Similarities and Differences of Empiricist and Rationalist Theories

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Similarities and Differences of Empiricist and Rationalist Theories

According to Branko Mitrovic (10), architects are closely related to philosophy, and many fundamental problems of architectural theory are manifestations of wider philosophical problems. Architects’ choices in the representation, spatial composition and the proportion of architectures present their philosopher thoughts. Philosophy directs architecture, and architecture interprets philosophy. The paper mainly uses specific examples from architecture and design to explore and describe the similarities and differences between empiricist and rationalist theories. Generally, it seeks to demonstrate that, even though both empiricism and rationalism belong to epistemology, they have different opinions on how human beings gain knowledge through sense experience.

On one hand, since both empiricism and rationalism belong to epistemology, there are certain similarities between the two theories. Firstly, both empiricist and rationalist theories believe that, human beings have the ability to possess knowledge. For example, through presenting the dialogue between Socrates and a young uneducated slave boy with respect to doubling a given square, Plato argues that, knowledge is already present in the human mind (Mitrovic 32). Meanwhile, Locke claims that, all the knowledge of human beings is on the basis of experience. In this way, both rationalists and empiricists acknowledge that human beings possess knowledge. It can also be proved in architectural design. As Pylyshyn argues that, due to people’s acquired knowledge about the world, they are able to manipulate spatial objects in their imagination (Mitrovic 25). Secondly, both the empiricists and rationalists cut sensibility from rationality. The empiricists attach importance to sensibility while the rationalists stress the rationality.

On the other hand, there are differences between empiricist and rationalist theories. When it comes to the source of knowledge, the empiricists hold that human’s knowledge comes from sense experience and there is no knowledge without experience (Hossain 226). In the meantime, the rationalists believe that knowledge of sense experience is limited and individual, while the general and inevitable knowledge is innate ideas or rational power (Murphy 36). For example, Hume does not treat beauty as an attribute of object, and he denies the objectivity of beauty. On the contrary, he believes that beauty is people’s subjective feeling. In this way, the reason why a house is beautiful is mainly because of its details of construction, and convenience is a kind of beauty (Hume 2). Furthermore, Hume (92) also claims that, the top of pillars shall be gracile while the bottom of pillars shall be thick, since only these pillars provide people with sense of security. Security is a kind of pleasant sensation. What is more, for classical architecture, the complete natural science system is its theoretical basis. It pursues the inherent, original and intrinsic truth of architecture, and it believes that there are general, eternal and transcendental rules in the formal beauty of architectures. Generally, pure geometric construction and numeric relations are underlined in classic architecture (Paul 58).  

In conclusion, there are similarities and differences between empiricist and rationalist theories. For one thing, as both of empiricist and rationalist theories belong to epistemology, they believe that human beings have the ability to possess knowledge and they cut sensibility from rationality. For another thing, the empiricists hold that human’s knowledge comes from sense experience, while the rationalists believe that knowledge comes from innate ideas or rational power.

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