Dilara Yılmaz 031804141

1. I am looking at a circular object. And I have a knowledge of this object. Where does this
knowledge come from, according to the rationalist and empiricist? Please explain with
other examples.

We take knowledge ready-made from the outside and prove it through mathematical proof,
experiment, and observation. There is no knowledge acquired through the mind because
everything that enters our brain is obtained through the senses from the outside world.
Therefore, what we call reasoning cannot be independent of the outside world. Even in the
most interesting creatures that humans have created, we can see the traces of everything he
has taken from their environment. This is why when we look at a circular object, we have
information about this object. While empiricism is based on the experience that constitutes
the content of our perceptions as the source of knowledge, rationalism is based on the
human mind as the source of our knowledge. Empiricism defends itself against rationalism in
two ways: firstly, by saying that there is no innate knowledge in the mind and if there were,
it should be in children as well, and secondly, it criticizes the rationalist's view of only
mathematics as precise and general in knowledge, and obtains knowledge by experiment
and observation method. He defended himself by considering other sciences, which created
his laws and created his laws, as science. Coming to rationalism, we come across the
proposition that human knowledge is innate in the mind. Rationalists choose pure
mathematics and logic rather than natural science and argue that knowledge is something
that we can only have beforehand, independent of experience.

2. What is the difference between first person and third person experience? What has this
difference to do with Thomas Nagel's article "What is it like to be a bat?"

We see this world in first person only from our own perspective with our own eyes.
Sometimes we often ask ourselves the question "How do I look on the outside?" and it's
almost impossible to find out. Because we will never be able to look at ourselves as a third
person, we will never be able to see. but to the people around us, we are the third person.
Our perception of the world is unique to us, and we have an unshakable confidence in our
own perspective. because this is the absolute reality we are sure of. Nagel says in this article
that he wondered not what it was like to be a bat with a human consciousness, but what it
was like to be a bat as a bat. Nagel argues that consciousness, which is the state of
perceiving its own existence as existing, is subjective. When he tries to imagine, he says that
his own mind is inadequate with its resources.

According to Nagel, perhaps the most physiologically different creatures from us are bats.
We will never understand what it is like to perceive science and technology as they do. We
do not have access to the first-person experience, the bat example is an example that is put
forward to better understand this situation. The main issue here is the problem of other
minds. Just as we cannot understand being like a bat, we will not be able to understand is
the person in front of us. That's why people's sense of empathy is not convincing to me.
Although we try to put ourselves in the place of the other person, we will never be able to
take the place of the other person and experience their feelings and thoughts.
By nature, many bats determine the position of living things around them based on the
echoes of the sounds they make. According to Nagel, we humans can be aware of this
incredible ability of bats, we can learn how this perception happens, or we can explain it to
some extent, and we won't even be able to tell ourselves what it means to be a bat. We will
not be able to fully know and comprehend what kind of inner experience it is to find
something through the sounds we make, and what it means to open up to the world through
the window of a bat.