Essay about Reflections on the Analytic/Continental Divide

Kant credited both empiricism and rationalism movements. He believes that they both contributed to human’s knowledge and should not reject neither one of them. So, he keeps some parts of those principles and defines empiricism a posteriori knowledge and rationalism as a priori knowledge. His goal is to explain and then justify the possibility of scientific knowledge.

For the purposes of this essay it is important to establish what is meant by a valid and a sound in relation to arguments. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines valid and sound in respects of philosophical argument. A argument is

In John Locke’s argument for personal identity, he believes that we are not substances or mere souls. In his argument, Locke stresses to convey that there is a crucial difference between distinguishing a “man” and a “person” (Locke 221). According to Locke’s definition, a man is a living body which is homogenous to an animal’s body. Therefore, any living body of a particular shapes refers to a “man.” Locke emphasizes that a “person” is a sensible being that is aware of its own

This he performs with respect to the philosophies of history which he calls substantive or analytical-and this is fully analogous to drawing the borderline between transcendent and immanent philosophical knowledge.

Kant (1724-1804) is known as one of the great philosophers of modern times. Despite skeptics like Hume and others of the associationism movement, Kant sought to settled debate between empirical and rationalist schools of thought. Of his many beliefs, he held that space and time were ideas essential to human experience.

Locke also believes that people have innate ideas through experiences. He has three explanations for this idea. Firstly, if we had innate ideas, we would know that we have them, which means that if you have ideas they are conscience and everything you think, you think you think. Secondly, if there were innate truths of reason we would all agree on them. Lastly, our memory cannot recall these innate ideas.

In the following paper I intend to compare and contrast the three major philosophical viewpoints regarding this question, and come to a

Locke feels that we do not have any innate ideas.  Then the question arises of

Locke discards the suggestion of innate ideas. Locke believes that if we always had innate ideas, it would be impossible for us not to perceive or be aware of them. He believes that if there were innate ideas then they would be universal ideas present

Rene’ Descartes is a well-known philosopher that is also famous for his theory on a person’s “self” or personal identity. His famous quote, “I think therefore I am, (Descartes, 2004)” came from his theory about personal identity. He came up with his theory on a person’s “Self” after he decided he was going to go through all his beliefs to prove to people that you could know something whole-heartedly. “I realized that if I wanted to establish anything in the sciences that was stable and likely to last, I needed—just once in my life—to demolish everything completely and start again from the foundations. (Descartes, 2004)” He believed that a person could doubt that anything existed, including themselves, but that if you were thinking about if you exist, then you must exist because you are thinking. Hence, “I think therefore I am. (Descartes, 2004)” His use of doubt was because he believed it would bring him irrefutable, undeniable truths about his beliefs. His theory on personal identity has been coined over the years as “dualism.” The Premise of dualism is that a person can doubt that they have a body, because Descartes doesn’t

Locke believed that the identity of a person could be assigned to the consciousness. He thought that a person would remain the same as

Seventeenth century philosophers René Descartes and John Locke endeavored to question the views on consciousness, self, and personal identity. They examined belief in God, the certainty of knowledge, and the role of mind and body. The goal of this paper is to deliberate John Locke’s and René Descartes views on “self” and personal identity and how each come to examine how knowledge is captured. René Descartes and John Locke both present arguments that are rational in the discussion of consciousness, self, and personal identity, but each lack conclusive evidence that would provide the proof necessary to believe one or the other philosophies are true.

The problem he has with us thinking like this is that all sorts of things would end up being defined as innate. Locke thought that we had the capacity to recognise “self evident” truths and that we do have an innate capacity allowing us to recognise things, however they are not actually innate ideas within us, but ideas we gain from experience which our innate capacity allows us to understand. He was of the opinion that ideas are material of thinking and that there was no thinking before perception. While the mind has the capacity to think, it is not actually constantly thinking. For example, if you are asleep but not dreaming, then according to Locke, your mind isn’t actually thinking.

John Locke (1632-1704) was the first of the classical British empiricists. (Empiricists believed that all knowledge derives from experience. These philosophers were hostile to rationalistic metaphysics, particularly to its unbridled use of speculation, its grandiose claims, and its epistemology grounded in innate ideas) If Locke could account of all human knowledge without making reference to innate ideas, then his theory would be simpler, hence better, than that of Descartes. He wrote, “Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas: How comes it to be furnished? To his I answer, in one word, from EXPERIENCE.” (Donald Palmer, p.165)

Between the continental and the analytic philosophy, being the two most significant tendencies, barely any debate was taking place; this was due to the lack of knowledge, contempt, and mutual lack of attention. In spite of this, the situation is changing slowly: especially American philosophers like Taylor, Nagel, Rorty and others converse subjects in which until recently only