

Contingent - The statement, ʻitʼs raining outsideʼ, is contingent. It may be true or false
depending on what is happening outside. Before we check, it is only probable. Because most
truths are contingent for the empiricist, they lack the kind of certainty required by the rationalist.

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