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philosophy
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The philosophies of Aristotle and Descartes have many distinguished differences. Aristotle, born in 384BC, brought out the empiricist side of philosophy. Descartes, born in 1596BC, did not contribute to the empiricist side of philosophy, but instead focused on and believed more in a rationalistic style of philosophy. Though some thoughts remained similar between the two men, the differences between the two philosophies are clear. To understand the thoughts of Aristotle and Descartes one must first understand the differences between empiricism and rationalism. An empiricist is one who believes that sense perception is the most important part of knowledge. Sense perception is where it all starts. In order to truly grasp something, one must use his/her sense perceptions to really understand it. For example, one doesn’t really know what a pumpkin looks like until he sees the pumpkin; only then can he for a mental picture in his head of what a pumpkin is. In comparison to the empiricist, a rationalistic philosopher really isn’t viewed as much of a philosopher, but is looked at as more of a scientist. A rationalistic philosopher will calculate everything mathematically before he ever says something exists. The rationalist will always use math in order to uncover his answer. The only way a rationalist can prove something is by using a mathematical formula to answer the question being asked. Until then, one must come to the conclusion that nothing in his surroundings is real. As an empiricist, Aristotle formulated philosophies based on his observations. For example, Aristotle would observe animals and then proceed to write about them after observing. Whatever Aristotle studied he would use his sense perceptions to learn about it. This was done in order to learn and understand reality. It’s basically a “you need to see it to believe it” philosophy. The first step into Aristotle’s world of empiricism is using induction. Induction is the most important aspect of sense perception, which was viewed as the most important aspect of knowledge according to Aristotle. When using induction one forms a clear, general idea through repeated observations. The general idea then applies to more then one entity. This is a tactic that scientist would use(you said above that the rationalistic thinker was more like a scientist. Don’t contradict). Take, for example, a Zebra. Looking at a zebra one can say all zebras are the same. If one sees any zebra he/she will know it is a zebra through seeing it repeatedly and gaining an understanding that all zebras look like that.
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