The Necessity Of Experience To Knowledge

Rationalism and empiricism are not the ideological arch enemies they are sometimes implied to be.  The former is an epistemology and philosophy that emphasizes use of reason as inseparable from and of primary emphasis in the pursuit of knowledge, whereas the former posits that all knowledge comes from experience.  Contrary to the impression that may be had, rationalism and empiricism are both correct, depending on what one means by the word empiricism.

Empiricism itself often gets used in reference to an epestimic system that says all knowledge comes from sense experience.  But I know many things totally apart from use of my senses--introspection, my thoughts, my consciousness, my memories, etc.  To think about or know such things I do not need to use my senses at all.  In fact, if my mind were removed from my body nothing about those parts of my knowledge would necessarily change.  So when I say that empiricism is true, I mean that all knowledge requires experience, but not experience through my senses housed in my body.

Yes, only sensory experiences could tell me information about the external world, and, yes, I do not need to have any sensory experiences at all to internally realize and contemplate certain facets of knowledge like logic and mathematics.  But pitting reason against experience is rather erroneous, as if one could be known without the other!  To reason, to think, to even realize that my consciousness exists even if no external world existed at all, each requires experience, but not the experience of using and perceiving through my senses--experience of my mind, its thoughts, and its rationality.  I hate when people attempt to totally distance reason from experience itself or act as if introspection and reasoning occur prior to all experience!

A priori knowledge, knowledge obtained through reflection and reasoning divorced from sensory experiences (as opposed to a posteriori knowledge, knowledge obtained from sensory experience), is obtained entirely without experience in the external world, yet thinking itself must be experienced to know that one's consciousness exists.  Even Descartes' "I think, therefore I am", a definite proclamation of rationalist knowledge, requires experience, but internal experience of thoughts and not experience in a world of external objects apprehended by the senses.

Distinguishing between the two primary categories of experience is certainly necessary for serious epistemology.  But let's not commit that strange error of dividing use of reason from experience, as if reasoning or thinking are not types of experience at all.  All knowledge requires reason (apart from grasping the laws of logic no experience would even be intelligible); all knowledge requires experience (apart from experience reasoning itself would be impossible).  In the end, rationalism and empiricism neither cancel each other out nor exclude each other.  Both are at the foundation of all knowledge.