Empiricism vs. Rationalism
The two great epistemological traditions — knowing through experience vs. knowing through reason — and why the debate matters for evaluating modern evidence.
Two Ways of Knowing
Empiricism holds that knowledge comes primarily from sensory experience. John Locke argued that the mind starts as a blank slate and everything we know is built from experience. David Hume pushed this further, arguing that even causation is something we infer from observed regularities, not something we can prove through pure reason.
Rationalism holds that some knowledge is innate or can be derived through pure reason without sensory experience. Descartes argued that mathematical truths and the existence of God could be known through reason alone. Kant synthesized the debate by arguing that while all knowledge begins with experience, it is not all derived from experience — the mind structures experience in ways that are not themselves experienced.