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Rationalism and Empiricism: Is It Possible to Mix a Little of Each?
I want to start looking at the history of skepticism and uncertainty in conjunction with the release of my second book in August 2021, titled Beyond Reason.
Before I do that, I wanted to highlight a brief distinction between rationalism and empiricism.
Rationalists and empiricists differ on their understanding of how knowledge is obtained. Rationalists argue that the only reliable method of obtaining justified knowledge is by reasoning. In contrast, empiricists argue that it is mainly attained via the senses.
Rationalists argue that the senses are unreliable and deceive us. In other words, the most reliable means of obtaining knowledge is by making (a) sound logical deductive arguments, that are necessarily true, or (b) strong inductive arguments, that are likely true.
Empiricists paradoxically argue that the senses are reliable and that our intuitions tamper with empirical reasoning. The empiricists further argue that we objectively use reason only after we acquired these ideas via the senses. In that sense, the two views rely on each other. An objection to rationalism, thus, is that no piece of information can be gained merely by appealing to reason.
