Well experience seems to be better, because reason is quite imperfect. Using reason to find everything is like trying to solve a mathematical equation, a massive equation that, if solved, would get you the correct answer, but an equation for which it's impossible to find all the variables required. Theoretically it's possible, but practically, experience is required. For example, Aritotle used reason to come up with his geocentric model of the solar system as well as his philosophy and a few other things. While these ideas survived for a long time, a lot of them were proven wrong in later times by people like Galileo and Copernicus.
Also, it's not possible to truly know something. You could be in a dream right now. However, experience is closer to ';knowing'; something than reason is.How important do you think experience is for true knowledge?
Experience are best teachers and best knowledge,but some may not study from them.
A rational human being may act on the basis of the knowledge attained rather than waiting for the experience to his own skin.
I've found that the word ';experience'; has many meanings and that it's not entirely clear what is meant when this question comes up. In one sense, for example, it refers to ';sensations'; or ';perceptions'; or to use Hume's phrase ';sense impressions'; (which I'll get to in a moment.)
In another sense, experience refers to experimentation and the results from those experiments. The advocation of experiments begins largely with Bacon and Descartes (even though Descartes is a ';rationalist';). This is actually the sort of experience which ';empirical science'; closely resembles. The empiricist tradition in philosophy begins largely with Locke (that's not to say there weren't empiricists before Locke such as Aristotle for example. I'm only speaking of the division as it occurs in the philosophical tradition.) Locke's primary influences were Descartes and Boyle who both advocated experimentation. The main philosophers who followed after Locke in this tradition are Berkeley and Hume and their distortion of Locke's views moved empiricism away from ';experimental'; to ';sense impressions';.
A third sense of experience can be thought of as a ';pragmatic'; sort of knowledge. Polanyi refers to this as ';know-how';. It's the sort of experience that is acquired not via experiment, per se, nor via ';sense impressions'; but through practice.
I doubt that these three senses are exhaustive but even if they were, it does help to clarify what your question might be (although the division between ';rationalist'; and ';empiricist'; isn't entirely clear).
My own view on knowledge is that knowledge is a product of method. The sorts of methods I have in mind are proof techniques in mathematics but also experimental methods in the empirical sciences. So there is a sense that I think experience (in the second sense above) is relevant. I also think experience in third sense is quite relevant. There is a ';know-how'; needed for doing proofs in mathematics and conducting experiments. It's a practice, a sort of ';craft skill';. You can think of it like surgery which requires much time and training to be able to perform various techniques but at the same time there is an additional sort of skill and technique involved in creating new techniques. Both of those seem to be, at least partly, ';experiential'; in the third sense as described above.
In regard to experience in the first sense - ';sense impressions'; - I have a few issues. It is clear, from things such as perceptual illusions, that your ';sense impressions'; aren't always reliable. The reason we can tell that they are illusions is because we apply various methods in order to determine those results. (For example, it's a fact in the study of perception that people perceive vertical as longer than horizontal even if they are the same length. We can determine that they are the same length by applying some method, such as grabbing a ruler and measuring both the verticle and the horizontal.) So in regard to the first form of experience - the ';sense impression'; - I do not think knowledge is obtained in this way, although they may be, in some sense, a precondition for any knowledge at all.
definitely experience is ahead to knowledge like though you explain through an essay about the taste of sugar a person cant grab it until he tastes it...!
No. The answer is just a simple NO.
No I think to truly acquire knowledge about something you need to experience it. For example you can use Wikipedia to learn all about the Sistine Chapel but bare facts can't describe how it feels to stand there and how ore inspiring a view it is. The same can be said about anything in life really, I was lucky enough to visit Angel Falls in Venezuela, which is the tallest waterfall in the world. If you read about it, it sounds amazing and you can learn all about it but only by sitting in a boat near the bottom can you feel just how small we are compared to such awesome natural forces.
I really believe that anyone can learn anything by memorising a text book but at the end of the day a text book is a statement of fact from a single point of view and they can’t teach you anything about how it will make you feel or how it might change your perspective…who out there can tell me what it feels like to be hit by spray from the worlds tallest waterfall?
Experience is not for gaining knowledge but for gaining wisdom.
Reason is nor for acquiring knowledge either. Experience is.
I think you can know something without experiencing it but experiencing it enables you to learn far more than you will ever learn without experiencing it.
The rationalism/empiricism split has caused many difficulties, many arguements, many rivalries and more confusion than can be listed.
Only one half of each is correct. Knowledge begins with the ';experience'; of perceiving what the senses bring to our consciousness from empirical existence. After that, it is reason which must make sense of those perceptions, and prove whether or not the perceptions match what the senses provided. In other words, did the senses tell our eyes that a curtain was blowing but our perception of the blowing curtain was that it was a ghost? or a human behind it making it move? Or did we correctly perceive that the wind made it blow?
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