 What constitutes genuine knowledge as opposed to opinion or belief?  What is the criterion for knowledge?  What are the sources or origins of such knowledge? How does it arise? Where does it come from?

 Means “true” or “pure”  Not opinion or beliefs as they are conjecture and do not need to be supported with facts or considered accurate  When thinking about genuine knowledge, the origin or source of the knowledge is the central issue  Genuine knowledge can be justified with evidence

 Rationalism comes from Greek word Ratio, which means “reason”  We can have some genuine knowledge of the world which can be justified without appealing to experience. Such knowledge can be justified by thinking as well as by our understanding of language. Such knowledge is not trivial or uninformative, but is significant  If you think long enough, you can derive an answer to any problem  Rationalists believe that you cannot trust your senses because the senses can deceive  Famous Rationalists- Plato, Rene Descartes, Baruch Spinoza

 Empiricism comes from the Greek word Empeiria, which means “experience”  All of our knowledge of the world comes to us via sensory experience and must be justified by appealing to such experience.  The only “knowledge” we have which requires no empirical justification is purely trivial and uninformative Ex. Uncles are males  Famous Empiricists- John Locke, Francis Bacon, David Hume