Empiricism vs Rationalism

      One of the longest-lived metaphysical debates is that between rationalists and empiricists. The empirical argument is that all human ideas are gathered from experience. In other words, we are born with no intrinsic ideas. On the other hand, rationalists argue that while most of our ideas do indeed come from experience, there are some ideas within us that are not products of any experience we've ever had. In other words, some ideas are actually innate. Excluding the more biological ideas we have; I.e emotions, instincts, etc. there is nothing we can think of which is not derived, in some way from experience.
     The most famous argument against empiricism is René Descartes wax example. In this demonstration, Descartes describes the radical changes undergone by a piece of wax as it heats up. Descartes uses this example to demonstrate how incompletely we understand the physical world in comparison to our understanding of our own minds. For example, it is our perceptions which allow us to know that the two different substances which we hold in the experiment are both wax. However, this is not an intrinsic idea, as Descartes argues. Humans are not born with the ability to make these kinds of critical connections. In a well known experiment concerning children's minds, experimenters take two differently sized beakers, a tall skinny one and a shorter fat one, both with the same volume, and fill one up with water. Then, in front of the children, they pour the water from one beaker to another and ask them which had more water in it. The children always answer that the taller beaker had more water in it, even though they saw the same water go from one beaker to the other. In our lives, we learn to recognize physical and chemical changes in different objects simply through observation. For example, Descartes would never have been able to reason in his mind what a melted piece of wax would look like if he hadn't watched wax melt before.
     To analyze the form of these arguments, we must look at a few different essential qualities. First, explanatory breadth. Each argument has a similar breadth, considering they deal with the same material; all ideas. Empiricism does have an advantage as it is all encompassing, while the rationalists must state which ideas are innate, and which are not. The next element is explanatory depth, which the empiricism argument has more of. While the rationalists can state, without much further explanation that some complex ideas are simply ingrained in our genes, empiricists must seek out the experiential origin of each of our ideas. This makes for a much more complete argument. The next two, simplicity and conservatism, are fairly level between the two arguments. One could say that the empiricism debate is a bit simpler because all our ideas come from the same place, and we don't need to make a distinction between origins, but I think if people were to be polled, we'd find that the idea of empiricism is just as popular as rationalism.

1. Empiricism and Rationalism are the most plausible explanations of the origin of ideas.
   
2. Empiricism has more simplicity, and much more explanatory depth, while Rationalism has a small advantage in conservatism.
   
3. Therefore, Empiricism is the best explanation of the origin of ideas.