Empiricism

In its most general terms, the dispute between rationalism and empiricism has been taken to concern the extent to which we are dependent upon experience in our effort to gain knowledge of the external world. It is common to think of experience itself as being of two kinds: sense experience, involving our five world-oriented senses, and reflective experience, including conscious awareness of our mental operations. The distinction between the two is drawn primarily by reference to their objects: sense experience allows us to acquire knowledge of external objects, whereas our awareness of our mental operations is responsible for the acquisition of knowledge of our minds. In the dispute between rationalism and empiricism, this distinction is often neglected; rationalist critiques of empiricism usually contend that the latter claims that all our ideas originate with sense experience.