rationalism summary - Britannica rationalism, Philosophical view that regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge Rationalism has long been the rival of empiricism, the doctrine that all knowledge of matters of fact ultimately derives from, and must be tested by, sense experience As against this doctrine, rationalism holds reason to be a faculty that can lay hold of truths beyond the reach of sense perception
Epistemology, Modern Philosophies, Reason - Britannica Rationalism - Epistemology, Modern Philosophies, Reason: The first modern rationalist was Descartes, an original mathematician whose ambition was to introduce into philosophy the rigour and clearness that delighted him in mathematics
Rationalism - Enlightenment, Reason, Beliefs | Britannica Aquinas, the greatest of the medieval thinkers, was a rationalist in the sense of believing that the larger part of revealed truth was intelligible to and demonstrable by reason, though he thought that a number of dogmas opaque to reason must be accepted on authority alone
Rationalism, Descartes, Mind-Body Dualism - Britannica Western philosophy - Rationalism, Descartes, Mind-Body Dualism: The dominant philosophy of the last half of the 17th century was that of René Descartes A crucial figure in the history of philosophy, Descartes combined (however unconsciously or even unwillingly) the influences of the past into a synthesis that was striking in its originality and yet congenial to the scientific temper of the age
Rationalism - Empiricism, Skepticism, Pragmatism | Britannica The rationalist’s rejoinder is that one cannot, no matter how hard one tries, conceive 2 + 2 as making 5, for its equaling 4 is necessary But a priori knowledge is also universal Neither of these two characteristics can be accounted for by sense experience
Immanuel Kant - Critic, Rationalism, Enlightenment | Britannica Immanuel Kant - Critic, Rationalism, Enlightenment: During the 1760s Kant became increasingly critical of Leibnizianism According to one of his students, Kant was then attacking Leibniz, Wolff, and Baumgarten, was a declared follower of Newton, and expressed great admiration for the moral philosophy of the Romanticist philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau His principal work of this period was
Empiricism - Rationalism, Skepticism, Objectivity | Britannica The Stoic view of “common notions,” or beliefs that are held by all humans—a potentially rationalistic element in an otherwise empirical school of thought—was expanded during the early medieval period by St Augustine, a thoroughgoing rationalist