The rationalists manual

But in other respects there is little to compare. While the roots of Rationalism may go back to the Eleatics and Pythagoreans of ancient Greece, or at least to Platonists and Neo-Platonists , the definitive formulation of the theory had to wait until the 17th Century philosophers of the Age of Reason.

He believed that knowledge of eternal truths e. Other knowledge e. For instance, his famous dictum "Cogito ergo sum" "I think, therefore I am" is a conclusion reached a priori and not through an inference from experience. Descartes held that some ideas innate ideas come from God ; others ideas are derived from sensory experience ; and still others are fictitious or created by the imagination.

Of these, the only ideas which are certainly valid , according to Descartes , are those which are innate. Baruch Spinoza expanded upon Descartes ' basic principles of Rationalism. His philosophy centered on several principles, most of which relied on his notion that God is the only absolute substance similar to Descartes ' conception of God , and that substance is composed of two attributes, thought and extension. He believed that all aspects of the natural world including Man were modes of the eternal substance of God, and can therefore only be known through pure thought or reason.

Gottfried Leibniz attempted to rectify what he saw as some of the problems that were not settled by Descartes by combining Descartes ' work with Aristotle 's notion of form and his own conception of the universe as composed of monads. At that time the gods had not appeared, any of them …… no destiny had they fixed. Then the great gods were created. The twelve tablets in which this legend appears correspond with the twelve signs of the zodiac and the twelve months of the Akkadian year, and describe the exploits of the Chaldean Hercules-Gilgames.

This flood lasted six days and nights. Their father, Anu, their king; their counsellor, the warrior Bel; their throne-bearer, the god Uras; their prince, En-nugi; and Hea, the Lord of the Underworld, repeated their decree. I this destiny hearing, Hea said to me: Destroy thy house and build a ship, for I will destroy the seed of life. In the Hindu legend of the flood a rainbow appeared on the surface of the subsiding water, the ark or ship resting on the Himalayas. In the ancient Greek legend Deucalion is the hero, and the ship rested on Mount Parnassus.

The Chinese, Parsees, Scandinavians, Mexicans, and other ancient nations, also had similar legends. The Biblical legend, and the older legend from which it took its rise probably during the captivity , may have been founded on a real occurrence in the Tigris-Euphrates valley. A flood of considerable extent may have been originated by the usual periodical rise of the two great rivers, which took place in the eleventh month of the Chaldean year; and was caused probably by a combination of accidental circumstances favorable to the event — a typhoon in the Indian ocean and a favorable wind.

In this ark were crammed pairs, sevens, or fourteens of every living thing. There are already known at least 1, species of mammalia, 12, of birds, of reptiles, and 1,, of insects and other inferior creatures, besides animalcule. These came from all parts of the earth. The South American sloth, it is calculated, must have started several years before the Creation to have been there in time. The voyage lasted over a year compare Genesis vii.

The injustice of drowning all created beings because the Creator had made one species imperfect is obvious. The place was not founded by Semitic Babylonians, but by the Akkadians, and it was neither a city nor a town, but a temple, consisting of seven platforms, each being tinted a different color, and dedicated to the seven planets, the topmost one being dedicated to the moon. It was called by the Semitic invaders Ca-dimorra, the gate of God thus being translated by them into their own tongue.

We have neither time nor space to do more than mention some of the other chief absurd stories and legends found in the Bible, in many of which immoral teaching is very conspicuous. The stories of:. The same power that saved the God-fearing and divinely- protected Daniel could have prevented the in justice of punishing the innocent wives and children of the officers who were simply carrying out their orders, for a fault they did not commit.

That Pharaoh and his host should have been drowned in the Red Sea, and the fact not be mentioned by any historian of the period, is incredible; but such is the case.

Almost every nation of antiquity had a legend of their holy men ascending a mountain to ask counsel of their gods. Minos, the Cretan law-giver, ascended Mount Dicta and received from Zeus the sacred laws. When Yahuh spoke to the whale, it vomited Jonah on to dry land, alive and well! The truth of this story is guaranteed by Jesus, in Matthew xii. Where are the witches of the present day? The New Testament upholds the innumerable atrocities of the Old, and adds worse terrors and atrocities of its own in the shape of eternal torments Matthew V.

The way to life made by a beneficent Creator, we are told Matthew vii. This Hell, as described in Revelation xxi. The Yesuans were not called Christians till the latter part of the first century, at Antioch. It was to the espousal of the cause of Jesus by the Essene magicians that the future success of Christianism was due. They accepted the Jesus of Nazareth whom the Jews, for very good reasons, rejected as the expected Messiah, or Avator.

It simply required a change of names for the scriptures of these Essenes to become the scriptures of the new sect. A messiah was expected every years, and Jesus appeared on the scene at the time when one was expected. This was a great inducement to the Jews to accept Jesus, if he could but show proofs of his divine mission, which he was unable to do. The Christians were to the Essenes what the Essenes were to their predecessors — the Buddhists of Egypt and the Jews, and what these were to the Brahmins, Egyptians, Babylonians, and Akkadians.

As each messiah was accepted, the old legends were repeated with slight alterations, and so became part of the new revelation. They are worse than anonymous, being written many years after the lifetime of the reputed writers, and rendered almost undecipherable by the numerous additions and erasures. Marvelous credulity! If his ministry was only one year long, it was not three years long.

If he made but one journey to Jerusalem, he did not make many. If his method of teaching was that of the Synoptics, it was not that of the fourth gospel.

If he was the Jew of the first, he was not the anti-Jew of the fourth. She is said not only to have found the cross, but the nails with which Christ was attached.

Gibbon tells us that, in book viii. A fragment of a Gospel of Peter, which, according to early Christian writers, was in common use in the second century, and received as inspired with the rest of the New Testament writings, has recently been found in an Egyptian tomb at Akhmim.

This gospel directly contradicts most important details in the accounts given of the alleged appearances of Jesus after his death in the so- called canonical gospels, the Acts, and the Pauline epistles.

We will now proceed to inquire if there is any evidence in the writings of the historians contemporary with the time of Jesus. IF all the wonderful things said about Jesus were true, we should naturally expect to hear something about him in the writings of the period. What do Josephus and Tacitus say? Such extraordinary events as feeding thousands of people with a few small loaves and fishes; raising the dead to life again; their ghosts walking about the streets; miraculous darkness covering all the land for several hours; earthquakes; mysterious voices from the clouds; rising through the air into the clouds, etc.

Cures being wrought must have interested the writers on medicine; but not a word on the subject. It is incredible that no one except the four interested partisans, who are supposed to have written the gospels, should ever have referred to them. Josephus was a Jew, and lived in the country where all these things are said to have occurred, and wrote a history of the period; yet he makes no mention of even the existence of Jesus. Forgeries were easy in those days, when all books were written on skins, to which fresh pieces could easily be fastened.

Tacitus wrote a History, and made no mention of Jesus. It appears that in the time of Wicliffe, when the existence of Christendom was seriously menaced and the Inquisition was instituted, people were inquiring into the origin of Christianity. Large sums of money were offered for the discovery of ancient manuscripts, which would bear testimony to the divine authority of the Church, in consequence of which the supply was equal to the demand, as it generally is, and plenty of manuscripts were forthcoming from needy monks.

The series of Popes is no more authentic than the series of Jewish high priests. On examining the New Testament carefully, we find numerous discrepancies and contradictions concerning the details of the life of Jesus. He is said to have been born of a virgin. From the above it will be seen that Herod, who spent the last two years of his life as an invalid at the hot springs of Calirrhoe, dying on his way home to Jerusalem, could not have had the alleged interview with the Magicians on their arrival in Judaea; nor could he have slaughtered the innocents.

The Magicians, it must be remembered, after seeing the new star, had to travel 1, miles across a desert from Persia to Bethlehem, a journey which could not be accomplished under two years by their method of travelling.

Among the Hindus the same idea was prevalent. The Rig Veda represents the gods as sacrificing Purusha, the first male, and supposed to be coeval with the Creator. Krishna came upon earth to redeem man by his sufferings. He is represented hanging on a cross, the tradition being that he was nailed thereto by an arrow.

In Some parts of India the worship of the crucified god Bulli, an incarnation of Vishnu, occurs. Osiris and Horus were also crucified as saviours and redeemers. The sufferings, death, and resurrection of Osiris formed the great mystery of the Egyptian religion. But history records nothing, not even their names. Is it possible that such unusual events could have occurred and no notice be taken of them by the historians of the time?

Darkness, rending the veil of the temple, earthquakes, etc. An eclipse was out of the question to account for the darkness, because the Passover moon was at the full, and an eclipse would only last about six minutes.

At sunrise and sunset thousands of figures were seen skirmishing in the air; and spirits were to be seen on all sides. When Prometheus was crucified by chains on Mount Caucasus, the whole frame of nature became convulsed — the earth quaked; thunder roared; lightning flashed; winds blew; and the sea rose. The ancient Greeks and Romans thought that the births and deaths of great men were announced by celestial signs.

On the death of Romulus, founder of Rome, the sun was darkened for six hours. When Julius Caesar was murdered, there was darkness for six hours. When Hercules died, darkness was on the face of the earth, thunder crashed through the earth. When Alexander the Great died, similar events occurred. When Atreus, of Mycenae, murdered his nephews, the sun, unable to endure a sight so horrible, turned his course backwards and withdrew his light. When the Mexican crucified savior, Quetzalcoatle, died, the sun was darkened.

Belief in the influence of the stars over life and death, and in special portents at the death of great men, survived even to recent times. The saviours of mankind had all done so; he must, therefore, do likewise.

The story of Jesus descending into hell had its origin in the old pagan story of a war in heaven. This story, besides being given in the Apocalypse or Revelation, is to be found in the Persian Zend Avesta, and was known to the Assyrians, Egyptians, Greeks, ancient Mexicans, the natives of the Caroline Islands, the Hindus, etc. The child escaped and grew up among rustic cow-herds.

He slew Kansa, and descended into hell to restore certain children to their sorrowing mothers. It was an invention of a much later period. The narrators, of the gospels differ considerably in their accounts of the Resurrection, which can only be explained by the fact that it was necessary for the later ones to correct, and endeavor to reconcile with common sense, the mistakes, and absurdities of the earlier ones.

The festival was observed in Alexandria, the cradle of Christianism, in the time of Bishop Cyril C. The celebration in honor of the Resurrection of Adonis came at last to be known as a Christian festival, and the ceremonies held in Catholic countries on Good Friday and Easter Sunday are nothing more than the festival of the death and resurrection of Adonis.

MIRACLES are imaginary deviations from the known laws of nature by the supposed will and power of a deity, which laws have been proved by experience to be firm and unalterable; no deviation from them having ever yet been known. Belief in miracles is generally the result either of ignorance, or of the confusion of belief with knowledge; and their acceptance, without proper verification, is responsible for the countless errors, delusions, and superstitions which have gained possession of the human mind.

There was a disposition among the people who lived contemporary with Jesus to believe in anything. It was a credulous age. All leaders of religion had recommended themselves to the public by working miracles and curing diseases. The expected messiah, in order to stand any chance of success, must therefore work miracles and heal from sickness.

The Essenes, as we have seen, pretended to effect miracles and extraordinary cures, and Jesus was an Essene. The biographers of Jesus, therefore, not wishing their master to be outdone, made him also a performer of miracles, of which prodigies and wonders the legendary history of Jesus contained in the New Testament is full.

Without them Christianism could not have prospered. The people crowded his way and adored him as a god, and these pretended miracles were the evidences of his divinity for centuries before the time of Jesus. Their garments and staffs were supposed to imbibe some mysterious power, and blessed were they who were allowed to touch them. Buddhist annals give accounts of miraculous suspensions in the air.

We are also told that in B. The Hindu sage, Vasudeva i. We may, therefore, easily see where the legends of Peter and his release from prison Acts v.

Zoroaster, the founder of the religion of the Persians, opposed his persecutors by performing miracles in order to confirm his divine mission. Bochia, of the Persians, also performed miracles, the places where they occurred being consecrated, and people flocked in crowds to visit them.

Horus and Serapis, Egyptian saviours, performed great miracles, among which was that of raising the dead to life. Osiris and Isis also performed miracles, and pilgrimages were made to the temples of Isis by the sick. Bacchus, son of Zeus by the virgin goddess Seniele, was a great performer of miracles, among which may be mentioned his changing water into wine, as is recorded of Jesus.

AEsculapius, son of Apollo, the Creek god, was also a great performer of miracles, and cured, the sick and raised the dead. Apollonius, of Tyana, in Cappadocia, born about four years before Jesus, among other miracles restored a dead maiden to life.

Miracles were not uncommon among the Jews before and during the time of Jesus. Casting out devils was an everyday occurrence, and miracles were frequently wrought to confirm the sayings of the Rabbis. He was said to have been initiated in magical art in the heathen temples of Egypt. Both Jesus, and Horus the Egyptian savior, are represented on monuments with wands, in the received guise of necromancers, while raising the dead to life.

His miracles were evidently concocted and recorded for him. The light of the sun was to be put out, the moon turned to blood, the stars robbed of their brightness, etc. Historians of that period, curiously enough, have recorded miracles and wonders alleged to have been performed by other persons, but not a word is said by them about the miracles claimed by Christians to have been performed by Jesus.

Justus of Tiberias, who was born about five years after the time assigned for the crucifixion of Jesus, wrote a Jewish History, but it contained no mention of the coming of Jesus, nor of the events concerning him, nor of the prodigies he is supposed to have wrought. If they could have been present at one of Messrs. The change of names and places, with the mixing up of various sketches of Egyptian, Phoenician, Greek, and Roman mythology, was all that was necessary. They had an abundance of material, and with it they built.

A long-continued habit of imposing upon others would in time subdue the minds of the impostors themselves, and cause them to become at length the dupes of their own deception. We must not suppose that the Jews had their Bibles as Christians now have.

All that the Jews knew about Moses and his religion they learnt from hearsay, just as the Greeks and Romans knew about their mythology. It was a system taught by their priests. Ezra says 2 Esdras xiv. Moses and Joshua could not have been the authors of the books attributed to them, for they describe their own deaths. Ezra must have been born in captivity; and during the period of seventy years the Jews must have lost a great many of their own traditions, and imbibed many of the Babylonian, conforming, to a great extent to the custom of these people, among whom they lived, and many were born.

The Old Testament was written in ancient Hebrew on rough skins, in ink almost obliterated by age, and crossed in different inks and languages. The writing consisted of capital letters only, very badly formed, and with no vowels, stops, or division into words by spaces; being, like modern Hebrew, written from right to left.

Twenty-seven books are now considered to be canonical, but there were sixty-one others now classed as apocryphal. There were forty-one, consisting of absurd fables, many of which are lost; and twenty-eight writings mentioned or referred to in the various canonical books, which also are lost. The Gospel of Luke escaped by one vote, while the Acts of the Apostles and the Apocalypse were rejected as forgeries.

Prayer to deities is a very ancient superstition, As the planetary gods were supposed to influence events, it was natural that pleading should be resorted to by primitive man to satisfy his daily wants.

But prayer to an inscrutable power, of which we know nothing beyond what has been revealed to us by science and phenomena, would involve a belief in the personality of that power, and its possession of human attributes, such as hearing, pitying, etc. All supposed response to prayer can be traced to natural causes, if we only have sufficient knowledge to enable us to trace it. Then what can possibly be the use of prayer?

Again, if prayer was of any use we should expect to see some practical result from it. But do we? Those who are prayed for most are those who are prayed for publicly; these are sovereigns and other heads of States, the nobility, and the clergy.

Can we say fairly that these are any the better for all the prayers that go up to the throne of Yahuh? Experience teaches us that the contrary is the case. Are the clergy of the State Church, who are supposed to be called to the ministry by the Holy Ghost, protected more than anyone else against temptation, immorality, infectious diseases, sickness, or the asphyxiating effects of gas or drowning?

Missionaries are eaten and digested by cannibals, just as any other person who has only his own prayers to rely upon. Does prayer protect us from calamitous floods? Is it not proverbial that prayers for rain, in seasons of drought, have no effect? No, these all died because their physicians were unable to cure them. But why should his recovery be attributed to prayer, and not to the skill of the first physicians of the day? If Yahuh could save the Prince of Wales, he surely could have saved those above mentioned who died.

We are told he is not a respecter of persons. Then why should Yahuh show ill- nature towards them, and display such favor to the Prince of Wales? The answer is obvious: the Prince was cured by his physicians.

Does the history of earthquakes and other misfortunes, due to natural phenomena, show that praying people are saved from danger, while the non-praying ones suffer?

No, just the contrary. Why did the late successful preacher, Spurgeon a minister of God , go to Mentone, when he had the gout, leaving his congregation behind to pray for him; notwithstanding which collective praying, he died?

This devotion to science is the truest and only worship that can be offered to the unseen and unknown. The idea of worship naturally follows the idea of a man-like deity, given to anger and jealousy; one deity among others, and jealous of the others. But when science teaches us that we have no grounds for conceiving the unknown power and cause to be man-like, lip-worship disappears with the disappearance of the human attributes, jealousy and vindictiveness. Sacrifice was the earliest form of worship.

The child Kohita was duly born, and, when the father told him of the vow he had made and bade him prepare for sacrifice, the boy ran away, and wandered in the forest, where he met a starving Brahmin, whom he persuaded to sell one of his sons for cows. This boy was brought to the king, and about to be sacrificed as a substitute, when, on praying to the gods, he was released.

The Greeks had two versions of a similar fable; one, that Agamemnon had a daughter whom he dearly loved, and whom he was ordered by the deity to offer up as a sacrifice. When preparations were being made, the goddess carried the girl away, and substituted a stag. The other is of a Greek king, who had offended Diana, when the sacrifice of his daughter was demanded; but she suddenly disappeared just before the fatal blow.

In time of war the captives were chosen for sacrifice; but in time of peace they offered their slaves. In great calamities or famines the king was, on the least pretext, sacrificed, as being the highest price with which they could purchase the divine favor. Kings also offered their children. The offering of human sacrifices to the sun in Mexico and Peru was extensively practiced. Bread and wine were brought to the temples as offerings. The Essenes, or Therapeuts, worshippers of Mithra, the Persian Sun-god, the second person of the Trinity, no doubt introduced the Eucharist idea, along with baptism, and other Pagan rites, among the early Christians.

When it was introduced into Rome by the Persian magicians, the eucharistic mysteries were celebrated in a cave. BAPTISM, by immersion, or sprinkling, for the remission of sin, is to be found in countries the most widely separated on the face of the earth, and was a Pagan rite adopted by Christians. With both Pagans and Christians, the ordinance gave full expiation from original sin, restoring instantly to original purity.

Infant baptism was practiced by Buddhists. In Mongolia and Tibet candles burn, incense is offered, and the child is dipped three times in water, accompanied by prayers, and named.

Adult baptism was practiced by the Brahmans, the Zoroastrians and Mithraists of Persia — the latter mark the sign of the cross on the forehead; by the Egyptians, the Essenes ascetics, of Buddhist origin , and by the Greeks and Romans. Fire was used in many instances as well as water, the Romans using both; and baptism by fire is still practiced. This is what is alluded to in Matthew iii. Heaven and hell, as residences of gods, angels, and devils, are very ancient myths.

The idea arose among the ancients, by the fact of the sun going down into apparent darkness. Hell was built by priests, and nurtured by the fears and servile fancies of man during the ages when dungeons of torture were a recognized part of every Government, and when the deity was supposed to be an infinite tyrant, with infinite resources of vengeance … the devil is an imaginary being, invented by primitive man to account for the existence of evil, and relieve the deity of his responsibility.

The cloudy shape has assumed a thousand different forms, horrible or grotesque and ludicrous, to suit the changing fancies of the ages. Everything there was lovely and beautiful, and all was enjoyment, with music, dancing, and singing. As all nations have made a god, and that god has resembled the persons who made it, so have all nations made a heaven, and that heaven corresponds to the fancies of the people who created it.

In expectation of this reanimation, it became customary to supply the actual dead with the necessaries of life — food, drink, clothing, etc. Men had their cattle, horses, dogs, wives, slaves, and, money buried with them; women, their domestic appliances; and children, their toys. The spirits of the wicked dead, the offspring of fallen angels, etc.

The other life, which at first repeated this exactly, became more and more unlike it, and from an adjacent spot passed to the distant place of the future. These beings, to whom was ascribed the power of making themselves at one time visible and at another invisible, became gradually omnipresent. Thus arose ancestor worship, prayer, deities, etc. The Bogie of the modern nursery is identical with the slavonic Bog, Bag-a-boo, or Bug-bear; and the Buga of the cuneiform inscriptions — names of the supreme power.

Belief in re-animation implies a belief in a future life, a doctrine which would be also suggested by the appearance of the dead in dreams. The belief in a future life for man was almost universal among nations of antiquity, The Egyptians and Hindus believed that man had an invisible body, ghost, or shade — i. This belief is handed down to our day in the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory. The souls were weighed in a balance, the good spirits entering Elysium, where they judged men after death as gods.

The Persian Zend-Avesta says that Ahriman threw the universe into disorder by raising an army against Ormuzd, and, after fighting against him for ninety days, was at length vanquished by Hanover, the Divine Word.

The account of the war in heaven is similar to that held by nearly every nation. The Christian account is given in Revelation xi.

But accounts of these will be found in another place. But all is silence. The chief of these may be said to be the cross. We should naturally suppose that what in modern days is called the Christian symbol — the cross — would be found upon every tomb in the catacombs of Rome — the cemetery of the early Christians, as it is now seen in Catholic cemeteries.

But nothing of the sort. The only approach to such a symbol to be found in the catacombs is the Buddhist sacred Swastica, also seen in the old Buddhist zodiacs, and in the Asoka inscriptions.

No cross of present-day shape is to be found; and for a very good reason. The cross was not the symbol of early Christianity. The cross was, like all the other emblems of Christianity, adopted from Paganism. It was particularly sacred with the Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Buddhists, and the Hindus. The Egyptian savior, Horus, is represented sitting on the lap of Isis, his virgin mother; a large cross being carved on the back of the seat.

The cross is also to be found, in some form, in the hands of Siva, Brahma, Vishnu, Krishna, Svasti, and Jama, on the figures of ancient monuments. Krishna was also represented suspended on a cross. On a Phoenician medal, found in the ruins of Citium, are inscribed the cross with a rosary attached, and a lamb — this last being the early symbol of the followers of Jesus.

Under the foundations of the Temple of Serapis, at Alexandria, were discovered a cross and phallic emblems, which caused the shocking murder of Hypatia by Saint? Anu, the chief deity among the Babylonians, and the sun-god Bel, or Bal, had the cross for their sign. A cross hangs on the breast of Tiglath Pileser, in the colossal tablet from Nimrod in the British Museum; another king, from the ruins of Nineveh, wears a maltese cross on his breast.

Criminals were extended on this form of cross. The ensigns and banners of the Persians were cruciform. It was also found on the coins of the Ptolemies and Herod the Great, forty years before our era.

The monogram really represented Phallic vigor. The triangle, trefoil, and tripod were all pagan symbols of their different trinities. It is also seen in the obelisk and pyramids of Egypt. The trefoil adorned the head of Osiris, and was used among the ancient Druids.

The dag or fish, was the most ancient symbol of the productive power, and was the emblem of fecundity. The goddess Juno is often represented with a dove on her head. It is also seen on the heads of the images of Astarte, Cybele, and Isis. The Virgin Mary ascending upon the crescent moon, so frequently seen in pictures, is the modern adaptation of Isis rising heavenward.

We have seen that Christmas day — the birthday of Jesus — was the birthday of the sun and of all the sun-gods. As regards the real birthday, the date and place of the birth of the man Jesus are shrouded in mystery and uncertainty. Among the early Christians a great divergence of opinion existed; some maintaining that it was in May, others that it was in April, and others again that it was in January. Tertullian, a father of the Church, writing C.

Buddha, the son of the Virgin Maya, on whom, according to Chinese tradition, the Divine Power, or Holy Ghost, had descended, was said to have been born on this day. It was also the birthday of the Persian sun-god and savior, Mithra. The ancient Egyptians, centuries before Jesus lived, kept this day as the birthday of their sun-gods. His birth was one of the greatest mysteries of their religion.

Pictures of it decorated the walls of their temples; images of the virgin and child, and effigies of the son lying in a manger, were common. At Christmas the image of Horus was brought out of the sanctuary with great ceremony, as the image of the Infant Bambino, or black child, is still brought out and exhibited in Rome.

The senses may seem to play a key role in our understanding: we see that a figure has three sides or four sides. But now consider two polygons — one with a thousand sides and the other with a thousand and one sides. Which is which? In order to distinguish between the two, it will be necessary to count the sides — using reason to tell them apart.

For Descartes, reason is involved in all of our knowledge. This is because our understanding of objects is nuanced by reason. For example, how do you know that the person in the mirror is, in fact, yourself? How does each of us recognize the purpose or significance of objects such as pots, guns, or fences?

How do we distinguish one similar object from another? Reason alone can explain such puzzles. Since the justification of knowledge occupies a central role in philosophical theorizing, it is typical to sort out philosophers on the basis of their stance with respect to the rationalist vs.

Rationalism indeed characterizes a wide range of philosophical topics. Of course, in a practical sense, it is almost impossible to separate rationalism from empiricism. We cannot make rational decisions without the information provided to us through our senses, nor can we make empirical decisions without considering their rational implications. Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content.

Create a personalised content profile.