The discussion of rationalism first starts with the definition of epistemology or the study of knowledge. Epistemology challenges many questions that philosophers in the past were trying to solve; what is knowledge? How can we find the utmost truth? How can we differentiate between knowledge and opinion? Beginning in Greece with the Pre-Socratic thinkers, the study of knowledge dates as far sixth century B.C. One of these Pre-Socratic thinkers was Zeno. He is regarded as the first thinker to introduce the two realms of philosophy: rationalism and empiricism. As time went on, newer philosophers started to dig deeper into these realms. Two philosophers that came later in time were Plato and Descartes. These two philosophers questioned and challenged …show more content…
Both Plato and Descartes argued that “we already have a store of ideas that we draw upon in order to help make sense of the world” (Philosophy Online). In Descartes’s writings, this is known as the innate idea, whereas in Plato writings it is known as a priori. The concept of innate ideas is first written about when Descartes is talking the existence of God. Descartes claims that he did not “receive[sic] [the idea] through the senses” moreover “that it is innate in me” and “God, in creating me, placed this idea within me…” (Meditations, 1-18, 1-19). The idea that God exists, Descartes claims, is innate one and could have only be placed within us by God. Descartes further claims that there is no way we the idea of God could be fictitious or adventitious as there is no being so perfect as God which we could have thought of by ourselves or seen in the world around us. A similar idea is depicted in Plato’s Meno when Socrates challenges Meno to solve a complex geometry problem. Socrates understands that Meno will not be able to solve the problem. Socrates nonetheless claims that be is not teaching the slave boy geometry rather the slave boy is slave boy is “recollecting things in order” (Meno, 82e), otherwise using the innate ideas that he was born