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Epistemology- Part 1
Philosophy and Contemporary Ideas (Liberty
University)
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Epistemology: Rationalism, Empiricism, Rational
Empiricism and Your Worldview
•Epistemology
•Defined: epistemology is the theory of knowledge. It is the study
of nature, means, validity, and limits of human cognition.
•Skepticism:
•Defined: skepticism is the view that genuine knowledge is probably
not possible
-probably, real knowledge is beyond the human grasp
- you can never be certain, there’s always a possibility that you
are probably wrong
•Rationalism:
•Defined: the view that knowledge ultimately comes from reason
rather than experience
- Descarte and Plato: important rationalist philosophers
- Plato: you cant make sense of your sensory experiences unless
you have an idea of things already
- Plato: world of forms
- “Experiences aren’t self-interpreting, you have to interpret
them based on the ideas you already have”- Dr. Jones
Descartes:
Famous saying: “cogito ergo sum”- “I think therefore I am”
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Descartes believed that because he is thinking he must exist.
Because whether he is correct or incorrect about that fact, he
remains to exist regardless.
- Our thoughts of an infinite and perfect being (God) must exist for
our thought of him to exist
- Because we are finite and imperfect beings we cannt possibly
conceive of a perfect and infinite being without that being
having existed and implanting that thought in our heads
- I think, therefore I am - I exist
Empiricism:
Defined: empiricism is the view that al knowledge comes from
experience
-you cannot know anything outside of experience
- Aristotle, John Locke, David Hume
Aristotle: everything everything is a combination of matter and forms,
that’s how we know what things are
- A book is just atoms in the form of a rectangle/square with
pages inside, etc.
- Experiences write knowledge on the blank slate or “Tabula Rossa”
of the mind- John Locke
- Barkley said to be a true empiricist, we have to set aside
some traditional ideas about experience
- We experience the shape, size and weight of an object (its form)
but we cannot really experience the matter or atoms that make it
up
- David Hume- you can’t really experience yourself, you only
experience thoughts, feelings, and memorieshe develops the, the
cluster theory
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- To assume that something is caused by something else could be
committing the post hoc fallacy. Seeing that A is followed by B
does not necessarily mean A caused B.
- Rational Empiricism: the view that the mind provides a framework
of ideas that makes it possible for us to gain knowledge through
experience
- Kant: space is not something we experience. We bring the idea
of space to our experiences to better understand those
experiences
- Kant’s “Copernican Revolution” in Epistemology:
- The categories of understanding (space, time, causality, etc.)
constitute perception rather than being constituted by
perception
How does this relate to your worldview?
•Skepticism is incompatible with Christianity but compatible
with Naturalism
•Rational empiricism is compatible with Christianity but inexplicable
for naturalism
Naturalism Christianity
Empiricism Rationalism
Skepticism Rational empiricism
•The concept of innate knowledge is biblical- Gentiles have an
innate knowledge of right and wrong
•Naturalists have no way of explaining where innate
ideas/knowledge come from
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