Gabrielle Pierre-Louis

Philosophy 100

Prof. Rex

10/10/14

Rationalism or Empiricism?

Rationalism vs. Empiricism, are two different debate topics on how we’re born with an idea or experience by an idea. Rationales believe that some ideas are inborn, that you’re born with some experience. Empiricism believe that all idea come from experience. I agree more with Hume thoughts than Descartes’ thoughts, because as a child when born into this world you don’t know what is going on yet. We as a child think everything is perfect, and we also rely on our five senses to understand society and our own thoughts. I believe it’s more plausible to agree with Hume thoughts then Descartes’ thoughts.

            As a child when your born your mind is blank, you have no ideas. You’re not aware of society or your atmosphere. All the ideas that you get from the course of your life comes from experience. As we get older we start to use our five senses, and understand our surroundings. For example your mom tell you as a child not to touch the fire. You as young child go in to the kitchen and see a fire, and try to touch the fire. As a child when touching the fire, you notice that it hurts. You notice that one of your senses is telling you; you have pain in your hand. You start to cry, and your mom comes back and tells you  “ I told you not to touch the fire.” That was an experience that you’ll learn from. Not to touch the fire, because it hurts or because mom said not to. As a child you start to get these senses to know when something is good or bad. We rely on our five senses to lets up know what things are. Which is allowing children to make there own ideas and decisions. For example kids understanding the different structure of games, and toys. Knowing to place something somewhere. Knowing what color goes with what; allowing them to develop more ideas, and comprehending the world around them.

            With Descartes’ wax example, we comprehend how things can go through radical changes, but still are the same thing. For example Popsicle, when pulled out of the freezer and left out for a certain amount of time it starts to melt. But when we start to eat the Popsicle we can notice that it starts to get in to small pieces of ice and liquid. Through all the observed changes we can say that this is rational changes.

Explanatory Breadth

            I believe that empiricism has more explanatory breadth because it explains that you need experience. It makes more sense because everyday we learn new things and experiences. Compare to rationalism your innate to ideas that we don’t quite know yet, and it’s too basic of a definition.

Explanatory depth

            I believe that they even out; they have the same amount of idea when explaining there point. Even though they differentiate from definition they both cover all ideas. But Empiricism better explains itself, because of the origin of God. For example spiritual and paranormal things, and empiricism would say that this is through experience that we know that there are paranormal or ghost.

Simplicity

            I believe that Empiricism is simplistic because it has fewer parts. And rationalism has two parts of ideas allows it to conflict with the possibility. Some ideas are innate and the rest of ideas come from experiences.

Conservatism

            They both even out, because they’re both trying to prove which is right, which causes them to over lap each other. But due to empiricism and learning from our mistakes everyday, and learning from different strategies, I believe that empiricism is more conservative.

1. Empiricism and Rationalism are the most plausible explanations of the origin of ideas.

2. Empiricism has much more explanatory breadth, simplicity, and conservatism whereas Rationalism has a little more explanatory depth.

3. Therefore, Empiricism is the best explanation of the origin of ideas.