Rationalism

Rare card · No. 53971

In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "the position that reason has precedence over other ways of acquiring knowledge", often in contrast to other possible sources of knowledge such as faith, tradition, or sensory experience. More formally, rationalism is defined as a methodology or a theory "in which the criterion of truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive". In a major philosophical debate during the Enlightenment, rationalism (sometimes here equated with innatism) was opposed to empiricism. On the one hand, rationalists like René Descartes emphasized that knowledge is primarily innate and the intellect, the inner faculty of the human mind, can therefore directly grasp or derive logical truths; on the other hand, empiricists like John Locke emphasized that knowledge is not primarily innate and is best gained by careful observation of the physical world outside the mind, namely through sensory...

Read on Wikipedia