Reason And Experience Essay

M any(prenominal) rationalist philosophers designate that we birth at least few innate knowledge of constructs such as perfection, Maths and causation. However, an empiricist would disagree, arguing that we have no knowledge at birth, our minds argon tabula rasa and all our concepts are fundamentally derived from sense experience.Most rationalists subscribe to the view that maths is innate Plato argues this utilise the concept of equality and geometry. He presents us with the scenario of judging whether two sticks are equal in size, we use equality, a concept which we oasist experienced as nonhing in the world is exactly equal, sort of almost equal, although this concept still contains equal thus, he argues that equality is an innate concept. He presents a nonher event of when Socrates discussed geometry with a slave baby. Socrates presented the child with a question on geometry which he eliminateed to answer correctly, all without any prior knowledge or experience of ge ometry.Plato suggests that Socrates triggered innate knowledge within the child. An empiricist would respond to the concept of equality by stating that almost equal does not contain the concept equal, rather almost equal is itself a sincere concept derived from sense experience upon comparing objects. The sticks would always differ in length by some amount at that placefore we washbowl spend a penny the concept of equal by abstracting two sticks which differ by no length. In regards to the slave boy argument, Socrates enquires the boy done leading questions, a method where he can learn the rules and relationships and apply it to the original question.In Descartes Trademark argument, he claims that we have an innate mood of God. He claims that we are imperfect and finite minds, and God is someaffair which we could not have amount up with as he is both infinite and perfect. We also havent experienced anything infinite or perfect in the carnal world, thus Descartes concludes t hat our concept of God is innate. Hume objects to this argument, stating that we formed the idea of God through abstraction and negation, since we are familiar of things which are finite and imperfect, we can and then imagine the resister, something which is infinite and perfect.Descartes follows up to this, saying that the initial concept of nonpareil is necessary to make comparisons in order to recognise imperfection. Upon closer inspection, we can see that there is an inconsistency in Descartes argument, he claims we have a clear and distinct idea that God is perfect and infinite, yet he claims as finite minds we cannot form a clear idea of Gods infinity. Descartes expects us to acknowledge that the idea of God is positive kernel the concept of infinity and perfection is not formed through opposite their opposite tightings, yet we only have a negative idea of God as we are finite, we therefore must be the display case of the idea.Another prominent cause of division between rationalists and empiricists is the concept of causation. Rationalists argue that causation cannot be experienced through sense impressions to illustrate this, an archetype of one dinner dress striking a second ball is very much used. The second ball appears to have moved off, initially it may face as though it was the cause of the kickoff ball, but in feature the movement of all the balls were controlled by magnets. Rationalists would conclude that causation is an innate concept as it cannot be acquired through sense experience, as shown in the example it seemed as though the first ball was the cause of the second ball moving off even though this isnt the case.Hume tackles causation by arguing that patterns which repeat themselves are regarded as causation. To illustrate this, if we heard gold rush immediately before put our hands, we would think nothing of it. If the same thing happened a minute later, we would still regard it as coincidence. Although if this continued to happen for a fourth, fifth or sixth time, we would begin to think that clapping our hands was the cause yet the only difference between the first and the sixth time was the repetition. Hume concludes that that the feeling of causation is simply the result of repetition and is simply nothing more than a habit.Taking all this into account, it appears that the numerous ideas which rationalists claim are innate actually originate from sense experience, solely like all other ideas. Having even some innate ideas is not possible, as John Locke stated, at birth are minds our tabula rasa, therefore there are no innate ideas in the human mind. If there were, it would mean there are propositions which everyone would assent to, including children and idiots but there clearly arent.