THE WAY OF REASONLesson 5 - RATIONALISM

Presented by:Arnel O. RiveraLPU-Cavite

Based on the presentation of: Mr. Alexander Rodis

TWO MAIN THOERIES ABOUT THE BASIS OF KNOWLEDGEWhere does knowledge come from?What is the basis of knowledge?

Traditionally, philosophers have generally answered these questions in two ways:

Those philosophers who have emphasized “reason” as the source of knowledge (inside-out philosophers). This position is often called rationalism from Latin word, “ratio” which means reason.

Those philosophers who have emphasized “experience” as the source of knowledge (outside-in philosophers). This position is called empiricism from the Greek, “empeiria” which means experience.

DETERMINE WHETHER THE SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE IS REASON OR EXPERIENCE

I know that water is liquid.I know that gravity exist.I know that the Earth is spherical.I know that I exist.I know that God existsI know that swans are whiteI know that there is love.I know that this table exists.I know that man has soul.I know that all barking dogs bark.I know that justice is good.I know that I will rain tomorrow.I know that there is energy in matter.I know that all men are equal.I know that the sun is hot.

REASON AS BASIS OF KNOWLEDGERationalism is the belief that at least some

knowledge about reality can be acquired through reason, independently of sense experience. Rationalist believes that some knowledge about

reality can be acquired through reason alone. What they insist on is that at least some of the truths about reality and usually the most important truths about reality are known apart from sense experience.

The rationalist claims that at least some propositions which are about reality may be known independent of sense experience and through reason alone.

THE RATIONALISM OF PLATOPlato believed that the reason, which distinguishes humans

from the lower animals, comprises the essential nature of the human being.

Human good and happiness lie in the activity and fulfillment of the rational faculty. That is they lie in the contemplation of knowledge.

Plato believed that the only proper object of knowledge, or the only thing that can really be known, is Being. This means that we can have no real knowledge of the world about us, the relative and fluctuating world of Becoming where we have only opinion and not knowledge. 

Sense experience is disdained as a hindrance to real knowledge and true reality by its very nature as transcendent and non-sensible, can be grasp adequately by the intellect alone.

PLATO’s rationalism is that knowledge is possible only because it is INNATE, that is inborn.

THEORY OF INNATE IDEAS.Let us the following statements:Every event must have a cause.It is morally wrong to kill people for the fun

of it.All individual are endowed with basic rights.

Do you possess any universal and certain knowledge about reality? Think of some possible examples.

THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE AS RECOLLECTION.Plato believed in the preexistence of soul on the grounds

that we have in our minds certain ideas that we could not possibly have derived from sense experience alone.

Plato believed that the only way to account for this knowledge is that prior to its embodiment in this world, the soul was in the presence of the FORMS, where it acquired knowledge of the realities.

This knowledge was lost or forgotten through the trauma of birth, though to some degree “recollected” subsequently to birth on the occasion of our experience or encountered imperfectly in the sensible world.

RATIONALISM OF DESCARTESDESCARTES’ TWO FOLD BASIS OF KNOWLEDGEHe is more attracted to mathematics because the

truths of mathematics and the proofs of geometry are certain because they are untainted by the tentativeness and fluctuations and relativeness and illusions of sense experience.

He conceived of a geometrical method of philosophy.

He reduced it to two operations of the intellect:INTUITIONDEDUCTION

INTUITIONThe faculty by which the truths are grasped immediately

by direct awareness, without the intervention of sense-experience or other ideas.

It is a direct and immediate knowledge of something, which means that knowledge are not mediated or passed along through sense experience or through other ideas.

The intuition is not only capable of knowing logical truths but also truths about reality:“Every event must have a cause.”“It is morally wrong to kill people.”“All individual are endowed with basic rights.”

INTUITIONISM as a theory about the basis of knowledge is the view that such truths may be known immediately and with certainty.

DEDUCTIONOur knowledge is not limited to intuitions and it is

possible to deduce further ideas and truths from our intuited ones.

The faculty by which subsequent truths are known with necessity from intuited truths, or from intuited truths taken together with other deduced truths.

By the faculty of deduction, we are enabled to expand from original intuition our knowledge indefinitely but without loss of certainty.

It consist of an inference of one proposition from others and in valid deductive reasoning, if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.

LET:US CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING ARGUMENT:

It is immoral to kill persons.Capital punishment is the killing of persons.Therefore, capital punishment is immoral.

Deduction is the process by which we draw a conclusion from one or more premises and if the premises are true, the conclusion must be true.

The proposition which follows from the others, that is, the something to be shown, is called the conclusion

The propositions from which the conclusion follows, that is, the evidence, are called premises.

DISCOURSE ON METHODDescartes presented rules which ensure that the intellect will

eventually, grasp all that can be known:1. The first of these was to accept nothing as true which I did not

clearly recognize to be so: that is to say, carefully to avoid precipitation and prejudice in judgments, and to accept in them nothing more that what was presented to my mind so clearly and distinctly that I could have no occasion to doubt.

2. They second was to divide up each of the difficulties which I examined into as many parts as possible, and as seemed requisite in order that I might be resolved in the best manner possible.

3. The third was to carry on my reflection in due order, commencing with objects that were the most simple and easy to understand, in order to rise little, or by degree, to knowledge of the most complex, assuming an order, even if a fictitious one, among those which do not follow a natural sequence relatively to one another.

4. The last as in all cases to make enumeration so complete and reviews so general that I should be certain of having omitted nothing.