What is the meaning of Empiricism? In my opinion its best described as an approach to philosophy that is void of emotions, but rather focuses on what can be known by reason. That is to say it is a philosophy that privileges objectivity and makes no allowance for subjectivity. Thus it differs from the idealist approach in that the objectivity of modern philosophy is a product of Western culture. However both philosophies make use of the same methods to determine truth.
It should be noted that there is considerable tension between the above two descriptions of empirical knowledge. On the one hand, all concepts originate in experience, which is subjective. On the other hand all concepts must also be reducible to basic logical principles. While most philosophers accept at least some aspects of both concepts, there are still those that hold to a narrow idealism regarding both concepts.
According to the objectivist philosophers all concepts are simply concepts. There is no underlying physical or historical reality that supports any concept. For this reason all concepts are purely mental constructions. They are nothing but abstract thoughts that are subject to change according to the changes in human nature. The only thing that changes are the thoughts that cause these changes.
It was Descartes, who is often credited with being the first thinker to bring about the idea of duality into philosophy. He began by saying that all existing things are made out of combinations of matter and spirit. Combinations that are not simple are nothing but combinations of something simple. So everything that can be perceived by the human mind can be also be perceived by other minds. Everything that can be perceived by other minds, can also be perceived by our own minds. So everything that can be perceived by other minds can also be perceived by our own minds.
By combining Descartes’ theory of individuality and the principle of necessitation with his further theory of personal responsibility, he came to develop what is known as Cartesianism. Here, he combined two very important aspects of scientific realism. His idea that the intellect has an actual existence, with his conviction that all knowledge is deductive. This makes Cartesianism a strong anti-empiricism, because it denies the possibility of being knowledge through reasoning.
It is because of the fact that Cartesianism has been branded with two harsh terms, anti-empiricism and anti-logical, that it has become a highly influential ideology. The philosophy of reason tries to make sense of the world by means of empirical evidence. In the case of Cartesianism, the process of reasoning goes beyond mere making sense of the world as it actually is. Rather, it attempts to capture the essence of that which makes the world what it is in a more objective and scientific way.
On the other hand, a Logical argument points out that a belief in the actuality of a thing cannot make any sense-knowledge is only possible if there is a priori knowledge (which can only be knowledge in the form of experience). Furthermore, to understand the concept of knowledge, one needs to have a deeper understanding of how the human mind works. To put things in a more common sense approach, we would need to adopt the methodology of Descartes. To make sense-knowledge possible, a concept of practical reason is needed along with the intuition of the mind.
A further criticism of Descartes’ philosophy is that it is reductionist in nature. In other words, it reduces all forms of knowledge to one level, namely the physical level of the human intellect. Therefore, while one may assert that this level of knowledge is intelligible, it is not as comprehensible as a higher level such as transcendental intuition or transcendental idea. This leads to a variety of problems for philosophers who maintain that knowledge is reducible to a lower level. To defend his position, Descartes resorts to appeals to certain natural truths about the existence and attributes of bodies and objects.