The primary distinction that most people highlight between the Rationalists and the Empiricists revolves around the justification or foundation of knowledge. The Rationalists assert that knowledge is grounded in reason, and the Empiricists contend that knowledge is grounded in experience. Then, of course, Kant comes along and creates this hybrid view, which solves all sorts of disputes between the two previous groups. This picture is basically the one that I have heard for a long time.

 

Recently, it was suggested, quite strongly, that this aforementioned picture is a case of forcing contemporary concerns onto past debates. Was the issue of the justification of knowledge the absolute primary concern for Francis Bacon and Rene Descartes? Are they really as diametrically opposed as people have claimed? I am not so sure anymore, but I am only asking the question, not attempting to present a thoroughly researched assertion.

 

The distinction seems justified, at first glance, when one reads the Novum Organon and Meditations on First Philosophy. However, the meanings of these titles should be considered more carefully. The Novum Organon was Bacon’s attempt to destroy the current approach to science and present a new one. He claims to offer a new foundation, and the method itself seems to be that new foundation. Descartes also wants to create a new way a doing science, but the foundation he has in mind for science is metaphysics, i.e. first philosophy. Metaphysics necessarily has its basis in reason. To sum it up, Bacon and Descartes both ground metaphysics in reason, and science in experience. In other words, as metaphysicians they are rationalists, and as scientists they are empiricists.

 

This description is a summary, albeit crudely, of a position that was presented to me recently. Furthermore, it is not supposed to be a defense of the position; it is only meant to be a comment on the way we sometimes read things into the past authors, things which they might not have intended.

 

I was curious what other people thought about the plausibility of these thoughts. Even if this idea is not correct, or the best, I at least think it presents some fresh ideas to consider the next time one reads these philosophers (or any others who fall into these two systems of classification).