Rationalism (Pro) vs. Empiricism (Con)

I regret that Pro feels disappointed, and I will try expand on my argument here. For what it's worth, I was equally disappointed that Pro's initial argument consisted mainly of quotes and concepts copied directly from wikipedia. == Rebuttals == 1. Math and Science: Pro argues that mathematical proofs are derived through intuition, and that math is the basis for all science, technology, and engineering (STE). Let's examine this claim. I agree that some mathematical concepts are reached by intuition - but that does not hurt my position. We are discussing the PRIMARY source of human knowledge, so the fact that a few disciplines can be mastered through Rationalism hardly tips the balance. Even if I concede that STE is dominated by Rationalism, that still leaves: medicine, anatomy, biology, archeology, history, geography, meteorology, oceanography, demographics, language, psychology, and on and on.... These are all known through Empiricism, and the latter list covers much more human knowledge. However, I do not concede that STE is dominated by Rationalism. Pure math cannot be applied in useful ways to STE without experimentation. For example, bridges cannot be built without knowing the tensile strengths of construction materials. There's no way to know how much weight a steel beam can support unless we test it. Furthermore, many math and physics equations cannot work without the use of constant variables (for example, one of the most common is the gravitational acceleration on earth, measured at 9.80665 m/s^2) [1] These constants are not arrived at through Rationalism - they are empirically tested and measured. So yes, STE depends heavily on mathematics.... but the math in turn heavily depends on variables that cannot be known without measurements and tests. Without these measurements, the math is either useless or wrong. 2. Experience cannot tell us about the nature of reality: I disagree. Quite the contrary, experience (experimentation) is the ONLY way to discover the realities of the natural world. Almost every natural law we know to be true was discovered through experimentation and measurement. The earth's orbit around the sun, gravity, the existence of other planets, the composition of the atmosphere, the length of a year, how the human body functions, etc.... Before these concepts were discovered, people reached all kinds of incorrect conclusions through raw intuition to explain the natural world. Intuitive theories are nothing more than rational guesses until they are verified by experimentation. 3. Poverty of the Stimulus: Pro says children must have an innate understanding of language. This is illustrated by the fact that they use sentence structures before they understand nouns or verbs (interesting though..... how did we detect this phenomenon? Through experiencing children's speech with our sense of hearing. So this very principle used to support Rationalism was discovered through Empiricism). In any case, Poverty of the Stimulus is simply a theory - in no way is it prove or even widely accepted by linguists. In fact, the very source that Pro cites says "The soundness of the poverty of stimulus argument is widely questioned. Indeed, every one of the three premises of the argument has been questioned at some point in time." [2] 4. Morality: Pro says humans arrive at moral truths through Rationalism. Morality is an abstract concept. For this to be a valid argument, Pro must first show that morality actually exists as an objective truth that can be discovered - . Good luck with that! 5. Observations and tests can be wrong: Yes, that's the whole point. Experimentation works precisely because it exposes and rejects incorrect or flawed tests. Conversely, there is no way to know if raw intuition is correct without verifying it through evidence. I could rationally conclude that there's life on another planet in the universe, but we will never know for sure until we detect that life through empirical methods. I never said Rationalism is false, I simply said it cannot be the primary source of human knowledge. 6. There was no empirical evidence in my argument: Incorrect. I used lots of evidence gained through experience to support my argument. I thought of my gambler's example because I've experienced people who are addicted to gambling. I did not innately know or rationally deduce that Einstein once embraced a Static Universe theory. I know about the gravitational constant because I experienced a physics class in school. Almost all the information I've written so far was gained through my 5 senses and educational experiences. == Argument == I will now build upon my initial argument, which I hope Pro will find more satisfying. Empiricism eliminates bias and incorrect assumptions. It yields knowledge precisely because it has no preconceived notions of how things should work, it simply tests them and measures the results. The problem with Rationalism is that it does not allow for possibilities beyond assumed rules of logic. This idea was primarily advocated by the philosopher John Stewart Mill. This is problematic because many things happen that do not make logical or intuitive sense. As I said before, the best example of this is human behavior. Humans do not always behave logically or rationally, and therefore human nature cannot be predicted using Rationalism. Another example is human biology. There is absolutely no way someone could rationally deduce that an organ called a "heart" contains 4 chambers and pumps blood through the human body. We know the heart exists because we can cut a body open and see it, we can feel it beat in our chest, etc... Similarly, there's no way to conclude through raw intuition that eating certain mushrooms leads to liver failure.... that could only be discovered and verified through experimentation. The examples are endless. As such, it seems to me that Empiricism had produced MUCH more human knowledge throughout history. Finally, Empiricism is needed to prove the claims of Rationalism. Rationalism claims that human knowledge is gained "a priori" ("from the earlier"), which means knowledge is already innately present in the human mind, and need only be accessed through rational thought void of any experience. The problem, of course, is that such claims cannot be proven true without tests. The only way to verify "a priori" knowledge is to conduct an experiment: isolate one person and do not teach them anything or allow them to experience anything related to math, biology, or physics for the first 18 years of life. On their 18th birthday, give the isolated subject a test in math, biology, and physics and compare their score to that of an educated 18 year old. This is a lose-lose scenario for Rationalism. If the scores are equal, then Rationalism is still questionable because we needed to conduct an experiment to verify its truth. If the scores are unequal, then we have verified that experience contributes more to knowledge than intuition. I look forward to Pro's response. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org... [2] http://en.wikipedia.org...