Rationalists & Empiricists
The seventeenth and eighteenth-century fight over where knowledge comes from. Descartes' doubt, Spinoza and Leibniz against Locke, Berkeley and Hume, and Kant claiming to settle it.
Part of Philosophy
20 moments in this segment.
- - René Descartes (1596–1650). "I think, therefore I am", radical doubt and the foundation of modern philosophy.
- - Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677). God-or-Nature: a single substance, geometry applied to ethics, freedom through understanding.
- - John Locke (1632–1704). The mind as a blank slate, knowledge from experience, and government by consent.
- - Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716). Monads, the best of all possible worlds, and the calculus, the last universal genius.
- - Voltaire (1694–1778). The wit of the Enlightenment: tolerance, reason, and "écrasez l'infâme."
- - David Hume (1711–1776). Causation as habit, the is/ought gap, and the most rigorous skepticism of the age.
- - William James (1842–1910). Pragmatism and the stream of consciousness, truth as what works. This photograph dates from 1903.
- - Bertrand Russell (1872–1970). Logic, the theory of descriptions, and a public conscience, a founder of analytic philosophy. This photograph dates from 1936.
- - Descartes' Cogito argument (Wireless Philosophy). The argument that grounds modern certainty.
- - Baruch Spinoza (The School of Life). God-or-Nature and the ethics of understanding.
- - A History of Philosophy: David Hume (Wheaton). A lecture on Hume's empiricism and skepticism.
- - René Descartes (The School of Life). Doubt, the cogito, and the method.
- - Locke, Berkeley & Empiricism (Crash Course). The British empiricist line.
- - David Hume (The School of Life). Skepticism, causation, and the is/ought gap.
- - Descartes pt. 1 - Context (Philosophize This!). A deeper look, part of the history of philosophy.
- - Descartes pt. 2 (Philosophize This!). A deeper look, part of the history of philosophy.
- - What Pragmatism Means - William James. This video discusses the beginning part of James's "What Pragmatism Means" where he outlines pragmatism as a method.
- - Hume and the Problem of Induction. We often use inductive reasoning especially in science. But David Hume, an 18th century Scottish Enlightenment philosopher, identified a puzzle about such reasoning. It rests on an unjustified assumption. So induction might be a good form of reasoning, but we don't have good reason for believing it.
- - John Locke's empiricism. The blank slate and knowledge from experience.
- - Spinoza: a complete guide to life (Then & Now). A deep dive into Spinoza's thought.
