Rationalist vs Empiricism
...ifference between Rationalism and Empiricism is the methods of investigating problems. Rationalists conclude that we could trace the origin of truths with absolute certainty from our innate ideas. Innate means "possessed at birth". So Descartes is saying we are born with knowledge of how relationships between cause and effect occur, and ideas of oneself, possibly meaning pride. I have a new born seven week old baby, and I don't see her having such innate ideas. If she had such innate ideas she would understand when her pacifier falls out of her mouth its from gravity, and she needs to be more careful. But I have noticed the more she releases the pacifier the more she understands through experience that its going to fall. So over the period of seven weeks she has learned to hold the pacifier in her mouth or keep a better grip in her mouth. Its through experience that she has assimilated a schema. It is Descartes assumption that has me stumped anyway. How could a bright man conclude with rationalism that we have innate ideas. We all suffer from childhood amnesia, he would have to find the origin of innate ideas based on his childhood, unless he didn't suffer from amnesia? If I was him I would want to suffer from childhood amnesia because his mom died giving birth to him. Its difficult to say rather newborns have an intuitive understanding of the laws of physics or are they just excercising biological instincts. Or if Descartes was alive today would he argue thr...