Rationalism and the rationalists, such as Plato, Descartes, and so on. Empiricism and empiricists, such as Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Kant, William James.

1. Presented by:
Yoyok Agus Wahyudi
Zukrina Kholis
Amalia Uswatun Khasanah
Musfera Nara Vadia

2. Classical and
Modern Rationalism

3. Background
 In this chapter we would like to study about the
figures of rationalism in the classic and modern
era.
 For the classic era, it will be represented by Plato
 For the modern era, it will be presented by Rene
Descartes and Baruch Spinoza
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4. The main subjects of
Rationalism
1. Rationalism believes that through the process of abstract thinking , we
can achieve the fundamental truth that cannot be denied.
2. Rationalism believes that some of the reality truth can be achieved
without empirical methodology.
3. Rationalism believes that thinking can know some truth about reality.
4. Rationalism believes that ratio is the main source of knowledge.
5. Rationalism believes that truth can not be examined through sense
verification.
6. Rationalism believes that universe follows the role of systematical laws
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5. “ Alfred north whitehead ( 1861-
1947) said , “ The whole later
development of western
philosophy can be a series of
extended footnote to Plato”.
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6. Plato
1. Phythagoras (the eternity of soul, mysticism,
mathematics
2. Parmenides (eternal reality), it cannot be changed by the
time called idea world
3. Heracleitos (nothing is permanent in the physic life, the
understanding of empirical world is only Doxa (opinion)
not episteme (the perfect knowledge)
4. Socrates (morality) and the essence of life destination in
the world
Thinkers who influenced Plato:
1

7. Plato was an Epistomology and
Knowledge theory founder
● He was Admitted AS ONE OF THE EARLIEST FIGURE TO
MAKE QUESTION , “ What do we know?”, “How do we
know”? And “When is knowledge said true?”
● Plato said episteme has to meet two criterion :
1. Knowledge has to be certain
2. Knowledge has to be about perfect and eternal reality
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8. Doxa and
Episteme
 Doxa (opinion) is the real object that
can be a perception.
 Episteme ( the true knowledge) is the
object that is related to “ that is
genuine” or “arkhai”.
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9. 1. ‘Truth means only the
shadow of images’
2. Relevant to the
nowadays phenomenon:
The allegory of the
cave
• As a sharp critic to the life /
shallow thinking
• Political life
• As a critic to the naïve realism
point of view
• The need of figure that is free
from shadow and illusion
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10. The perspective about
human
• Plato separate between the “soul” and “spirit”, “mind” and “body
• If our body is destroyed when we die, spirit will always be exist.
• There are 3 elements of soul:
1. Nous/thinking, part of rational
2. Thomus/caurage
3. Ephitumia/lust/desire (nafsu)
10

11. Rene
Descartes
• Renatus Cartesius was born in 1596 in La Haye
north west of French
• He was admitted the modern figure of
rationalism
• He had an idea to renew the philosophy and
knowledge
2

12. Descartes’ View
1. View about God; as the
religious person, he placed God
as the highest place, “unlimited
and perfect power”.
2. Body and soul; he believed that
body and soul are both real.
every substance (body-soul
/ratio) has a specific different
character.
. 12

13. Descartes
rationalism
and idea
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Innate
Ideas
Thinking Allah;
as the perfect
power
Thinking Idea;
allow I, my self
as the thinking
creature
.
Widening thinking;
allow us to understand
the things, object, as
like something that we
can learn (math)
Descartes recommends ratio
as the source of knowledge
than empiric / body

14. Experience will only bring
us to the “appearance” not
to the real knowledge.
Descartes’ 3 innate ideas:
1. The idea of mind
2. The idea of God
3. The idea of (definite) body
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15. Methodological
Principles
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1. Accepting only information you know to
be true
2. Breaking down these truths into smaller
units
3. Solving the simple problems first
4. Making complete lists of further problems

16. 16
Descartes tried to doubt his own existence, but found that even his doubting
showed that he existed, since he could not doubt if he did not exist.

17. Methodological
scepticism
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The dream argument
There is no sufficient
ground to believe
whether we are
dreaming or awake
The Evil Demon
Our experience is
might be controlled by
powerful evil demon

18. Baruch Spinoza
There is only one substance that is
God/nature and it is in everything
(Pantheism)
God/Nature:
1. Has no willing or intention
2. Doesn’t do anything
3. Doesn’t care to human
4. Everything in this world are already put in
proper order and are already determined
3

19. Gottfried
Wilhem Leibniz
 Substance is more than one; it’s
uncountable.
 Each substance is called monad
 Each monad is different with one
another
 God is Supermonad (the creator of all
monads)
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20. George Wilhelm
Friedrich Hegel
1. METAPHYSIC
(all that is real is rational and all that is rational is real)
2. ABSOLUT IDEALISM
Reality is the realization of unfolding of spirit (Geist)
3. DIALECTIC (thesis-antithesis-synthesis)
1. Thesis (universal abstract concept)
2. Antithesis (contradiction of thesis)
3. Synthesis (a phase that bring together thesis-
antithesis)
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21. 21
Thesis : Earth is round and the center of universe
Antithesis : Sun is the center of universe, not the earth
Synthesis : Earth is round and is not the center of universe

22. Classical and
Modern Empiricism

23. “ -Neither geometry nor logic will tell you
anything about the real world. There is
no magical way of going beyond the
limits of what we can see, hear, taste,
smell, and touch-
Robinson Dave and Bill Mayblin,
2004:15
23

24. Meanings
● Empiricism is from the ancient Greek
word empeiria/empeiros, “experience.”
● Empiricism is the view that all concepts originate in
experience, that all concepts are about or
applicable to things that can be experienced, or
that all rationally acceptable beliefs or
propositions are justifiable or knowable only
through experience.
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25. The main points of
Empiricism
1) Believe that the source of a knowledge is experience.
2) Very emphasizing on empirical-experimental method.
3) Using inductive reasoning.
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26. Aristotle
1
The concept of a "tabula rasa"
(or "clean slate"): what the mind (nous)
thinks must be in it in the same sense as letters are
on a tablet (grammateion) which bears no actual
writing (grammenon); this is just what happens in
the case of the mind. (Aristotle, On the Soul,
3.4.430a1).

27. Aristotle’s
Empirical
Method
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Empirical
Method
2.
Universal
Concept/
General Principle
1.
Perception /
Assumption
3.
Proof / Particular
Explanation
the world as a living organism,
which develops as an embryo
that leads to a specific
purposes.

28. Avicenna 2
 He developed the concept of a "tabula
rasa" (or "clean slate") in the earlier 11th
Century.
 Argued that knowledge is attained
through empirical familiarity with objects
in this world, from which one abstracts
universal concepts, which can then be
further developed through a syllogistic
method of reasoning.

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Roger Bacon
He was the first one who clearly stated
that the needs of experience is very
important to develop a knowledge and
how important knowledge for an
advancement
3

30. Francis Bacon
He can be considered an early Empiricist,
through his popularization of
an inductive methodology for scientific inquiry,
which has since become known as the scientific
method.
Bacon's experimental empirical method
1. Observing
2. Measuring
3. Explaining
4. Verifying
4

31. Thomas Hobbes and John
Locke
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6
See nature and human being as atoms that move
definitively (mechanically), although mechanical law in
humans is more complicated than nature, so the
calculation of it is more complicated.
The mind is a tabula rasa on which experiences
leave their marks, and therefore denied that humans
have innate ideas or that anything is knowable
without reference to experience.

32. 2 types of idea:
1. Idea that comes from external sensation
2. Idea that comes from internal sense or reflection
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3 types of knowledge:
1. Intuitive knowledge
2. Demonstrative knowledge
3. Sensory knowledge

33. Bishop George Barkeley and
David Hume
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Our knowledge of physical objects must be related to
our thoughts (concepts, world views) and we cannot
determine what those objects are if we are separated
from our views.
All of human knowledge can be divided into two
categories: relations of ideas (e.g. propositions involving
some contingent observation of the world, such as "the
sun rises in the East") and matters of fact (e.g.
mathematical and logical propositions), and that ideas
are derived from our "impressions" or sensations.

34. 34
Perception
Impression
Simple
Impression
Complex
Impression
Simple
Ideas
Complex
Ideas
Ideas

35. Immanuel Kant
• German Philosopher in 18th Century
(Enlightenment)
• Synthesized modern rationalism and
empiricism
• Significant influence today in metaphysics,
epistemology, ethics, political philosophy,
aesthetics, and other fields
• Critique of Pure Reason (1781, 1787), the
Critique of Practical Reason (1788), and the
Critique of the Power of Judgment (1790)
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36. Hume awakened me
from my dogmatic
slumber.
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But Kant thought that Hume's two
categories, true propositions were either
matters of fact or relations of ideas, were
inadequate.
Kant proposed the theory of
transcendental idealism and concluded
that the extent of our knowledge is
determined in by both empirical and
rational principles.

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40. 40
● An American pragmatist philosopher and
psychologist.
● Pragmatism as Radical Empiricism
● Radical Empiricism holds that our minds are
identical with our experience. They are
nothing more and nothing less than this
experience.
● “Pragmatism” is borrowed from Pierce and
Kant in his famous article “How to Make Our
Ideas Clear” (1878)
● Pragmatism is also known as Kantian.
William James

41. 41
In his book Pragmatism,
James divided two model of
Philosophy
● Show Tender-minded, have more of a taste of a priori principles which
appeal to the mind. Tender minded tend to be idealistic, optimistic and
religious. The tender minded are “free-willist” and dogmatic.
● Tough-minded, have an empiricist commitment to experience and
going by “the facts”. Tough minded are normally materialist, pessimistic,
and irreligious. The tough minded are “fatalistic” and skeptical.
.
And pragmatic is the combination or in the middle between those
two tendencies.

42. Pragmatists
believe…
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1. Practical consequences
2. All of the ideas and theories in
science be grounded in direct
experience.
3. That no experience be excluded
from the scientific purview.

43. Rationalism versus
Empiricism…
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