Apart from the general use of the term for a particular attitude
towards religion, two more technical uses require notice: (i)
the purely philosophical, (ii) the theological,
(i) Philowphical rationalism is that theory of knowledge
which maintains that reason is in and by itself a source of
knowledge, and that knowledge so derived has superior
authority over knowledge acquired through sensation. This
view is opposed to the various systems which regard the mind
as a tabldo rosa (blank tablet) in which the outside world as it
were imprints itself through the sense. The opposition between
rationalism and sensationalism is, however, rarely so simple
and direct, inasmuch as many thinkers (e.g. Locke) have ad-
mitted both sensation and reflection. Such philosophies are
called rationalist or sensationalist according as they lay emphasis
specially on the function of rea.son or that of the senses. More
generally, philosophic rationalism is opposed to empirical
theories of knowledge, inasmuch as it regards all true know-
ledge as deriving deductively from fundamental elementary
concepts. This attitude may be studied in Descartes, Leibnitz
and Wolff, It is based on Descartes' fundamental principle
that knowledge must be clear, and seeks to give to philosophy
the certainty and demonstrative character of mathematics,
from the a priori principle of which all its claims are derived.
The attack made by David Hume on the causal relation led
directly to the new rationalism of Kant, who argued that it
was wrong to regard thought as mere analysis. A priori
concepts there are, but if they are to lead to the amplification
of knowledge, they must be brought into relation with em-
pirical data.
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