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Rationalism, Empiricism and the Egocentric Predicament

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Compare and contrast rationalism and empiricism in their approach to the topic of knowledge.

Discuss the Egocentric Predicament. How do you solve it?

I have the Big Question textbook by Robert Solomon

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Solution Summary

The solution provides insight to help the student achieve the task of comparing and contrasting rationalism and empiricism. Additionally, it also provides insight into the topic of egocentric predicament.

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In answering the first question you need to address the fundamental distinction; rationalist believe there is innate knowledge-knowledge that we are, in some sense or other, born with-and empiricists believe that all knowledge comes from experience. How you expand on that depends on which rationalist and which empiricist thinkers you discussed or studied, as they differ a great deal in the way they approached the issues. If you need help on the theories of certain specific rationalists or empiricists, let me know and I can help you there as well.

The next thing to do is to address the arguments each side uses to defend its positions; the rationalists tend to refer to examples of knowledge that seem to have nothing to do with experience (such as, classically, knowledge of mathematical principles) while empiricists tend to say that even in the case of such things as mathematics the way we actually know that the principles are true is because they are verified through experience.

Here is a link to a series of well articulated distinctions on the justifications between the two positions: ...

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