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Empiricism versus rationalism
Essay on the topic "History of philosophy
Empiricism versus rationalism
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Berkeley
As man progressed through the various stages of evolution, it is assumed that at a certain point he began to ponder the world around him. Of course, these first attempts fell short of being scholarly, probably consisting of a few grunts and snorts at best. As time passed on, though, these ideas persisted and were eventually tackled by the more intellectual, so-called philosophers. Thus, excavation of "the external world" began. As the authoritarinism of the ancients gave way to the more liberal views of the modernists, two main positions concerning epistemology and the nature of the world arose. The first view was exemplified by the empiricists, who stated that all knowledge comes from the senses. In opposition, the rationalists maintained that knowledge comes purely from deduction, and that this knowledge is processed by certain innate schema in the mind. Those that belonged to the empiricist school of thought developed quite separate and distinct ideas concerning the nature of the substratum of sensible objects. John Locke and David Hume upheld the belief that sensible things were composed of material substance, the basic framework for the materialist position. The main figure who believed that material substance did not exist is George Berkeley. In truth, it is the immaterialist position that seems the most logical when placed under close scrutiny.
The initial groundwork for Berkeley's position is the truism that the materialist is a skeptic. In the writing of his three dialogues, Berkeley develops two characters: Hylas (the materialist) and Philonous (Berkeley himself). Philonous draws upon one central supposition of the materialist to formulate his argument of skepticism against him; this idea is that one can never perceive the real essence of anything. In short, the materialist feels that the information received through sense experience gives a representative picture of the outside world (the representative theory of perception), and one can not penetrate to the true essece of an object. This makes logical sense, for the only way to perceive this real essence would be to become the object itself!
Although the idea is logical, it does contain a certain grounding for agnosticism. Let the reader consider this: if there is no way to actually sense the true material essence of anything, and all knowledge in empiricism comes from the senses, then the real material essence can not be perceived and therefore it can not be posited. This deserves careful consideration, for the materialist has been self-proclaimed a skeptic! If the believer in this theory were asked if a mythical beast such as a cyclops existed he would most certainly say no. As part of his reply he might add that because it can not be sensed it
watching and looking at the things around him. He said that an enemy of his
...ut the help of our senses informing us of what is going on in the external world. It is our senses that inform us of what is happening externally, but it is our mind and intellect which perceives and organizes the information that we have received. The Wax argument was effective in demonstrating how difficult it is to solely rely on our senses to understand everything that is happening around us. By focusing on the larger argument, that I know myself better than anything known by my senses, seems to say that everything that I thought I knew through my senses, can really only be known by using my intellect. It is essential to use our senses to fully understand the nature of things, but using only the senses results in an inadequate determination of the truth. It is only possible to truly know things when we use and understand them through our mind and intellect.
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The soul is the creative essence, while all of creation, including art which is human unity with natural things, is said to as Nature. In Nat...
...y some shape, of being enclosed in a place, and of filling up a space in such a way as to exclude any other body from it; ..." [followed by other features not related to extension]. (Section 26)
He makes the contrast between "essentials" and “accidentals." When an individual discusses an object 's essence, he is alluding to that which makes up its center. Accidentals, then again, are those things that are just accidental and don 't essentially characterize the object.
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We are all unique in our own way, to know our essence is to live life. We do not know our essence once we are born, only God knows everything about us even before we are born. We have essence but we do not know it with initial knowledge. It is tricky but it is true. A person eats, sleeps, plays, writes, excretes, breathes, runs, walks, stands, and sits, we know this but this is not what defines all of our essence. The essence and existence of us are when we are ready to commit good to other people, when we are ready to commit sins for the sake of loyalty, when we do not stay in our comfort zone and approach people in a way that we become friendly, and when we do not seek for perfection but accept imperfection and work towards near perfection,