Empiricism Vs. Rationalism = Rationalism > Empiricism?

[r0ckyreed]

From Leo's recent video on Intro Into Pure Philosophy, I found it interesting that Leo put Empiricism and Rationalism into the category of philosophies that are a waste of time.  This makes me wonder how do we acquire knowledge at all?  It also seems wrong because Actualized.org seems to advocate for empiricism (knowledge through direct experience) and appears to be against rationalism, despite advocating for contemplation rather than meditation.  Another way to frame this debate of empiricism vs. rationalism is meditation (empiricism) vs. contemplation (rationalism).

Empiricism suggests that knowledge is derived through direct experience, and rationalism is the view that knowledge is derived through reflection, using the intellect and rationality to contemplate both thoughts and sense-perceptions.

It seems that both schools of thought are correct to me.  They both hit at the point that knowledge can be derived through actuality (empiricism) and through concepts (rationalism).  I would say that empiricism is a more fundamental way of knowing and rationalism is a higher-order way of knowing.

Argument For Rationalism

Actualized.org seems to shoot down rationalism by saying that you cannot trust rationality and the mind.  But isn't reflecting on the fact that you cannot trust rationality, a part of what rationalism is?  Your senses alone cannot tell you that logic is limited in its understanding of reality - only reflection and contemplation can.  So in a way, what you are really doing is meta-logic.  In addition, Descartes and Al-Ghazali (Sufi Mystic, Hyperlinked) even suggested that rationalism is a higher-order faculty than empiricism because our senses can easily deceive us.  For instance, we see the sun rising and setting, but that isn't how reality works.  Stars appear small in the sky but are actually bigger than our planet.  We can also trip balls on drugs and hallucinate different things, and we can also be in a dream for all we know.  In a dream, our senses will never tell us that we are in a dream. Only rationalism used properly can tell us that we are in the dream.  The way you use rationalism properly is by using openminded contemplation and skepticism.  Your senses cannot be skeptical, only your logical mind can.  This is why rationalism is a higher-order way of attaining knowledge. Of course, people can rationalize anything they want to, but they are not being rational when they do so.  In the same way, people cannot escape philosophy, but only engage in a certain quality of philosophy.  The same is true of rationality and sense-perception.

Limits of Rationalism

The limits of rationalism is that no amount of rationality can give us any knowledge about objects themselves.  Colors, shapes, objects, etc. cannot be grasped through the intellect because no amount of thought can get one any closer to what is being perceived or held within consciousness.  Rationalism can question whether what I am perceiving is an illusion or not, but it cannot grasp what a thing is because all thoughts are second-order to existence.  I got that part.  But I would suggest that deeply thinking about our sense-perceptions helps us to raise our consciousness to our sense-perceptions.  For instance, if I question whether I am hallucinating or not, I will naturally pay more attention and my senses/consciousness will raise slightly.  Whereas if I go about life not deeply thinking, I would have never entertained the thought and my awareness of perceptions will be shallower like everyone else.  The saying goes, "a wise person doesn't see the same tree as a fool."  I would suggest that this is because the wise person questions their experience deeply, and as a result, is at a higher-level of consciousness than the fool.

Conclusion: Why Rationalism Is A Deeper Way of Knowing

I also want to acknowledge that for us to be able to think, use logic, and contemplate, we first have to exist and have sense-perception experiences.  So in a way, empiricism is more fundamental than rationalism, but it may not be higher-order than rationalism.  Just because something is fundamental does not mean it is a higher-order phenomenon.  For instance, dogs have sense-perceptions to a greater degree than humans do (i.e., this was derived through rationalism and empiricism).  But dogs do not have the rational component of the brain like us humans do.  A dogs worldview is limited to sense-perceptions, and a dog does not question whether reality is a hallucination or not.  I make a sound and a dog barks.  It is stimulus and response because without thinking, rationality, and contemplation, there is no room for choice.  A dog's choice is limited because their cognitive capacities are compared to humans.  As a result, humans have a greater understanding of the context of reality than dogs do.  But dogs may have a greater understanding of the contents of reality than humans do because they can perceive more than us.  Rationality is that step that I would argue that allows us to be more context-aware.  The fact that we can question our content and use rationality is what allows us to go meta.  We cannot escape sense-perceptions, but we can escape rationality.  That is the phenomenon of NOT thinking/contemplating and self-reflecting for the sake of Truth, which is what most people do.  

What do you think?  How do we acquire knowledge?  Based on the importance of independent contemplation, is rationalism a better way of acquiring knowledge than empiricism?  What is your answer?  What critiques may you have of my analysis?

Edited November 3, 2022 by r0ckyreed

[Vibroverse]

I don't know if rationalism and empiricism actually are two different things, or they actually are the two sides of the same coin. Because even the most hardcore empiricist creates the concept of empiricism which you cannot find in your mere observations of reality. Nowhere in nature you can find the argument that knowledge can only be gained empirically, so you need to be able to have that capacity of conceptualization first in order to come up with those concepts that you come up with. 

And another question is, how do we create a true distinction between the objects of the mind and the objects of the world to know which one came first? How are we even able to differentiate thinking and being from each other? How do we even tell the difference between our mental processes and the physical processes, with a clearcut distinction? 

So, I think, the best we can do is approach these ideas with a pragmatic perspective, because you cannot even distinguish, at the ontological level, reality from thought. What is the exact line of distinction between reality and thought? 

 

[r0ckyreed]

On 11/3/2022 at 9:51 AM, Vibroverse said:

 

I don't know if rationalism and empiricism actually are two different things, or they actually are the two sides of the same coin. Because even the most hardcore empiricist creates the concept of empiricism which you cannot find in your mere observations of reality. Nowhere in nature you can find the argument that knowledge can only be gained empirically, so you need to be able to have that capacity of conceptualization first in order to come up with those concepts that you come up with. 

 

I agree. Sherlock Holmes uses both observation (empiricism) and deduction (rationalism). We need both to acquire knowledge and form conclusions. Observation is fundamental and rationality is higher-order. Rationality after all is using logic to deduce what we observe.

Look around you. What you call “the world” is your mind. Mind is not just thoughts, it is perception itself. 

[Vibroverse]

1 hour ago, r0ckyreed said:

I agree. Sherlock Holmes uses both observation (empiricism) and deduction (rationalism). We need both to acquire knowledge and form conclusions. Observation is fundamental and rationality is higher-order. Rationality after all is using logic to deduce what we observe.

Look around you. What you call “the world” is your mind. Mind is not just thoughts, it is perception itself. 

Yeah, and logic and reason and empirical data, they all actually are one, same "thing", but we differentiate them for practical purposes. 

 

Edited November 9, 2022 by Vibroverse

[Jodistrict]

It depends on the context.  Our senses and reason have developed through evolution to support our survival.  They help us survive but are not necessarily optimized to find truth.  The Ancient Greek philosophers were concerned with truth.  They were fascinated by Geometry which seem to provide a convincing system of logic that had to be true.   So, they never actively experimented with nature, so didn’t develop the scientific method, although Aristotle did observe life forms.  Empiricism now dominates the world through science to the extent of the emergence of scientism – the conviction that true knowledge can only come from science.  Stephen Hawkings said that “philosophy is dead”  expressing the view of scientism, and conveniently ignoring that science itself assumes metaphysical presumptions without proof.  Science depends of the senses and can never tell us what the thing is in itself.  

[Leo Gura]

They both wrong in important ways. Too complex to explain here.

[r0ckyreed]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

They both wrong in important ways. Too complex to explain here.

I guess I should start with answering the question, "What is knowledge?" Because empiricism and rationalism do presuppose that knowledge does exist and can be acquired through direct experience or through rationality.  Skepticism though holds that knowledge of anything is untenable.  Knowledge presupposes a duality between knower and the known.  You have already alluded to what knowledge is in your video on Not-Knowing.  Our senses cannot give us any knowledge about the spoon and neither can rationality.  We can know the utility of things, but we cannot know the being of it through either empiricism or rationality.  But then again, if empiricism and rationalism cannot derive knowledge, then what is awakening?  Is awakening the knowledge and understanding of Consciousness/Truth/Existence?  How does one know they have awakened if they cannot rely on direct experience or rationality?  How can you trust insights on psychedelics if we cannot rely on our senses or rationality? It seems like the only thing you can know for certain is that consciousness exists and nothing else can be known for certain, which is basically epistemological solipsism.

Edited November 9, 2022 by r0ckyreed