The Rationalists & Empiricists
The early-modern break: Descartes' cogito and the rationalists (Spinoza, Leibniz) seeking certainty in reason, against the British empiricists (Locke, Berkeley, Hume) grounding knowledge in experience.
Part of Philosophy
16 moments in this segment.
- — Descartes pt. 1 — Context (Philosophize This!). A deeper look — part of the history of philosophy.
- — René Descartes (1596–1650). "I think, therefore I am" — radical doubt and the foundation of modern philosophy.
- — Descartes' Cogito argument (Wireless Philosophy). The argument that grounds modern certainty.
- — René Descartes (The School of Life). Doubt, the cogito, and the method.
- — Descartes pt. 2 (Philosophize This!). A deeper look — part of the history of philosophy.
- — Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677). God-or-Nature: a single substance, geometry applied to ethics, freedom through understanding.
- — Baruch Spinoza (The School of Life). God-or-Nature and the ethics of understanding.
- — Spinoza: a complete guide to life (Then & Now). A deep dive into Spinoza's thought.
- — John Locke (1632–1704). The mind as a blank slate, knowledge from experience, and government by consent.
- — John Locke's empiricism. The blank slate and knowledge from experience.
- — Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716). Monads, the best of all possible worlds, and the calculus — the last universal genius.
- — Locke, Berkeley & Empiricism (Crash Course). The British empiricist line.
- — Hume and the Problem of Induction. A deeper look — part of the history of philosophy.
- — David Hume (1711–1776). Causation as habit, the is/ought gap, and the most rigorous skepticism of the age.
- — David Hume (The School of Life). Skepticism, causation, and the is/ought gap.
- — A History of Philosophy: David Hume (Wheaton). A lecture on Hume's empiricism and skepticism.
