Dr. Hagar H.

Eltarabishy Culture 2022/2023

What was there before Empiricism?

The rationalists (like Descartes ) believe that all knowledge comes from
reason alone. They do not trust sensory experience because our senses
can be deceived; but pure reason cannot be. In other words, rationalists
think that if you grew up in a locked room with no windows, you could
gain knowledge of the world simply by thinking about it, thanks to the
innate ideas in your mind.

Empiricism
The term empiricism is derived from the ancient Greek word empeiria,
“experience.”
Empiricism is is primarily concerned with sensory experience.
Empiricists believe that all knowledge comes from our senses, and from
actually physically experiencing the world.

They DO NOT think there are any innate ideas, ideas that are held
in the mind a priori, or independently of experience.

Empiricism is more or less the direct contrast of rationalism: the

rationalists believe that all knowledge comes from reason alone. They do
not trust sensory experience because our senses can be deceived; but pure
reason cannot be. Empiricists think you actually have to go out and
experience the world, in order to gain knowledge of it.

The experiences referred to by empiricists are principally those

arising from the stimulation of the sense organs—i.e., from visual,
auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory sensation. Stressing experience,
empiricism often opposes the claims of authority, intuition, imaginative
conjecture, and abstract, theoretical, or systematic reasoning as sources of
reliable belief.

Three of the most prominent empiricist philosophers, are John

Locke, David Hume, and George Berkeley.