Empiricism and How It Rises as an Alternative to Rationalism

Explain Empiricism, and how it arises as an alternative to Rationalism. Then, explain Constructivism, and how Kant develops it to address perceived shortcomings in both Rationalism and Empiricism.

Empiricism is defined in our textbook as the claim that sense experience is the sole source of our knowledge about the world. In other words, empiricists believe that in the beginning of life, we start out with a blank tablet. Through experience we learn and become filled with knowledge. Rationalism is defined as the claim that reason or the intellect is the primary source of our fundamental knowledge about reality. Rationalists believe that we can use not only sense experience but reason to draw conclusions.

Empiricism would be an alternative to Rationalism because it is based solely on sense experience. Rationalism, however, claims that reason has somewhat to do with our interpretations. Empiricists believe that reason is an unreliable and inadequate route to knowledge unless it is grounded in the solid bedrock of sense experience. In other words, the empiricists do not totally disagree with rationalism. They just believe that sense experience is the only source of genuine knowledge and that while maybe some intellect and reason is involved it isn’t the primary source. Empiricists also believe that there is no evidence of innate ideas within the mind that are known apart from experience. When we are infants we are thought to be as a blank tablet, and through our experiences in life we grow and learn everything we must know in life.

Rationalists believe that reason is the primary or most superior source of knowledge about reality. They believe that every event has a cause and that there are priori truths. There are logical, mathematical, metaphysical, and ethical truths that are known apart from experience and they tell us what the world is like. They also believe that sense experience is an unreliable and inadequate route to knowledge. Experience is changing...