Empirist Knowledge Currents

Empirist knowledge currents

Before starting, what do we understand by knowledge? How do we get to absolute or true knowledge? How many are the currents or thoughts that seek to reach that truth? What are the methods used by these currents/philosophical thoughts? What are your sources of study?

To get to the knowledge response we must take into account the currents that work with that goal. Define or seek the truth of absolute knowledge, I will take two of the most fundamental currents of philosophy to get to knowledge, these are empiricism and rationalism, which have their respective authors or creators, which are John Locke and René Descartes.

These two great philosophers created their own methods to support their thoughts and opinions.

I will start by putting ourselves in context that it is knowledge:

"Knowledge is the act or effect of knowing. It is the ability of man to understand through reason the nature, qualities and relationships of things. […]

Knowledge can be ‘a priori’ when you do not need experience only the reason to get to knowledge and ‘a posteriori’ is enough when you need the experience to reach a valid knowledge."

With these definitions we have to understand that it is reason and that it is experience, which are the fundamental pillars of the philosophical currents of rationalism and empiricism, respectively. As reason we understand:

“The reason is the faculty of the human being to think, to reflect to reach a conclusion or form judgments of a certain situation or thing.

[…]

The reason in philosophy is the virtue that the human being possesses to question, recognize, verify concepts, discuss them as well as to deduce or induce different concepts to those that are already dominated."

Already with these definitions as tools we can start with both philosophical currents themselves, now understanding that both seek to get to knowledge.

In the first place is the thought or current of rationalism, what do we understand by rationalism? What are the methods you use? What is your source or in which this theory is sustained?

“Before entering to establish the meaning of the term rationalism, we will proceed to determine the etymological origin of the same. Thus, we can say that it is a word that derives from Latin, since part of the word "ratio", which can be translated as "reason"."

As I said before, Rene Descartes is considered the father of rationalism, since he begins to investigate the source of knowledge, his main objective was to reach universal or absolute truths. With this objective, I studied that led him to affirm the innate skills of the human being, which help us find explanations for all things and to create his reliable affirmation and without a doubt, for this I need to establish certain rules or norms creating the “doubtMethodic "or" Cartesian method ", with this method proposes mathematics as a universal method, that is, regardless of or where it is used, this seeks to avoid error.

The Cartesian method consists of a series of steps which are the evidence, analysis, synthesis and enumeration. Now I will go to define each of them:

Evidence: “It only accepts the obvious as true. But what is evident? The evidence occurs only in intuition, that is, in a purely rational act, so our mind captures or "voice" (voice intellectually, not by the eyes) immediately and simply an idea.[…] (It is necessary that it be through the senses or the experience that this idea is captured)."

So to take an idea, this has to be clear (that you cannot doubt it) and that it is a different or different idea (that it cannot be confused with another idea and that is innovative).

If an idea is confusing, Descartes rejects that idea, since something that cannot be doubted is needed. Considering this, it is difficult to find a simple idea, since we tend to have complex ideas that at the time of becoming a simple idea can change its origin, so I think it is complex to reach a simple idea that is clear and different, butIt is not impossible, Descartes takes on clear or obvious ideas innate ideas, which have no experience, are only obvious ideas.

Already having the simple idea, we can move on to the next step:

Analysis: «Divide each of the difficulties that examined in as many parts as possible and as it requires to solve them better»

What I do in this step is to separate that idea in as many parts as necessary, to analyze the simple parts, in other words, they must be reduced to the maximum to be able to analyze them separately, make it the simplest until they return them innate ideas. Then we go to the next step:

Synthesis: «The third precept, lead in order my thoughts, starting with the simplest and easiest objects to know to rise little by little, as by degrees, to the knowledge of the most compounds, even assuming an order among which they werenaturally precede each other «.

After having reached the simple elements of the problem, the subject must be redoled again in all its complexity, where the whole idea and its result that derives from absolutely true principles can be deduced, in other words, synthesis is adeduction process, where ideas are chained with each other. Synthesis complements the analysis. Already ending with the rules is the last one:

Checking or enumeration: "Finally, the last precept is to make in all such complete counts and some revisions so general that it could be sure not to omit anything"

This rule is responsible for reviewing that there is no minimum error in the previous processes, the verification tries to understand at once and intuitively, the globalization of the process that is being studied.

With this Rene Descartes procedure, what are we sure? And with this the methodical doubt arises which its objective is true knowledge and consists in rejecting ideas that can be given to doubt, with this methodical doubt, Descartes is inspired and created its symbolic phrase of “Cogito ergo sum” (I think,then I exist).

Already with this, I am of the idea in which to reach absolute knowledge it is necessary for logic or reasoning but experience is also necessary, taking into account the thought of empiricism that says that one comes blank (tabula rasa) and thatYou cannot go beyond that, in other words that our knowledge is limited. Where empiricism provides sensations or reflection, in other words experience is the origin and limit of our knowledge, this happens that the human being can be self-taught with oneself.

My point of view is that these two positions can be complemented to reach absolute knowledge, in the sense that logic and experience are needed to obtain the truth, the man who experiences and reason is a man who knows, which solves questions and dedicated to investigating and discovering the world.

What I feel is that today’s man is dedicated to living in a more empiricist way, in the sense of being the protagonist of his own life, discovering what he is capable of, to value and believe in himself.

The power to experience and discover the world through the senses is much more striking than the fact of doing so in a traditional way, which have taught us, but we can also take this teaching as an experience and be able to reflect and reason it.

“Rationalism and empiricism are schools of thought that seek to explain how human beings acquire knowledge, but have fundamentally opposite philosophies.

The dispute between rationalism and empiricism occurs in epistemology, the branch of philosophy dedicated to the study of nature, sources and limits of knowledge.

The rationalists affirm that our knowledge is acquired by innate reason and knowledge. On the other hand, empiricists affirm that sensory experience is the source of all our ideas and knowledge."

To end, it should be noted that these two currents are the bases or pillars so that later new philosophers use them as a method of study and analysis, such as Emmanuel Kant, who coincided with some things about both positions. With what current do you feel most identified?