Outline of Video Twelve: "Is Reason the Source of Knowledge?"

Is Reason the Source of Knowledge?

• Rationalism: we know the universality of the laws of nature, mathematical truths, and many other things from reason alone
  • Descartes: knowledge is modeled on mathematical reasoning
    • Our theories can explain everything by reasoning alone, not by appealing to the senses.
    • The mind perceives the wax intuitively
    • Our mind is modeled on the mind of God
    • Matter is corpuscular and understood solely in terms of geometrical properties (shape, size, motion, number).
    • Physical properties (color, taste) are not "out there" in the world but in the mind.
  • Plato: the Meno shows how our ideas are innate
  • Leibniz: innate ideas are the inclinations and tendencies of thought that guide reasoning (e.g., logic) and provide the basic principles and underlying structures by which we understand; experience, however, can shape innate ideas