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Essay on Philosophy
This is a philosophy paper, which firstly explains the distinction between rationalism and empiricism and which account is more plausible? It further provides a concise statement of scientific realism and explains whether this account can be plausibly defended? It also explains "a priori" knowledge, and do we have any and provides an argument. Lastly, the paper explains that what is the problem of induction and should it be considered a serious problem or not.
Empiricism is the understanding obtained all the way through experience, whereas rationalism is the knowledge that can be acquired through the use of reason. According to empiricism, we can only know things after we have had the relevant experience this is labeled a posteriori knowledge because posteriori means "after." According to rationalism, it is possible to know things before we have had experiences this is known as a priori knowledge because priori means before. Empiricism and rationalism exhaust all possibilities either knowledge can only be acquired after experience or it is possible to acquire at least some knowledge before experience.
There are no third options here (except, perhaps, for the skeptical position that no knowledge is possible at all and by any means); this means that everyone is either a rationalist or an empiricist when it comes to their theory of knowledge. Rationalism, however, is not a uniform position. Some rationalists will simply argue that some truths about reality can be discovered through pure reason and thought (examples include truths of mathematics, geometry and sometimes morality) while many other truths do indeed require experience. Other rationalists will go further and argue that all truths about reality must in some way be acquired through reason, normally because our sense organs are unable to directly experience outside actuality at all.
Empiricism, on the other hand, is more homogeneous in the sense that it denies that any form of rationalism is true or possible. Empiricists may disagree on just how we acquire knowledge through experience and in what sense our experiences give us access to outside reality; nevertheless, they all agree that knowledge requires experience. Although empiricism and rationalism exhaust the possible options for how we acquire knowledge, that isn't the full extent of epistemology. This field also addresses questions about how we construct concepts in our minds, the nature of knowledge itself...................
