The Mind/Body Problem: Cartesian Rationalism vs. Lockean Empiricism

Introduction 

Rationalism is a theory, which highlights that a person’s opinions and actions should be based on knowledge and reason rather than on emotive responses or religious beliefs ( Chomsky, 2009) . In many cases, people tend to conclude and judge other people based on their religious teachings. In such a case an individual tends never to use his or her personal reasoning, and therefore, sometimes they might end up judging others wrongly, which could not have happened had they used their knowledge and reason. Empiricism, on the other hand, is the belief in the induction, sense perception and that there is no existence of innate ideas ( Leggett, 2015) . In this discussion we shall focus on Cartesian rationalism and the resulting body problem, comparing and contrasting the Cartesian rationalism with Lockean empiricism. 

Cartesian Rationalism and the Resulting Body Problem 

To belong to the rationalist group means to embrace not less than one of the following assertions (3 in number): the Deduction/ Intuition Thesis, the Innate Knowledge Thesis or the Innate Concept Thesis. To understand what rationalism is all about, let us first discuss each of these claims ( Leggett, 2015) . 

The first thesis: Some schemes of a particular discipline are fathomable to us by awareness alone, but others are fathomable through the interpretations of the intuited schemes. Clairvoyance is a method of practical understanding. Cerebrally clutching the project makes us comprehend it as spot-on, formulating a warranted belief in that proposition. The deduction I a process in which persons express or come with conclusions based on the intuitions via a well-reasoned out argument(s). In such case, the conclusions are only valid if the intuitions are accurate ( Nikolic & Glynn, 2016) . For instance, persons intuit that number five is a prime number, which is greater than four. From that knowledge, people then deduce that five is a prime number, which is greater than four. Deduction and intuition, therefore, give us a priori knowledge, which is an understanding gained independently of the sense familiarity. 

By substituting various subjects for the variables of the Intuitions/ Deductions thesis, an individual can come up with different versions of this argument. A number of rationalists take math to be comprehensible by deduction in addition to intuition. Others include metaphysical claims like our body and mind are distinct substances, God exists and that people have free will, while other rationalists place virtuous veracities in this group. Of important to note here is that the higher the number of proposals rationalists embrace in the assortment of deduction and intuition, the higher the percentage of radicalism is their rationalism. 

The second thesis linked to logic is the Innate Knowledge thesis: human beings partake an understanding of given facts in a particular theme area as part of their rational nature. In the same way as the first thesis, the Innate Knowledge thesis affirms the presence of knowledge attained a priori, autonomously of familiarity ( Nikolic & Glynn, 2016) . However, the primary difference between these two hypotheses rests in the conveying sympathetic of the way the a priori acquaintance is attained. The Deduction/Intuition thesis states clairvoyance and consequent deductive reasoning, while Innate Knowledge offers human beings’ rational nature. Human beings’ natural acquaintance is not gained through either intuition, sagacity experience or supposition. Experiences may act as a trigger for bringing the knowledge to consciousness, but it does not offer the experience itself. Somehow, it has been present in humans all along. However, a number of rationalists argue that people multiplied their expertise in an earlier existence while others claim that God offered knowledge to humans during the creation period. 

The third essential thesis is the Innate Concept thesis: Human beings have some specific concepts that they use in a given theme field that are rational in nature. As per this thesis, some of the human thoughts are not gained through or from the experiences. They exist as a fragment of their sane in nature, in a manner that while logic capabilities may activate a progression through which they are brought to cognizance, experiences does not determine the information that it carries. 

These three claims are indispensable to rationalism and for one to become a rationalist he or she has to adopt no less than one of them. Other statements such as the Indispensability of Reason hypothesis and Superiority of Reason argument are not as important as the other three, and an individual can be a rationalist without adopting any of them. 

Cartesian Rationalism is paramount because, through it, we can understand the differences between a priori knowledge and empirical knowledge. It applies the first claim of Intuition / Deduction thesis ( Nikolic & Glynn, 2016) . According to the Cartesian rationalism: 

Practical Knowledge: 

Practical knowledge arises from the senses. 

The fact that it occurs through senses, the empirical knowledge, therefore, concerns and rest on upon the objects in the external cosmos. 

Given that the senses are erratic, this knowledge is also erratic or unpredictable. 

Since the Living God is not a liar, there is a world external to the human being’s cognizance, and social concepts do look a lot like the objects in the world to a bigger or smaller degree. 

It is human inaccuracy that is accountable in false or imprecise beliefs. 

A priori knowledge 

A priori knowledge is neither set nor rest on experience 

It arises from sense experience via reasoning alone. 

Rationalism argues that this knowledge is vital than empirical. 

Indeed given that all perceptions are perceptions are unpredictable, reason alone may give a particular understanding. 

Individual’s personal actuality, that mind’s spirit is thought, that God exists, that matter quintessence is an allowance, and certain ideas are all innate ideas. 

Based on the above beliefs about Cartesian rationalism can be divided into four characteristic precepts, which clearly define the Cartesian logic. First is the ideology of beings to avoid accepting things as true especially if this stuff can be doubted. That means that when there is even a single doubt concerning a given aspect or something, then proper analysis should be done to examine the full belief again ( Nikolic & Glynn, 2016) . Secondly, the need for beings to divide their beliefs into subgroups so as to come up with a definite conclusion regarding the conviction. That can be linked to the statement of divide and rule as cited by other renowned rationalists. Thirdly, the examination of each knowledge in a stepwise manner is necessary, to ensure that the belief is well analyzed. Lastly, an individual is expected to be exhaustive, meaning that he or she should make sure that all the assumptions are investigated several times to eliminate chances of the doubt ( Leggett, 2015) . 

On those things that can be doubted, Descartes doubts the sureness of his intelligence. In fact, he is worried that all that individuals consider to be life could be nothing but just a dream or worse a trickery put on by a malevolent god ( Markie, 2004) . However, he believes in the living God and does not consider Him as a liar, who can deceive him in such a manner. Amongst his steps, the worst stage is where he supposes the worst. For instance, he thinks and considers the possibility of God having created a false reality. 

Rationalism – the Mind-Body Dualism 

The fact that human beings were created by God and are all lesser perfect than God does not apply to the ideology of the will. By definition, a will involves that aspect of human nature, which drives people towards or away from something without the inclusion of external factors. That, in other words, means that humans have a free will and understanding and that human error typically occurs when people extend the will to things that they do not properly understand. Thus if human can hold still by avoiding to make fast judgements not unless until they have assurance on what is true based on the enough clarity, such errors cannot occur. Hence, it is wrong for humans to make use of their freedoms to pass judgments especially when perceptions are uncertain or unclear. In other words, Descartes concludes: There can be both free will and God. Thus, human beings can get truthful acquaintance about themselves and the world if they take the time to understand issues before they judge them ( Leggett, 2015) . 

Similarities between Rationalism and Empiricism 

John Locke was a British empiricist who did a lot of exploration on many of the themes that Descartes also spent time exploring, although his conclusions concerning nature of the knowledge and self were dissimilar. Descartes assumed that human beings emanate to understand about the biosphere and themselves through rationalism while Locke supposed that acquaintance is centered on our past experiences and is therefore linked to human beings’ memories. 

There exists a significant difference between rationalism and empiricism in that while rationalism is purely a belief in reason, innate and reasoning, Pragmatism is the faith in the sagacity of opinion, an induction and that innate ideas do not exist. Thus, we can say that they plainly the opposite of each other based on their differences in their beliefs. 

With rationalism, believing in innate ideas just means that one has to have ideas before he or she is born for instance, via reincarnation. Through Plato’s theory, we can better understand this ideology. His theory of the forms, which according to him, is a unique place where all beings go and acquire knowledge before they are born. Innate ideas can give us a clear understanding as to why some fellows are naturally better in doing some tasks than others even when they have the same experiences ( Markie, 2004) . Another significant aspect that distinguishes rationalism is the idea of believing that reason is the primary source of knowledge. Rationalists apparently believe that the five human senses are only helpful in giving opinions but not reasons. For instance, Descartes’s candlewax argues and expounds how a candle has a specific shape, to start with, but once set on fire; it starts to liquefy, drop its cologne and takes on an altered, dissimilar form that it had begun with before it was lit. The argument, therefore, demonstrates that human senses can be misleading and that they should never be trustworthy. 

The deduction is another distinguishing factor of rationalism that is aimed at proving something with inevitability rather than reason ( Markie, 2004) . For instance, Descartes attempts to prove that God subsists through deductive thinking. He considers himself as imperfect and God as Perfect who is behind his reasoning and ideas. 

However, unlike the rationalists, empiricists accept as correct that sense and perception are the core foundation of understanding. John Locke all that by first apportioning the thoughts into two portions; straightforward and composite. Straightforward thoughts are those that are based on acuity for example color, shape and size. Composite thoughts on the other hand are generated when straightforward thoughts are linked or joined or combined ( Nikolic & Glynn, 2016) . 

Another empiricist belief that differs from that of the rationalist is that concepts are only attained through familiarity and not through the inborn concepts as stated by the rationalists. 

Phenomenology 

Phenomenology gives an alternate to the empiricism /rationalism discussion by rebuffing the body/mind dichotomy and concentrating on survived experiences as the central underpinning for whatever human beings recognize. Phenomenology as a philosophy is imitative as of the explanations of familiarity and not as a concept built and then applied to capability. 

Edmund Husserl, a German phenomenologist, appealed that the mind/ body dichotomy, which is the foundation of the disagreements amid rationalists and empiricists is not steady with exactly how humans reason and understand the sphere. Another phenomenologist, Maurice Merleau- Ponty, claimed that the idea of self is a survived physical involvement. He confronted the partitioning of mind and body, which is encompassed empiricism, rationalism and Kantian idealism, and established a description of the knowing topic as a constantly exemplified one ( Gardner, 2016) . Therefore, there is no sovereign mind to aid the body to establish the sense data. Hence humans cannot go out of their cognizance and inspect the world objectively. 

Kantian Idealism 

Immanuel Kant found Hume’s skepticism to be risky and set forward to settle down the battle amid empiricism and rationalism. Kant categorically blended empiricism and rationalism to validate that reason and experience contribute to knowledge development ( Hyde, 2016) . Kant was in agreed with Hume that experience starts with sensation. He then went ahead to prove that knowledge comes to human beings through an appreciative that assemblies and systematizes sense data. Kant distinguished a priori from the knowledge that is learned (a posterior). He referred these two pieces of knowledge as the unity of consciousness ( Nikolic & Glynn, 2016) . Also, not like Hume and Locke, Kant asserts that the self is not an entity of mindfulness. Instead, it is the subject (the mindful itself). 

Personal Philosophical Evaluation 

The fact that I may not be in agreement or be in neutrality with rationalists and empiricists does not mean that I am correct. Personally, I agree with the idea God exists, and therefore through his existence, we can live also. He is a perfect being that makes us, the imperfect beings. The issue of knowledge being innate or not should not be a big issue; the issue should be how and when do we develop our understanding. Through that, we come to agree that human beings develop their knowledge due to the experiences they undergo day in and day out. For instance, a person who was born in a village, if he stays at home and fails to interact with other people of the community or even go to school, may be very different in knowledge capacity when compared to an individual who has mastered the social skills and who has gone to school. 

However, that does not eliminate the fact that some people may have an innate knowledge of doing things that cannot be gained to the same extent with individuals who have the same experience. That, therefore, means that regardless of person’s background, both the intrinsic and experience factors play a huge role in knowledge development. That also brings in the aspect of critical thinking, which is an ongoing process in the human life that promotes knowledge development as the human's beings continue to gain experience during their lifetime. 

Conclusion 

As discussed above, rationalism and empiricism are important philosophical theories that help us understand the knowledge development in humans. However these two are entirely different as we have seen above: Rationalism is an approach, which highlights that a person’s opinions and actions should be based on knowledge and reason rather than on emotive responses or religious beliefs. Empiricism is the faith in the sense of perception induction and that there are no innate ideas. 

References 

Chomsky, N. (2009). Cartesian linguistics: A chapter in the history of rationalist thought . Cambridge University Press. 

Gardner, S. (2016). Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology in the light of Kant’s Third Critique and Schelling’s Real-Idealismus. Continental Philosophy Review , 1-21. 

Hyde, T. A. (2016). The End of Philosophy, the Beginning of Phenomenology and the Future of Thinking. Southwest Philosophy Review , 32 (1), 49-57. 

Leggett, A. J. (2015). Physics and Necessity: Rationalist Pursuits from the Cartesian Past to the Quantum Present: Scope: monograph. Level: undergraduate/specialist. Contemporary Physics , 56 (4), 497-499. 

Markie, P. (2004). Rationalism vs. empiricism. 

Nikolic, A. V., & Glynn, S. (2016). The Illusory Nature of the So-Called Objective World. FAU Undergraduate Research Journal , 5 (1), 36.