SIDHARTH JAIN 2-C

What is rationalism? 170BARCHI114

Rationalism is the view that human reason, intuition and deduction are the most important way of acquiring
knowledge. Rationalism functions on three key principles that work to find the truth:
Deduction - Deduction is the application of concrete principles to draw a conclusion. Mathematical principles
are an example of deduction. For example, finding the square footage of a room is always done the same way,
by multiplying the width and length.
Innate ideas - Innate ideas is the concept that we're born with fundamental truths or experiences left over from
another life that we're born with. These ideas can also come from God. Innate ideas can explain why some
people possess significantly more talent in some things than others who have exactly the same exposure to
them.
Reason - Reason uses logic to determine a conclusion. Logic can use multiple methods to determine the truth,
and the emphasis is on finding the truth, not on the method.
Extreme rationalism tries to base all knowledge on reason alone. Three characteristic rationalist theses are – (i)
knowledge of a particular subject is majorly based on intuition (or rational insight) and deductive reasoning,
rather than by experience or sense. (ii) knowledge of a particular subject is innate or determined by nature rather
than by experience (iii) the concepts or ideas that constitute our ability to think about a particular subject are
innate.
René Descartes thought that only knowledge of eternal truths – including the truths of mathematics, and the
philosophical and metaphysical foundations of the sciences – could be attained by reason alone; other
knowledge, the knowledge of physics, required experience of the world, aided by the scientific method. He also
argued that although dreams appear as real as sense experience, these dreams cannot provide people with
knowledge. Also, since conscious sense experience can be the cause of illusions, then sense experience itself
can be doubtable. As a result, Descartes deduced that a rational pursuit of truth should doubt every belief about
reality.
Descartes developed a method to attain truths according to which nothing which cannot be recognised by the
intellect (or reason) can be classified as knowledge. These truths are gained "without any sensory experience",
according to Descartes. Truths that are attained by reason are to be broken down into elements which intuition
can grasp, which, through a purely deductive process, will result in clear truths about reality.
Descartes therefore argued, as a result of his method, that reason alone determined knowledge, and that this
could be done independently of the senses. For instance, his famous dictum, cogito ergo sum (I think; therefore,
I am), is a conclusion reached a priori (derived by reasoning) and not through an inference from experience.
This was, for Descartes, an irrefutable principle upon which to ground all forms of other knowledge.

What is Empiricism?
Empiricism, on the other hand, works with key principles to use skepticism in its school of thought that rejects
the principles of rationalism. In philosophy, empiricism is a theory that states that knowledge comes only or
primarily from sensory experience. Empiricism emphasises the role of empirical evidence in the formation of
ideas, rather than innate ideas or traditions.

Sense experience - Empiricists believe that our ideas come solely from sense experience. These ideas are either
simple or complex and make use of the five senses (touch, taste, smell, sound and sight). Simple ideas are those
that use only one of the five senses to establish perception. For example, sugar is sweet. Complex ideas use
more than one of the five senses to gain a more detailed perception. Sugar is sweet and white and granular, for
example.
Innate ideas - Empiricists reject the notion of innate ideas. A popular term associated with this came from John
Locke, who believed that the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa.
Induction - Induction is the most crucial principle to empiricism, similar to how crucial reason is to rationalists.
Induction is the belief that very little can be proven conclusively, especially without experience. If a tree falls in
the forest and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? This is an example of an empiricist’s
perspective on induction. Since there is no one in the forest to experience the sound of a falling tree, then it
can’t be determined as truth that it makes a sound.

Empiricism denies the rationalist distinction between empirical and a priori (derived by reasoning) knowledge.
All knowledge, the empiricist argues, arises through, and is reducible to, sense perception. Thus, there is no
knowledge that arises through reason alone.
It is essential to be clear here: it is not reason’s existence that empiricism denies, or that reason has a role in
knowledge acquisition and manipulation, rather it is that reason has some special access to knowledge over and
above the knowledge that experience provides. All empiricists acknowledge that human beings possess reason
and reason is the instrument that allows us to manipulate and augment the knowledge that experience provides.
Knowledge, however, has its origins in experience rather than in reason.
The doctrine of Empiricism was first explicitly formulated by the British philosopher John Locke in the late
17th Century. He rejected deduction as the only source of reliable knowledge as deduction can’t tell us anything
new – the truths contained in deduction are only truths by definition – in a deductive argument, the conclusion
cannot contain anything that is not already contained in the premises.
He rejected Descartes’ concepts of universal innate ideas-
-even if universal knowledge exists then it could be explained through universal experience – common
experiences of what it is like to be human.
- but universal knowledge does not exist – ―ideas not known to children & idiots.
- innateness requires us to know and not know simultaneously – which is impossible (especially since Descartes
maintained that the mind was transparent to itself.

Idea of Aristocracy during 15th and early 16th century

The European aristocrats of the Middle Ages were the landowning nobility, whose members were privileged by
fiefs (land held on condition of feudal service) from the king in return for services in war. Although their
prestige was increased by the deeds they exercised as armored knights on horseback, their honor as nobles was
thought to be hereditary.
During the sixteenth century armored knights lost their military significance, and kings and princes began to
rely on mercenaries with firearms. At the same time, Renaissance humanism challenged the nobles' notion of
inherited superiority and proclaimed the idea of a spiritual aristocracy deriving from a more refined control of
bodily instincts as well as extensive literary skills. Aristocrats therefore needed a better education in order to
compete with the learned upper middle class in obtaining the influential offices at the king's government. The
image of the knight was still a symbol of nobility as shown in the persistent use of coats of arms and armored
portraits, and knightly games continued in derivative forms such as riding at the ring. However, the physical
exertions of the aristocratic male were formalized as these were transformed into a ceremonialized lifestyle that
culminated in the Baroque and Rococo periods in an emphasis on look and manner, such as the donning of
powder and wigs. It became a matter of extreme honor to act in accordance with the correct manners at court. In
Il cortegiano (1528) the Italian writer Baldassare Castiglione put words to the new aristocratic ideals: the outer
refined and carefully choreographed staging of the courtier reflected true inner nobility.
These new features influenced education. Dance, for example, became increasingly significant and attracted the
interest of educational writers. Good dancers were more easily taught the look, the posture, and the gait
necessary for success in aristocratic life. Music education continued, but now attention was also given to
drawing and painting, which developed the visual sense. Aristocratic children continued to be brought up in the
manor houses of their parents, by other noblemen, or at court. The formal literary education of boys was
upgraded and now led by professional schoolmasters; such teaching became an occupation regulated by clock
time and distinct from everyday life. Latin was the subject given most attention; some boys learned Greek and
even Hebrew. As Italian and, later, French succeeded Latin as the lingua franca (common language between
speakers whose native languages are different), it became important to learn these languages.

Idea of beauty (through the eye of enlightenment and neo classical period)
Is Beauty something objective or just in the eye of the beholder? If objective is it independent of other
categories such as Truth and Goodness? The middle ages took their idea of beauty chiefly from Plato’s
philosophy which states that beauty is taken for granted as part of the divine order. According to Plato Truth,
Beauty and Goodness were indeed objective entities, at least in their essence, i.e. their forms. John Keats’ later
assertion ‘beauty is truth, truth beauty’ essentially reinstates this belief.
In Medieval thought everything was connected, thus there was no conflict between the good and the beautiful
which torment modern sensibilities. Thomas Aquinas, the quintessential scholastic philosopher recognized three
components of beauty. First, and maybe foremost there is integrity, which refers to perfection and lack of
impairment; then there is proportions, each part should harmonize with the other parts, and finally there is
clarity, which has to do with sensual features as bright colors.
Renaissance designers and theorists used the ten books of architecture by Vitruvius – the only substantial text
on the subject from the ancient world and a formative influence on revived classicism. Vitruvius summarized
architecture in three words: firmitas, utilitas and venustas. The last is often translated as beauty, implying a
physical or sensual quality to the experience named after a goddess.
The Vitruvian man – a figure with outstretched arms in a circle – demonstrates the ancient belief that beauty
resulted from following the proportions of the body. This remains a powerful idea, even if the actual
measurements only approximate to the pure equations of the formula. The majority of older buildings have a
naturally graceful scale in elements such as doors and windows, while timber and stone set limits on the
absolute size of structures, giving them what is often called a human scale. These are elements of beauty that
are not achieved so easily in an age of mechanized construction.
The ideal of pure geometry remains deeply rooted in western consciousness as the basis of beauty. It sits well
with the idea that beauty is an expert business, not accessible to the untrained mind. The dominance of this
interpretation was soon challenged by new voices of common sense. In France in 1683 Claude Perrault wrote
about the classical orders – the various columns observed in Roman ruins and listed with their correct
proportions by Vitruvius. He questioned the idea that finite numerical relationships could be the defining cause
of beauty, arguing that the ancients had no magic formula to connect architecture to the cosmos – an idea so
shocking that it remained inert for over a hundred years.

REFERENCES –
1. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Rationalism vs. Empiricism
2. Hume, David. Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748
3. Alan Powers, Beauty: a short history
4. https://study.com/academy/lesson/rationalism-vs-empiricism-similarities-differences.html
5. https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/people/longworth/research/keyideasrationalismempiricism.pdf
6. https://www.philosophybasics.com/branch_empiricism.html
7. http://www.cabrillo.edu/~cclose/docs/Locke.pdf
8. https://www.encyclopedia.com/children/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/aristocratic-
education-europe
9. http://www.math.chalmers.se/~ulfp/Review/artbeauty.pdf