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Yesterday's post opened a pandora's box of interesting discussion regarding truth and ikkarei emunah, and the volume of comments leads me to wonder if some of you sleep with a keyboard by your pillow : ) I just wanted to step back a little and offer some perspective. We can type from today to tomorrow, but this whole issue ultimately comes back to some old philosophical debates that I doubt we are going to resolve anytime soon.

Existentialism Kierkegaar d—5 evidently failed to satisfy the specifically religious needs of humanity for Kierkegaard, Hegelian idealism concedes too much to humanism and rationalism and thus neglects or distorts the meaning of faith in response Kierkegaard develops radical version of the fideist position. Immanuel Kant: Combining Empiricism and Rationalism By Kenneth Shouler, Ph.D. Kant goes down in the history of thought as a giant. Kant declared himself neither empiricist nor rationalist but achieved a synthesis of the two in his greatest work The Critique of Pure Reason. Torical traditions of black thought – vitalist, existentialist, rationalist, and humanist – all of which he finds problematic, leads him to. The third tradition, existentialist thought, is a derivitive of these two, viewing. African-American culture as restrictive. Henry wants to combine the existential–phenomenological orientation of.

In this corner: Existentialism. To quote Wikipedia (not the best source, but short and too the point): 'Kierkegaard argued that 'truth is subjectivity', meaning that what is most important to an existing being are questions dealing with an individual's inner relationship to existence. Objective truths (e.g. mathematical truths) are important, but detached or observational modes of thought can never truly comprehend human experience.' How does one know the truth? How did Avraham Avinu know that it was G-d telling him to sacrifice his son and not some imaginary voice? Shouldn't he have rejected that voice considering that it contradicted both his rational sense of ethics and his prior promise from G-d himself? You can read Kierkegaard's “Faith and Trembling”, but for now, a short summary from the Stamford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - 'His sole justification is what Kierkegaard calls the passion of faith. Such faith is, rationally speaking, absurd, a 'leap,' so if there is to be any talk of truth here it is a standard that measures not the content of Abraham's act, but the way in which he accomplishes it.. To say that subjectivity is the truth is to highlight a way of being, then, and not a mode of knowing; truth measures the attitude ('passion') with which I appropriate, or make my own, an 'objective uncertainty' (the voice of God) in a 'process of highest inwardness.'
In the other corner: Rationalism. The rationalists (and empiricists) argue that this makes no sense. Just because I believe it, how does that make it so? This is akin to arguing the “correspondance theory of truth” – things are true only because we can determine that they correspond to something “out there” and not our imagination. If I imagine and passionately believe in little green folk, does that make them real?
One of the answers to this is that there is a difference between the private subjective truth and truth which has a correlation in the human condition. If you speak to anyone about the little green men out there, they will likely have no way of relating to that experience. If you speak to someone about your relationship to G-d, even if that person is an atheist, they do comprehend your meaning. Of course, this argument has a refutation as well, and further defenses – ad infinitum. Most of the arguments back and forth have been made by rabim u'gedolim in philosophy already, though I doubt most academics approach their field with as much fervor as the debators in the jblosphere.
So much for philosophy 101. Historically, sifrei machshava have long since abandoned the metaphysical fight of the middle ages – the concern is not with proving the truth of Judaism in relation to what is “out there” in reality, but in discovering meaning in the experience of faith. The Piecezna quotes the Koshnizer Maggid that the tisch of shalosh seudos is mamash like tzadikim yoshvim in gan eden v’atroseihem b’rosheihem – and many people experience it as such. But if you sit there staring at the walls and just see men in furry hats singing songs and eating, while you wait for “proof” that this is gan eden, I guess you have a different perspective. The question is which one makes for a more meaningful existence?

The dispute between rationalism and empiricism concerns the extent towhich we are dependent upon sense experience in our effort to gainknowledge. Rationalists claim that there are significant ways in whichour concepts and knowledge are gained independently of senseexperience. Empiricists claim that sense experience is the ultimatesource of all our concepts and knowledge.

Rationalists generally develop their view in two ways. First, theyargue that there are cases where the content of our concepts orknowledge outstrips the information that sense experience can provide.Second, they construct accounts of how reason in some form or otherprovides that additional information about the world. Empiricistspresent complementary lines of thought. First, they develop accountsof how experience provides the information that rationalists cite,insofar as we have it in the first place. (Empiricists will at timesopt for skepticism as an alternative to rationalism: if experiencecannot provide the concepts or knowledge the rationalists cite, thenwe don’t have them.) Second, empiricists attack therationalists’ accounts of how reason is a source of concepts orknowledge.

• 1. Introduction
• Bibliography

1. Introduction

The dispute between rationalism and empiricism takes place withinepistemology, the branch of philosophy devoted to studying the nature,sources and limits of knowledge. The defining questions ofepistemology include the following.

1. What is the nature of propositional knowledge, knowledge that aparticular proposition about the world is true?

   To know a proposition, we must believe it and it must be true, butsomething more is required, something that distinguishes knowledgefrom a lucky guess. Let’s call this additional element‘warrant’. A good deal of philosophical work has beeninvested in trying to determine the nature of warrant.

2. How can we gain knowledge?

   We can form true beliefs just by making lucky guesses. How to gainwarranted beliefs is less clear. Moreover, to know the world, we mustthink about it, and it is unclear how we gain the concepts we use inthought or what assurance, if any, we have that the ways in which wedivide up the world using our concepts correspond to divisions thatactually exist.

3. What are the limits of our knowledge?

   Some aspects of the world may be within the limits of our thought butbeyond the limits of our knowledge; faced with competing descriptionsof them, we cannot know which description is true. Some aspects of theworld may even be beyond the limits of our thought, so that we cannotform intelligible descriptions of them, let alone know that aparticular description is true.

The disagreement between rationalists and empiricists primarilyconcerns the second question, regarding the sources of our conceptsand knowledge. In some instances, their disagreement on this topicleads them to give conflicting responses to the other questions aswell. They may disagree over the nature of warrant or about the limitsof our thought and knowledge. Our focus here will be on the competingrationalist and empiricist responses to the second question.

1.1 Rationalism

To be a rationalist is to adopt at least one of three claims. TheIntuition/Deduction thesis concerns how we become warranted inbelieving propositions in a particular subject area.

The Intuition/Deduction Thesis: Some propositions in aparticular subject area, S, are knowable by us by intuition alone;still others are knowable by being deduced from intuited propositions.

Intuition is a form of rational insight. Intellectually grasping aproposition, we just “see” it to be true in such a way asto form a true, warranted belief in it. (As discussed in Section 2below, the nature of this intellectual “seeing” needsexplanation.) Deduction is a process in which we derive conclusionsfrom intuited premises through valid arguments, ones in which theconclusion must be true if the premises are true. We intuit, forexample, that the number three is prime and that it is greater thantwo. We then deduce from this knowledge that there is a prime numbergreater than two. Intuition and deduction thus provide us withknowledge a priori, which is to say knowledge gainedindependently of sense experience.

We can generate different versions of the Intuition/Deduction thesisby substituting different subject areas for the variable‘S’. Some rationalists take mathematics to be knowable byintuition and deduction. Some place ethical truths in this category.Some include metaphysical claims, such as that God exists, we havefree will, and our mind and body are distinct substances. The morepropositions rationalists include within the range of intuition anddeduction, and the more controversial the truth of those propositionsor the claims to know them, the more radical their rationalism.

Rationalists also vary the strength of their view by adjusting theirunderstanding of warrant. Some take warranted beliefs to be beyondeven the slightest doubt and claim that intuition and deductionprovide beliefs of this high epistemic status. Others interpretwarrant more conservatively, say as belief beyond a reasonable doubt,and claim that intuition and deduction provide beliefs of thatcaliber. Still another dimension of rationalism depends on how itsproponents understand the connection between intuition, on the onehand, and truth, on the other. Some take intuition to be infallible,claiming that whatever we intuit must be true. Others allow for thepossibility of false intuited propositions.

The second thesis associated with rationalism is the Innate Knowledgethesis.

The Innate Knowledge Thesis: We have knowledge of some truthsin a particular subject area, S, as part of our rational nature.

Like the Intuition/Deduction thesis, the Innate Knowledge thesisasserts the existence of knowledge gained a priori,independently of experience. The difference between them rests in theaccompanying understanding of how this a priori knowledge isgained. The Intuition/Deduction thesis cites intuition and subsequentdeductive reasoning. The Innate Knowledge thesis offers our rationalnature. Our innate knowledge is not learned through either senseexperience or intuition and deduction. It is just part of our nature.Experiences may trigger a process by which we bring this knowledge toconsciousness, but the experiences do not provide us with theknowledge itself. It has in some way been with us all along. Accordingto some rationalists, we gained the knowledge in an earlier existence.According to others, God provided us with it at creation. Still otherssay it is part of our nature through natural selection.

We get different versions of the Innate Knowledge thesis bysubstituting different subject areas for the variable ‘S’.Once again, the more subjects included within the range of the thesisor the more controversial the claim to have knowledge in them, themore radical the form of rationalism. Stronger and weakerunderstandings of warrant yield stronger and weaker versions of thethesis as well.

The third important thesis of rationalism is the Innate Conceptthesis.

The Innate Concept Thesis: We have some of the concepts weemploy in a particular subject area, S, as part of our rationalnature.

According to the Innate Concept thesis, some of our concepts are notgained from experience. They are part of our rational nature in such away that, while sense experiences may trigger a process by which theyare brought to consciousness, experience does not provide the conceptsor determine the information they contain. Some claim that the InnateConcept thesis is entailed by the Innate Knowledge Thesis; aparticular instance of knowledge can only be innate if the conceptsthat are contained in the known proposition are also innate. This isLocke’s position (1690, Book I, Chapter IV, Section 1, p. 91).Others, such as Carruthers, argue against this connection (1992, pp.53–54). The content and strength of the Innate Concept thesisvaries with the concepts claimed to be innate. The more a conceptseems removed from experience and the mental operations we can performon experience the more plausibly it may be claimed to be innate. Sincewe do not experience perfect triangles but do experience pains, ourconcept of the former is a more promising candidate for being innatethan our concept of the latter.

The Intuition/Deduction thesis, the Innate Knowledge thesis, and theInnate Concept thesis are essential to rationalism: to be arationalist is to adopt at least one of them. Two other closelyrelated theses are generally adopted by rationalists, although one cancertainly be a rationalist without adopting either of them. The firstis that experience cannot provide what we gain from reason.

The Indispensability of Reason Thesis: The knowledge we gainin subject area, S, by intuition and deduction, as well as the ideasand instances of knowledge in S that are innate to us, could not havebeen gained by us through sense experience.

The second is that reason is superior to experience as a source ofknowledge.

The Superiority of Reason Thesis: The knowledge we gain insubject area S by intuition and deduction or have innately is superiorto any knowledge gained by sense experience.

How reason is superior needs explanation, and rationalists haveoffered different accounts. One view, generally associated withDescartes (1628, Rules II and III, pp. 1–4), is that what weknow a priori is certain, beyond even the slightest doubt,while what we believe, or even know, on the basis of sense experienceis at least somewhat uncertain. Another view, generally associatedwith Plato (Republic 479e-484c), locates the superiority ofa priori knowledge in the objects known. What we know byreason alone, a Platonic form, say, is superior in an importantmetaphysical way, e.g. unchanging, eternal, perfect, a higher degreeof being, to what we are aware of through sense experience.

Most forms of rationalism involve notable commitments to otherphilosophical positions. One is a commitment to the denial ofscepticism for at least some area of knowledge. If we claim to knowsome truths by intuition or deduction or to have some innateknowledge, we obviously reject scepticism with regard to those truths.Rationalism in the form of the Intuition/Deduction thesis is alsocommitted to epistemic foundationalism, the view that we know sometruths without basing our belief in them on any others and that wethen use this foundational knowledge to know more truths.

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1.2 Empiricism

Empiricists endorse the following claim for some subject area.

The Empiricism Thesis: We have no source of knowledge in S orfor the concepts we use in S other than sense experience.

Empiricism about a particular subject rejects the correspondingversion of the Intuition/Deduction thesis and Innate Knowledge thesis.Insofar as we have knowledge in the subject, our knowledge is aposteriori, dependent upon sense experience. Empiricists alsodeny the implication of the corresponding Innate Concept thesis thatwe have innate ideas in the subject area. Sense experience is our onlysource of ideas. They reject the corresponding version of theSuperiority of Reason thesis. Since reason alone does not give us anyknowledge, it certainly does not give us superior knowledge.Empiricists generally reject the Indispensability of Reason thesis,though they need not. The Empiricism thesis does not entail that wehave empirical knowledge. It entails that knowledge can only begained, if at all, by experience. Empiricists may assert, assome do for some subjects, that the rationalists are correct to claimthat experience cannot give us knowledge. The conclusion they drawfrom this rationalist lesson is that we do not know at all.

I have stated the basic claims of rationalism and empiricism so thateach is relative to a particular subject area. Rationalism andempiricism, so relativized, need not conflict. We can be rationalistsin mathematics or a particular area of mathematics and empiricists inall or some of the physical sciences. Rationalism and empiricism onlyconflict when formulated to cover the same subject. Then the debate,Rationalism vs. Empiricism, is joined. The fact that philosophers canbe both rationalists and empiricists has implications for theclassification schemes often employed in the history of philosophy,especially the one traditionally used to describe the Early ModernPeriod of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries leading up to Kant.It is standard practice to group the major philosophers of this periodas either rationalists or empiricists and to suggest that those underone heading share a common agenda in opposition to those under theother. Thus, Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz are the ContinentalRationalists in opposition to Locke, Berkeley and Hume, the BritishEmpiricists. We should adopt such general classification schemes withcaution. The views of the individual philosophers are more subtle andcomplex than the simple-minded classification suggests. (See Loeb(1981) and Kenny (1986) for important discussions of this point.)Locke rejects rationalism in the form of any version of the InnateKnowledge or Innate Concept theses, but he nonetheless adopts theIntuition/Deduction thesis with regard to our knowledge of God’sexistence. Descartes and Locke have remarkably similar views on thenature of our ideas, even though Descartes takes many to be innate,while Locke ties them all to experience. The rationalist/empiricistclassification also encourages us to expect the philosophers on eachside of the divide to have common research programs in areas beyondepistemology. Thus, Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz are mistakenly seenas applying a reason-centered epistemology to a common metaphysicalagenda, with each trying to improve on the efforts of the one before,while Locke, Berkeley and Hume are mistakenly seen as graduallyrejecting those metaphysical claims, with each consciously trying toimprove on the efforts of his predecessors. It is also important tonote that the rationalist/empiricist distinction is not exhaustive ofthe possible sources of knowledge. One might claim, for example, thatwe can gain knowledge in a particular area by a form of Divinerevelation or insight that is a product of neither reason nor senseexperience. In short, when used carelessly, the labels‘rationalist’ and ‘empiricist,’ as well as theslogan that is the title of this essay, ‘Rationalism vs.Empiricism,’ can retard rather than advance ourunderstanding.

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Nonetheless, an important debate properly described as‘Rationalism vs. Empiricism’ is joined whenever the claimsfor each view are formulated to cover the same subject. What isperhaps the most interesting form of the debate occurs when we takethe relevant subject to be truths about the external world, the worldbeyond our own minds. A full-fledged rationalist with regard to ourknowledge of the external world holds that some external world truthscan and must be known a priori, that some of the ideasrequired for that knowledge are and must be innate, and that thisknowledge is superior to any that experience could ever provide. Thefull-fledged empiricist about our knowledge of the external worldreplies that, when it comes to the nature of the world beyond our ownminds, experience is our sole source of information. Reason mightinform us of the relations among our ideas, but those ideas themselvescan only be gained, and any truths about the external reality theyrepresent can only be known, on the basis of sense experience. Thisdebate concerning our knowledge of the external world will generallybe our main focus in what follows.

Historically, the rationalist/empiricist dispute in epistemology hasextended into the area of metaphysics, where philosophers areconcerned with the basic nature of reality, including the existence ofGod and such aspects of our nature as freewill and the relationbetween the mind and body. Major rationalists (e.g., Descartes 1641)have presented metaphysical theories, which they have claimed to knowby reason alone. Major empiricists (e.g., Hume 1739–40) haverejected the theories as either speculation, beyond what we can learnfrom experience, or nonsensical attempts to describe aspects of theworld beyond the concepts experience can provide. The debate raisesthe issue of metaphysics as an area of knowledge. Kant puts thedriving assumption clearly:

The very concept of metaphysics ensures that the sources ofmetaphysics can’t be empirical. If something could be knownthrough the senses, that would automatically show that itdoesn’t belong to metaphysics; that’s an upshot of themeaning of the word ‘metaphysics.’ Its basic principlescan never be taken from experience, nor can its basic concepts; for itis not to be physical but metaphysical knowledge, so it must be beyondexperience. (1783, Preamble, I, p. 7)

The possibility then of metaphysics so understood, as an area of humanknowledge, hinges on how we resolve the rationalist/empiricist debate.The debate also extends into ethics. Some moral objectivists (e.g.,Ross 1930 and Huemer 2005) take us to know some fundamental objectivemoral truths by intuition, while some moral skeptics, who reject suchknowledge, (e.g., Mackie 1977) find the appeal to a faculty of moralintuition utterly implausible. More recently, therationalist/empiricist debate has extended to discussions (e.g.,Bealer 1999 and Alexander & Weinberg 2007) of the very nature ofphilosophical inquiry: to what extent are philosophical questions tobe answered by appeals to reason or experience?

2. The Intuition/Deduction Thesis

The Intuition/Deduction thesis claims that we can know somepropositions by intuition and still more by deduction. Manyempiricists (e.g., Hume 1748) have been willing to accept the thesisso long as it is restricted to propositions solely about the relationsamong our own concepts. We can, they agree, know by intuition that ourconcept of God includes our concept of omniscience. Just by examiningthe concepts, we can intellectually grasp that the one includes theother. The debate between rationalists and empiricists is joined whenthe former assert, and the latter deny, the Intuition/Deduction thesiswith regard to propositions that contain substantive information aboutthe external world. Rationalists, such as Descartes, have claimed thatwe can know by intuition and deduction that God exists and created theworld, that our mind and body are distinct substances, and that theangles of a triangle equal two right angles, where all of these claimsare truths about an external reality independent of our thought. Suchsubstantive versions of the Intuition/Deduction thesis are our concernin this section.

One defense of the Intuition/Deduction thesis assumes that we knowsome substantive external world truths, adds an analysis of whatknowledge requires, and concludes that our knowledge must result fromintuition and deduction. Descartes claims that knowledge requirescertainty and that certainty about the external world is beyond whatempirical evidence can provide. We can never be sure our sensoryimpressions are not part of a dream or a massive, demon orchestrated,deception. Only intuition and deduction can provide the certaintyneeded for knowledge, and, given that we have some substantiveknowledge of the external world, the Intuition/Deduction thesis istrue. As Descartes tells us, “all knowledge is certain andevident cognition” (1628, Rule II, p. 1) and when we“review all the actions of the intellect by means of which weare able to arrive at a knowledge of things with no fear of beingmistaken,” we “recognize only two: intuition anddeduction” (1628, Rule III, p. 3).

This line of argument is one of the least compelling in therationalist arsenal. First, the assumption that knowledge requirescertainty comes at a heavy cost, as it rules out so much of what wecommonly take ourselves to know. Second, as many contemporaryrationalists accept, intuition is not always a source of certainknowledge. The possibility of a deceiver gives us a reason to doubtour intuitions as well as our empirical beliefs. For all we know, adeceiver might cause us to intuit false propositions, just as onemight cause us to have perceptions of nonexistent objects.Descartes’s classic way of meeting this challenge in theMeditations is to argue that we can know with certainty thatno such deceiver interferes with our intuitions and deductions. Theyare infallible, as God guarantees their truth. The problem, known asthe Cartesian Circle, is that Descartes’s account of how we gainthis knowledge begs the question, by attempting to deduce theconclusion that all our intuitions are true from intuited premises.Moreover, his account does not touch a remaining problem that hehimself notes (1628, Rule VII, p. 7): Deductions of any appreciablelength rely on our fallible memory.

A more plausible argument for the Intuition/Deduction thesis againassumes that we know some particular, external world truths, and thenappeals to the nature of what we know, rather than to the nature ofknowledge itself, to argue that our knowledge must result fromintuition and deduction. Leibniz (1704) tells us the following.

The senses, although they are necessary for all our actual knowledge,are not sufficient to give us the whole of it, since the senses nevergive anything but instances, that is to say particular or individualtruths. Now all the instances which confirm a general truth, howevernumerous they may be, are not sufficient to establish the universalnecessity of this same truth, for it does not follow that whathappened before will happen in the same way again. … From whichit appears that necessary truths, such as we find in pure mathematics,and particularly in arithmetic and geometry, must have principleswhose proof does not depend on instances, nor consequently on thetestimony of the senses, although without the senses it would neverhave occurred to us to think of them… (1704, Preface, pp.150–151)

Leibniz goes on to describe our mathematical knowledge as“innate,” and his argument may be directed to support theInnate Knowledge thesis rather than the Intuition/Deduction thesis.For our purposes here, we can relate it to the latter, however: Wehave substantive knowledge about the external world in mathematics,and what we know in that area, we know to be necessarily true.Experience cannot warrant beliefs about what is necessarily the case.Hence, experience cannot be the source of our knowledge. The bestexplanation of our knowledge is that we gain it by intuition anddeduction. Leibniz mentions logic, metaphysics and morals as otherareas in which our knowledge similarly outstrips what experience canprovide. Judgments in logic and metaphysics involve forms of necessitybeyond what experience can support. Judgments in morals involve a formof obligation or value that lies beyond experience, which only informsus about what is the case rather than about what ought to be.

The strength of this argument varies with its examples of purportedknowledge. Insofar as we focus on controversial claims in metaphysics,e.g., that God exists, that our mind is a distinct substance from ourbody, the initial premise that we know the claims is less thancompelling. Taken with regard to other areas, however, the argumentclearly has legs. We know a great deal of mathematics, and what weknow, we know to be necessarily true. None of our experiences warrantsa belief in such necessity, and we do not seem to base our knowledgeon any experiences. The warrant that provides us with knowledge arisesfrom an intellectual grasp of the propositions which is clearly partof our learning. Similarly, we seem to have such moral knowledge asthat, all other things being equal, it is wrong to break a promise andthat pleasure is intrinsically good. No empirical lesson about howthings are can warrant such knowledge of how they ought to be.

This argument for the Intuition/Deduction thesis raises additionalquestions which rationalists must answer. Insofar as they maintainthat our knowledge of necessary truths in mathematics or elsewhere byintuition and deduction is substantive knowledge of the externalworld, they owe us an account of this form of necessity. Manyempiricists stand ready to argue that “necessity resides in theway we talk about things, not in the things we talk about”(Quine 1966, p. 174). Similarly, if rationalists claim that ourknowledge in morals is knowledge of an objective form of obligation,they owe us an account of how objective values are part of a world ofapparently valueless facts.

Perhaps most of all, rationalist defenders of the Intuition/Deductionthesis owe us an account of what intuition is and how it provideswarranted true beliefs about the external world. What is it to intuita proposition and how does that act of intuition support a warrantedbelief? Their argument presents intuition and deduction as anexplanation of assumed knowledge that can’t—theysay—be explained by experience, but such an explanation byintuition and deduction requires that we have a clear understanding ofintuition and how it supports warranted beliefs. Metaphoricalcharacterizations of intuition as intellectual “grasping”or “seeing” are not enough, and if intuition is some formof intellectual “grasping,” it appears that all that isgrasped is relations among our concepts, rather than facts about theexternal world. One current approach to the issue involves an appealto Phenomenal Conservatism (Huemer 2001), the principle that if itseems to one as if something is the case, then one is prima faciejustified in believing that it is so. Intuitions are then taken to bea particular sort of seeming or appearance: “[A]n intuition thatp is a state of its seeming to one that p that is not dependent oninference from other beliefs and that results from thinking about p,as opposed to perceiving, remembering, or introspecting” (Hummer2005, p. 102). Just as it can visually seem or appear to one as ifthere’s a tree outside the window, it can intellectually seem orappear to one as if nothing can be both entirely red and entirelygreen. This approach aims to demystify intuitions; they are but onemore form of seeming-state along with ones we gain from senseperception, memory and introspection. It does not, however, tell usall we need to know. Any intellectual faculty, whether it be senseperception, memory, introspection or intuition, provides us withwarranted beliefs only if it is generally reliable. The reliability ofsense perception stems from the causal connection between how externalobjects are and how we experience them. What accounts for thereliability of our intuitions regarding the external world? Is ourintuition of a particular true proposition the outcome of some causalinteraction between ourselves and some aspect of the world? Whataspect? What is the nature of this causal interaction? That the numberthree is prime does not appear to cause anything, let alone ourintuition that it is prime. As Michael Huemer (2005, p. 123) pointsout in mounting his own defense of moral intuitionism, “Thechallenge for the moral realist, then, is to explain how it would beanything more than chance if my moral beliefs were true, given that Ido not interact with moral properties.”

These issues are made all the more pressing by the classic empiricistresponse to the argument. The reply is generally credited to Hume andbegins with a division of all true propositions into twocategories.

All the objects of human reason or inquiry may naturally be dividedinto two kinds, to wit, “Relations of Ideas,” and“Matters of Fact.” Of the first are the sciences ofGeometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic, and, in short, every affirmationwhich is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. That thesquare of the hypotenuse is equal to the square of the two sides is aproposition which expresses a relation between these figures. Thatthree times five is equal to half of thirty expresses a relationbetween these numbers. Propositions of this kind are discoverable bythe mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhereexistent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or trianglein nature, the truths demonstrated by Euclid would forever retaintheir certainty and evidence. Matters of fact, which are the secondobjects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner, noris our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature withthe foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible,because it can never imply a contradiction and is conceived by themind with the same facility and distinctness as if ever so conformableto reality. (Hume 1748, Section IV, Part 1, p. 40)

Intuition and deduction can provide us with knowledge of necessarytruths such as those found in mathematics and logic, but suchknowledge is not substantive knowledge of the external world. It isonly knowledge of the relations of our own ideas. If the rationalistshifts the argument so it appeals to knowledge in morals, Hume’sreply is to offer an analysis of our moral concepts by which suchknowledge is empirically gained knowledge of matters of fact.

Morals and criticism are not so properly objects of the understandingas of taste and sentiment. Beauty, whether moral or natural, is feltmore properly than perceived. Or if we reason concerning it andendeavor to fix the standard, we regard a new fact, to wit, thegeneral taste of mankind, or some other fact which may be the objectof reasoning and inquiry. (Hume 1748, Section XII, Part 3, p. 173)

If the rationalist appeals to our knowledge in metaphysics to supportthe argument, Hume denies that we have such knowledge.

If we take in our hand any volume--of divinity or school metaphysics,for instance--let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoningconcerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimentalreasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it thento the flames, for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.(Hume 1748, Section XII, Part 3, p. 173)

An updated version of this general empiricist reply, with an increasedemphasis on language and the nature of meaning, is given in thetwentieth-century by A. J. Ayer’s version of logical positivism.Adopting positivism’s verification theory of meaning, Ayerassigns every cognitively meaningful sentence to one of twocategories: either it is a tautology, and so true solely by virtue ofthe meaning of its terms and provides no substantive information aboutthe world, or it is open to empirical verification. There is, then, noroom for knowledge about the external world by intuition ordeduction.

There can be no a priori knowledge of reality. For …the truths of pure reason, the propositions which we know to be validindependently of all experience, are so only in virtue of their lackof factual content … [By contrast] empirical propositions areone and all hypotheses which may be confirmed or discredited in actualsense experience. [Ayer 1952, pp. 86; 93–94]

The rationalists’ argument for the Intuition/Deduction thesisgoes wrong at the start, according to empiricists, by assuming that wecan have substantive knowledge of the external world that outstripswhat experience can warrant. We cannot.

This empiricist reply faces challenges of its own. Our knowledge ofmathematics seems to be about something more than our own concepts.Our knowledge of moral judgments seems to concern not just how we feelor act but how we ought to behave. The general principles that providea basis for the empiricist view, e.g. Hume’s overall account ofour ideas, the Verification Principle of Meaning, are problematic intheir own right. In various formulations, the Verification Principlefails its own test for having cognitive meaning. A careful analysis ofHume’s Inquiry, relative to its own principles, mayrequire us to consign large sections of it to the flames.

In all, rationalists have a strong argument for theIntuition/Deduction thesis relative to our substantive knowledge ofthe external world, but its success rests on how well they can answerquestions about the nature and epistemic force of intuition made allthe more pressing by the classic empiricist reply.

3. The Innate Knowledge Thesis

The Innate Knowledge thesis joins the Intuition/Deduction thesis inasserting that we have a priori knowledge, but it does notoffer intuition and deduction as the source of that knowledge. Ittakes our a priori knowledge to be part of our rationalnature. Experience may trigger our awareness of this knowledge, but itdoes not provide us with it. The knowledge is already there.

Plato presents an early version of the Innate Knowledge thesis in theMeno as the doctrine of knowledge by recollection. Thedoctrine is motivated in part by a paradox that arises when we attemptto explain the nature of inquiry. How do we gain knowledge of atheorem in geometry? We inquire into the matter. Yet, knowledge byinquiry seems impossible (Meno, 80d-e). We either alreadyknow the theorem at the start of our investigation or we do not. If wealready have the knowledge, there is no place for inquiry. If we lackthe knowledge, we don’t know what we are seeking and cannotrecognize it when we find it. Either way we cannot gain knowledge ofthe theorem by inquiry. Yet, we do know some theorems.

The doctrine of knowledge by recollection offers a solution. When weinquire into the truth of a theorem, we both do and do not alreadyknow it. We have knowledge in the form of a memory gained from oursoul’s knowledge of the theorem prior to its union with ourbody. We lack knowledge in that, in our soul’s unification withthe body, it has forgotten the knowledge and now needs to recollectit. In learning the theorem, we are, in effect, recalling what wealready know.

Plato famously illustrates the doctrine with an exchange betweenSocrates and a young slave, in which Socrates guides the slave fromignorance to mathematical knowledge. The slave’s experiences, inthe form of Socrates’ questions and illustrations, are theoccasion for his recollection of what he learned previously.Plato’s metaphysics provides additional support for the InnateKnowledge Thesis. Since our knowledge is of abstract, eternal Formswhich clearly lie beyond our sensory experience, it is apriori.

Contemporary supporters of Plato’s position are scarce. Theinitial paradox, which Plato describes as a “trickargument” (Meno, 80e), rings sophistical. Themetaphysical assumptions in the solution need justification. Thesolution does not answer the basic question: Just how did theslave’s soul learn the theorem? The Intuition/Deduction thesisoffers an equally, if not more, plausible account of how the slavegains knowledge a priori. Nonetheless, Plato’s positionillustrates the kind of reasoning that has caused many philosophers toadopt some form of the Innate Knowledge thesis. We are confident thatwe know certain propositions about the external world, but there seemsto be no adequate explanation of how we gained this knowledge short ofsaying that it is innate. Its content is beyond what we directly gainin experience, as well as what we can gain by performing mentaloperations on what experience provides. It does not seem to be basedon an intuition or deduction. That it is innate in us appears to bethe best explanation.

Noam Chomsky argues along similar lines in presenting what hedescribes as a “rationalist conception of the nature oflanguage” (1975, p. 129). Chomsky argues that the experiencesavailable to language learners are far too sparse to account for theirknowledge of their language. To explain language acquisition, we mustassume that learners have an innate knowledge of a universal grammarcapturing the common deep structure of natural languages. It isimportant to note that Chomsky’s language learners do not knowparticular propositions describing a universal grammar. They have aset of innate capacities or dispositions which enable and determinetheir language development. Chomsky gives us a theory of innatelearning capacities or structures rather than a theory of innateknowledge. His view does not support the Innate Knowledge thesis asrationalists have traditionally understood it. As one commentator putsit, “Chomsky’s principles … are innate neither inthe sense that we are explicitly aware of them, nor in the sense thatwe have a disposition to recognize their truth as obvious underappropriate circumstances. And hence it is by no means clear thatChomsky is correct in seeing his theory as following the traditionalrationalist account of the acquisition of knowledge” (Cottingham1984, p. 124).

Peter Carruthers (1992) argues that we have innate knowledge of theprinciples of folk-psychology. Folk-psychology is a network ofcommon-sense generalizations that hold independently of context orculture and concern the relationships of mental states to one another,to the environment and states of the body and to behavior (1992, p.115). It includes such beliefs as that pains tend to be caused byinjury, that pains tend to prevent us from concentrating on tasks, andthat perceptions are generally caused by the appropriate state of theenvironment. Carruthers notes the complexity of folk-psychology, alongwith its success in explaining our behavior and the fact that itsexplanations appeal to such unobservables as beliefs, desires,feelings and thoughts. He argues that the complexity, universality anddepth of folk-psychological principles outstrips what experience canprovide, especially to young children who by their fifth year alreadyknow a great many of them. This knowledge is also not the result ofintuition or deduction; folk-psychological generalizations are notseen to be true in an act of intellectual insight. Carruthersconcludes, “[The problem] concerning the child’sacquisition of psychological generalizations cannot be solved, unlesswe suppose that much of folk-psychology is already innate, triggeredlocally by the child’s experience of itself and others, ratherthan learned” (1992, p. 121).

Empiricists, and some rationalists, attack the Innate Knowledge thesisin two main ways. First, they offer accounts of how sense experienceor intuition and deduction provide the knowledge that is claimed to beinnate. Second, they directly criticize the Innate Knowledge thesisitself. The classic statement of this second line of attack ispresented in Locke 1690. Locke raises the issue of just what innateknowledge is. Particular instances of knowledge are supposed to be inour minds as part of our rational make-up, but how are they “inour minds”? If the implication is that we all consciously havethis knowledge, it is plainly false. Propositions often given asexamples of innate knowledge, even such plausible candidates as theprinciple that the same thing cannot both be and not be, are notconsciously accepted by children and those with severe cognitivelimitations. If the point of calling such principles“innate” is not to imply that they are or have beenconsciously accepted by all rational beings, then it is hard to seewhat the point is. “No proposition can be said to be in themind, which it never yet knew, which it never yet was consciousof” (1690, Book I, Chapter II, Section 5, p. 61). Proponents ofinnate knowledge might respond that some knowledge is innate in thatwe have the capacity to have it. That claim, while true, is of littleinterest, however. “If the capacity of knowing, be the naturalimpression contended for, all the truths a man ever comes to know,will, by this account, be every one of them, innate; and this greatpoint will amount to no more, but only an improper way of speaking;which whilst it pretends to assert the contrary, says nothingdifferent from those, who deny innate principles. For nobody, I think,ever denied, that the mind was capable of knowing severaltruths” (1690, Book I, Chapter II, Section 5, p. 61). Locke thuschallenges defenders of the Innate Knowledge thesis to present anaccount of innate knowledge that allows their position to be both trueand interesting. A narrow interpretation of innateness facescounterexamples of rational individuals who do not meet itsconditions. A generous interpretation implies that all our knowledge,even that clearly provided by experience, is innate.

From Rationalism To Existentialism Pdf Merge Example

Defenders of innate knowledge take up Locke’s challenge. Leibnizresponds (1704) by appealing to an account of innateness in terms ofnatural potential to avoid Locke’s dilemma. Consider PeterCarruthers’ similar reply.

We have noted that while one form of nativism claims (somewhatimplausibly) that knowledge is innate in the sense of being present assuch (or at least in propositional form) from birth, it might also bemaintained that knowledge is innate in the sense of being innatelydetermined to make its appearance at some stage in childhood. Thislatter thesis is surely the most plausible version of nativism. (1992,p. 51)

Carruthers claims that our innate knowledge is determined throughevolutionary selection (p. 111). Evolution has resulted in our beingdetermined to know certain things (e.g. principles of folk-psychology)at particular stages of our life, as part of our natural development.Experiences provide the occasion for our consciously believing theknown propositions but not the basis for our knowledge of them (p.52). Carruthers thus has a ready reply to Locke’scounterexamples of children and cognitively limited persons who do notbelieve propositions claimed to be instances of innate knowledge. Theformer have not yet reached the proper stage of development; thelatter are persons in whom natural development has broken down (pp.49–50).

A serious problem for the Innate Knowledge thesis remains, however. Weknow a proposition only if it is true, we believe it and our belief iswarranted. Rationalists who assert the existence of innate knowledgeare not just claiming that, as a matter of human evolution,God’s design or some other factor, at a particular point in ourdevelopment, certain sorts of experiences trigger our belief inparticular propositions in a way that does not involve our learningthem from the experiences. Their claim is even bolder: In at leastsome of these cases, our empirically triggered, but not empiricallywarranted, belief is nonetheless warranted and so known. How can thesebeliefs be warranted if they do not gain their warrant from theexperiences that cause us to have them or from intuition anddeduction?

Some rationalists think that a reliabilist account of warrant providesthe answer. According to Reliabilism, beliefs are warranted if theyare formed by a process that generally produces true beliefs ratherthan false ones. The true beliefs that constitute our innate knowledgeare warranted, then, because they are formed as the result of areliable belief-forming process. Carruthers maintains that“Innate beliefs will count as known provided that the processthrough which they come to be innate is a reliable one (provided, thatis, that the process tends to generate beliefs that are true)”(1992, p. 77). He argues that natural selection results in theformation of some beliefs and is a truth-reliable process.

An appeal to Reliabilism, or a similar causal theory of warrant, maywell be the best way for rationalists to develop the Innate Knowledgethesis. They have a difficult row to hoe, however. First, suchaccounts of warrant are themselves quite controversial. Second,rationalists must give an account of innate knowledge that maintainsand explains the distinction between innate knowledge and aposteriori knowledge, and it is not clear that they will be ableto do so within such an account of warrant. Suppose for the sake ofargument that we have innate knowledge of some proposition, P.What makes our knowledge that P innate? To sharpen thequestion, what difference between our knowledge that P and aclear case of a posteriori knowledge, say our knowledge thatsomething is red based on our current visual experience of a redtable, makes the former innate and the latter not innate? In eachcase, we have a true, warranted belief. In each case, presumably, ourbelief gains its warrant from the fact that it meets a particularcausal condition, e.g., it is produced by a reliable process. In eachcase, the causal process is one in which an experience causes us tobelieve the proposition at hand (that P; that something isred), for, as defenders of innate knowledge admit, our belief thatP is “triggered” by an experience, as is our beliefthat something is red. The insight behind the Innate Knowledge thesisseems to be that the difference between our innate and aposteriori knowledge lies in the relation between our experienceand our belief in each case. The experience that causes our beliefthat P does not “contain” the information thatP, while our visual experience of a red table does“contain” the information that something is red. Yet,exactly what is the nature of this containment relation between ourexperiences, on the one hand, and what we believe, on the other, thatis missing in the one case but present in the other? The nature of theexperience-belief relation seems quite similar in each. The causalrelation between the experience that triggers our belief that Pand our belief that P is contingent, as is the fact that thebelief-forming process is reliable. The same is true of our experienceof a red table and our belief that something is red. The causalrelation between the experience and our belief is again contingent. Wemight have been so constructed that the experience we describe as“being appeared to redly” caused us to believe, not thatsomething is red, but that something is hot. The process that takes usfrom the experince to our belief is also only contingently reliable.Moreover, if our experience of a red table “contains” theinformation that something is red, then that fact, not the existenceof a reliable belief-forming process between the two, should be thereason why the experience warrants our belief. By appealing toReliablism, or some other causal theory of warrant, rationalists mayobtain a way to explain how innate knowledge can be warranted. Theystill need to show how their explanation supports an account of thedifference between innate knowledge and a posterioriknowledge.

4. The Innate Concept Thesis

According to the Innate Concept thesis, some of our concepts have notbeen gained from experience. They are instead part of our rationalmake-up, and experience simply triggers a process by which weconsciously grasp them. The main concern motivating the rationalistshould be familiar by now: the content of some concepts seems tooutstrip anything we could have gained from experience. An example ofthis reasoning is presented by Descartes in the Meditations.Although he sometimes seems committed to the view that all our ideasare innate (Adams 1975 and Gotham 2002), he there classifies our ideasas adventitious, invented by us, and innate. Adventitious ideas, suchas a sensation of heat, are gained directly through sense experience.Ideas invented by us, such as our idea of a hippogriff, are created byus from other ideas we possess. Innate ideas, such as our ideas ofGod, of extended matter, of substance and of a perfect triangle, areplaced in our minds by God at creation. Consider Descartes’sargument that our concept of God, as an infinitely perfect being, isinnate. Our concept of God is not directly gained in experience, asparticular tastes, sensations and mental images might be. Its contentis beyond what we could ever construct by applying available mentaloperations to what experience directly provides. From experience, wecan gain the concept of a being with finite amounts of variousperfections, one, for example, that is finitely knowledgeable,powerful and good. We cannot however move from these empiricalconcepts to the concept of a being of infinite perfection. (“Imust not think that, just as my conceptions of rest and darkness arearrived at by negating movement and light, so my perception of theinfinite is arrived at not by means of a true idea but by merelynegating the finite,” Third Meditation, p. 94.) Descartessupplements this argument by another. Not only is the content of ourconcept of God beyond what experience can provide, the concept is aprerequisite for our employment of the concept of finite perfectiongained from experience. (“My perception of the infinite, that isGod, is in some way prior to my perception of the finite, that ismyself. For how could I understand that I doubted ordesired—that is lacked something—and that I was not whollyperfect, unless there were in me some idea of a more perfect beingwhich enabled me to recognize my own defects by comparison,”Third Meditation, p. 94).

An empiricist response to this general line of argument is given byLocke (1690, Book I, Chapter IV, Sections 1–25, pp.91–107). First, there is the problem of explaining what it isfor someone to have an innate concept. If having an innate conceptentails consciously entertaining it at present or in the past, thenDescartes’s position is open to obvious counterexamples. Youngchildren and people from other cultures do not consciously entertainthe concept of God and have not done so. Second, there is theobjection that we have no need to appeal to innate concepts in thefirst place. Contrary to Descartes’ argument, we can explain howexperience provides all our ideas, including those the rationaliststake to be innate, and with just the content that the rationalistsattribute to them.

Leibniz (1704) offers a rationalist reply to the first concern. WhereLocke puts forth the image of the mind as a blank tablet on whichexperience writes, Leibniz offers us the image of a block of marble,the veins of which determine what sculpted figures it will accept.

This is why I have taken as an illustration a block of veined marble,rather than a wholly uniform block or blank tablets, that is to saywhat is called tabula rasa in the language of the philosophers. For ifthe soul were like those blank tablets, truths would be in us in thesame way as the figure of Hercules is in a block of marble, when themarble is completely indifferent whether it receives this or someother figure. But if there were veins in the stone which marked outthe figure of Hercules rather than other figures, this stone would bemore determined thereto, and Hercules would be as it were in somemanner innate in it, although labour would be needed to uncover theveins, and to clear them by polishing, and by cutting away whatprevents them from appearing. It is in this way that ideas and truthsare innate in us, like natural inclinations and dispositions, naturalhabits or potentialities, and not like activities, although thesepotentialities are always accompanied by some activities whichcorrespond to them, though they are often imperceptible. (1704,Preface, p. 153)

Leibniz’s metaphor contains an insight that Locke misses. Themind plays a role in determining the nature of its contents. Thispoint does not, however, require the adoption of the Innate Conceptthesis.

Rationalists have responded to the second part of the empiricistattack on the Innate Concept thesis—the empricists’ claimthat the thesis is without basis, as all our ideas can be explained asderived from experience—by focusing on difficulties in theempiricists’ attempts to give such an explanation. Thedifficulties are illustrated by Locke’s account. According toLocke, experience consists in external sensation and inner reflection.All our ideas are either simple or complex, with the former beingreceived by us passively in sensation or reflection and the latterbeing built by the mind from simple materials through various mentaloperations. Right at the start, the account of how simple ideas aregained is open to an obvious counterexample acknowledged, but then setaside, by Hume in presenting his own empiricist theory. Consider themental image of a particular shade of blue. If Locke is right, theidea is a simple one and should be passively received by the mindthrough experience. Hume points out otherwise.

Suppose therefore a person to have enjoyed his sight for thirty yearsand to have become perfectly acquainted with colors of all kinds,except one particular shade of blue, for instance, which it never hasbeen his fortune to meet with; let all the different shades of thatcolor, except that single one, be placed before him, descendinggradually from the deepest to the lightest, it is plain that he willperceive a blank where that shade is wanting and will be sensible thatthere is a greater distance in that place between the contiguouscolors than in any other. Now I ask whether it be possible for him,from his own imagination, to supply this deficiency and raise up tohimself the idea of that particular shade, though it had never beenconveyed to him by his senses? I believe there are but few will be ofthe opinion that he can… (1748, Section II, pp. 29–30)

Even when it comes to such simple ideas as the image of a particularshade of blue, the mind is more than a blank slate on which experiencewrites.

Digihome pvr80 manual. Consider too our concept of a particular color, say red. Critics ofLocke’s account have pointed out the weaknesses in hisexplanation of how we gain such a concept by the mental operation ofabstraction on individual cases. For one thing, it makes the incorrectassumption that various instances of a particular concept share acommon feature. Carruthers puts the objection as follows.

In fact problems arise for empiricists even in connection with thevery simplest concepts, such as those of colour. For it is false thatall instances of a given colour share some common feature. In whichcase we cannot acquire the concept of that colour by abstracting thecommon feature of our experience. Thus consider the conceptred. Do all shades of red have something in common? If so,what? It is surely false that individual shades of red consist, as itwere, of two distinguishable elements a general redness together witha particular shade. Rather, redness consists in a continuousrange of shades, each of which is only just distinguishablefrom its neighbors. Acquiring the concept red is a matter oflearning the extent of the range. (1992, p. 59)

For another thing, Locke’s account of concept acquisition fromparticular experiences seems circular.

As it stands, however, Locke’s account of concept acquisitionappears viciously circular. For noticing or attending to a commonfeature of various things presupposes that you already possess theconcept of the feature in question. (Carruthers 1992, p. 55)

Consider in this regard Locke’s account of how we gain ourconcept of causation.

In the notice that our senses take of the constant vicissitude ofthings, we cannot but observe, that several particulars, bothqualities and substances; begin to exist; and that they receive thistheir existence from the due application and operation of some otherbeing. From this observation, we get our ideas of cause and effect.(1690, Book II, Chapter 26, Section 1, pp. 292–293)

We get our concept of causation from our observation that some thingsreceive their existence from the application and operation of someother things. Yet, we cannot make this observation unless we alreadyhave the concept of causation. Locke’s account of how we gainour idea of power displays a similar circularity.

The mind being every day informed, by the senses, of the alteration ofthose simple ideas, it observes in things without; and taking noticehow one comes to an end, and ceases to be, and another begins to existwhich was not before; reflecting also on what passes within itself,and observing a constant change of its ideas, sometimes by theimpression of outward objects on the senses, and sometimes by thedetermination of its own choice; and concluding from what it has soconstantly observed to have been, that the like changes will for thefuture be made in the same things, by like agents, and by the likeways, considers in one thing the possibility of having any of itssimple ideas changed, and in another the possibility of making thatchange; and so comes by that idea which we call power. (1690, ChapterXXI, Section 1, pp. 219–220)

We come by the idea of power though considering the possibility ofchanges in our ideas made by experiences and our own choices. Yet, toconsider this possibility—of some things making achange in others—we must already have a concept of power.

One way to meet at least some of these challenges to an empiricistaccount of the origin of our concepts is to revise our understandingof the content of our concepts so as to bring them more in line withwhat experience will clearly provide. Hume famously takes thisapproach. Beginning in a way reminiscent of Locke, he distinguishesbetween two forms of mental contents or “perceptions,” ashe calls them: impressions and ideas. Impressions are the contents ofour current experiences: our sensations, feelings, emotions, desires,and so on. Ideas are mental contents derived from impressions. Simpleideas are copies of impressions; complex ideas are derived fromimpressions by “compounding, transposing, augmenting ordiminishing” them. Given that all our ideas are thus gained fromexperience, Hume offers us the following method for determining thecontent of any idea and thereby the meaning of any term taken toexpress it.

When we entertain, therefore, any suspicion that a philosophical termis employed without any meaning or idea (as is but too frequent), weneed but inquire from what impression is that supposed ideaderived? And if it be impossible to assign any, this will confirmour suspicion. (1748, Section II, p. 30)

Using this test, Hume draws out one of the most important implicationsof the empiricists’ denial of the Innate Concept thesis. Ifexperience is indeed the source of all ideas, then our experiencesalso determine the content of our ideas. Our ideas of causation, ofsubstance, of right and wrong have their content determined by theexperiences that provide them. Those experiences, Hume argues, areunable to support the content that many rationalists and someempiricists, such as Locke, attribute to the corresponding ideas. Ourinability to explain how some concepts, with the contents therationalists attribute to them, are gained from experience should notlead us to adopt the Innate Concept thesis. It should lead us toaccept a more limited view of the contents for those concepts, andthereby a more limited view of our ability to describe and understandthe world.

Consider, for example, our idea of causation. Descartes takes it to beinnate. Locke offers an apparently circular account of how it isgained from experience. Hume’s empiricist account severelylimits its content. Our idea of causation is derived from a feeling ofexpectation rooted in our experiences of the constant conjunction ofsimilar causes and effects.

It appears, then, that this idea of a necessary connection amongevents arises from a number of similar instances which occur, of theconstant conjunction of these events; nor can that idea ever besuggested by any one of these instances surveyed in all possiblelights and positions. But there is nothing in a number of instances,different from every single instance, which is supposed to be exactlysimilar, except only that after a repetition of similar instances themind is carried by habit, upon the appearance of one event, to expectits usual attendant and to believe that it will exist. Thisconnection, therefore, which we feel in the mind, thiscustomary transition of the imagination from one object to its usualattendant, is the sentiment or impression from which we form the ideaof power or necessary connection. (1748, Section VII, Part 2, p. 86)

The source of our idea in experience determines its content.

Suitably to this experience, therefore, we may define a cause to be anobject followed by another, and where all the objects, similar to thefirst are followed by objects similar to the second… We may,therefore, suitably to this experience, form another definition ofcause and call it an object followed by another, and whoseappearance always conveys the thought of the other. (1748,Section VII, Part 2, p. 87)

Our claims, and any knowledge we may have, about causal connections inthe world turn out, given the limited content of our empirically basedconcept of causation, to be claims and knowledge about the constantconjunction of events and our own feelings of expectation. Thus, theinitial disagreement between rationalists and empiricists about thesource of our ideas leads to one about their content and thereby thecontent of our descriptions and knowledge of the world.

Like philosophical debates generally, the rationalist/empiricistdebate ultimately concerns our position in the world, in this case ourposition as rational inquirers. To what extent do our faculties ofreason and experience support our attempts to know and understand oursituation?

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Related Works

• Aune, B., 1970, Rationalism, Empiricism and Pragmatism: AnIntroduction, New York: Random House.
• Bealer, G. and Strawson, P. F., 1992, “The Incoherence ofEmpiricism,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society(Supplementary Volume), 66: 99–143.
• Boyle, D., 2009, Descartes on Innate Ideas, London:Continum.
• Block, N., 1981, Essays in Philosophy of Psychology II,London: Methuen, Part Four.
• Bonjour, L., 1998, In Defense of Pure Reason, Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.
• Casullo, A., 2003, A priori Knowledge and Justification,New York: Oxford University Press.
• Casullo, A. (ed.), 2012, Essays on A priori Knowledge andJustification, New York: Oxford University Press.
• Cottingham, J., 1984, Rationalism, London: PaladinBooks.
• Chomsky, N., 1975, “Recent Contributions to the Theory ofInnate Ideas”, reprinted in S. Stitch (ed.), InnateIdeas, Berkeley, CA: California University Press.
• –––, 1988, Language and Problems of Knowledge,Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• De Paul, M. and W. Ramsey (eds.), 1998, Rethinking Intuition:The Psychology of Intuition and Its Role in PhilosophicalInquiry, Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
• Fodor, J., 1975, The Language of Thought, Cambridge, MA:Harvard University Press.
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• Stitch, S., 1975, Innate Ideas, Berkeley, CA: CaliforniaUniversity Press.

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