The limits of empiricism and rationalism
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Hello. I need assistance with regards to validating the following statement:
-Neither Empiricism nor Rationalism represents a satisfactory solution to the problem of knowledge.
I'm very confused about these two. Is this true or false? and if so why?
Thank You Very Much!
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Solution Summary
This post establishes why empiricism and rationalism as theories of knowledge are insufficient and how Kant tried to synthesize them. Was the attempt at synthesis successful?
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EMPIRICISM
Empiricism (mostly associated with Anglo-American philosophers like Francis Bacon (1561-1626) John Locke (1632-1704), George Berkeley (1685-1753), and David Hume (1711-1776), John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)), recognizes experience as the only source of knowledge. It is also called the philosophy of experience. It states that no knowledge is possible independently of experience. One can understand experience here to mean data of the senses. In other words, for empiricism, knowledge is possible only through perception via the five senses. Some empiricists add the content of consciousness (which would include the moral sense, religious or aesthetic experience). Strong empiricists however, maintain that all knowledge is derived from experience only. Empiricism would therefore deny that knowledge of existing things could be possible ...
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