Rationalism
Some truths about the world can be known by reason alone, without experience.
What it claims
Rationalism claims that a priori cognition, which does not depend on sensory experience, yields substantive knowledge of the world. What this position denies is the empiricist thesis that all justification ultimately reduces to sensory experience. It does not deny the fact that experience contributes to knowledge.
Nearby positions
Goes together with
Opposed to
Key thinkers
René Descartes · G. W. Leibniz · Baruch Spinoza · Laurence BonJour