Instigator / Pro
11
1511
rating
3
debates
50.0%
won
Topic
#134

Rationalism (pro) vs Empiricism (con)

Status
Finished

The debate is finished. The distribution of the voting points and the winner are presented below.

Winner & statistics
Better arguments
3
3
Better sources
4
4
Better legibility
2
2
Better conduct
2
2

After 2 votes and with the same amount of points on both sides...

It's a tie!
Parameters
Publication date
Last updated date
Type
Standard
Number of rounds
5
Time for argument
Three days
Max argument characters
30,000
Voting period
One month
Point system
Multiple criterions
Voting system
Open
Contender / Con
11
1540
rating
6
debates
75.0%
won
Description

Round 1: Acceptance

Round 2: Opening Arguments

Round 3: Rebuttals / Opening Arguments

Round 4: Rebuttals

Round 5: Closing

Empiricism: Sense Experience is the only way to attain knowledge and determine if claims are true. All knowledge comes from the senses.

Rationalism: All Knowledge primarily comes from Reason rather than sense experience.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

Sources, grammar and conduct excellent for both parties: this was an EXCELLENT debate, and both should be commended.

Arguments. I’m going to go through each argument thread in turn here, in no particular order (and a summary of my interpretation of what was said)

1.) pro: Self defeating empiricism. Massively summarized, pro argues that empiricism fails as it can’t prove itself to be true: I felt cons rebuttal here - that this is effectively true of all epistemological models so isn’t a reason to discount successfully rebutted pro, and as such this contention fails. 1-0 Con.

2.) pro: Empiricism assumes that what we see is real, and out sense is accurate and it may not be. (Massive summarization). Here Con points out (with the brain example), that this is really a semantic argument: that such a reality would be objectively real - but not in the way we necessarily think. In addition, pointing out multiple observations helps bolster the case by explaining that it’s based on one person - who could be hallucinating - but many - would would all have to having the same hallucination. Much of this portion of argument became far too semantic in places, but I felt con had the edge here too. 2-0

3.) pro: rationalism as a framework. Pro starts off with I think therefore I am, but seems to mix this up with “I think therefore I am rational”, pro needs to be establishing the practical reliability, but I found this link tenuous at best. When reading the something from nothing part jumped off the page for the same reason, I felt pro simply says something cannot come from nothing - by defining it as such. Con points out the same flaws with rationalism as pro pointed out. Con foundered in this argument, up until his closing argument - I had on pegged for a loss on this one until he clarified that rationalism requires an external reality for its truths to be measured in order to be determined as valid or not. For me this thrust wins this aspect for me - but con should probably have raised this right at the start. 3-0 Con

4.) The benefit of empiricism. Cons argument here, is basically that empiricism allows you to check whether your claims are correct against some external reality. I felt this was a good summarization of the benefits, and felt pro didn’t fully address the crux here.

Importantly, while I get cons arguments were better, as I am genuinely on the fence between Rationaism and Empiricism i. Terms of which is better/more useful (the question maybe like asking whether drink is more important than food), neither side landed a knock out blow, and there wasn’t much that swayed me either way and thus I remain on the fence.

Great debate though, well done both.

Criterion
Pro
Tie
Con
Points
Better arguments
3 point(s)
Better sources
2 point(s)
Better legibility
1 point(s)
Better conduct
1 point(s)
Reason:

RFD IN COMMENTS